Question:
My husband is atheist and believes that religion is limiting to the human experience. I have a deeply-rooted belief in God and believe that faith and religious participation are crucial to what it means to be human. However, we have four children and we cannot agree on how to raise them. We want him to have an equal voice in our children’s upbringing, but we do not know how to accomplish this without 1) compromising our separate viewpoints, 2) confusing and upsetting our children, and 3) creating division in our family. We would love to hear your ideas and suggestions. Surely, there are other couples and families in our community who also deal with similar difficult situations. Answer: This is a tough one. The problem with religious beliefs is that we tend to see ours as the truth. Therefore, we have a hard time being flexible or compromising around these beliefs. Most people cannot stay neutral regarding what is “best” or “true” (in their opinion). It is very difficult to honor another person’s opposing viewpoint without, in some way, casting them as wrong. This can be confusing for children who hear different perspectives. To make this work, you must be able to share your own beliefs, while at the same time giving your spouse’s beliefs equal weight and validity. Because religion is a strongly-held and emotional experience for most people, this is hard to do. It will require a great deal of wisdom on your part. You will also have to overcome the fear your own religion may encourage around validating any other beliefs. If your religious teachings are based on the fact that there is only one truth (and everyone else is wrong), this can be a challenge. You must know (without a doubt in your heart) that God loves all his children no matter what they believe. You must know that God understands your situation and will bless your children no matter what. You will have to set down any fear you have about your children choosing to believe differently than you do (especially if that means not believing in God). You will have to give them genuine and real permission to choose either set of beliefs or another set of beliefs altogether, without any disappointment or grief from you. You will have to honor their right — and everyone else's right — to believe their version of truth and love them no matter what they decide. (I’ll bet you already figured that part out.) The good news, for you, is that most atheists teach the same moral principles to their children as religious people do, they just don’t use commands from God as the motivation for that behavior. They teach children to behave correctly because it’s the right thing to do, and this can actually be beneficial. They can learn to make good choices about health and relationships for more personal reasons. Your children will grow up to be great people either way. I can tell you this because some of my children don’t share my beliefs but they are the most generous, kind, good people you will ever meet and I couldn’t be more proud of them. Here are a couple of other suggestions that may help:
Teaching children to do this prepares them to guide their own life in a responsible and powerful way. I hope these ideas help. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of www.ldslifecoaching.com and www.claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in Clarity: seeing yourself, others and situations accurately.
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Question:
About nine months ago, my parents and my spouse got in a huge fight. They haven't really spoken since. There were hurtful things said on both sides. Now he will not let my parents see our kids. It is very hard for me because I am in the middle. I don't know how to fix this. Can you offer any advice? Answer: There are things you can do to mend this relationship, but not unless your spouse or parents want to fix it. They must be ready to mend this fence. If they aren’t ready, you must be patient. Or you could have them read this article. If you have been offended by a family member, you must see that staying mad isn’t serving you. It may feel like holding a grudge protects you from further mistreatment, but holding this grudge is hurting you now. It is time to be the grown-up and let go of your need to be right. It is time to put your ego and pride away and choose love. You can fix this mess by being the wise, loving adult you really are. You can actually change how you feel about this person and this situation and find the strength to forgive. Here are some ideas that might help: 1. Make sure you see the other person and the situation accurately. Life is a classroom and we are all students here. It doesn’t matter how old someone is, they are still in the process of learning and growing. You must give them permission to be flawed, make mistakes and even be thoughtless on occasion. To expect anything less would be unrealistic. We are all going to make mistakes; it's part of the learning process. You are going to make some, too. When you understand this, you will see the situation accurately and have more compassion. 2. You must see that everyone is driven by a fear that they might not be good enough. This fear is behind most of their bad behavior. When other people mistreat you, it’s usually not about you. It’s about their fears about themselves. See if you can identify what the other person’s fears are and why they might have behaved the way they did. What are they experiencing that is driving their behavior? Can you understand it? Can you put yourself in their shoes? Write down an accurate description of the other person. This will bring more compassion and accuracy into the situation. 3. Determine if this person is a toxic personality. If they really are, it makes sense to avoid them. Here are some questions to ask: Are they intentionally mean and spiteful? Are they irrational and illogical? Are they selfish and not interested in changing or improving? Are they, for some reason outside of their control, incapable of better behavior? If you said yes to any of these questions you may be dealing with someone who is toxic. These people are not going to change and you will always be unsafe around them. In this case, it may be appropriate to stay away from them. If they are not any of those things, you need to get accurate about who they are, get accurate about who you are, and learn to forgive. You must give rational, good intentioned but imperfect people a chance to behave better. They deserve forgiveness and another chance. 