Question:

What is the difference between protecting yourself and holding a grudge? I know I should forgive the person who offended me, but I also want to protect myself because this person hasn’t changed their behavior or apologized. Any advice?

Answer:

I think what you are really asking is, how can you forgive this person and not hold a grudge, while still protecting yourself from further abuse?

It would help if you could look at this offense from a different (more accurate) perspective and understand what forgiving really means. In order to see the situation more accurately, you must understand a few principles of human behavior. (I know I have covered these principles before, but they are critical in this situation.)

Principle 1: Most bad behavior is not about you; it is about the person’s fear about themselves

Most people who behave badly are afraid of loss or failure. These fears can create some really bad behavior. Remember that people who are in fear aren’t capable of treating you in an appropriate or respectful way. Their insecurity makes them selfish and mean.

Principle 2: You are a work in progress and so is this other person

You must remember we are all struggling, scared, divine, amazing students in the classroom of life, and we are here to learn and grow. We must give other people permission to be imperfect at times and make some allowances for what they don’t know or didn’t see. When you give this permission to other people, you also give it to yourself.

Principle 3: Every situation is in your life to teach you something

Every person in your life (and the problems that person creates) is here to serve you in your process of learning and growth. The people who offend you will facilitate some of your most important lessons.

Forgiveness is one of those lessons, but let me explain what forgiving really means. It does not mean forgetting what they did to you and opening yourself up to further abuse. It does not mean trusting the person again. It does not mean staying in a relationship with this person.

Forgiving is just about changing how you feel

It is about replacing your feelings of resentment and anger with something more constructive, like love. In every moment, you get to decide how you will feel about this situation. You can experience it from a place of fear (lack, self-pity and protectiveness) or you can experience it from a place of love (wisdom, compassion and abundance). I recommend love.

When you choose love, you understand this incident was in your life to help you grow, so this person actually served you by offending you. Apparently you needed some practice pulling yourself out of victim mode, letting small things go, enforcing boundaries or defending yourself.

Staying angry about this beautiful (though painful) lesson is a waste of time. When you understand this truth, it becomes easier to let it go.

Choosing love also means seeing other people and their behavior accurately. When you understand their behavior was motivated by their fears about their own value, you won't need to take it personally. You must remember you are bulletproof and cannot be diminished, because your value is infinite and absolute.

You can protect yourself, in any moment, by not getting offended. You can choose to let offenses bounce off. You can wish them well on their journey and move on, without another thought. Or you can hold onto the pain, create unnecessary drama and suffer over it for years or even decades. It’s totally up to you.

Confucius said, “To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.”

I recommend that you let it go. Let go of your need to cast this person as the bad guy. Choose to see yourself and this person as the same (as struggling, scared, divine amazing beings in process) and give them (and yourself) a clean slate. This doesn’t mean you have to be friends, trust them or spend time with them though. You can absolutely love them from afar.

There may be quite a few people in your life that you prefer to love from afar, and this is probably better for everyone. In this place, you can stay safe and protect yourself, but you aren’t holding a grudge.

I hope this helps. 

Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a life coach and speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem.

Question:

I always have the feeling that people are judging me and my self-esteem often depends entirely on how they treat me (or how I perceive their treatment). I worry about wearing the right clothes and saying the right things. I know people probably aren’t that focused on me, but I can’t stop worrying about what they think. How can I stop being afraid?

Answer:

Everyone deals with the fear of judgment at some level. It makes no sense that we give other people this much power over how we feel about ourselves, but we often do.

This happens to you more when you aren't sure who you are. If you worry about what others think of you, you may need to clearly define who you are and what affects your value, once and for all.

Clearly defining these two things will help you to take your power back.

I believe your value is infinite and absolute (unchangeable) because you are a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable human soul. I believe nothing you do, nothing anyone else says, thinks or does to you, and no situation in your life, can change your value. You are the same no matter what they think.

I believe you are as bulletproof as Superman. Offenses, insults and judgments can just bounce off, if you experience them that way. No one can hurt you without your permission.

I believe you are (literally) your love for yourself, people and life, and your love is the source of your value. That's why you can't lose who you are. If you would focus on being the love everywhere you go, the fear of judgment would stop, because you can't do fear and love at the same time.

Here are some other things you can do to diminish the fear.

