Question:

My child is scared of almost everything. I think he is more worried about safety than a 9-year-old should be. (He is not excited about Halloween at all.) How can I help him overcome these fears and have more fun?

Answer:

Halloween is a great time to talk to children about scary things and dealing with fear. Here are a couple suggestions:

1. Never make fun or dismiss your child's fears as stupid. Making comments like, “Don’t be such a baby,” or laughing at children for being afraid can cause long-term damage to their self-esteem. Make sure your child knows that everyone experiences fear and it’s a perfectly normal experience. Make sure your child feels safe coming to you to discuss his fears.
2. Listen more than you talk. Parents must learn to be great question askers and great listeners. When possible, ask questions that will guide your child to figure out the truth about his fears on his own. This creates confidence and builds self-esteem, while also making your child feel important.
3. Help your child recognize the difference between fears that help us and fears that hurt us. Fears that help usmotivate us to be smart and take action. Fears that hurt us paralyze us and prompt inaction. Being afraid of (and staying away from) strangers is a helpful fear because it prompts you to be careful. Being afraid to talk to anyone or meet new people is a hurtful fear. It prompts inaction and prevents you from making friends. Any fear that holds you back from life or from being you is a fear you want to overcome. Help your child to see the difference and empower them to take action in every situation.
4. Lay a solid foundation of trust by teaching your child that his world is a safe place. It is in childhood that many of our subconscious beliefs are developed. It is crucial that you teach children to see their world as a safe place now. If they see life as a dangerous place, fear will haunt them for the rest of their lives.

Help your child to see life as a classroom (a safe place to learn and grow) instead of a testing center (a place where their value and safety is on the line.) Help him understand that although bad things can happen, every experience is a lesson, and is in his life to help him grow.

Help your child understand that life is not trying to beat us or hurt us; it is facilitating experiences to help us grow and become better and stronger. (Life is on your side!) Even though bad things do happen on occasion, we are not alone and in the end we will be OK.

This mindset will lay a solid foundation of strength and help your child handle life with confidence.

(You may need to change your own beliefs about life first. Remember, children learn more from who you are and how you live than what you say. You must learn to see life as a safe experience and overcome your own fears before you can teach them, because you can't fake trust. If life feels threatening and unsafe to you, you may want to seek some professional help yourself.)

5. Discuss ways to see a situation accurately (because fear can skew the truth). Teach your child how to process a situation accurately and recognize what’s real and what’s not. Halloween is a great time to work on this one. Help him to see that most of the time the things we are afraid of aren't real, don’t happen, or aren’t as bad as we thought they were.

Fear exaggerates things and makes them seem worse than they really are. Teach your child how to step back from a fear and get to the truth about it. You can even role play some scary situations and help your child identify what's real.

6. Teach your child relaxation and self-calming skills. We all need to learn ways to calm ourselves down when we are stressed or scared. Teach your child how to use slow breathing, visualization or prayer to let go of fear.

8. If your child's fear is still keeping him from enjoying life, seek out some professional help. 

Hope this helps make Halloween more fun! 

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 repairing and building self-esteem.

Question:

I have a 16-year-old son who has depression and feels like life is not worth living sometimes. He is on Effexor (an an and has been in LDS counseling but we are seeking more help for him. Could address this in one of your articles?

Answer:

Before I answer this question, I have a disclaimer. As a life coach, I always recommend that people who are suffering with severe depression contact a mental health professional who has been trained and is licensed to work with mental illness instead of a life coach. Having said that, I have dealt with depression myself and I do have a couple suggestions that may help:

1. Take better care of yourself 

It is very important that you eat a healthy diet, because what you eat affects how you feel. Cut out the junk food immediately and choose a diet rich with fruits and vegetables. It would also recommend daily exercise. Find a form of exercise that you enjoy and fit it into your life every day (without fail). These two things will make a significant difference.

2. Change the way you think

Professor of psychology Dr. Daniel Strunk, Melissa Brotman of the National Institute of Mental Health, and Robert DeRubeis of the University of Pennsylvania recently published a study in the journal of Behavioral Research and Therapy, showing that cognitive therapy helps patients with severe depression more than anything else you can do.

