Hello

I have noticed that the world around us reflects what we are feeling, or at least how we are communicating our emotions, so if we are angry and act angry, people get defensive and snap back.

It seems to be the concept of the attitude of gratitude in reverse.  The attitude of gratitude is the idea of facing situations whether positive or negative, with a focus on how one can be grateful for it – what gifts it provides etc.  The glass half full but with a broadened perspective.  Identifying and being grateful for how the event is a gift.  I  talked about this in the blog by the same name:  here’s some of what I wrote:

something frustrating would happen and then I would try to be grateful for that thing.   I had to look at how the frustrating thing was a gift. The interesting thing I got out of it was to focus on how negative things can be beneficial.  Which is paradigm shifting.  Sometimes it was an issue of increasing my understanding of another person or myself, and sometimes it really increased my availability to patience.

It definitely allowed for me to re-frame situations and choose to respond to the situation and people differently.

The most revealing aspect of this was in my relationship to myself and those really close to me.  I found that I actually felt happier with my place in the world and how I went about my days – and I found that it really strengthened my relationships because I was not just pointing out what wasn’t working but I was aligning with, and identifying, and really acknowledging what was really fantastic about what was working.

This gave me a background of gratitude and connection for the foreground or figure of what wasn’t working.  It allowed a space for the not-working thing to be addressed within a more positive context.

I think, through this action, more collaborative work can be accomplished because people don’t feel defensive, they feel connected.

In order to help in re-framing your world, part of what you have to do is stay cognizant of what is working.

So the problem with walking around with the attitude of anger or mad, or feeling sorry for yourself, is the opposite of the attitude of gratitude.

Being nice, looking for a way to be in your center or see the positive, results in more mindfulness, more positive reflected energy back, an internal good feeling, and more well-being.

It’s not to say that being nice makes others act nicely – they have a place they’re in that comes out too – it’s more that if you start out mad you get mad in return unless you are interacting with a highly evolved person.

So I suggest managing our emotions so that we don’t create more mad but allow for some even, neutral space where one can be heard, and seen.

This is an important lesson for us all but especially for our children and adolescents.

My daughter and I have the habit of listening to the song beautiful by Carole King in the morning.

you have to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in you heart and people going to treat you better you’re going to find yes you will that you are beautiful as you feel….

I started this to help shift the energy in her heart when she was feeling sad or mad on the way to school, especially when she was feeling some separation anxiety, but now it seems more like a ritual to stay on track and remind her of a way to manage her emotions.

I like to think of the environment in which we live as being connected to us, not so much just surrounding us, and that the energy we put out there interacts in some way with that environment.

I learned this early in my life because I had an uncanny ability to positively  affect my environment.  How I acted, what I brought to the interaction resulted in people feeling better, happy, or  sad.

Now, I obviously know that we can’t make people feel anything, they feel what they feel – but there is an energetic interaction that occurs with others that have porous boundaries – what they sense others are feeling they react to – they aren’t able to maintain their own center, and so they are what they experience.

This knowledge and personal skill allowed me to develop a talent for helping people in crisis situations. I have an uncanny ability to de-escalate situations – at least I do with individuals with these kind of porous boundaries or those who have some psychological issue in play that I can tap into and shift positively.

What matters about this is that there is this relationship that can be affected – in both directions – so there is a way to diminish negative interactions under many conditions.

If when you face the world you put on a generous, kind, forgiving face, you have a much better capacity and opportunity to receive that from the world.

Be more forgiving; be more available to seeing the beauty around you; be more willing to not fight or move into anger when you’re feeling bad or another is interacting with you in an angry way.

Or as Gandhi so aptly put it :  Be the change you wish to see in the world.  Here I’m talking about the little c in change, not the big C in Change –  both matter.

The little c is to smile, forgive the little things, let go, allow joy in, trust, have faith, believe, laugh and connect.

Here’s sending you a hug, smile, and the energy of good job. Hope it feels good.

See you tomorrow.

Beth