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First published on KSL.COM
SALT LAKE CITY — Amid the uncertainty brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and recent Utah earthquake, it is important to understand that fear about our own safety can create selfish behavior. Humans who are afraid often succumb to a self-preservation mindset, which can make them behave badly. They might even do things like buying up all the available toilet paper and leave none for anyone else, and we are seeing examples of this fear-driven behavior all around us. Fear makes other people feel like a threat to your safety and well-being (on the subconscious level). This can cause us to see others as the enemy, and we might be quick to judge or criticize them too. Watching this behavior play out all around us helps us to better understand this interesting human tendency and how this behavior might show up in our daily lives, even when there is no emergency. Every day, we get triggered by fear in all kinds of situations, and this can create selfishness too. As a human behavior expert, I think it might be helpful to understand how and why this happens. 2 core fears I believe there are two core fears that are responsible for almost all of our bad behavior:
Whenever you are having a loss experience like this, your ego will step up to protect you and other people’s needs will become much less important. Whenever you are afraid of being mistreated or stressed that things might go wrong, you experience fear of loss. This fear can also make you distrustful of other people, and you might become controlling as a way to feel safer. Fear of failure is easier to understand. It is the fear of looking bad, being judged, being criticized or feeling not good enough. Any time you feel insecure, unattractive or stupid, you are having a fear of failure experience. Which is your biggest core fear? Both of the two core fears affect you (and every human on the planet) to some degree, every day. We all experience both of them but are each dominant in one. Take a minute and decide which is a bigger issue for you. Are you more insecure and worried about judgment or criticism from others? A people pleaser? If so, you’re probably fear-of-failure dominant. Are you more controlling, pushy and critical if things aren’t right around you? If so, you’re probably fear-of-loss dominant. It is helpful to know which is your core fear because this is the trigger that drives your bad behavior and selfishness. How fear of failure drives selfishness in relationships When you are afraid you aren’t good enough, you can become overly needy for validation and reassurance to quiet your insecurity. You may get easily offended by anything that looks or feels like criticism or attack. In this state, your focus won’t be on giving love and validation, it will be on getting the reassurance you need to quiet your fear. People who suffer greatly from low self-esteem often can’t see the selfishness in their needy behavior. They can’t see that worrying about being accepted is still focused on themselves. They might also make their loved ones feel responsible for their self-esteem and sense of safety in the world, which is unfair and won’t work. It is impossible to give an insecure person enough validation to make up for their own belief that they aren’t good enough. If your spouse or partner expects you to validate them enough to cure their fear of failure, they are setting you up to fail. If you are in a relationship with someone who is overly insecure, this might also start to feel like a great burden to carry; you may even start to resent them for being so needy. If this kind of selfishness shows up in your relationship, work on changing your belief that a human can be "not good enough." You would benefit most from some coaching on changing your beliefs on how human value is determined and on seeing all humans as having unchangeable value all the time. This is the only way to quiet the fear. You must trust that you have the same value as everyone else on the planet, no matter what you do. When a person gets committed to this new belief, they should be less needy and have more love to give. How fear of loss drives selfishness in relationships When you are afraid you aren’t safe in the world, every situation and every person can feel like a threat to your safety. You may become overly controlling, opinionated and/or dominating as a way to make the world feel safer. If you can make or force everything to be right, and you are always right about everything, you would feel safer. This behavior can look like you always need things done your way, that you’re constantly on the lookout for mistreatment, and you’re struggling to put up with behavior that bothers you. If you are in a relationship with a person whose fear creates this kind of behavior, you might feel like you’re walking on eggshells trying not to offend them. Everything in the relationship is centered on keeping them happy. This also wears on relationships and can push people away from you. If this kind of selfishness shows up in your relationship, what is really needed is to work on changing your belief that your journey can be ruined or diminished by other people. Play with the idea that God and/or the universe are working with the choices we all make to create the perfect classroom journey for each of us, every day. See how it feels if you believe that everything you experience is here to bless you, serve you and help you grow. If everything is a blessing, then there is no loss. It is a radical idea, but just as likely true as believing in chaos. When you see the world as on your side and safe, you will have more love for others and bandwidth for making them happy too. Grow and serve During this season of pandemics and earthquakes, we can all benefit from trusting that our value can’t change, failure isn’t on the table, and that the universe is sending this experience to grow us and serve us. When we trust we are safe — that there is order, meaning and purpose in these unusual experiences — we will be more capable of thinking about others, and our selfishness should decrease. Even though hoarding toilet paper made you (your ego) feel safer, reaching out to your neighbors to see if they need any toilet paper would make you feel even better. Love is more rewarding than safety. You can do this.