This means that if you want to beat depression, you must make some fundamental changes in how you think about yourself and your life. You must take control of your thoughts.

You cannot prevent a negative, fear-based thought from showing up in your head, but when it does, you have a choice. You can embrace it or replace it with something positive, accurate and trust-based.

You can and must learn to do this.

The problem is many people believe their thoughts are out of their control. They give away their power by not taking responsibility for how they think, and they become a victim of their emotions.

You will never get better until you claim the power to choose your thoughts.

You may get intimidated by the idea of choosing positive thoughts all the time, so just focus on choosing your thoughts in this moment. You can do that right now. Then, remember that there will never be a time when it is not this moment.

If you change your thinking, you can change how you feel.

I realize, of course, that people with severe depression cannot be cured with just positive, accurate thinking. There are chemical imbalances at play here. Some people will need medication to balance out their brain chemistry, along with cognitive therapy to change their thinking.

I highly recommend "The Feeling Good Handbook" by Dr. David D. Burns, M.D. This book will help you identify your inaccurate thought processes and teach you how to think accurately.

Here are some examples of unhealthy, inaccurate thoughts and some positive, accurate thoughts you could replace them with:

• I have to earn my value. Life is about being tested and proving my worth. Every experience is another chance to fail.
• Replace with: I can choose to see life as a classroom where my value isn’t on the line at all. I am a human being in process, learning and growing every day. This is not a test. My value is unconditional.
• Because this bad thing happened, it means everything is going to go wrong for me. (Overgeneralization is a very common thinking error.)
• Replace with: This bad thing is just one event and it doesn't mean anything, unless I apply meaning to it. I can choose to believe that good things are coming my way.
• I must be perfect or I’m not good enough.
• Replace with: I don’t have to be perfect; there is no such thing. I’m right on track in my personal process of growth right now, and that's good enough.
• What other people think of me matters and affects my value.
• Replace with: What other people think of me doesn’t matter at all. I’m still the same me no matter what other people think or say.
• I’ve made too many mistakes and will never have the life I should have had.
• Replace with: My life has been the perfect classroom journey for me and has taught me the exact lessons I needed to learn. I cannot be behind or off track in this personal process. Everything that happens is for my benefit and growth.
• I see other people as better than me. I’m overly focused on my faults and flaws and their talents and gifts.
• Replace with: There is no level where comparing myself with others makes sense. We are different in every way and here to learn different lessons. We are all incomparable and we have the same value. I refuse to compare myself to anyone else. It’s a waste of energy and means nothing.
• My thoughts and emotions are out of my control. I can’t help feeling the way I feel.
• Replace with: I have the power to change how I feel by changing how I think. I can choose positive, accurate thinking in this moment.

Becoming aware of your fear-based, inaccurate thought processes and choosing accurate, positive thoughts is the first step to beating depression. It’s not easy to reclaim this power when you’ve let your emotions control your thinking for so long, but you can do it.

If you are struggling with this, seek out a counselor or coach to help you. But, whatever you do, don’t give up. A brighter future is right around the next corner. 

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 repairing and building self-esteem.

Question:

I was recently lied to and it’s really bothering me. My sister said that I can't blame this person because she doesn't know any better. She wasn’t brought up the way we were. I totally disagree. I think people are capable of knowing right from wrong, despite their upbringing. My question is this: How do I confront this person about her lies?

Answer:

Confronting this person is not always the best course of action.

Your ego may want to confront this person because it would make you feel safer and stronger — but it may not serve either of you.

May I give you some other ideas?

When a situation like this occurs, you must first step back and make sure you are seeing the situation and the people involved accurately. When you have self-esteem fears (that you aren’t good enough — which we all have to some degree) these fears can skew your perspective of the situation. You must check your fears, before you do anything else.

Here are three ways to check if confrontation is the right answer:

1 — Make sure your fears are out of the way and you can see yourself accurately.

Remember that your value isn’t on the line here. Your value is infinite and absolute and nothing anyone else does, thinks, or says can diminish you. You are the same you no matter what. You could choose not to be offended by this behavior, since it can't really hurt you.

