Feel the love.
I've been making a real effort to maintain positive framing of things this past year. For example, when making a request I focus on what I do want instead of what I don't want. When describing a situation, I put it in positive terms ("he's very resourceful") instead of negative terms ("he's not helpless"). I've also been doing my best to maintain a sense of gratitude about whatever situation I find myself in, because I believe (physics aside) that gratitude is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. Gratitude has this way of opening our awareness up to the good in a given situation rather then the bad, which can radically alter our experience of said situation. I also believe that a conscious shift toward being positive and feeling gratitude are part of the antidote for what ails us as a society and a species right now. I'm not suggesting that simply saying "thank you!" for the bird crap that just fell on your head is going to change the world into a giant lovefest, but I do think that the constant whining and complaining we are programmed to do from an early age magnifies the negativity and makes any situation more stressful.
So yesterday, we were moving. We had quite a bit of help; at one point, we had four warm bodies assisting us, quadrupling the help we had with our last move. My mood about the move could have gone either way. On the one hand, it was snowing, the packing was last-minute and rushed, we have a lot of big heavy stuff, and we were exhausted. On the other hand, it was clear that we've purged a lot of our stuff so there wasn't as much to move this time, we had plenty of help, everyone was pitching in, and we were getting it done.
Early on, I was tempted to whine about the weather being such crap, about the fact that I'd only gotten maybe 3-4 hours of sleep, about how much was yet to be done. I decided instead to say "I love you guys" to the folks helping us move whenever I felt like complaining. It was, in part, a way to maintain the whole positive framing thing. It also became a kind of running joke, once I explained what I was doing to our helpers. By the end of the day it became expected, whenever we encountered a particularly sucktastic obstacle, for me to say "I love you guys!" and then everyone laughed and the tension was broken.
From a casual observer's perspective, there was a lot of love flowing yesterday.
What I find really interesting is that, by the end of the day, I found myself wanting to say "I love you guys!" spontaneously, without an underlying complaint attached.
So yesterday, we were moving. We had quite a bit of help; at one point, we had four warm bodies assisting us, quadrupling the help we had with our last move. My mood about the move could have gone either way. On the one hand, it was snowing, the packing was last-minute and rushed, we have a lot of big heavy stuff, and we were exhausted. On the other hand, it was clear that we've purged a lot of our stuff so there wasn't as much to move this time, we had plenty of help, everyone was pitching in, and we were getting it done.
Early on, I was tempted to whine about the weather being such crap, about the fact that I'd only gotten maybe 3-4 hours of sleep, about how much was yet to be done. I decided instead to say "I love you guys" to the folks helping us move whenever I felt like complaining. It was, in part, a way to maintain the whole positive framing thing. It also became a kind of running joke, once I explained what I was doing to our helpers. By the end of the day it became expected, whenever we encountered a particularly sucktastic obstacle, for me to say "I love you guys!" and then everyone laughed and the tension was broken.
From a casual observer's perspective, there was a lot of love flowing yesterday.
What I find really interesting is that, by the end of the day, I found myself wanting to say "I love you guys!" spontaneously, without an underlying complaint attached.