Can you have an attitude and keep it a Secret?

Mary Robinson Reynolds, educational psychologist, says...
Absolutely NOT!

Research indicates that 80% of people who are pink-slipped, downsized, or just plain fired – is not because of their technological know-how or competence. It is because they are not able to deal with personal differences and emotional situations within the work environment. It would be easy to say, the same is true of the breakdown in today's marriages, let alone healthy and effective relationships with our children.

Straight from Mary's newly released book, "VIBES: The Art of Getting What You Want!" she says that we all know we should be careful with our words, but we need to learn how to be more responsible with our thoughts.

What does your attitude have to do with communication? Just about everything. You may think you are speaking succinctly, but if you have an underlining condescending attitude, forget about getting what you want from this interaction.

Energetically, we resist when someone is pushing against us, especially with negative, judgmental or arrogant attitudinal vibes. The key to getting what you want in all of your relationships is to start paying attention to your attitude and the vibes you are sending back.

When communication is going side-ways:

Apply Behavior Modifications' #1 Rule: "Before you can change anyone else, you must first change yourself." And honey, that means your attitude. Take a moment and observe yourself. What label have you put on this person? Your decisions about this person and this situation are speaking volumes through your attitude, and this is the dialog that's really going on, whether you meant for it to or not. It not only comes out through your words, tone and body posture, it's being communicated energetically, in a big way. You know when someone has an attitude about you. Well, it's no different when it's headed out from you toward them. If you change your perception about this person and this experience, you will change the interaction, in an instant!

No judgment. If you seriously want to pull that attitude of yours back in, then you need to get out of judgment. If you are really hot about something that they did, then tell yourself that you are going to adopt "zero content thinking" while you are trying to communicate to them. You can be discerning in life, without launching a judgmental attitude. Being discerning means that you address the problematic areas of the relationships, based on factual information. When you are locked into judgment mode, you do not invite, let alone allow, the other person into the conversation. You are essentially a talking head with a one-sided conversation. Toss the judgment, and you've just invited them into creating new and innovative solutions with you.

How would you prefer it to be? Our attitudes are conveyed through our language. When in confrontation, we tend to talk in terms of what we don't want, or what was done that was wrong. Then we push hard energetically with the idea that, if we hammer our point across long enough, it will ensure a different result the next time. Then we back that up with a good dose of attitudinal hammering. And then, we act surprised when the very thing that we didn't want in the first place happens twelve more times! Just know this: when you are hammering your point home, you are insuring that it does in fact happen again. Simply address the error, and then put your remaining focus on talking about your preferences and why your relationship matters to you. You will not only walk away with a clean attitude, you will now have a two-way relationship that works.

Send the "Love Vibe." We all know that love heals all things. Love just has the transformative effect of a healing, soothing balm. With particularly challenging people and situations, where you feel powerless, you should know that you can literally transform the energy of a situation by focusing on sending them the Love Vibe. How do you do this when some people push your buttons so much that you don't think this is even possible? There are three ways to do this with icky and crazy-making people and situations. First, just try spelling out the word L-O-V-E in your mind. Thoughts have energy, and this is the energy that is being sent, even if you can only spell it, simply because you are focusing on it. Second, think about someone in your life that you can easily feel love toward. Bring them to mind and then, when you get that loving feeling going for them, slip that loving feeling over onto the person who you’ve had the most difficulty changing your attitude about. Third, if the first two ways are too repulsive for you, then as they are walking away from you, pretend you are cupid, and shoot them in the back with a love arrow! Dare to try these, and you will see a softening in their behavior and a higher level of receptivity for what your preferences are.

©2001 Mary Robinson Reynolds, Heart Productions & Publishing

Mary Robinson Reynolds, M.S., Educational Psychologist, Author and Producer of the world renowned Internet videos, MakeADifferenceMovie.com and AcknowledgmentMovie.com - both amassing over 10 million views within a few short months of their releases - spent many years as a classroom teacher K-8 and then as a counselor K-12. She parlayed her phenomenal success with youth at-risk into her programs for business leaders, entrepreneurs and managers on how to be energetically effective in leading improvement in their organizations through the power of Team Synergy and MasterMinding. She has written eight books, developed UTrain&Coach programs that anyone can take into their place of work to build organization wide Team Synergy, and has presented to over 20,000 people in two year period in every major city in the U.S. To learn more go to: maryreynolds.com Feel free to quote portions of this or any other previously published article. We ask that you give Mary Robinson Reynolds credit, with contact information such as her website address / contact page. And please let us know of the dates, what you use, and where it is to be published. For re-publication of an entire article, written permission is required. Thank you for the opportunity to be of service. The following paragraph is the "standard" biographical reference that may be included when reprinting any of these articles:

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