Challenged & defeated

after today i can surely say i don't know enough about communication. i know very little, actually. it's funny that most people spend more than ten years in school, learning all kinds of things that people deem important and yet there are so many life skills that are passed over. the ability to communicate effectively is just one such skill. without it, life is pretty rough.

i'm no fantastic communicator by any stretch of the imagination. dan and i were together for several years before i started taking chances & actually expressing my deepest thoughts & feelings. it feels like such a risk, you know? i'm sure some of it i learned from my family - but the rest i think is society. it's impolite...

long story short, i had to do some "conflict management" between two of the people i supervise at work today. it's a situation that's been festering for a while & they had been unsuccessful at making any headway. it didn't seem like that big of a deal - just some unspoken frustrations that weren't communicated over a period of time. i was actually kind of excited about it - because i like challenging myself with new things, i need to feel challenged at my job & i think this kind of thing is really interesting. (it might just be that the idea of doing it well is interesting...) so i got some advice from an HR person (we don't have one on staff) & did my best. everything was going well for a while but things took a wrong turn at some point, which i wasn't able to see at the time - of course. it ended up that one person felt really terrible & kind of ganged up on , upset & crying. i can't stop thinking about the whole thing. if only i'd stuck with the original rules of engagement, the discussion would've ended on a much more positive note, i think. i feel nauseous and terrible about the results of my "facilitating". oh communication, why is it so damn difficult sometimes?