Feedback Therapy

Yesterday, my department had a corporate training on team-building. The facilitator was a woman who had worked for the organization 20 years ago, and holds the same license I do, with the same degreee I have, and is running a private practice in a nearby, VERY upperclass, town.

She came with the power to motivate. No, I mean the actual superpower.

Team-building workshops are very akin to dentistry, to me. I have to subject myself to the process, and I know it is going to be painful. Always excerizes to pry me out of my shell, make me be social to strangers, force me to interact with other peoples crap and reveal my own. Yuck yuck yuck. Especially when I want nothing better than to hide away in my new office, listen to the radio, and write my novel (with some therapy notes and monthly summaries thrown in for good measure).

But this woman had some things going for her that worked in her favor.

1) She was my age, if not a little older.

2) She had the prettiest blue eyes and the cutest Gillian Anderson overbite smile I've seen in a LONG time.

3) She loved what she was doing and she was good at it.

4) She used the word 'Feedback' on at least four occasions.

These days, I hear or read the word 'Feedback' and I smile. Feedback has been a huge part of redeeming my life this year, as steady readers will know. My thoughts of Matt are always positive and full of hope. When I consider that people like Matt exist, (as opposed to people like me, or people like that restaurant seater over the weekend) I get optimistic about the future of mankind.

So the workshop yesterday was partially group-therapy and partially corporate team-building excerises. She illustrated the power of praising people and giving people ownership in their role on a team. Then she went into the nature of people and our tendency to lay blame, and then offered solutions on how to counteract that tendency within ourselves and also demonstrated the benefits we'll receive when we opt for being positive and forgiving instead of accusatory and negative. Her manner was patient and clear, with plenty of Agent Scully smiles, and she said used the word Feedback a few times.

So I promptly fell in love with her.

I thought to myself, if I ever met a woman like her in any other setting than this, I would propose to her within an hour. I would fight Hell to keep a woman like that in my life. Because in my mind, this was a new breed of human, of which I also believe Matt Atherton is one of. These are the superheroes of our reality. These are the people that are set apart from us mere mortals by their outlooks on life, and their inner abilities to show us how much better we can be as a people. They live examples of positivity and hope. They make you feel good just by being alive on the planet.

And with an additional nod to The Universe, (whom I am more than comfortable calling by the name of 'God', and happy birthday to Your Son, BTW), anytime someone says, or has written the word 'Feedback', I now get a joyful re-awareness of these types of superheroes in our world, only this one is wrapped up in a big visual package of reflective black and metallic blue. Yesterday I was caught in a recursive loop of positive Feedback and I was.

LOVING.

It.

That's why I end my posts with "I'm a friend of Matt Atherton's, so that's all right then," because it's true.

It really is all right, then.

Go get 'em Feedback!