We actually have that written on our Washington chalkboard right now. Joshua put it there one night when we were talking. We had been chatting about some people at work that were frustrating us and how hard it was to talk with them at times. And somehow we both kind of said the same thing at once so he wrote it on the board so we won't forget.
It is amazing how much it has actually affected both of us. We now remind each other in the mornings and check back again at the end of the day.
Writing it in a visible place has made it more apparent and somehow made it a goal instead of just a little discussion we had one night.
It's not really fake it til you make it, which the saying may come off like at first it is more of a - give it a chance to be different and enter into it positively and with love.
The meaning of it is that sometimes our previous conversations with people made it hard to start the next one beacuse they seem to just keep going the same way- badly, but when we started smiling and making sure we didn't bring our tone down to theirs we found that we weren't avoiding talking to those people, and the conversations didn't put us in bad moods, and the other person tended to start reciprocating more often. Making sure our face wasn't a blank stare to those frustrating and sometimes dememeaning people at work actually has changed how our overall days feel sometimes. Trying to love them again every conversation is challenging but I can't believe how much better it has all been, or at the least it gets Joshua and I to discuss how we're doing and feeling about it every day.
I love that we've made this challenge for ourselves and it is amazing to see how big of a difference putting yourself and past conversations aside can make. I know this isn't a huge revelation but at the same time I feel like we often forget that focusing on things like this can acually bring about a difference and bring about good conversations, so I just thought I'd share.
