First Published on KSL.COM
Question:
Our marriage is in trouble. We both get offended and hurt all the time. I don’t want this much contention in my life and I know my wife doesn’t either, but neither one of us knows how to fix it. We have tried counseling and honestly it made things worse, all we did is fight with a mediator. We never learned to change ourselves. Is there any other options to make some real changes?
Answer:
When everything else hasn’t worked, chances are you have some deep subconscious fears of failure and loss that are creating problems in your relationship. You and your spouse probably have some inaccurate beliefs about yourself and life too, which are creating defensiveness, selfishness and resentment.

Here are some common signs of a fear problem in your subconscious programming. See if any of these sound familiar.

1. You may be constantly worried about all the bad things that could happen to you or your family.
   
2. You may get offended or feel insulted easily.
3. You may be over sensitive to being criticized. If anyone says anything that could be taken as an insult, you will take it that way.
   
4. You may be prone to feeling like a victim and getting upset when you feel taken from at any level. If someone butts in front of you in line or takes your time, energy, property, or takes you for granted you may get really offended.
   
5. You may feel better than other people. You may be quick to jump on others for their bad behavior, gossip about them, or cast them as the bad guy. You may be prone to criticizing others.
   
6. Or you may see yourself as less than other people, self-deprecate and cast yourself as the bad guy.
   
7. You may be a perfectionist and try too hard to do everything and do it perfectly.
   
8. Or you may have given up and keep the bar low where it’s easy to reach. You may be coasting and not putting much effort into anything.
   
9. You may be a control freak and try to control everyone and everything.
   
10. Or you may stay unattached and not care about anything because it feels safer that way.
    
11. Or you may have fear about being controlled and rebel against anyone who makes you feel controlled. You may see behavior as controlling even when it isn’t.
    
12. You may be uncomfortable speaking up for yourself, especially if it could cause confrontation. You may have trouble saying no or defending yourself.
    
13. Or you might speak up too much and at times be harsh with people or even selfish. You be overly protective of your time and energy and say no all the time.
    
14. You may feel hopeless, discouraged or depressed at times. You may be worried your life is just not good enough.
    
15. If any of these sounds familiar to you, (and for most of us they will) you have some subconscious fear issues. If you want to see which fears are specifically showing up in your life you may want to take the free Fear Assessment on my website.
    

The problem in most marriages is selfishness and defensiveness, and both of these are caused by fear. There is a worksheet called “Understanding your Marriage” on the website too and it will help you to see how fear is affecting your relationship and why. You and your spouse should both fill this out individually.

I suspect your wife is terribly afraid of failure. She may be afraid she isn’t good enough as a wife and mother. She may have body-image issues or she may be afraid she can’t measure up in other ways. These fears are playing out in her subconscious programming. She doesn’t want to be easily offended or resentful, it just happens automatically.

Remember, subconscious thought processes create your emotions. You are likely to feel offended before you understand why. You are offended because you are subconsciously afraid you aren’t good enough and you are projecting that fear onto your spouse. Because you don’t think you’re good enough, you will believe your spouse doesn’t think you’re good enough either. Then, you will unintentionally look for proof that you are right about this. When you find this proof, which could really be inaccurate perceptions of the events, you will use it to cast him or her as the bad person and that will create growing resentment in the relationship.

Fear thinking is quite irrational, yet it feels real.

As the husband you may also battle fears of failure at work, your own body-image issues, fears of loss or not measuring up or fears of not being appreciated. You also won’t mean to get offended or mad so easy, but it will happen subconsciously.

If your wife starts complaining about her life, which is really about her fears about herself not being good enough, this could trigger your fear of failure you were already battling all day at work and because you feel subconsciously responsible for your wife's happiness. You might feel mad and resentful that she’s not happy and assume it's about you. Your fears of not being good enough could lead to criticizing her. You don’t want to feel or behave this way, you are just subconsciously reacting in the only way you know how.

That doesn’t mean you both can’t change it though.

You have the power to change your conscious and subconscious fears and beliefs. It will take some work though. There are many coaches and counselors out there who specialize in this kind of cognitive work. I highly recommend you keep looking for a professional to help you do this. It makes changing much easier.

