Thank you for the opportunity

Thank you for the growing opportunity

I would like to thank the creator in this trying time for the opportunity for personal growth and strengthen my character. This is my attempt to remain positive in a very hard struggle.

It has been such an uneasy week for me. My house has been broken into twice, I had my first ever job interview ever with the result of not being called back for any further follow up on possibly getting the job while watching other friend getting all these interviews, I had patient care ethical issues of other medical team members to fight with and I had anxiety and stress from having found a job that I would really love yet wondering if people would employ me for it. Above all and happening parallelly, I am scared of not able to find employment and having to also perform a very hard splint on Monday which I need reading up on this weekend.

I am fortunate in the sense that I am suddenly hit with enlightment and able to be mindful and reflective in the situation. I realize this is the exact point of my last straw previously as a student where I would become so emotionally burnt out that I end up not performing and shinning my true colors. God, I want to stop this! I want to stop feeling everything is out of control and it’s a bad reflection of me if I cant control it. I realize how I seem to have place my self worth and my self value on a scale that I have not control over up to this point in my life. I was equaling my self worth to achievements and successes of the material world which has always been something I don’t like anyways!!! (Yes, me out of all people who hated material stuff!!!)

I know I need to be different this time. I need to be able to rise above this all. In fact, I need to detach my self value from this rat race and achieve calmness… to have the knowledge that “even if I don’t get a job offer to work as an OT right now, it doesn’t mean I am a bad person and a shit OT.” But how do I do this, I sit here 4h30 in the morning thinking…… I know this is the opportunity to learn a very difficult life lesson. But how? But how do I do this, God?

Do I just keep on positive thinking about….
“no, Anita; you are a great person and a great OT” or
“ You knew the stuff and you did show them to the best of your ability that you knew your stuff. But nobody can possibly know everything, come on; you are not God!!” or
“ You have the skills to be a great OT but maybe there’s something beyond skills that is beyond your own control that they are looking for (well in SA; how about the fact that I may be the wrong colour for BEE??)

Or is there something else I can do??

*** HERE ‘s MY BIT OF SELF CONVERSATION
Anita, you need to remember good things about yourself. Yes you are not the most experienced OT around here and that you don’t know everything there is to know about a certain aspect of your work. But you are knowledge thirsty and you are so keen to learn and to become better; it makes you the greatest candidate to become a good OT!!! May I remind you everything has its time? Now, this is the time you learn this NB life lesson; failure doesn’t equals to “I am a bad person”. Something not working is not always a negative reflection on your abilities. Anita, god helps us; you got to know that you are not that bad!! Most of all and let me count:


- you care so much about your patients and you do not give up on them.
- You listen to them and their families, you are able to give client centred treatments.
- You will take the initiative to learn and research to improve yourself
- You hold yourself accountable for the quality of treatment you are giving to patients. (and I think it is more often the case that you do not let yourself off the hook when it’s not your fault.)
- You are creative and adaptive, you do freak out but you always return to face the challenge. It is a rare occasion should you run and you don’t come back.
- You are reflective and you able to pick up your own shortcomings. You try to do your best in preventing it from happening in the future.

What I am asking you to do this time differently is to not going into the “shit, I don’t know and let me run to a safe place counsel myself and come back to deal with it”. This time, Anita; try facing it, try not to run. Acknowledge the fact that you are scared and what you are dealing with is un-humanly difficult but everyone go through some of them while other issues are just unique and you are one of the few that are dealing with it. And WOW, think about what faith the creator has in you to trust you to deal with it on his/her behalf… honey, you are answering people’s prayers everyday!! I want you to come out more confident, I want you to be able to say “well, the loss is not only mine if they don’t employ me” and to keep in faith to the knowledge that “the right job will come at the right time” and be patient with it while your environment work itself around you. I don’t want to see you breaking down to tears like tonight in the feeling of extreme nerves and anxiety but to cry acknowledging it is difficult to be where you are in your situation then go and move on.

Anita, don’t give up…. I don’t meant don’t give up in “fighting” but I mean don’t give up on yourself and start running away from the challenge. Don’t lose a battle that is not even fought yet! Don’t give up hope and don’t give into anxiety. Have faith in yourself, there is NOTHING and I repeat NOTHING wrong with you. Lastly, don’t blame yourself for things not happening or going your way.

God, help me to change what I can
accept what I cannot and
to have the mind to be able to tell the difference between the two.