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Thoughts have been considered of utmost importance for many centuries by the great philosophers. "I think, therefore I am." We know that there are common phrases what goes around comes around or what you put out comes back which apply not only to behaviors, but are especially applicable to thoughts as well. Everything we think reaches out into the world, carrying its effects in powerful ways, far beyond what we might imagine.

In becoming a TurnAround Specialists, we are ready to see just how our thoughts so often have much more of an effect than what is actually said or done with people, both in our work and in our personal relationships. How you perceive somebody (you think of them as attractive or unattractive) that is a thought.

Attitudes are born of our thoughts, and the level of emotion stimulated by the thought causes the vibrations that reach out into our world. The attitudes we carry actually influence and determine our experience with a person or an event. In fact, all communication begins with a thought and energetically vibrates out from the attitude, which is formed from the thought.

The decision you make about that thought becomes your attitude, and energetically it is constantly in motion, whether you mean for it to be or not. The more emotion there is attached to the thought, the stronger the vibration and the more it has the capacity to be felt, both by the sender and the receiver of the vibration.

When you perceive someone as kind or unkind, you have a thought that stimulates an emotion, which then becomes an attitude. This will completely determine how you will then interact with that person, and they with you. Regardless of whether or not the person who you are communicating with is cognizant of the vibes they are getting from you, they will in fact have an energetic response.

The more conscious a person is about their own attitudes toward another, and mindful about the vibes they are sending off, the more they can intentionally decide exactly how they want to effect that person, and thus a desired outcome. By the same token, the more conscious a person is about the vibes being sent to them, or what may feel to be AT them, the more they can be mindful and elective about what they choose to do with their response.

Our perceptions are never truly objective, for perception is a result of all of the decisions we've made about our world since our earliest memories. When our thoughts give rise to an emotion, based on a perception and a decision about an experience, we vibrate an energy created from the attitude we've held in the past, and probably nursed, cursed and rehearsed ever since. We see people as opposed to us (or abusing us, giving it to us or depriving us) OR we see them as loving and nurturing. How we perceive them, and what we think about them, generates an expectation, an attitude, a vibration, which then can virtually determine the outcome.

Most of what I did to be highly successful in assisting children, adolescents, adults, and families, and later in the corporate environment, came as a result of simply looking for new evidence to off-set negative perceptions. This works because most behavioral problems are responses to negative perceptions and decisions!

Becoming a TurnAround Specialist means taking a situation that is not going very well at all, and finding a way to turn it around attitudinally by the deliberate mental and mindful act of re-labeling. It may also be considered a deliberate act of looking for the silver lining behind an otherwise dark cloud or experience.

Being a TurnAround Specialist is the art of intentionally interrupting our thinking to consider a new thought to energetically affect a new, and desired attitude, and thus a new outcome. The easiest way I know of to generate new attitudinal energy is to look for new evidence, and use it to assign a new label. Give the situation or the person a new explanation and meaning to what a behavior is trying to say. It is from the new evidence that we open our minds to greater understanding and it is from this new place that we shift an attitude and instantaneously send out a new vibe.

The art is in offering an entirely different (and yes, positive in nature) meaning, perception and understanding of an otherwise disruptive, disabling behavior or situation.

One of the problems we need to deal with initially in becoming a TurnAround Specialist is the issue of negative feelings we are feeling, but suppressing in order to be positive, perky and upbeat.

This doesnt work, because anything suppressed is still in your attitudinal energy and vibes. You can smile at someone as if you really like him, but if underneath that smile you truly loath him, then the energy of the loathing will be what is felt. Its the true and authentic feeling, so it is predominant in the energy of the interaction.

Being overtly positive, while holding an underlying negativity that has not been resolved within you, means you are pushing against that person. This energy is clearly felt by most people, and it can directly and instantaneously affect the person. They are responding to what is felt, not what is seen.

Your attitude can literally have an emotional effect on a person, which can and does affect behaviors and interactions. This, of course, is why your attempts to be perky, positive and upbeat with them are not working.

Think about it, we've never been schooled on how to handle energy coming in at us, other than being told: sticks and stones may break your bones, but words will never hurt you. Perhaps youve also heard the saying: "Be careful what you think, because your thoughts have a way of jumping out of your mouth!" Attitudes come from thoughts, which become words, and they do have the power to interject themselves into each other's experience.

There is another saying I want to address here, and that is: "No one can make you feel anything you don't want to feel." I think that this is definitely true, and it also suggests that we, as a society, are all conscious at some level that, even if bad vibes are coming at us, we know how to get out of the way!

We have not been taught about attitudinal energy; that it is real, and it is involved in every interaction. However, most people in our society would agree that they feel they are functioning more from a state of resistance to those people who they feel "bad vibes" from. This shows us that the energy from a negative attitude can in fact interject into another persons energy field, and can affect how they feel.

They may react by feeling as if there is something bad or wrong about themselves, because the vibe you hold about "the problem with them" is what you really think, regardless of what you are saying.

It really makes for some of the crazy-making feelings we have all felt from time to time.

The most important and courageous thing we can do is to look at what we have decided is wrong with the person we are having the most difficulty with.