The first step to changing your subconscious programming is to understand it and become conscious of how and why you react to situations the way you do. Start paying more attention when you get bothered, offended or upset. See if you can tell what you are really afraid of — failure (looking bad, being rejected or not good enough) or afraid of loss (losing out or being taken from at some level). Just identifying what is happening will help a great deal.

You both also need to do some work on your self-esteem. Repairing your own self-esteem is the best thing you can do for your marriage.

You must also start watching for offenses and consciously noticing your reactions. You will start to see that your automatic reaction isn’t your only choice. You could choose not to react. You could respond instead from a place of trust and love. The next time your spouse insults you, remember the insult is just words or thoughts and these can’t actually diminish who you are, they cannot change you or determine your value.

Most thoughts and words are coming from someone who isn’t seeing you or the situation accurately anyway. Their fears are skewing their perspective and the insult probably has more to do with how they are feeling about themselves, than it does about you.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check yourself though. Is there any truth to it? Is there a lesson for you here? Could it serve you to learn something from this feedback? But also remind yourself that it’s just a lesson and it doesn’t mean you are inadequate as a person in any way. Your value is not on the line. You have more to learn, but you are good enough as you are right now.

Just remember most marriage problems are happening because one or both spouses is afraid and suffering from self-esteem problems (fear of failure) or is overly sensitive to feeling taken from or not being in control. These are subconscious fear problems and nothing will get better until the underlying fear issue is addressed.

You may want to read my five-part series on Repairing your Marriage that was published on KSL earlier this year.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a popular coach and speaker.

This article was first published on ksl.com
Question:

Over and over everywhere I work, I end up being unappreciated, taken for granted and mistreated. It’s getting ridiculous that no one appreciates what I do and they seem to find fault in me even though I’m going beyond and above the call of duty. Things always start out good, but soon I can feel that they don’t like me and for some unexplained reason are holding me back, not giving me what others are getting or not supporting me. The more upset I get at this treatment the worse things go. I’m not sure if you can give me advice on this but I thought I’d ask.

Answer:

Whenever an experience shows up in your life repeatedly, you must start asking two questions.

1) What is this experience here to teach me?

2) How am I creating this and responsible for it?

It is much easier to continue to blame the problem on everyone else, but if you do, you will never get off this merry-go-round and the lesson will keep repeating.

Life is a classroom, and you are here to learn. If the lesson keeps coming back, it is because you haven’t got it yet. I believe you are here in the classroom of life to learn one main lesson (and a whole lot of smaller ones). The main lesson is to get control over yourself so you have the power to become the best you and choose love over fear in every situation. Every lesson is, at its core, about learning to love God, life, yourself and other people. This experience is no exception.

From reading your whole letter, it looks like you are afraid of failure and loss. You are afraid of not being appreciated everywhere you work, because you are probably subconsciously afraid you aren’t good enough (the fear of failure). You are afraid of being mistreated because you are subconsciously afraid that you will not get the life you want and that life is unfair (the fear of loss).

Both of these fears create bad energy that other people can feel from you. All they feel is neediness, selfishness, anger and entitlement coming from you. I’m not saying you are any of these things — but this is what other people feel when you are in fear of failure or loss. Does that make sense?

The bottom line is your fear is making you look bad.

This is what fear does, especially in the workplace. Think of it this way, fear is the opposite of confidence, peace, energy, security, giving and serving. People who show up at work with love energy (something they can only have if they aren’t afraid) are seen as having those qualities. People are naturally drawn to these people and they are appreciated and treated well.

People who are scared they aren’t going to be liked or treated right show up with scarcity, selfish, insecure, needy energy that pushes people away from them.

This is just universal law. The more unappreciated energy you bring into your situation, the more unappreciated you will be. You will get what you are creating.

You are responsible for these result because you are choosing the experience subconsciously. This may take some thinking to get your head around it — but it is very important that you own the responsibility for creating your current situation. It is the only way you will have the power to create something different.

If you don’t own the problem, you can’t fix it. If you give ownership to others by blaming them and casting them as the bad guy, expecting them to change and give you what you want, you are giving away your power.

