Is it All, or Nothing? Our Choice of Attitude Helps Determine Our Experience

Today I explored the opposing attitudes of Expansive vs. Narrow. It was an amazing day!  First, I woke to not being able to reply to folks who started “following” on Twitter by following these kindred souls in turn. Even though I had not reached a limit for following, I was mysteriously restricted from doing so: a contraction and narrowing of opportunity.  So, I went to the office and dealt with some restrictiveness there in my role as department chair. I accepted both of these, figuring that with some patience I could eventually work things out. I acted to query customer service about the Twitter constraint, and I worked on a needed document to try to ‘open’ a matter at the department. Then, I went to write; my real goal for the day.Everything shifted in my attitude.  The editing process expanded a chapter that was in need of a fix, and I found myself sitting next to a writing group whose members all had positive experiences to share around their writing. When I came home, I cleaned house a bit (another expansive experience), and when I checked email in the midst of cleaning, not only had the Twitter problem been resolved but there was actually an “offer to publish your blog as a paperback”! We’ll see what happens, but what matters here is that I experienced the clear difference between the effects of two opposing attitudes. By remaining neutral about the ‘negative’ side rather than reacting by ‘closing’ my heart, I was able to shift to the positive, and then it felt like the universe Itself followed suit! This demonstrates the Law of Attitudes, which is such an important aspect of creating Better Endings in our lives, yes?

With my life mapping interviews and coaching, I have seen how two people might experience very similar life experiences, yet their attitudes can lead them to very opposite responses which have very different consequences in their lives. John (pseudonyms used), for example, was an author who had felt “paralyzed” in his life since a car accident that followed a series of losses and setbacks in his life. Doctors had not found anything medically wrong. John’s Life Metaphor (his answer to ‘What is a human lifetime like?) was: “A tree stuck in the mud beside a flowing stream.” Ever since a romantic failure, every event John recorded in his Life Map seemed to dig for him a deeper and deeper hole that he had fallen into. John arrived at a fatalistic view of life, and all of his experiences appeared to validate that point of view.

Then there was Ambrosia. She had been dealing with a chronic intestinal condition for many years. With one outbreak, her condition was so dire that she ended up in a hospital. It was touch and go one night at the hospital whether she would live until the morning. As part of the life mapping process, I ask people to rate the relative impact of significant events in their lives, from “-5” to “+5” (or, one event could be rated as both positive or negative in its impact on “the person you have become”). When I asked Ambrosia to rate her critical night at the hospital, immediately she exclaimed, “+5!”

       “But, why?” I asked, mystified.

Ambrosia told me of how she had experienced a profound vision, like a Near Death Experience, that night at the hospital. An Inner Guide appeared to her and told her she could leave (pass on) if she chose to, but he told her there was much she could still accomplish in her life if she chose to stay.

Ambrosia told her Guide that she would only stay, “If I could get back the passion for life I used to have.”

      “You can!” he said.

      “All that glitters is not Gold,” Ambrosia said to her Inner Guide.

      “That is true; But anything CAN be,” was his sage reply.

      “Okay, then,” she said to him, and then she awoke.

After that night, Ambrosia survived and, gradually, she healed. She did regain the “Passion for Life” she sought, returning to school for two advanced degrees since then and becoming a leader in her local spiritual community for several years.

John and Ambrosia have come to symbolize for me how attitudes can determine the “flow” of life experience.  Quite often I find with these and other life mapping cases that people can experience a Sea Change in their life patterns when they allow themselves to shift their Attitude about life overall.

How? You may ask. Look in your own life for more examples. (Of course, feel free to share your stories here, if you’d like!)

I do find that almost always, a major positive shift in life pattern follows a profound change in OUTLOOK, whether from something like Ambrosia’s NDE or from a conscious move in a new direction; a choice to create a new condition.

Better Endings to You, Now and Always! – Linda

Shifting Attitudes for Better Endings

I began this blog site three months ago around a simple, fun concept of Better Endings. How might we change a movie ending or a story to a more desirable outcome? How might King Kong finally survive, “this time”? That simple concept turns out to be neither so simple nor mundane, after all. If we can change a Story, we can change a Life (Story), especially our own!

So, week by week, we have been applying Better Endings here to topics ranging from better movie endings, to revisionist history, to revising our own personal decisions or to changing our night dreams so we can realize our Dreams.

Somewhere along this journey, already, especially as more of you have been joining in on the adventure, we have discovered that Better Endings is more than a fun concept to flirt with. It is a creative principle we can draw upon to help us move from any one state of affairs, conditions, or fixed perspectives to another, more flexible position that allows us to grow, to expand our reach, and to transform our outlooks to embrace creative solutions for difficult or apparently ‘stuck’ situations.

This week’s topic is Attitudes. Let’s explore the open terrain of how our sometimes mixed or conflicting attitudes can shape or interfere with our experience. We can share stories about how shifting an attitude can transform our view of some aspect of our lives and can potentially transform our own outcomes.

With this week, Better Endings will exceed its first 100 blog posts. At this stage, I want to thank all of you readers and ‘follower’-Readers and contributors to this site for your excellent comments and great posts of your own that you have contributed or have allowed me to re-blog here.

I invite you to share your stories, insights and comments about Attitudes this week. Have you had an experience where you found that just by slightly changing your point of view on a subject, everything about that experience changed?

I am especially thinking about “paired (or, opposing) attitudes” as I look at our topic this week.  I’ll share a list of these tomorrow, but think about it. One attitude always seems to be paired with an opposite point of view.  Some would say this is due to the “duality” we deal with in the nature of human consciousness.

For myself as a starting example, I find lately that I sometimes vacillate between the two attitudes of Impatience and Contentment. If I focus on one end of this spectrum, Impatience, I feel like I will never reach the goals I have set for myself, for example, with a major editing project within which I am now enveloped. However, when I shift my attention to think about how much I gain from immersing in something I love–the very same writing project–I find I am content with where the process is at right Now, in the Moment. Then I wouldn’t change anything, no matter what the results might be, or not, down the road. I realize how fortunate I am, as well, to be writing this blog every day and to have found that there are people, other bloggers and other blogs, and Twitter or Facebook readers, et. al., who actually form a ‘cyber’-community of ardent people sharing ideas and authentic communication!

So, let’s–for any of you who feel like joining in–plant some soul-seeds this week around the topic of Shifting Attitudes. If this topic lights up a story or an example for you, please feel free to share it with us. (You will always keep copyright for your ideas posted in this blog, of course, and I will publish an author’s byline and bio for you with contact information.)

P.S.: I grew up with the Beatles! This week in honor of their 50th Anniversary since their USA appearances, all Quotes of the week are by them, so feel free to send some Beatles lyrics that relate to Better Attitudes.

Better Endings to You! –Linda