How can we promote happiness in our environment? Gratitude could very well be the key.

Because many of us may lead busy and stressful lives that barely give us quality time to spend with our loved ones, we tend to forget that having them in our lives is a blessing. In other words, we focus on the negative instead of the positive, and that makes us surly… which in turn, can make those around us become dour.

But if we consider positive aspects in our lives, then the time we get to spend with our families is a gift instead of a burden. Being grateful for this gift -and honestly so- can be a way of approaching and improving the world around us, and it is a value that we should share with our loved ones.

We live in a society where we are constantly bombarded with the idea that we should feel entitled to having everything and where the rule of thumb is always wanting more. Yet wanting more never made anybody happier and in fact, is a constant cause of anxiety and frustration. On the other hand, there are studies proving that gratefulness brings about more personal satisfaction and a deep sense of well-being.

If for instance you are married and have children, it would be a good idea to instill gratitude in them through little actions, such as asking them to tell you about the good things that happened to them each day, or by allowing them to lead the prayer before dinner and asking them to state something the whole family should be glad about. It’s your own practice of a grateful attitude which will set the pace in your environment, when you share the daily events you feel grateful for.

Besides, this positive environment with less critique and more appreciation makes children more sympathetic and caring.

You could also try being more appreciative towards your spouse. Sometimes, precisely because we see them every day, we become oblivious to how lucky we are to be able to spend time with our chosen life partners! We go the way of entitlement and take them for granted. Remember why you married that person, what led you to choose them, and what led them to choose you.

Remind him too of all the good old things and the good new things. Has she changed any old habit that you were not exactly thrilled about when you met? Thank her for it. Did he take out the garbage without being asked to? Tell him how much you appreciate it. Share with him the idea of instilling gratefulness in your children, which is bound to open a discussion about the benefits this can have in them and in you two as a couple.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.We can begin by you having a complimentary consultation (by clicking here), with a plan for action to change your life with new skills included. Just click this link and get started now!

Technorati Tags: appreciation, attitude change, conflict resolution, emotions, feelings, forgiveness, Healthy Marriage, healthy relationships, love, Resistance

Every day, we come into contact with people that are walking emotional bundles. They carry the weight of past experiences with them, framing their present experiences as well as whatever wrong assumptions about life they have gained from those hurts.

Their previous experiences have conditioned them, from childhood on, to see the world as a dangerous place, full of treacherous people and pregnant with risk. It’s best not to trust anybody! Because of this frame of reference, they can’t keep an open and trusting attitude about interpersonal interactions.

When you think about dealing with people like this, it is easy to see why they are called difficult people or difficult relationships. They are scared, resistant to trust others or directly rejecting cooperation out of mistrust.

Are they the walking wounded? You bet! The best way of framing this interaction is to see them as non-mature people (regardless of their age), that act as wounded children. They sulk, are easily frustrated and upset, get paranoid when given feedback and in general show a reduced ability to work with others in shared projects.

What is the next step, once you’ve realized that you’re dealing with a difficult person?

Don’t take their behavior personally. Their troublesome behavior is their own way of reacting to life, was there before you, and is directed to everybody they come into contact with.

Don’t fight back or try to beat them at their own games. They are consummate artists who have been practicing their skills for a lifetime, so don’t get into responding fire with fire. You will merely be showing them that dealing with other people is too complicated to handle.

Don’t give in to unreasonable requests. If you give them what they want just to appease them or put them in a good mood, they will request more and more later.

Don’t try to change them, you are not their parents/therapist or significant other.

Well, wait. Did we just tell you what NOT to do? Yes. Because in a situation like this, there is really only one thing you CAN do, and have a healthy outcome.

It’s this:

You can only change your responses to their behavior, not the behavior itself. In doing so, and doing it consistently and firmly, they will begin to recognize a cause and effect trend. I.e., if I push someone away in this way, the result is this. Or, if I demand this, I get that.

So, the bottom line is that you have to have a clear idea of what you stand for, tell people your position in a calm, clear way, walking away when they use intimidation, guilt or abuse to get you to do what you don’t consider appropriate for your place in the relationship and all the time avoiding getting emotionally involved.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today,by reading the ebook: Passive Aggressive Workplace.

