[Neurons] 2017 Neurons #51 The Attitude Conversation

Sun Nov 19 21:28:45 EST 2017

From: L. Michael Hall

2017 Neurons #51

Nov. 20, 2017

Conversations #6

THE ATTITUDE CONVERSATION

Do you ever talk about attitude with someone?  Do you ever long to have a
conversation about someone's attitude in order to help them develop a more
positive or constructive attitude?  If so, that's another one of those
"difficult conversations" that we often need to have, but don't.  Why not?
Typically a lot of people quickly get very defensive if you talk about their
attitude.  It seems personal.  It seems intimate.  And it seems foreboding.
To understand all of this, we have to understand what an attitude is, how we
create our attitudes, and how we can update them or change them.

The dictionary indicates that what we mean by an attitude is that it is a
disposition and position of mind, emotion, and body.  Ah, so we're dealing
with something that is systemic.  At the mental and emotional level it is a
disposition- an orientation of thinking and feeling.  And at the same time
it involves a physiological position.  In other words, it shows up in the
body.  An attitude is a whole piece.  It is an experience that we are
simultaneously developing and creating by what we are thinking, feeling, and
somatizing in our body.  That tells us a bit about how we create an
attitude.

For sake of understanding, let's pull these facets apart and talk about
them.  Then we can put them back together again as a systemic experience.
It begins with what you are thinking.  And in saying "thinking," this
includes what you are representing, understanding, giving meaning to,
semantically loading, valuing, etc.  In the next Neurons, I'll describe the
conversation itself.

If your attitude is determined, stubborn, or persistence- you are probably
thinking that something (X) is important, right, the way it should be, what
you should do, etc.   Think in that way, and then you probably feel focused,
excited, committed and that comes together as a determined or stubborn
attitude.  And with those thoughts and feelings, you probably tense your
body, focus your eyes, make firm your voice and take on the physiology of
determination. 

If your attiutde is one of hostility and aggression- you are probably
thinking that something is wrong, violates your values, not the way things
should go, hurtful, etc.  Think in that way and you probably are strongly
feeling frustrated, angry, upset, hurt, fear, etc.  and with those thoughts
and feelings, you are probably somatizing them in your body with a quickened
heart-beat, stress that shows up as muscular tension, tension in your
movements and throat, etc.  Now you look and sound "hostile" or aggressive.

If your attitude is one of gratitude, joy, and appreciation- you are
probably thinking that something is good, wonderful, delightful, the
fulfillment of your values, pleasurable, etc.  Think in those ways and you
are probably feeling contented, happy, joyful, delighted, loving, thankful,
etc.  Send those thoughts and feelings to your body to feel and your
physiology is probably relaxed with some muscle tension that you call
excited, you are smiling, eyes glistening, face relaxed and alert, body open
to others, perhaps humming a song, and rhythmically moving to it.

An attitude grows out of your thinking and emoting about something which
your body then actualizes and makes real in multiple expressions in your
physiology.  If this is your first time to think this, the emotion is new
and fresh and you are just finding your way to express it.  If you have been
doing this for a long, long time, the emotion is by this time your basic
mood.  Your body knows it and is beginning to default to that emotional
state.  Now it is your mood.  People know this about you, recognize it in
you.  And if you have done this for years- your body knows it so well, that
it has become an attitude.  Now it has dropped out of your awareness and you
no longer are consciously thinking and emoting, it is now automatic in your
body.

Thinking-Emoting ->              Emotional State           -> Attitude

An attitude then is a long-term habituated state that has been
well-conditioned into the body as its automatic and systematic response to
some regularity in life.  It has also become unconscious in that how you
create it and maintain it is now mostly outside-of-conscious awareness.
Today you are no longer mindful of what you are doing or how.  It is your
neuro-linguistic program for responding to something.

That's what it is.  We could say that every attitude that you have, you have
trained yourself thoroughly and systematically to develop it at a moment's
notice.  That makes it a pretty high level skill.  Now you are well-trained
and thoroughly skilled in accessing a stubborn attitude by just the word
"authority figure."  You are highly skilled to access an attitude of
joyfulness when you think about going dancing.   From this perspective we
could say that your attitudes are highly developed skills!  Your depression,
procrastination, obstinance, prejudice, hostility, etc. are highly developed
skills.

The next question is whether your attitude does you good or diminishes you?
Does it sabotage your best efforts to be successful?  Does it get in your
way of taking risks, learning, being more loving, etc.?  This is the ecology
question.  The attitudes that we bring to a situation are often the wrong
ones for that situation.  Now we ought to change it if we want to enjoy life
more or succeed in reaching an important objective.

This is where the attitude conversation comes in.  Now you have to make
conscious what has become unconscious, catch the process of how you create
the program in your neurology and physiology, back up to the thinking that's
created it, and do some reframing of the meanings that's driving the
attitude.  (More next week)

L. Michael Hall, Ph.D.

               Neuro-Semantics Executive Director 

               Neuro-Semantics International

P.O. Box 8

Clifton, CO. 81520 USA                             

               1 970-523-7877 

                    Dr. Hall's email:
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