'Tudes

‘Tudes

I pulled the trust card this morning. What a good reminder of a bunch of different things, mostly about attitude.

And isn’t that what it’s all about.

One of the biggest secrets in the world of how to live a good life is right in front of our faces all the time.  Attitude is the lion’s share of how our days go.

When I come to my morning with an attitude of cheerful, peaceful, and present, I have a nicer day than when I come to my morning with an attitude of pissy, entitled, and grim.

Attitude is a complex set of thoughts and feelings that set our filters, that is, what we are looking and listen for out in the world.

Simply put, when I have a good attitude, I find good stuff, when I have a bad attitude, I find bad stuff.

In the olden days, I sorted for bad stuff all the time, from who was doin’ me wrong to how awful the world was. For some reason, then, I seemed to have trust issues.

Back then, I would say with great gloom and certainty, “I know how this is going to play out,” and often that was exactly how it went. I knew that so-and-so would hurt me, that thus-and-such would bomb, and that, while things most likely wouldn’t turn out the worst way, because I had a very good imagination, they certainly wouldn’t turn out the best way.

Little by little, my teacher nudged me to a different attitude. We would imagine things getting better. How they would look, how I might feel. Not great, mind you, just better. A little better. Then a little more.

I imagined that everything was hard. She helped me imagine how things might be if they were easier. She helped me get out of myself enough to start seeing beauty in unlikely places, tiny kindnesses that strangers did for strangers, and solutions to problems. It took me eleven years to trust that she wouldn’t try to hurt me. We celebrated that day.

I expected that the closer I was to you, the worse you were going to get me, when you got around to it, which would be any time now. I was an expert in both anxiety and depression.

Why do I choose to feel safe? How do I feel protected? What makes me choose?

I changed a lot of things with those baby steps. I changed a lot of relationships by changing me. I left a lot of relationships that I couldn’t change. I changed my attitude a bit and a bit and a bit. I found trustworthy people and practiced trusting them. I started to feel safe. I learned how to feel protected.

Attitude will change a lot of things when it comes from our core. If I am pretending things are fine, that’s a horse of a different color. I was stuck in that for years. Pretending things are fine is a coverup. Forcing a good mood can feel awful, but softening into an attitude change can make all the difference.

How have I changed from faking a good attitude to really meaning it?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 03132014

Please remember to share or +. Thanks.