We all have a tendency to focus on the bad behavior of other people because it makes us feel better about ourselves. We sometimes cast this person as the bad guy so we can feel like the good guy. You must make sure you aren't focused on their faults while ignoring your own. You must make sure you see this person accurately (the same way you see yourself).

We are all flawed, struggling human beings in process. Could you forgive this person for being flawed since you have flaws too?

Could you be making this a bigger deal than is necessary? Are you taking it personally when it really isn't about you? Or is this offense really unacceptable behavior that must be corrected in order to have a healthy relationship with this person?

If this behavior is rare, ornunderstandable in this person’s situation, or forgivable, the most mature course of action may be to forgive it and let it go. Listen to your gut to know.

If it is happening too often, is unacceptable abusive behavior or intentionally hurtful, then you should bring it up and talk to them about it, but in a loving way (I'll explain how below.)

2 — Make sure you are seeing the other person accurately

This person is a scared, struggling human being doing the best they can with what they know. The problem is, they don't know very much — and their perspective is clouded by fear.

Everyone has a core fear about “not being good enough.” This core fear drives most of their bad behavior. Can you see this person has fears about their value?

Remember that most bad behavior is about that fear, and it is usually not about you (even though it feels about you). It is about their fears about themselves. Most of their bad behavior is about protecting, promoting and edifying themselves, or putting their fear to rest in some way.

Can you see why this person behaved the way they did? What did this person really want and need? Could their bad behavior be a request for love?

(Bad behavior is usually a cry for love and validation.)

When you can see the fear that is motivating their behavior, you will have more compassion for them and see them more accurately. You will see their behavior for what it really is, a way to quiet their fear.

As part of this step (where applicable), I would recommend asking them questions before you say a word so that you understand where they are (or were) coming from. Do not assume that you know. Most of the time we speak before we have all the facts.

3 — Make sure you see this situation for what it really is, a lesson.

Your life is a classroom, every experience is a lesson and every person is a teacher. This person is in your life to teach you something. What could it be?

Some people are there to show you things about yourself. What is this experience showing you? Is it showing you some of your fears? Why would it serve you to see them?

Some people are in your life to give you the opportunity to be wiser, more compassionate or more forgiving. Some people are in your life to give you the opportunity to be stronger, speak your truth and stand up for yourself. You are the one who will know which lesson this is being taught.

How is this situation giving you an opportunity to be a better, wiser, stronger, more loving you?

If you decide this situation is in your life to teach you about speaking up or confronting someone, part of that lesson is learning to do it in a loving way.

If you approach this person with fear (focused on protecting yourself) the whole situation becomes about you. This approach is selfish and will cause the person to get defensive.

You must approach this person with love and compassion. Your goal must be to edify them, let them feel your unconditional (non-judgmental) love for them and talk about how you can both make the relationship better.

You must bring up this issue because you love them and don’t want them to need to lie because it’s beneath who they are. Then it's about them, not you. You want to show them that you see their goodness and believe in them.

This kind of conversation can edify both of you.

No one should feel judged or looked down upon if you approach this with love. No one should get defensive. Defensiveness only happens when you approach them with fear focused on protecting you. If your goal is to share your love first and foremost, then talk about the offense, things will go better.

I explained how to have validating conversations in this article link. I suggest you follow it and review these steps, too.

I’m not sure in your situation if you are supposed to learn to forgive this person for being an imperfect, human being in process and let it go, or if the lesson is to learn how to talk about her faults in a loving way, but you will know. Listen to your gut.

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 repairing and building self-esteem.

Question:

I have not done as much as I should have by this point in my life. I honestly feel like I’m failing and I can’t figure out how to change the course of my life. I’m getting older and I’ve got to beat this discouragement and fear of being a failure or it will be too late. Any advice?

Answer:

First, it is never too late to make changes.

If you are ready now, then you're right on time.

Second, there are a few small mindset shifts that could change your outlook on life and give you the confidence to move forward. If you change the way you think about where you are and who you are, you will be more ready to change the course of your life.

Here are a few truths that you can adopt to combat discouragement:

1. Where you are (your level of success) is just a place on your journey. You must separate where you are from whoyou are.

