I f****d up. Let me tell you about it. I always say I’m really good with humans and quite terrible with technology, and it finally happened. I thought I’d set something up on my scheduling system to stop someone from booking over the weekend. I checked my schedule on Friday and saw no one had booked for Monday. Monday was a holiday, so I went about my way telling myself I would prioritize rest this weekend. I sat in the sun with my family and acted like there wasn’t a care in the world because, to my mind, there wasn’t. Except one of the people I’ve been serving was sitting at his computer Monday afternoon, waiting for me to sign on to a meeting he had booked that Sunday evening. When I woke up Tuesday morning, I checked my email at 5:30 in the morning because I was excited about what had come in over the weekend. Or maybe I was just anxious because I rested a little “too much” and was curious if I had missed anything. Look, I’m also learning to regulate my nervous system, so judge me all you want, but I’m still human. I love my work and it excites me, so when I saw an email that said “I waited for a bit, but I was tired and decided to start sign off” my heart literally sank into my chest, and I reached a depth of guilt that I have yet to experience in my busines. I have never missed a meeting. Before I go on, I need to explain what exactly nervous system regulation is and why I care so deeply about it. Nervous system regulation is the ability to notice when your body has gone into a stress response. That may look like a racing heart, shallow breath, or, in my case, a hot flush of shame at a very early hour. When we know how to regulate our system, we respond from a grounded place instead of reacting from an activated state. It’s not about not feeling the guilt or panic; it’s about not letting the panic dictate the response. Here is what I actually wanted to do the second I saw his message come through: run, apologize immediately, and very dramatically, with a lot of exclamation points, explain why I wasn’t there with an aggressive amount of “sorry’s” and “my bad’s”. Potentially a desperate “please forgive me.” My nervous system was on alert, and I was carrying a tremendous amount of guilt for resting while the person I was supposed to be serving sat there waiting for me to show up for him. A large part of my agreements with my clients is that we show up on time and respect each other’s time. So, for me to feel like I was wasting this person’s precious time was a very uncomfortable place to be. This is exactly where most people, especially high achievers, especially people who take their work very personally and seriously, do the most damage. It’s not necessarily by making the mistake, but it is how they respond to having made it. A reactive, guilt-soaked apology doesn’t exactly rebuild trust with your client or potential clients, or even the people working under you. It usually just moves anxiety from your body into theirs, leaving no one with a resolution, but just more stress compounded. So here’s what I did, and here are the four steps that I went through mentally to make sure that I could potentially salvage this relationship. Step number one — I paused before I reacted. The email I wanted to send that morning, with a lot of alarms going off in my head, would have made anyone hesitant to work with me, and I’m not afraid to admit that. I would have looked reactive instead of calm, which is exactly what I don’t want to do because I am trying to help people regulate their nervous system and up-level their life. I saw very clearly that I was not in the right state of mind to write anything well, and therefore I chose not to write anything at all. For an extended period of time - a lot longer than felt comfortable to me. Step number two — I acknowledged the feeling before I allowed action from it. Specifically, when we are experiencing emotions, acknowledging them is the catalyst for when we shift from being reactive to being empowered in our response. I even called my husband two hours after the discovery of the email and said, “I still feel like shit.” My nervous system thought that this was the end of the world, and I had to remind myself that me missing a call isn’t actually the end of the world. My potential client was safe. There was NO emergency. But my guilt was the thing that was coming through. Due to my guilt and my worried mind of how this person may perceive me, that is where the end-of-the-world feeling was coming from. Step number three — got over my own emotions around it. No matter how s****y and guilty I felt, that was not the responsibility of the person whose meeting I missed to take on. It wasn’t his job to make me feel better about it, and if I had responded when I felt like the world was collapsing in on me, I would have made it his job to feel guilty about it. I had to get over my emotions around the whole scenario and realize that it actually wasn’t about me in any way. Step number four — owned it with my client. No reasoning or excuses as to why I missed, but simply own my mistake. After I had sat on it for a few hours, I simply messaged him and I said, “Look, you trusted me with your time, and I abused that trust.” I promised him, and I mean it when I say this, that it will never happen again. I live under the belief that most people are forgiving if you own your mistakes, and when you know how to communicate through a calm nervous system instead of a very dysregulated one, you can work your way through almost any slip-up that life throws at you. One of my favorite questions is, “Am I proud of the way I acted?” And while I wasn’t proud of missing the meeting by any means, I am proud of how I handled the situation. But I wouldn’t have been able to take a step back if I hadn’t spent time understanding what dysregulated means to me. If you’ve been known to react instead of respond and you feel that these situations have brought some unwanted outcomes, then I invite you to reach out to me and we can have a conversation about it. My first session, person to person, one to one, is simply looking at something that you may be struggling with and us working together to find where some patterns can be shifted and different outcomes can come true. I hope to hear from you soon. Lots of love, Tia FAQ What is nervous system regulation, and why does it matter in professional relationships? It’s the practice of noticing stress activation in your body and choosing your response instead of reacting from panic. In professional relationships, it’s often the difference between an apology that rebuilds trust and one that just transfers your anxiety onto the other person. How do you stop yourself from reacting when you feel intense guilt? Pause and name the physical sensations first — racing heart, tight shoulders, low energy — before you touch your keyboard. Talk it through with someone you trust. The urge to act immediately is usually the nervous system talking, not clear judgment. Is it normal to feel this much guilt over a small professional mistake? Yes, especially if you’re someone who ties your worth to being reliable. The intensity of the guilt isn’t the problem — acting on it before you’ve regulated is. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tiadevincenzo.substack.com