• Instead of resisting these feelings, or beating yourself up for having them, step back and let yourself really experience them. Fear and judgment are an interesting thing to experience. If you step back and pay attention, you will see they can't hurt you. They aren’t even real. You have the power to replace these fears with truth.

• The truth is, what others think of you is irrelevant. Julien Smith said, “Judgment and fear will never stop, but they don’t actually do anything either.” What other people think of you doesn’t change you or affect your value at all. Their opinion doesn’t mean anything. You are the same you no matter what they think. Remind yourself of this often.

• Clarify what is real and what you are assuming. You have a tendency to project your own fears about yourself onto other people. You think they think of you what you think of you. If you have low self-esteem, you will subconsciously project that and assume no one values you either. The truth is, most people are not thinking about you at all (and if they did, their opinions are still irrelevant.)
• Stay present in the now. Most of what you fear hasn't happened yet and it makes no sense to suffer about tomorrow today.

• Decide to be a strong person. Don’t let situations or people take your sense of who you are away from you. Make a commitment to be a strong person who knows who he is. Just making this commitment helps.

• Decide to see mistakes, goof-ups and accidents accurately. These are just experiences or lessons on your journey through life. They have nothing to do with your value. Choose to see every experience of judgment as an interesting lesson to help you work on your self-esteem.

• Choose to focus on giving love and validation to others when you feel fear. There is no faster way to escape your fear than choosing to focus on someone else. If you want to discover the true depth of your love, focus on loving, the very person that is judging you. This is not easy to do — but you can do it.

If these suggestions don’t help, I strongly recommend working with a counselor or coach to help you gain a stronger sense of your own identity. A little professional help can make a huge difference.

Hope this helps. 

Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a life coach and speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem.

Question:

We have issues with fighting in our family. My two kids fight over every toy and every device in the house, and to be honest my husband and I fight over a lot of small things, too. Even making simple decisions we usually disagree. Do you have any advice in those moments of conflict? How can we settle these issues and stop the fighting?

Answer:

Here are some creative ways to handle these conflicts.

In basketball, what happens when two players start fighting over a ball they both have their hands on? The referee will usually call a jump ball.

Different leagues have different policies on how to handle a jump ball. Some have the ref toss the ball between the two players, who both try to jump up and tip it. This approach basically lets luck decide it. Other leagues use a taking turns approach. The first jump ball goes to one team, but the next jump ball will automatically go to the other, and so on.

I recommend this same approach to couples and children when they fight over small things — but you must decide ahead of time, together, what your jump ball policy will be. You can take turns getting your way or you can let luck decide it.

If you agree to let luck decide these conflicts, you might agree to flip a coin and whoever loses must accept the coin's decision and honor it. If you take turns, then whoever lost last time gets to win this time. My grandparents used to play a game of cards and the winner would get their choice.

As long as you agree ahead of time what constitutes a jump ball situation, what your approach will be, and you both promise to honor it, these techniques work great for petty disagreements.

Big ticket purchases or more serious disagreements should be handled together, as a team, with a mutually validating conversation.

Children and adults both benefit from learning how to resolve conflicts and communicate in a respectful way. Below are some ideas that might help improve everyone's conflict resolution skills:

1. Sometimes everyone needs a little time to cool down before they are ready to talk about an issue calmly and respectfully (this goes for adults, too). Have a time-out rule in place, where both parties go to their corners and cool off before they talk.
2. Work on your negotiation skills and teach them to your children. The key to negotiation is to creating win/wins, where everyone gives a little and everyone gets a little. I remember a trick my mother used when two of us were fighting over a doughnut. One kid would cut it, but the other would pick which piece he wanted first. This guaranteed the one cutting would make the two pieces equal.
3. Teach them how to empathize with the other person's feelings and to express and correctly label their own feelings. It serves children and adults to recognize when anger is really fear of loss or selfishness is really the need to feel more important than the other person. Help them develop the vocabulary to accurately express what they are feeling.
4. Set down clearly-defined ground rules for resolving conflicts in your home and review them often. In our home we have a no physical violence policy; we never hurt another person no matter what. We also have an official procedure for solving disagreements. Each person gets a turn to talk about their feelings without being interrupted. (When it is your turn to talk you must use "I" statements, not "you" statements.) Then, we use the following problem solving technique to find the best solution.
5. Brainstorm together as many possible solutions as you can. Think outside the box and find creative ways to create win/wins. This is a great solution-focused technique for any problem. Once you have a long list of possible solutions, the problem always feels easier to solve.

