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Attitude!!!

It's all about attitude. What do you think?

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Permalink Reply by lee kalpin on December 23, 2009 at 5:03pm

Think of ways to maintain your positive focus. For me, this has been to eliminate some negativity from my life, in the form of TV and newspapers. Most of the news is bad news! I am not totally ignorant of the world around me. I receive a weekly newsmagazine which gives a summary of the most important news of the week (national and international) but I avoid the daily repititions of shootings, robberies, rapes and muggings. Clients always tell me if there has been a hurricane or a tsunami but I don't have to see the frightening images over and over again.
Years ago my mother told me she couldn't sleep at night because she watched the 10 p.m news and the stories of wars and starvation upset her so much she couldn't sleep. I told her to watch the noon news (if she had to have news) and not to watch before bedtime.
We can control the amount of negativity coming into our lives.

lee kalpin said:

I like the way you have expressed this Laura. I want to take it one step further to discuss a positive mindset, being present in the moment - when we are in the treatment room with a client. My experience is that this is of the utmost importance!! If the therapist is not totally "present", the client can usually sense it. Clients may or may not realize what is happening, but on some level they do sense it. Negativity comes through to the client, either in the therapist's conversation or in the touch.
Before I enter a treatment room I stop briefly outside the door and take a few seconds in which to Centre myself. I take a few deep breaths, centre and ground myself, and consciously leave all my troubles and concerns outside of the treatment room so that I can be totally present for my client.

Laura Violet Slenzak said:
It is funny but I never use the word attitude. I like to think of it as keeping a positive mindset and outlook and being present in the moment and accepting the moment for what it is and being willing to accept that seeing things as good or bad is really a mental construct. Somehow, this way of viewing the world is very freeing, and liberating. I spent a long time not being able to do this and even now I sometimes struggle and feel myself lapsing into a negative mindset, but the more I work on it, I find the easier it is to take the world as it comes without fear or hesitation.