Technorati Tags: anger, attitude change, conflict, conflict resolution, control, critique, frustration, humiliation, negative emotions, passive aggression, rejection, resentment, Resistance

Perhaps you think that there is very little to be done, and you are reduced to walk on eggshells around this person, trying to prevent even more damage…and this limited thinking has you concerned and frustrated.

This thought is produced by the contrast we usually have in the back of our minds…”It is better to put up with this behavior and not to have an all out confrontation full of anger….” For some reason we have been conditioned to avoid any kind of open confrontation, even the healthy ones, and to try to keep up with a forced situation that doesn’t deserve to be called “peace,” but an angry truce.

Let’s go back to the basic situation, where you are a team leader, or a manager, and you have someone in your team behaving in this way. Of course, you know that this person is immature, that his PA behavior is a defense mechanism, and all that. Anyhow, this person is not responding to you!

Now, it becomes really personal…and you shift from an outsider’s view to a very interested insider, because the action is against you or your interests…

You suddenly realize that the passive aggressive person’s goal is an attempt to control his environment, meaning by that you and your responses.

How do you realize that? See this story: a person employed for 5 years which fits the definition of passive aggressive.

When the manager would ask him a question that required immediate attention, he wouldn’t respond or look at the boss; he would sit and continue to do whatever he was doing for a long time, from seconds to minutes, for as long as the manager would be willing to wait for his answer.

If the manager interpreted this behavior as an attempt to control, his response after waiting too many times for an answer and spending time analyzing the motivation was: “to get in his face.”

If he didn’t answer after an acceptable time to any yes or no question, the manager would ask, “Is that a yes or no?” in an aggressive tone. He would quickly answer the question with kindness and the manager would move on to other tasks.

Conclusion; the only way to get answers out of a passive aggressive that plays this game is not waiting, (this would be akin to letting him lead the game) but repeating your question as if you didn’t think they heard it.

A leader’s purpose here is to avoid getting embroiled in the PA person’s attempt to make him wait “up in the air” for as long as he wants…with no real reason, but a subjective one only valid for him.

This answer is not a cure for all passive aggressive behavior, but a way to put some institutional limits to a very disruptive behavior which- somehow- could be interpreted as a hidden sabotage of the team leader’s project.

Technorati Tags: control, cooperation, frustration, passive aggressive employee, Resistance, Silence, solution

Dealing with passive-aggressive behavior is extremely challenging because a really good, effective passive aggressive behavior is very slippery. Often you may not be sure if you have been the victim of passive aggressive behavior-or not. You may be feeling angry and upset, feeling as if being hit by the metaphorical bus, but not sure of where from the blow came or who is responsible?

Can it only be a series of casual events, no bad intentions from anyone, only “bad luck”?  Or there is something else? And how can you tell the difference?

 One way to identify it is to look for patterns in someone’s behavior – not just isolated incidents.

 This is a couple, Robert and Tina, who for different reasons need to share the family car. They take turns using it for different appointments and errands. For instance, if Robert generally is dependable and is home on time for Tina to attend her meetings, the one “miss” may not be motivated by passive-aggression, can be only heavy traffic in his way home…

However, if he often only manages to get home so late that it sabotages Tina’s attendance to a particular event (her therapy sessions or her female friends’ group monthly dinner) while denying he is intending to do so, a behavioral pattern is emerging.

Patterns are ways of making the hidden obvious….if one person is always sick when a heavy task is due, then we have consistency in the fact that such person is escaping one of his duties!

Another way is to check your own feelings: even when this person protests that he/she is invested and happy to do be with you, and wants to help you, something is wrong, because you don’t feel any emotional connection, or the feelings promised in his words. If he says that he wants to help you, probably you should feel cared for, etc.

In reality, you don’t experience the feeling of being secure in his promise, or trusting his words and actions or the glow of a reciprocally supportive relationship.

Patterns and feelings are two indicators. Perhaps you already know, and don’t need more information about how to identify a passive aggressive husband…you have him in your own house. This is the “direct experience” indicator.