Everyone reading this article should take a minute and think about destructive patterns showing up in your life over and over. Have you had health problems your whole life, relationship problems, people problems? Can you see a pattern of feeling a certain way in all of the experiences? Can you sum it up in one sentence? I always feel _____________? Can you see a fear behind it? Is it tied to failure, or not feeling good enough or loved? Or is it more about being mistreated or taken from? Are you tired of it?

The good news is you are in the driver's seat of your life.

If you want to create different results, you are going to have to choose to see yourself and your life differently. You are going to need to choose a trust and love attitude towards your value and your journey — and I promise you can turn this whole thing around.

(I’m going to give you some instructions on how, but you may the need the support of a professional to hold you accountable and help you make these changes to your subconscious programming.)

You must choose to trust that you are good enough all the time. Life is a classroom, not a test, and therefore every mistake is a lesson that does not affect your value. Your value as a person is infinite and absolute because you are a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable human soul who is here to learn. This means you do not need appreciation from anyone to validate your worth. Your sense of worth must come from within so you aren’t needy.

As you practice internalizing this real truth about your value, you will become more peaceful, secure, happy and loving. You will then be able to show up for others with no strings attached and give gifts of service to others (even at work) without needing appreciation in return. The people you work with will feel this. They will know that you need nothing and they will start to appreciate you. I know it sounds counter-intutive that in order to get appreciated you must stop needing appreciation — but that is how it works.

You must also choose to trust that your life is providing the perfect classroom journey for you. So if you are mistreated, it is just a lesson. It is not about your value. It is about giving you a chance to experience the situation and learn something about love from it. This situation may be about learning to forgive others for not being perfect, because in doing so you will also learn to love yourself more fully. It might be about learning how to choose a happy state even when things go wrong, or to trust God more fully, or to let go of your expectations and trust the universe that it knows what it’s doing.

When you let go of needing this situation to meet your expectations, trust the process of life, and choose to be happy where you are, you will show up strong, confident, capable and solid. People will respect this and they will treat you better.

You must stop the neediness for better treatment in order to feel happy and be treated better. (There are some situations, though, where your perfect lesson might be about getting strong enough to leave, but you must even do this in trust and love without any anger or victim energy, fully grounded in love and forgiveness, if you want to stop the cycle.)

This is going to be a battle to change your subconscious programming and stop the destructive cycle, but the answer is simple, it just takes work, awareness and practice to master. The best time to start working on it is today.

(It is hard to get this kind of complex principle from one article. You may want to read my book "Choosing Clarity" to learn more about it.) 

Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a coach and speaker.

This article was first published on ksl.com
Question:

I have noticed lately that I’m really needy when it comes to attention and validation. I think I use social media for this too. I crave posting things that will bring in the “likes” and make other people jealous of my life. I am fishing for compliments. I also find myself showing off or saying things that I know will make whoever I’m with like me. I know that I shouldn’t need this attention, but I do. I just wondered if you have any advice to help me stop needing this kind of validation all the time.

Answer:

I think it is awesome that you are aware enough to see what you are doing. I think most of us are unconscious approval addicts and we aren’t aware of the things we do to try to get it.

Most of us have been seeking approval since childhood, and it has become a big part of our subconscious programming. We honestly believe our value as human beings is determined by our appearance, performance and what other people think of us. This seeking for approval and validation usually backfires, though. The more you try to get approval from others, the less respect they have for you.

Understand, it isn’t a problem to enjoy some external validation, it’s only a problem if you need it to feel worth. It’s a problem if you can’t accurately determine your own value on your own.

Here is a list of things you might do (without consciously realizing it) to get validation, attention or approval. See if any of them sound familiar. Honestly ask yourself the following questions to see if you are an approval addict Do you:

• Change your behavior or viewpoint to get approval from whoever you are with?
• Do things you don’t want to do to please others?
• Show off or feel compelled to tell your attention-getting stories?
• Talk more than you listen?
• Ask those around you, “Do I look OK?”
• Apologize constantly?
• Post things on social media to show off what’s right in your life?
• Post things on social media about what’s wrong in your life (hoping for some sympathy love)?
• Explain your behavior to people so they won’t judge you?
• Gossip or talk about others to make you look good?
• Like being the center of attention (and use whatever you can to be that)?
• Get bothered or angry if people don’t listen to you or pay attention to you?
• Stress too much about comments or feedback from others?
  

