The way I know to articulate this is that what I feel is the emotional response to something I take in. My attitude is the emotional undergirding of what I give back. This distinction matters.
The first, feeling, is my natural response. It's not something I can control and shouldn't be something I dictate. And, in truth to myself, it is healthy to have feelings along a broad spectrum of emotion. Happy, scared, excited, angry ... all valid emotions.
The second, attitude, is the heart behind the stuff people see. What they see is demeanor, posture, tone, etc. But, it's not enough to not look a certain way, I need to not be that way. I needed to assess the heart behind what I am giving back. Not just what I say, but what I mean. Not just hitting the "right tone" in how I say something, but taking a look at what I mean to communicate.
What I found when I looked at all this was that I didn't particularly like some of the attitude I had. I was a bit chagrined to realize that, under the umbrella of "I don't feel good," "I feel overworked," or whatever, I've been putting out less of the good stuff of relationships and more of the bad stuff. I'm not so far gone that I needed a complete overhaul, but I did need to recalibrate on some things.
And I did .... It took a little while, but I got there. I'm on the look out for how I might need to make more adjustments, but, I think I'm headed in the right direction. And, as life and this wonderful heart and soul would have it, once I started adjusting what I was giving back to others, I felt better about what I was taking in.