The most important thing parents can do to teach good conflict resolution skills is to stay calm and model mature behavior themselves.

If you have issues with losing your temper or getting defensive, you may want to get some professional help. A coach or counselor can help you understand and deal with your feelings and respond more appropriately.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem.

Question:

I read the article you wrote to a parent whose child had rejected their religion. I thought it was wonderful, but I wondered if you have any advice for me.

My wife and I are the ones who rejected our families' religion and this situation is really difficult for us, too. We feel judged for our decision and bothered by the little comments people make. I know that my family thinks I’m going to hell for leaving their church. I don’t believe that’s accurate obviously, but how do I deal with the disapproval and judgmental comments?

Answer:

Once again, this is a fear problem and understanding their fears will help you respond more appropriately.

I know their comments sting and feel like an attack, so I understand why you might get offended. But you must remember that all bad behavior is based in their fear about themselves and once you understand this, you won’t feel as defensive.

Your family members are having a hard time dealing with your decision because they are scared of these five things:

1 — This has triggered a fear of loss for them. They honestly believe they are going to lose you forever because of this choice. They love you and the idea of losing you causes them a great deal of pain. Even though you don’t believe this is true, it is very real to them.

2 — This has triggered a fear of failure in them. They honestly believe it is their sacred duty to save the people around them. They take the responsibility very seriously. They will feel like a failure if they don’t successfully save their own family.

3 — They are afraid that your differing beliefs will separate you from them, and you won’t be able to socialize in the same way. Their religion is such a huge part of their life that not having that in common will feel awkward. They are afraid you will no longer speak the same language. There could also be issues with certain social activities such as alcohol or tobacco use or attending certain kinds of entertainment. How do you socialize with your family member when you have different standards? They are afraid these things will pull you apart.

4 — They are afraid of being wrong. We, as human beings, have a great deal of fear about being wrong, because we think it diminishes our value as a person. In this situation, both parties can’t be right, so one of you has to be wrong. They cannot accept the possibility that it is them, because it would mean their sacrifices weren’t worth it. Most religious people have made (and are continuing to make) some big sacrifices to “do the right thing.” They have to see your choice as bad, and even cast you as a bad person to some degree, to justify these sacrifices. They may also get a little overly committed to being right, at times, which is an ego problem.

5 — They have a lot of fear around any ideas that pull people away from church. They are taught to stay far away from any written material or people who criticize or discredit church. You now represent these apostate ideas and that makes them a little scared of you. They are afraid your beliefs could cause more loss.

You must understand their negative comments are based in their fears about themselves and people in fear tend to behave badly because they are too focused on themselves. But they do love you. If they didn’t love you they wouldn’t be this scared. It is because they love you so much that they don’t want to lose you or feel separated from you.

Here are a couple suggestions for your behavior:

1 -- Don’t take anything they say personally and don’t get offended. Their insensitive comments are signs of their fear and are really a request for love and reassurance. Instead of defending yourself, take the time to reassure them that everything will be OK. The more confident, happy and loving you are toward them, the more they will respect your decision and love you back.

2 — Don’t let them trigger your fears of not being good enough. When someone infers that you are wrong, it will trigger your core fears and you will want to defend yourself. You must stay in control and remember that just because they think you’re wrong, it doesn’t mean you are. What they think doesn't affect your value, either. You have the same value no matter what they think. This means they can't really diminish you. Stay bulletproof and loving no matter what.

3 — Treat them the way you want to be treated. Remember that everyone is entitled to their own ideas, opinions and beliefs. If you love someone you will always honor and respect their right to see the world the way they see it. Make sure you are honoring their beliefs. Don't do anything that would make them uncomfortable.

4 — Practice unconditional love. My advice to them was unconditional love, and that is also my advice to you. Love them and appreciate the fact that they love you enough to be terrified of losing you. If you show up with unconditional love, serve them and edify them, it will help them to see their unloving behavior for what it is and it will make it really hard for them to stay in fear. This is the way Jesus Christ handled the people who disagreed with him, by the way. He loved them. He loved everyone regardless of their beliefs

Unconditional love is always the answer. 

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of ldslifecoaching.com and claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in repairing and building self-esteem.