You must understand that a need for external approval comes from a deep insecurity about your value, and it is going to create misery in your life if you don’t fix it. You can’t truly be happy if you are needy and insecure.

Joyce Meyer, in her book "Approval Addiction: Overcoming Your Need to Please Everyone," says you must eliminate the guilt and shame you have carried with you since childhood if you are going to cure your approval addiction. You must also change some of your fundamental beliefs about who you are. You must change the way you value yourself and learn to give yourself internal validation.

This means getting a sense of value from your intrinsic worth as a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable human soul. It means letting go of shame and guilt about your past and choosing to see mistakes as lessons that taught you things but didn’t affect your value.

Here are a few fundamental mindset shifts that can cure your approval addiction over time. For these to change you at the subconscious level though, you will have to make them "your official policies" and review them often.

1. Choose to see life as a classroom, not a test. As a child you were subconsciously taught that life is a test to determine your worth and every mistake counts on your grades. This idea is not truth just because you believed it was. You have the power to change your beliefs about life and your value. You can decide today that life is a classroom, and there is no test, and if there is no test, your value isn’t in question. This would mean that every mistake is a lesson (which you can erase and try again) and no mistakes affect your intrinsic worth. In my book, "Choosing Clarity," I explain that SHAME is an acronym that stands for Should Have Already Mastered Everything. We experience shame when we don't see life as a process of learning and growth, and think we should have been perfect all along. This isn’t realistic or accurate. You are a work in progress. Let go of shame and give yourself the room to grow.
2. Choose to see your value as infinite, absolute and unchangeable. Your value as a human being comes from the fact that you are a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable human soul and your intrinsic value is more important than your appearance or performance (and much more important than what other humans think about you). You must understand that your extrinsic accomplishments, though valuable (and important), are not as important as your intrinsic worth. They are the frosting, but your real worth comes from the cake itself. It’s great if you are successful, accomplished, lose some weight or earn some approval from others — but you don’t need any of these to be good enough.
3. Choose to see all people as having the same intrinsic value. No one is more important or better than anyone else. We are all very different and no one on the planet got signed up for the same classes that you got, so there is no level where it makes sense (or serves you) to compare yourself with others. It would eliminate most of the conflict on the planet if we could all choose to see all humans as having the same value.
4. Stop talking for a week (as much as you can). Set a goal to say as little as possible for one week, and it will amaze you how aware you will become. You will now notice all the things that you want to say for what they are. It will amaze you how many of those comments are about getting validation or managing people’s perceptions of you. This will force you to start thinking before you speak. Use the acronym THINK to help you decide what’s worth saying. Is it True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary or Kind.
5. Only post things on social media that pass the THINK filter test. At least for a while see if you can let go of your need for attention and resist the urge to post.
6. Focus on validating others everywhere you go. If you are intently focused on giving validation and approval to others, you will be a force for love in your world. This might change you forever.
7. Remember that opinions are only stories. Just because someone thinks something about you doesn’t make it true. Opinions are only ideas that exist in a person’s head — they have no power, aren’t real, aren’t meaningful and don’t matter. They can’t change you or diminish you unless you let them.
8. Take some risks and be the genuine YOU. Disagree with popular opinion, create art and share it, perform, write a weekly column on KSL.com and read the comments left about your work. Taking risks will force you to let go of needing approval. If you love what you do, you will find that you don't care what others think. It takes too much energy and distracts you from loving, lifting and serving others. It keeps your focus on you and your worth, and this is not who you want to be. What others think of you is irrelevant.
9. Don’t be a conformist. Be yourself. Who you are right now is perfect. The world would be a boring place if we were all the same. Alan Sherman said, “A ‘normal’ person is the sort of person that might be designed by a committee. You know, each person puts in a pretty color and it comes out gray.”
   

Don’t be gray and don’t try to be a color that makes other people happy.

“The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself.” — Rita Mae Brown

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the founder and president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is also the author of the new book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a coach and speaker.