Attitudes

There are a lot of things in life you can’t control. Your actions and your attitudes are two things you can. Actions, it would seem, are a lot easier to control than attitudes, but it doesn’t have to be so. You can change your attitude about things, even other people’s actions or attitudes, but first you must be aware of them. How do you truly feel about some things?

Say you have a physical difference – your height, your skin, your weight, your shape, or any of a number of things. If someone teases or criticizes you about it, if you’re like most people, you’ll probably get angry or defensive. But I’ve found that those who are most angry or defensive agree with the criticism. They may not even know it. If you ask them, “Why do you let it get to you?”, they may respond, “(S)He shouldn’t make fun of people like that” or “It’s just plain mean”. Yet others who have the same physical difference react differently, shrug it off, make a joke, calmly tell the person to stop. Why the difference? It’s about attitude. Perhaps you agree. Perhaps you don’t even know it. Perhaps you’ve heard the comment so often that it’s gotten into your skull. That’s why some people can still “hear” their mother or father criticizing them long after they’ve passed away. But do you agree? Do you think you’re too short, fat, tall, dark, freckled, plain, and so on? You could be reacting not only to others’ criticism but your own. Once you figure out who and what you’re responding to, you can choose your actions more clearly.

And if you do feel critical of yourself? If you discover to your dismay that you do think of yourself the same thing everyone else has been saying? Then you can change it. You can’t change what you don’t know exists. But how? I’ll get to that in a minute.

What if you don’t agree? What if your anger and defensiveness stem from something else entirely? Are you angry over the criticism? Then either try to change the person’s actions (criticizing you), the object of the criticism (but how do you change your height), or your attitude. You can ask someone to stop, but you cannot control if he/she does. You cannot control your height, freckles, or shape, though you can in some cases influence it through your actions, which you can control. Or change your attitude.

If it’s the person (rather than the criticism) that is upsetting you, try to change their actions, change your own (avoid them, tune them out), or change your attitude.

Or maybe it’s a bad day or you’re tired or you’re angry over something else. But back to attitudes.

How do you change your attitude? First, you change your thoughts. Entirely possible. Even if you’ve been called stupid your entire life, so much so that you can hear it still in your head, you can still change your thoughts. Put bluntly, you brainwash yourself. The phrase “stupid”, “fat”, “plain”, whatever, is in your head because you’ve heard it before and it stuck. Or “it’s okay to lash out at people who criticize”, “any comments must be critical or threatening”, “that was meant mean-spirited and demeaning” even if it was meant helpfully. These things may not be things you heard specifically but saw in action.

So you put a different though, a different memory into your head, and you do that repeatedly. And you make yourself pause so that your (re)action is the one you want rather than the older one.

Your attitudes are, after all, made up of your thoughts and your actions. The attitude you see – that you think you portray – is more about your thoughts. The attitude others see is more about your actions (including your facial expressions, which are most often dictated by your thoughts). Will you ever get rid of that thought? Maybe not. But you can drown it out, weaken it so that it’s nothing but an occasional twinge of an old injury rather than an obstacle you need to overcome.

Repeat the thought to yourself whenever you have nothing else to use your mind. Folding laundry, driving when nothing’s on the radio, when you can’t fall asleep. Repeat the actions when and where you can. Don’t lash out, don’t tense up, don’t cry over someone else’s problem. Stop your tongue. Bite back a comment before it’s out of your mouth or as soon as you can. Take a deep breath and will your shoulders to relax and lower. Remind yourself of the beauty and light in this life rather than the other person’s hatred and ugliness.

This will take practice. Your brain/heart/soul have had years to teach you this old way. Many repetitions have gone into it. You will need to repeat the new way – the way you are choosing – many times to strengthen it and defeat the old way. It’s like a muscle. If you want your arm to get stronger, you must repeat arm exercises. If you want your new attitude to get stronger, you must repeat your “attitude exercises” – repeat the new thought, practice the new action, pay attention to how you think and feel so that you can take advantage of every opportunity to practice. You can change your attitudes, your thoughts, and your actions. The first attitude to create is that you can change.

So what’s this all about? More changing of me? What the hey?

When you free yourself from attitudes you don’t like, you have more time and energy to do what you need to do. When you are rid of other-imposed views and beliefs, you have the freedom to change your life into anything you want, to change yourself into anything you want, including a crusader for the Future Being Born.

If you are exhausted from work, it’s hard to be up for working at home. If you’re too busy fighting the injustices and tyrannies in your own mind, you won’t have the time to fight the injustices and tyrannies “out there”.