 When you put two and two together, and get to the inevitable conclusion that this is not an equal partnership, you are astonished at thinking: “after all this time, why I have to tell him what needs to be done?  Isn’t this his marriage too?”

 Your reaction is produced by your frustration, your tiredness at repeating the same arguments over and over again, and your realization that you keep doing 90% of the total share of work.

Finally, you are looking around asking: what is he doing here? Does he belong here? If I do carry all the weight here, what is his role, and why is he tagging along and piggybacking on my efforts?

STOP! You are processing all your reactions alone, inside yourself and generating a toxic feeling of overwhelm and extreme isolation. Perhaps because you tried to explain to him before, and it never worked? 

Living with a partner who exhibits this behavior is very difficult, and probably now your question, after observing patterns and feelings and looking at your direct experience  is:  Are there other resources? Tools? Tactics to prevent this behavior?   

We are researching a set of tactics to manage this frustrating situation better. Next time we will share one of them will you.

Technorati Tags: frustration, loneliness, partner, Resistance, responsibility, signals of passive aggression

Are some conversations with your hubby leaving you feeling emotionally drained, dejected, and utterly confused?  Do you received the message “I love you” while at the same time he/she is sabotaging your best efforts to do positive things for the couple?  

This is maddening, and you need to know what is going on….because being in this confusion can damage your confidence and self-esteem.

Constant, stubborn passive aggressive behavior can take its toll on you, slowly altering your personality, until you barely recognize your own self.

You feel isolated, perhaps you might cry or yell more often than before, and perhaps you could feel completely out of control.  

What are the main aspects of passive aggressive behavior?

- Unexpected, unprovoked anger attacks, not related to the issue being discussed

- Isolating or rejecting you without an obvious reason

- Stopping you from expressing your feelings or ignoring them

- Preventing you from getting your family or friends’ support

- Showing sensitivity and caring one minute; hostile and resentful the next.

  In order to understand what is going on, what you need to look for is not the occasional response that blocks cooperation while saying that it is forthcoming, but look for the passive-aggressive behavior which is ingrained and the habitual way of dealing with the world, you included.

Every time you suggest something, and you can do this exercise only to test his answer, watch how he never will say: wonderful, let’s do it! Instead, he will edge and haw, give evasive comments and change the conversation….or asks from you about something not related, (like the weather or the time) only to throw you off.  

More: if you push and ask about the meaning of his communicative behavior, what you will get is a maddening mixture of evasiveness and contrition, agreeableness and resistance, connection and aloofness.

If all of this fails, he will show himself being severely depressed, which leaves you in the same place!  

The classic description of passive aggressive behavior includes a “stubborn malcontent, someone who passively resists fulfilling routine tasks, complains of being misunderstood and underappreciated, unreasonably scorns authority and voices exaggerated complaints of personal misfortune.”

Sometimes you can even perceive him as doing a very sly, covert sabotaging of all your plans to move ahead, progress and develop new experiences for both, so scared this person is of change and your role in any change happening to him/her.

Do you plan to enroll his help losing weight? Then he will invite you to dine out, at a good pizza place!  If you push a lot, then you will be served with aggressive outbursts, coming like “out of nowhere,” but destined to protect his personality from any adult challenge needing his response.  

Do you need to know more? If you think passive aggressive behavior is the cause of your unhappy situation there are steps you can take to resolve it. 

Perhaps you need to get a copy of my ebook,  which will give you strategies to respond to Passive Aggressive tactics! If you are ready to break free of the chains of passive aggressive emotional bondage, if you are tired of feeling humiliated and alone, if you are ready to take control of your emotional well-being once and for all, then this e-book is for you.

Neil Warner

I’m the “relationship guru,” and my main focus is to increase the quality of love-based relationship experiences. In this ground-breaking guide I offer useful strategies on healing a difficult angry relationship with love and compassion. You don’t have to stay in an unhealthy relationship one more minute. Let us share our tools with you today.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/marriage-articles/recognize-passive-aggressive-before-it-destroys-your-sanity-467359.html 

Technorati Tags: Anger Attacks, Cold Shoulder, loneliness, love, Passive Aggresive Behavior, passive aggression, passive aggressive, rejection, Resistance, Sabotage, Silence, Unhappiness