When working for another company, there is absolutely nothing that makes me angrier more quickly than having someone sign a contract and take responsibility for payment for services rendered and then refusing to pay for it.  The worst reason, though, is when they say, “I’m not responsible for this payment.  It is ____________’s responsibility.”

When I point out that our company doesn’t have a contract with so and so, only a signed contract with their company name and their signature taking responsibility for the payment of services rendered, they refuse to hear that and sometimes even hang up.  Historically, whenever I faced a person who threatened not to pay our company what was owed, I started shaking.

I felt so helpless and out of control.  That event signified to me that people could rip me off and take advantage of me whenever they wanted, and I had no recourse.  I felt unprotected and vulnerable.  It was PERSONAL.

Now, it went on this way for years, completely unchecked.  It was just “how I responded” every time.  It was my natural reaction.  I never gave it a second look.

Then, one day, I asked myself why I was shaking.  I knew I felt ripped off and helpless and unprotected, but why would that cause  an almost total meltdown?  Where in my past had I experienced similar feelings?

I once had a personal client who owed me several thousands dollars in pay for two weeks of work.  He was blaming me for something out of my control and was keeping this money as a way to supposedly reimburse him for his losses.  It was a huge amount of money to me.  It was unfair and wrong and showed a complete lack of integrity in him.  And I could do nothing about it.

The worst part was that it ended our client relationship, and he had become my primary client, per his request, so I had no other income. It happened at exactly the same time they found a mass in my uterus that had to be removed, my husband was about to lose his job, and we had no monies to pay for my surgery or make money during the 2 month recovery period.  It was financially and emotionally devastating, not to mention absolutely frightening.

When I realized that this was the event I was connecting to these other non-paying customers, I recognized how out-of-proportion my response to these current customers were.  Their non-payment would not affect me personally – it would affect the company that I worked for.  It also wasn’t nearly as much money as had been stolen from me.  But I was responding every time not to the current event but to a prior event.

And why was I shaking with anger?  What could that possibly do to eliminate my feelings of stress? Because anger sends a surge of adrenaline that makes me feel powerful, as if I could grow ten times my size in Hulk-like fashion and pummel the offending person.  I actually can do nothing about it, but I FEEL like I am powerful enough to do something about it.  And after the anger passes, there is an exhausted calm afterward – immediate stress reaction eliminated.

So understanding that I am still getting upset over what my previous client did to me releases me to look at and respond to the reality of what is happening now.  This is not thousands of dollars, but hundreds.  It does not affect my personal financial situation in any way.  I could get wildly angry merely on principal over the matter of people who do not honor their signature on contracts, but honestly, who does that help?  Just do what you can to get the money, file the unpaid invoice and move on.

Immediately, my body relaxes, my breathing returns to normal, and my mind is free to pursue other things.  I have to commit to practicing this on a regular basis so this will become my new Life Pattern, and eventually my natural response to similar situations.

Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end. Proverbs 29:11

What situations makes you shake with anger, or have some other over-the-top reaction?  Can you connect the feelings with an earlier event?  Can you compare what happened then with what is happening now?  Pray for God to show you your current overreactions and how to be healed from them.