You’re the one who decided that where you are isn’t good enough. You are judging your progress by a rule which you made. If you made the rule, you also have the power to change the rule and experience where you are in a different way.

You can decide to believe that you are right where you are supposed to be on your unique journey of learning and growing. You must have needed this failure experience to teach you something; that’s why you are here. But this experience doesn’t mean anything about who you are or where you're going. Choosing to see yourself as right on track will remove the discouragement that is halting your progress.

Remember, most successful people have been unsuccessful at one time or another, but they didn’t let a period of failure define them. They held onto their confidence (which is knowing who they are) despite their results. You can do this, too.

2. You have the power to decide how you will feel about your life. 

You can experience this where-you-are reality with discouragement if you want to. You can spend every day afraid that you've ruined your life. You can feel like a failure. You can feel inferior to other people and embarrassed about what you’ve accomplished.

But you don’t have to.

There is another option.

You can also choose to see your life as the perfect classroom journey for you. You can choose to believe that each experience was in your life for a perfect reason: to teach you something. You can choose to trust God that you are safe in this process and your value isn’t on the line. You can choose to see yourself as good enough right now.

You have the power to choose that.

There will be some people who will read this article and say, “It’s not that easy. You can’t just choose to feel better about yourself.” But you can. It is the first and most critical step to changing your life. You cannot become something you don't believe you are.

If you think you can't choose to see yourself in a more positive way, you are denying your power, the one power that no one can take from you: the power to choose your attitude.

Don’t give that power away and become a victim. Claim that power and take responsibility for how you see yourself.

3. You get to decide how you will value yourself. 

You can experience this who-you-are reality with fear and discouragement if you want to. You can base your value on what you accomplish, the amount of money you make, how you look or how you compare to other people.

You can think about yourself that way, or you can decide to get your value from your character; your love for God, life and other people; your kindness; your generosity; and your determination not to give up.

You can choose to base your value on your intrinsic qualities instead of your extrinsic results. This is a much healthier way to value yourself because your intrinsic qualities are, in fact, who you are.

You are your love, and because of that, no failure experience can make you lose who you are. You may lose your money, your reputation or even your friends, but you can't lose your knowledge about who you are and your intrinsic goodness. Not even a bad mistake changes who you are. Good people make bad choices all the time.

Make the decision right now to believe that you are right on track in your personal journey of growth. Choose to believe that as long as you stay in class and keep learning, you are good enough. Choose to focus on being the love — focused on others — everywhere you go. (Not to the extent of becoming co-dependent, but just so you aren't focused on your insecurities anymore.)

4. Choose to see life as classroom, not a testing center and not a race. 

Your life is not a competition, so you can’t be behind and you can’t lose. Your life is a classroom where you get to enjoy a wide range of human experiences (including the failure experience) so you can learn and gain wisdom. Don’t dwell in shame and guilt over those failures. It's a waste of your energy. Focus on the lessons and let the rest go.

Thinking this way can completely change the way your life feels, but it can be hard because choosing this positive attitude is exercising like a muscle you haven’t used in a while. It will take some practice to get it in shape.

Remember, in each moment there are only two choices: You can choose to feel fear (regret, guilt, shame, discouragement and self-hate), or you can choose trust and love (trusting God about your infinite and absolute value, focused on learning and loving, and you can experience gratitude, faith, peace and joy).

The question is, which mindset will you choose in this moment?

This moment is all you ever have. 

You can always choose to feel positive about who you are right now. If you continue to believe that you can’t, you are going to stay stuck.

The first step to changing the course of your life is changing your mindset. (If this proves difficult, you may want to find a counselor or coach to help you.) Then, armed with a healthier attitude, you can get to work and create better results.

It won't be easy (it's a battle, moment to moment), but you can do it. 

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 repairing and building self-esteem.

Question:

I have started dating, but every relationship has been a train wreck. I seem to attract people with problems. I have spent most of my life case managing my ex-wife, children and a lot of strays. Any suggestions to help me break this cycle?

Answer:

It sounds like you may be slightly co-dependent.