What we have determined is wrong with them, the label, becomes a real part of our experience with them. It's true. It's real. We are not responsible for their choice in behaviors, but their behaviors will in fact be affected by our energetic interaction with them. The great news is that as we become more conscious of the effects of energy, we can have a greater degree of influence in getting a different outcome than we've been getting. This is exactly what you will be learning how to do in the upcoming chapters.

For now, you may be thinking, "Well, why don't they just do what they know they should be doing in the first place? Why does this have to be up to me? I'm not the one behaving badly!"

True, and yet, energetically you are engaged with them and you, like they, are locked into the judgement of their existing behavior, labeling it bad or wrong. Therefore, it has now become your experience, also. And it is especially important if you are managing other people in a business environment, because you are responsible for the performance that is being affected by the behavior.

To change the experience, you must change your thinking and therefore your attitude about that experience. You have an attitude about this. You just do. It's really OK, and it's really that simple. Someone who doesn't know anything about this person you are having problems with, who doesn't have the same suppressed negative emotional triggers as you, will have an entirely different experience with this person, whose behaviors you find most difficult to endure.

Let's say you have a negative experience with someone, and you get the word out to all of your friends (or fellow employees.) They tell all of their friends, and now the number of people who know about this behavior has multiplied dramatically. Everyone who has heard about your "difficult person," will now be making individual choices and forming expectations as to what they believe they will experience with this person, with whom you experienced what you perceive as a bad behavior.

An even more insidious form of this spreading of attitudes can occur when others simply feel your attitude about the "bad" person as you interact with them, without you saying anything. Everyone who has heard this information now has a decision to make. They have their own fears and resistances, and they will either 1) be mindful and decide that their experience does not need to be the same as yours, or 2) they will decide, at a less mindful level, that their experience will be the same as yours. Guess what happens?

Now you are thinking, "How did it become my problem? I didn't make them do that bad thing." No, you did not make them do anything. And, when you chose to hold the bad thing against them, and nurse it, curse it and rehearse it in your mind, you are solidifying an attitude and therefore sending out a vibe. This forms within you an expectation, and so no matter what this person does or doesn't do the next time you are with them, that vibe is right smack dab in the middle of your interaction with them. No matter how positive, perky and upbeat you think you are being, your vibe is louder than your words. The same is true of all the other people who have been affected by your attitude about this person.

Rather than be concerned with who did what, as a TurnAround Specialist, you must simply be mindful about what you really think. What ARE your judgements, opinions, prejudices? Look specifically at the negative feelings, thoughts and expectations you are in fact holding about this person or event, and at what this all means in relationship to you.

You may be thinking, "But I don't like them at all. I don't want to like them, and I don't want to find new evidence to shift my attitude or my energy toward them. They deserve all the loathing and hate I can send them, and now that I know it's having an effect, I'm going to send even more." And that's YOUR period!

This is a choice that you certainly have the power to make.

Just know this: by keeping yourself in this place of hate and unforgiveness, you are guaranteeing that you will not be moving on from what has happened. You will never experience any form of healing from the past. You will never be free. You will be keeping yourself chained to them energetically. They will be pitching a tent in the resources of your mind and not paying you rent! They will continue to energetically resist you as you resist them. You will remain in a state of powerlessness with them, because, in this resistive state you will always feel their energy because you resist it and them. As much as you'd like to make them suffer, you will be the one who pays a price. They can deflect your energy any time they choose, and often that's exactly what people do to those who are obsessively sending bad vibes to them. You will not be able to get through to them.

Many people in our society today are so sensitive and so resistive to the bad vibes that they've had blasted at them over the years, that they have totally shut themselves down to any and all energy. This will also shut down their intuitive connections.

The way many accomplish this is through some from addiction to mind and mood altering drugs or behaviors. Drugs, smoking, food, gambling and sex are the most common. Virtually all addictions are a result of not knowing what to do about how they've been labeled and the bad vibes that consistently come at them as a result of the decisions others have made about them throughout their lifetimes. People will shut down because it's too unbearable, and they have no tools to deal with the pain of what's been interjected into their experiences. They fight back, push back and behave badly, or they check out emotionally, physically and mentally, or they do both to differing degrees.

It is imperative that we become more in-tune to the influence we have upon each other, for we are setting future events in motion every time we deal with a behavior or a situation by labeling it, from a place of judgement and condemnation.

It is not an easy task to put forth the effort to re-label someone who has harmed you, been offensive, been totally difficult and rude to work with or live with. It is even beyond our belief system to accept the possibility that if we re-label someone who has harmed us, holding that new label firmly in mind, that it can in fact alter a behavior and our experiences with that person for the better over time.

But we can have that effect on an individual, and we ARE having effects on the people in our world right now. Whether we meant to or not, we ARE. Once a personal connection is made, there are effects.

We have been busy judging up to now, in an effort to keep ourselves safe from unsafe people and events. And in that act alone, we are drawing out more of the same. What your resist, persists!

Please Know - YOU ARE A SUCCESS!

Mary               

Oh, and don't forget, you can also MasterMind for changes in your dealings with challenging people and situations too! MasterMinding for Success CD & Booklet Program and 
MasterMinding: LIGHTNING in a Bottle eBook.

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