Attitude

"You need to change your attitude young lady!"
I hated hearing that. Every time I hear it about to come out of my mouth I change the phrase. Not the meaning necessarily but I've never uttered those words in that order.

Every time I heard them as a adolescent, child, teen, young adult whatever, I never understood what it meant. I have very real memories of thinking and even asking when young and sincere then older in insolent, "What does that mean? Change my attitude? How?"

Don't you remember feeling so passionate that words couldn't express all those thoughts, ideas, feelings, worries, desires, needs, hopes, fears? I remember being so weighed down by what was happening in me and around me that I thought I'd either implode and suck reality into the black hole of myself or explode and paint the walls and ceiling with my soft matter. Violent and dramatic but real to me, my young and passionate self.

I always ask my student teachers to quest around the memory banks and find who they were while in high school. (For most of them it is less than a handful of years to bypass in the memory.)  I also ask them to think about what their drama-mates were like. Who their teachers were. What kinds of interactions did they have? To really consider what moments in time were world-rockers, ground-shakers, attitude shifters. Grab those moments, memories and use those phrases, thoughts, emotions to create those moments for their own students. When you see a student leaning on the self destruct button, dig deep.

I've had a bit of an attitude adjustment this week myself. I had a rough patch and needed my ground shaken a bit. I was casting my crumminess about with little results then was gently and probably unintentionally tweaked into remembering what I'm about. It wasn't what he said it was how it was said. It wasn't a probing assault, it was a sincere mirror held up before me reflecting myself 10 months or a year ago, back upon me. I recognized who I work so hard to be and thought, I know how to be that! But I'm a adult I have years of self for reference. While my students feel grown and independent (I remember it so well.) they don't have wisdom.

One conversation, a few hours reflection, a good night's sleep, and I know my emotional keel will hold steady for a while. If not, I have a collection of people who I look to for perspective adjustments when necessary. My students deserve people in their lives who have the compassion to listen and nudge or when necessary diffuse like a bomb. Can I do that? Do I? Can it be taught? I try.