Chapter 2

SHIFTS . . . in Your Expectations

imageCybil settled into the class comfortably, willing to reconsider her initial perception that it would be a waste of her day. She had already learned a lot from this instructor in the short time she’d known her.

The instructor continued with her Eeyore example and made it relevant to the group by encouraging them to use the visual, and also by explaining that making difficult people disappear started within yourself instead of with other people. The instructor then went over the day’s learning objectives. First, they were going to understand themselves a bit better. Then they would learn how they could sometimes be perceived as difficult, and if they were that way, then this might also be the reason for others’ suffering from the same perception. Then they would work on applying specific methods to put this knowledge into practice and overlap with what they already knew about relationships and communication with others. One by one, Cybil secretly confirmed that each objective on its own would have made her day if they’d put it to use. Each would help her deal with the difficulties in her own world, even though she already thought she had a pretty good handle on understanding herself and the needs of those she worked with.

She was distracted for a moment by her BlackBerry as it vibrated for about the fifteenth time and kept shaking the entire ...

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