4. Write down the behavior you want to see in the other person in the future. You cannot ask the other person for an admission of guilt around past mistakes. You must let the past stay in the past and instead focus on their future behavior. The truth is, you both behaved badly in the past. Spending time figuring out who was bad first or whose bad was worse is a waste of time. You are both struggling, scared human beings in the process of learning and growing. You both make mistakes and behave badly on occasion. No one is the bad guy, you are both the same. Let go of the past and write down how you would like to be treated from now on. 5. Write down how you commit to behave differently in the future. You must own your bad reactions, your fears and your unkind, impatient or judgmental behavior. You must write down exactly how you could be more wise, mature and loving in the future toward them. Remember that forgiveness is about giving other people permission to be less than perfect, because you are less than perfect too. When you choose forgiveness, you are doing it for you so you can feel peace and escape the pain this situation created in your life. When you have figured out how you will behave in the future and how you want them to behave in the future, you are ready to approach them. Ask permission to speak with them. Make sure you are approaching them with love and are seeing them as the same as you (not better or worse). Choose to see the good in them and understand their fears. Let them know that you have forgiven the past and want to start over. Tell them how you are going to commit to behave (though they should not expect perfection) and ask them if they might be willing to treat you differently in the future (and that you won't expect perfection, either). Be the wise, mature, strong and loving adult you really are. You can do this. If neither party is willing to read the article or take these steps, you may want to get some professional help. A counselor or coach could help you to see the situation more accurately and learn to forgive. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of www.ldslifecoaching.com and www.claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in Clarity: seeing yourself, others and situations accurately. Question:
I guess I have issues with communication. I try to be a nice person and let things go, but after a while of being treated badly I explode and let the person have it. I don’t like how I handle these things but don’t know a better way. How can I handle conversations better? Answer: You can learn to see these situations more accurately and speak your truth in a loving way, up front, right when things bother you. Seeing situations accurately means knowing when to forgive and let things go, and when issues need to be brought up and dealt with. Gaining clarity and seeing these situations accurately is not hard. You just need to understand some truths about human nature. Here are 10 points to improve your relationship skills.
You will find that as you practice this and speak your truth more often, people will actually respect you and like you more. People would rather hear the truth than a “nice” response which isn’t truth. You can do this. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of www.ldslifecoaching.com and www.claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes in Clarity: seeing yourself, others and situations accurately. Question:
Great column last week on teaching children to be kind, but how do you teach this sort of thing to adults? I have family members who love to rave about the "idiots" in the world. They don't see how much they judge others, and they do a lot of joking at others' expense. It's very upsetting to me. What can I do to encourage them to be kinder? Answer: There are some things you can do to encourage kinder behavior from adults, but you have to be careful how you do it. You don’t want to judge them for judging others, or you’re just as bad as they are. First, you must make sure you are seeing these people and the situation accurately. If you check yourself for accuracy first, your response will always be based in truth. Second, you can encourage compassion and kindness in others using the "Sneaky Method" — the only way to encourage change in other people. (I’ll explain what that is below.) Here are four ways to make sure you are seeing this situation clearly:
Look for an opportunity to thank this person for being such a kind and compassionate person. Tell them how much you appreciate that you never hear them say an unkind word about anyone, and how much you admire that. You should only have to say this once or twice and this person will not gossip in your presence again. (They may stop gossiping completely.) This works because people want to live up to your highest opinion of them. People are more motivated to change themselves when you see good in them than they are when you point out their flaws or mistakes. When you project positive onto a person, you shove them in that direction. This approach almost always works. Encouragement and love are the best way to help people change. Hope that helps. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of www.ldslifecoaching.com and www.claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes Clarity: seeing yourself, others and situations accurately. Question:
How can I teach my children to be kind to people who are different from us? I am noticing a tendency to put down or find fault in others, in order to feel “better” about themselves. My son may in fact be a bully. I’m not sure how this started in our family, but could you give us some advice for changing it? Answer: You are battling a subconscious tendency we all have to divide ourselves from other people and see them as the enemy. We all have a tendency to see other people as the bad guys and ourselves as they good guys. It doesn’t even matter what the criteria of division is; we latch onto anything that sets us apart as better or smarter than others. We divide ourselves into Republican vs. Democrat, black vs. white, gay vs. straight, and more. Our personal tates and preferences are even used to divide us: Coke people vs. Pepsi people, Mac people vs. PC people, mayo people versus vs. whip people, and even Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. We create these divisions by choosing an enemy (someone or something to fight against). If we can find another group of people to make the bad guys, that makes us the good guys, right? This fear-based tendency is the root cause of most of the problems on the planet. War, racism, prejudice, gossip, backbiting and bullying all come from our ego’s need to think we are better than other people. Most of this behavior is driven by our fears of not being good enough. We create these divisions hoping they will give us a sense of self-worth, hoping the divisions make us better or more special. They don’t. In reality, we are all the same. We are all unique, divine, irreplaceable, infinitely valuable souls, fighting our way through life, scared and struggling most of the time, doing the best we can with what we know, but often not knowing very much. We can be oblivious to the fact that what we have in common is much bigger than any category that divides us. Here are some suggestions for teaching your children to see other people accurately (as the same as them) with compassion and wisdom:
Hope this helps. Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of www.ldslifecoaching.com and www.claritypointcoaching.com. She is a sought after life coach and popular speaker who specializes Clarity: seeing yourself, others and situations accurately. |
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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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