Feedback for all it's worth

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.

Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness. Brene Brown

I sent in a letter of, well, complaint this week. I rarely do this, but the issue was a big pain to me, avoidable, and well, hasn’t happened before in every other time. I dread the response though. Dread them saying it might be my fault, or not hearing what I have to say. Dread their lack of empathy, awareness, or understanding of how impossible what they are expecting me to do, now is. So, while I believe I did the right thing the whole way along, I might not get what I thought I would, and on top of it, might be told it’s my fault, because of something that was completely out of my  hands, expectations, and their service.

There is the niggling sense of guilt, because even though I wrote about the issue in a positive light, I am not sure they will receive it, they may only see the negative, in me, and the situation. And really, I would prefer not to have to do it.

I don’t like brokenness, miscommunication, negativeness, whether genuine or perceived, and would do many things to avoid it, or try and fix it as soon as possible inasmuch as I can, to the point of saying sorry when I know I don’t need to, just to get out of an awful situation. And when it is among people for whom I am known, then it just baffles me that they often don't see, or try to see what I am saying, or trying to do. I don’t like saying things that could possibly be seen as negative, and will often feel terrible, or that lovely sense of guilt until I get a response.

And sometimes it doesn’t come and you’re left hanging. That’s often the worst. I like dialogue and feedback, and find silence the hardest to deal with, especially if I have said something that might possibly, vaguely, potentially have been taken as a “bad” thing. With that comes a lot of choosing, choosing and more choosing, of trust, faith, self-talk and a lot more self-talk as I wait. And wait. And learning to sit with it, to sit with the silence, and trust in the strength of the relationship, and maybe, just maybe (well, usually, really), see what is at the other end.

And with the letter. It is a pain, they didn’t deliver as promised and the alternative is impossible for me to achieve, so I will have to be ok telling them so. No matter how ick I feel.

There are so many things it circles around. Truth and relationship, value and worth, connection and dialogue…. And being ok to say, to feel, to express that… to be yourself fully and valued in all of that, not just what the other chooses.

And as a ps to my complaint, the first response I received was a survey…………….!;)