or to put it in a positive light: Praise, Uplift, Delight (as I have as my profile picture on Facebook). One thing I learned when my kids were younger was to phrase things in a positive light: “keep the milk in your cup” instead of “don’t spill your milk” or “play gently with your friends/siblings” instead of “don’t hit!” The thoughts there are that negatives are not processed in the same way. That what is heard is “spill the milk” or “hitting is a good thing!”

My faith community, Tree of Life Community: A UU Congregation, is talking about this very thing this month. Jerry Brinkman made this philosophy of Dale Carnegie his own. He recently passed away as the young age of 83. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him: those at TLCUU, those from the old St. Agnes parish he was a part of for many years, his loving family, his multitude of friends and the community at large. He was wonderful man and someone to admire. Jerry wouldn’t like us to say that about him as he was also very humble.

Some of us are working on keep that feeling alive and are taking on the challenge of praising, uplifting and delighting and seeing how long it takes us to get to 21 days. One thing that is important to note: thoughts don’t count; verbalizing them does. Mary, my pastor, talked about the minister that was the inspiration behind this. You can find more information at this website: Complaint Free World. It is very intriguing. I believe Mary has ordered some bracelets for us to wear. I am using one of my own for the time being.

What I want to discuss, either here or on my Facebook (Facebook will be easier), is the line between statements of fact and condemning, criticizing and complaining. Stating to a child (yes, I have one in mind), “Your side of the room is a pigsty with your clothes all over the floor!” is criticizing. Stating, “Please clean up your clothes” is not praising or delighting but certainly is not a negative thing either.

Relaying a story to a friend or a parent about an interaction with someone can just be a statement of fact, as long as you leave out condemnation, right? What about if you were angry or frustrated at the time of the interaction? Stating the facts, as you saw them, without saying, “And can you believe how they responded??” is just a discussion. Discussing interactions that cause you heartache, or just bring you grief, can help you understand how you reacted, how you could have reacted differently or even make you realize you are really not the crazy one (or at least not in that particular situation).

I think looking at how we communicate with everyone, whether it be a child, a spouse, a co-worker, a manager or someone you manage, is good for all of us. So many of us are seemingly completely unaware of our tone of voice, of how we sound when we answer the phone, of our constant sighing when we are responding to someone. However, other people notice it; especially the one/s we always communicate with in such a negative way.

Even our self-talk is important. Someone pointed out they made a mistake in getting to a destination and she was down on herself. She then realized she would not have been thinking those thoughts if someone else had been driving. So what? She drove two blocks out of her way. It was not that big of a deal. We all do it. “That was stupid of me!” “I am an idiot. Why did I do that?”  Thankfully, self talk (as long as it is not verbalized) doesn’t count against us in this exercise.

We do need to talk about negative things. Things that make us angry. Things that make us sad. We need to bring up behaviors of others that need to be changed for a variety of reasons: you drive too fast and recklessly, not studying will cause you to fail that class and not get into the college of your choice, your lack of customer service will cost you your job or that promotion you were hoping to get, etc. It is HOW we communicate those things with others is important.

Who else is up for the challenge? Who wants to discuss the line between relating an event and criticizing? Personally, I think when I relayed a story at the coffee shop last night, I did a good job of doing it without complaining, condemning or criticizing (well, at least one of the stories!) even though the story I was relaying had made me very angry. While we can’t always praise, uplift and delight in every situation, we can certainly work on not being mean and negative.

I would love to hear your thoughts. Really. Just no complaining, condemning or criticizing. Oh, I am putting my bracelet back on!