Emily,

When you visit your brother you tend to talk about yourself and what bothers you right? Or your thoughts go into the direction of being critical, even in a joke. Well, would you like to have someone come to your gathering and do that?

When someone has a gathering they put effort into it, they make the house look nice, they clean things up, they decorate and spend time thinking about the meal they make. So, it's important to look around and "notice" the effort and make it a point to compliment and how you appreciate their effort. As soon as you come into another person's world look around to see what you can point out that is nice about that other person's world, their house color, their clean yard, even their car looks nice if you happen to know they are a semi car buff.

What you want to do when you are invited somewhere is to leave that other person feeling "glad" they invited you. If there is someone at the table that doesn't have nice eating manners, "not your issue", find something else to focus on that can be a positive. When that woman expressed sadness about having to put her cat down, no matter how long ago that was, acknowledge that I am sorry that you went through that too and it is such a sad memory but I am sure you loved that cat and gave him a good home and a good life and he was SO lucky to have that.

So, keep in mind that when you are invited anywhere, think about what you can do and say where when you leave the people you leave them feeling good about themselves and are glad they invited you because you bring "good tidings" to them. Start training yourself to really look at the "efforts" others put into things and make it a point to show appreciation.