Consider a visit to the shoe store. The sales person has the ubiquitous complaint about the economy--just another expression of woe in the face of a constant bombardment of worries and woes.

Let's say your natural inclination is to join with the complainer and commiserate. You habitually want to be a good listener and provide a sympathetic response.

Now, let's watch what happens when you choose a different response. Perhaps you experience an initial twang of guilt and self-accusation that you are being unsympathetic. But out of a choice to respond in a non-habitual way, a world of different possibility opens up. By consciously choosing to respond from the brighter side and a positive perspective, two new things can potentially happen:

1. You may find yourself embodying a lightness of being vs. sharing the burden of heaviness.

2. Interrupting the pattern of the complainer may plant a positive seed in the future.