To find out, ask yourself the following questions:

Do you often end up with needy people or “project” people in your life? Do you put other people’s happiness before your own? Do you feel like it’s your responsibility to make sure everyone is happy? Do you need a lot of external validation to feel “good enough”? Do you worry about what others think of you? Do you need a relationship to feel good about yourself? Do you put up with bad behavior longer than you should?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you may be, at least to some degree, co-dependent. You are in good company, because a lot of people (in this state) have been socially programmed to behave this way. Many believe that sacrificing yourself for others, and putting their needs before yours, makes you righteous. They believe this behavior is “Christ-like” and loving, but it often enables bad behavior and doesn't serve anyone.

It is noble on occasion to make sacrifices (because you love someone) and do things for them. But, and this is a big BUT, if you sacrifice yourself all the time (because you need the other person’s approval, or you get a sense of worth from doing it) — you aren’t doing it for the right reasons.

You are behaving this way to get what you need (approval) not because it’s what they need.

This is a problem.

Sometimes you must tell people things they don’t want to hear because it’s the truth and they need to hear it. Sometimes the most loving behavior isn’t nice and doesn’t make others happy. Sometimes you must choose to love yourself and do what’s right for you because you are just as important as these “other people” are. You must have wisdom and balance when it comes to how much you give if you want to create healthy relationships.

You must not carry responsibility for other people’s problems and feelings. They aren’t your job. You must stop being nice if it means being a doormat. You must be confident and know who you are and not “need” someone else’s approval to validate your worth. You must be an independent, strong person who wants someone to love, but doesn’t need them to feel complete. You must recognize “neediness” and co-dependence and understand where it comes from.

Here are some important principles of human behavior:

1 — Almost all human behavior is driven by a fear of not being good enough or a fear of abandonment or loss.

2 — Most people spend their whole life trying to accomplish things, get approval, or in some other way quiet these fears.

3 — They also expect other people to fill their empty bucket, and if you are the kind of person (who feels fulfilled giving that kind of validation to others) they will find you. They are attracted to people who give too much.

4 — This giving behavior will often get taken for granted. They may also take advantage of your fear (and willingness to give too much) and walk all over you. In the end, they won’t respect you and you will feel bitter and angry because they don’t appreciate what you did for them.

Does this sound familiar?

I want you to understand that they don’t appreciate what you do because they can tell that everything you do is fear motivated and is about you. You do these nice things because you need validation. This means you are doing these things for yourself, not them. They can also, subconsciously, feel your fear about your own value and this makes them see you as weak and not respect you.

You can break this cycle by getting accurate about your value, who you are and what your responsibilities are. Here are some more principles of human behavior that may help you escape your subconscious tendency to give too much:

1 — You must get your sense of self-worth from inside yourself. You must know that your value is infinite and absolute because of the divine, irreplaceable, incomparable nature of your soul. Nothing you do, or don’t do, changes your value. Nothing anyone thinks about you can diminish you. You don’t need anyone else’s approval to know you are good enough. You must choose to see yourself this way. You must choose to see yourself as bulletproof. Your self-esteem is your job and you must see yourself accurately.

2 — You must understand that life is a classroom, not a testing center. You are here to learn and grow. You are not here to prove your value. Every experience in your life is a lesson and every person is a teacher. When you see your life this way, you will see it with less fear and drama.

3 — Everyone else is on their perfect classroom journey, too. Their choices and their experiences are creating important lessons they need to learn. If they make poor choices they need to take responsibility for those choices so they can own the lessons. You must let each person own their own life.

4 — If you (even subconsciously) feel responsible for another person (to make them happy or solve their problems) they will be more than happy to hand over responsibility for their problems to you.

That won’t serve either of you.

5 — In each situation, you must get clear about what is in your control and what your responsibilities really are. You must let other people be responsible for their own feelings, their own self-esteem, their own choices and their own problems.

You can love them, but you can’t fix them. It’s not your job.

You must work on your own self-esteem so you don’t need their approval anymore. That is your job.

You may need to work with a counselor or coach to make this happen. When you learn to escape your fears and live in clarity (seeing yourself and other people accurately), you will attract a whole different type of person.

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 repairing and building self-esteem.