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This was first published on KSL.COM
SALT LAKE CITY — This week I have been thinking a lot about perception and the way you see every situation in your life. Perception is defined as the act of being aware, recognizing, discerning or understanding things. But the problem with human perception, according to human behavior expert Beau Lotto, in his book "Deviate," is that our brains were not wired to perceive accurately. They were wired to process the world efficiently, and this means you use the past to make assumptions about the present, so it’s easier and faster to understand things. Everything you have experienced in your past becomes a filter or lens through which you see everything that happens now. You don’t see the world as it is; you see the world as you are. You are constantly projecting what you think you know from your past experiences onto the present, even though many of those assumptions or beliefs aren’t true. A common assumption learned in childhood is "It’s safer to stay quiet and not talk about things." This may seem true to you if your trying to communicate in the past led to conflict and made you feel unsafe, but there is a cost when you don’t talk about what bothers you. If you accept that your perceptions might not be accurate, then you have the power to question them. If you are open to other meanings and beliefs and questioning the way you see each situation, you will have the power to choose meanings or beliefs that serve you better and process your life in a more mature way. Here are a few of the most common projections that cause misperception and problems in your life: 1. Perception of others comes from projections of yourself Your perception of other people and who they are comes from you projecting the way you feel about yourself (and your own value) onto them. If you have accepted a belief (created from past experiences) that you might not be good enough, you can’t help but project that belief onto other people and see them as not good enough, too. The more fears of inadequacy you have, the more you will be prone to judge, condemn, criticize and even reject other people. If you are prone to gossip or fault finding, you might be projecting your own insecurity or self-hate onto another person, causing you to see them as flawed too. Whatever level of flaws and faults you think you possess, you will see others as equally flawed. 2. Perception of yourself comes from projections you see in others Your perception of yourself and your value comes from projecting how you view other people back onto the way you feel about you. The previous point was the exact opposite, so you might be thinking: How can these both be true? Well, they are inexplicably tied together because it goes both ways. If you grew up in a family that was often critical of other people and you learned to be judgmental, you will project this judgmental attitude back onto yourself, too. You will be more self-critical and blame yourself when things go wrong. The bottom line is, it is impossible to have good self-esteem if you judge other people as not good enough. To fix these first two projections: You should choose a new belief (assumption) that all human beings are created equal. The belief that all human beings are created by a divine or higher power — and therefore perfect and guiltless students in the classroom of life with infinite, absolute, unchangeable value — allows you to see everyone as "good enough" all the time. This means it is impossible to be "not good enough," and both you and others have nothing to fear. This will require practice, though, to consistently choose this new belief. But the more you do it, the easier it will get. 3. Perception of what others think comes from projections of yourself Your perception of what other people think about you comes from you projecting the way you feel about yourself (and your own value) onto them. If you have accepted a belief that you might not be good enough, you will assume other people think you aren’t good enough, too. You might add this meaning to whatever they do or say and always think they are criticizing or judging you. To fix this: Practice choosing to believe that what other people think of you is none of your business and completely irrelevant. Also, remember that what you think they think of you is usually wrong. They are actually so busy worrying about themselves, they don’t think about you very much at all. Finally, they don’t know you and what’s in your heart. If they judge or criticize you, remember they are only projecting how they feel about themselves onto you, and that isn’t about you at all. 4. Perception of God can come from how you see your parents Your perception of God might come from the way you saw and experienced your actual parents. If you felt safe and unconditionally loved by your mom and dad, you are more likely to see God as having a similar love for you. But if you felt unsafe or struggled to earn your parent’s approval, or were often punished or even abused, you might see God as scary and very hard to please. Take a minute and reflect on how you felt about your actual parents. Is there any chance you could have projected those feelings onto God and might be seeing him the same way? Because we cannot actually meet God and have firsthand knowledge of who he is, everything we believe about him will always be just belief (not fact). If your actual parents were selfish, emotional or out of balance, you might have a really skewed perception of God, and this can create a lot of fear of loss in your life. To fix this: Choose a belief about God and that helps you more than it hurts you. You might choose to believe he is more loving and forgiving than angry and vengeful. Choose to see him as the essence of perfect love and trust that you are safe in his hands all the time. If you don’t consciously choose a belief and perception about God, you will subconsciously choose one based in fear. Choose a belief that serves you and makes you feel more loved. 5. Perception of safety can come from your childhood experiences Your perception of life and your safety is a projection from whatever you saw, experienced or heard as a small child. Inevitably you saw or experienced some bad things that probably created the assumption that you are not safe in this world. You probably perceive the world to be a scary, unsafe place where you have to be vigilant about protecting yourself from other people who could take from you. This might make you quick to be offended or to feel taken from, and this could create a lot of conflict in your relationships. To fix this: You have to choose a belief that life is safe all the time. Choose to trust God (or a higher power) that there is order in the universe and every experience is here for your good and is the perfect classroom for you at this time. Choose to believe that nothing exists God did not create, therefore there is nothing that isn’t perfect and here to serve you. Choosing these beliefs makes life look safer, and you will get offended and bothered less often. Understand that everything you see and feel comes from your projecting your past onto it. This can help you to question your beliefs and give you the power to reframe the present in a more helpful way. If you find yourself often unbalanced, upset or stressed out by life, this may be something you want to hire a coach or counselor to help you with. Coaching to change your subconscious beliefs is the fastest way to change your behavior and the way you feel about your life. You can do this. This was first published on KSL.COM
SALT LAKE CITY — Watching the news as the coronavirus spreads across Asia, Europe, and now the United States, along with the growing fear about a worldwide pandemic it brings, an interesting truth came to light: We are all connected, more than we realize. This realization could help us repair one of the most damaging subconscious tendencies in our human nature: The belief in separation and changeable value. We all have a subconscious belief that we are separate from other people, which makes us feel different from, better or worse than, others. We all also suffer from a subconscious fear that we might not be good enough and a belief that human value can be earned, which makes us compare ourselves with other people and stress about our appearance, property and performance. 'Us' versus 'them' This fear also makes us divide ourselves into groups where an us-versus-them mentality can make us feel more secure, especially if we can see “us” as better than “them” on some level. This also requires you to see the world in a very binary way, where there are only two options — us and them, black and white, good and bad, righteous and evil, taller and shorter or thinner and fatter. This binary, black-and-white thinking happens so you can find security around you being in "the good group," but it still makes you feel even more separated from other people. One interesting lesson we can draw from watching the spread of the coronavirus is that we are all very closely connected. Despite all efforts to strengthen the barriers and keep “us” away from “them,” contact and influence still happen. It makes me wonder if “them” actually is “us.” One interesting lesson we can draw from watching the spread of the coronavirus is that we are all very closely connected. Despite all efforts to strengthen the barriers and keep 'us' away from 'them,' contact and influence still happen. I think this outbreak gives us an incredible opportunity to change the belief that there are better and worse humans with different values from us. We could create amazing, positive change in the world if we used this opportunity to break down the ego’s fear-based barriers and start seeing unity and connection to all our fellow humans. We may differ in belief systems, color, religion, race and a hundred other things, yet all of that is outnumbered by the things we have in common. The virus attacks all humans, regardless of any group they belong to. They have the same physiology, psychology and biology you have. In an energetic and spiritual sense “us” is “them,” and we are connected as one. We are a human family, and every single human soul is connected. We have the same infinite and absolute, intrinsic value that cannot change no matter what. (Un)changable value We also subconsciously believe human value can change based on what you do, which means you also have to believe some humans have more value than other humans. This belief is the root cause of almost every problem on the planet. It makes us see certain groups of people as having more value than other groups of people, making the us-versus-them problem even worse. However, I believe you cannot reject, judge or hate another human without it also bringing your own condemnation of yourself. If you see them as not good enough, you will never feel good enough either. It is actually your self-hate that you are projecting onto others when you judge or find fault in them. "For the mind that judges perceives itself as separate from the mind being judged, believing that by punishing another, it will escape punishment, " the spiritual self-study program "A Course in Miracles” says. The truth is, all attack is self-attack because we are spiritually one. We cannot diminish another person without it casting ourselves as less. I believe none of us is less because that isn't even possible. We were all created by the same God or higher power, and we are made of the same material. I believe it’s our job to see God, divinity or value in every person we see. I believe as we honor that divine part of them, it helps us to see the divine part in ourselves. It could create a profound change in the world if we all would use this opportunity to practice love and compassion for those that are different from us. Practice letting go of any groups that you might see as better or worse than you. Look at the humans in your life whom you tend to judge and be more mindful that the way you feel about them might be subconsciously the way you feel about yourself. You won't be able to fully love yourself if you can't love the brothers around you. Any change in the world starts with you and me working on the one person we have control over: ourselves. If enough of us would commit to end the dividing and see all humans as having the same unchanging value, I think we really could change the world. We can do this. |
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AuthorKimberly Giles is the president and founder of Claritypoint Life Coaching and 12 SHAPES INC. She is an author and professional speaker. She was named one of the top 20 advice gurus in the country by Good Morning America in 2010. She appears regularly on local and national TV and Radio. Archives
March 2022
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