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I get extremely jealous of my adult siblings. They have life better than I do and it’s difficult to watch them go on trips, get new houses and new cars, and know that I will never have those things. I’m trying to be happy for them, but I admit, deep down I’m extremely sick of seeing it all. I can’t stop feeling bothered that life is so unfair. Do you have any advice, because I don’t like feeling this way? Answer: J.R. Ward said, “Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy. For the price of admission you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistible urge to commit murder and an inferiority complex. Yipee.” My advice is — choose to feel differently. Some people believe their feelings are out of their control and can’t be changed, but that is not true. Your conscious mind has the power to override your subconscious thoughts and fears and change the way you feel about anything, at any moment. You must own that you have that power and are responsible for that choice. Until you own this, and start consciously choosing your emotions and state of mind, you will always be a victim and feel powerless. You must consciously choose how you are going to feel about yourself, your life and your siblings. You must choose love over fear to get your power back. Understand that jealousy is a fear problem. (I know that some of you are still not convinced that every problem is a fear problem, but I assure you it’s true.) Jealousy is a serious fear problem because it triggers both of your deepest, darkest core fears: the fear of failure (not being good enough), and the fear of loss (that your life won’t be good enough). Jealousy could not happen if you saw your value and your life accurately — if you were solidly grounded in the truth about your infinite and absolute value, as a one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable, amazing soul. If you embrace this truth, you will never feel less than other people. Robert Heinlein said, “A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” Jealousy is a sign that your subconscious mind (entrenched in fear) is looking for proof that other people are better than you. You subconsciously believe if they have more than you, or if life has rewarded them with things you didn’t get, then they must be better than you. Why else would God bless them more? None of this is true. Your life is a perfect classroom journey, custom made just for you, to serve your unique process of learning. Your siblings got signed up for different classes than you did, for a reason. There are no accidents. Your unique path is going to teach you the lessons you need most. Remember, your value as a human being is the same as theirs, regardless of their quality of life or what they have. We all have the same value, we just required different lessons and therefore made different choices. I recommend the following exercise to work through your jealous feelings: 1. Write your feelings on paper and describe them in detail. Instead of trying to stuff these feelings, embrace them fully and feel the pain they create as acutely as possible. Lean into the feelings instead of resisting them. You will work through them faster if you embrace and let yourself process them. What are they here to teach you? What kind of behavior are they encouraging? Why does your sibling’s happiness threaten you? Does their success take anything away from you? Does feeling jealous serve you at any level? Does it motivate you to create more success yourself? Write the answers to these questions on paper. 2. Separate the ego/scarcity/fear part of you that likes jealous feelings, from the spirit/abundance/ love part of you that doesn’t want to be here. Which side do you want to let drive your life? Who do you want to be? In every moment, you get to choose your state, and there are only two options. You can live from a place of love, abundance and peace or you can live from fear, scarcity and discontent. How do you want to live? You must consciously make this choice on a daily — and sometimes hourly — basis.Write down your commitment to choose love. 3. Make a written rule against comparing yourself with other people. There is no level where comparing serves anyone. Make an official policy against it. 4. Remember life is a package deal and each life path comes with some blessings and some trials. If you had another person’s blessings, you would also have to take their trials. 5. Don’t doubt yourself and your own abilities. You can accomplish almost anything you want if you set your mind to. If you want more from life, believe in yourself and go create it. 6. Carefully choose your thoughts. Every thought matters. Choose to think only positive, loving thoughts about yourself and other people. In doing this you are choosing abundance and blessings for everyone. Choose to see the world as abundant and overflowing with enough for all. 7. Choose gratitude for what you have, every minute of every day. Gratitude is one of the most positive emotions you can choose. When you live from a place of gratitude, you are accepting all love and blessings from the universe and opening the door wide to receive more. Also remember, there are people on the planet who would be jealous of you. Count every small blessing and embrace gratitude. Hope this helps. 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.
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I was having a conversation with my ill husband yesterday about all the challenges in our life and feeling defeated. For the first time in my life ... I feel utterly defeated. How would you address this kind of despair with a non-religious person? Answer: I am so sorry that you have been dealt such a tough hand. I do have some advice and I know it can help, but is it going to require you to stretch a bit. The one thing you absolutely must know is that “despair is optional” even when things are really bad. You have the power to change how you feel about this situation. If you choose to claim that power. You don’t have to experience this situation in a negative, defeated and painful way — even though it seems logical and justified to do so. Despair, defeat and discouragement are choices and there are other options. (A lot of people are resistant to this idea, though. Every time I talk about this principle, someone leaves a comment saying Coach Kim obviously doesn’t “get it” because it’s not that easy.) I agree that it’s not necessarily easy, but it is possible. I could also tell you some of the difficult experiences I’ve been through to prove to you that I do “get it” but you may still not believe me. So, take it from Viktor Frankl who survived being a prisoner in concentration camps during World War II. He knows about suffering better than any of us, and he agrees with me. Frankl believed you could choose a positive mindset and find meaning in a situation, and that in choosing this you might literally suffer less. In his book, "A Man’s Search for Meaning," Frankl said to find this meaning you must figure out what your unique life challenges are asking of you. What are they here to teach you? How could they serve you, other people or the world? He said, “I can see beyond the misery of the situation to the potential for discovering a meaning behind it, and thus to turn an apparently meaningless suffering, into a genuine human achievement.” He continued, “There are no tragic, negative aspects which could not be, by the stand one takes to them, transmuted into positive accomplishments.” He believed that every challenge or trial could be turned into an accomplishment, by simply choosing a positive perspective around it. Let me give you an example. An old man was suffering with great depression because his wife had passed away leaving him alone. Dr. Frankl asked him what would have happened if he had been the one to die first, and his wife had been here alone. He replied that she would have suffered greatly. She would have been even more miserable than he was. Dr. Frankl then asked this man to imagine that he had volunteered to stay here on Earth alone, to spare his wife that suffering. Would that idea change how he felt about his situation? It did, because now there was purpose and meaning to his suffering. When it means something, it is easier to bear. I battle chronic pain on a daily basis. I choose to believe this pain is serving me, because it gives me empathy and helps me connect with other people. It makes me a better coach. You can choose to see your situation in a positive way, too. You can decide to let it shape your character and give you compassion. You can use it to make you stronger, wiser and more loving. You can use it to teach those around you how to be positive in spite of difficulties. Or you can choose depression and defeat. It is totally up to you. Please understand that making this choice is not about positive thinking or mind over matter — it’s about logic and common sense. If you get to choose your mindset and one option will make you more miserable, and the other less miserable, isn’t it just common sense to choose less misery? Whenever I find myself feeling defeated, I take a minute and let myself experience the feeling. Then I decide between two choices. I can continue to think “I can’t help feeling this way,” or I can replace it with, “I don’t have to feel this way.” Which mindset serves you more? Get out some paper and write down your mindset options. You could choose to be angry, defeated, bitter, jealous, depressed or hopeless. You could also choose to trust there is a reason this experience showed up in your life. You could choose to be determined, optimistic, loving, wise and resolute. Then, write down the results each mindset would create in your life. Then, decide who you want to be. Frankl would often ask his patients to imagine themselves at the end of their life looking back at this moment. “How do you want this next chapter to play out?” The answer is usually behavior you could be proud of. I know telling you to dig deeper inside yourself, choose a positive mindset and turn your struggles into a human achievement may not be what you wanted to hear, but you can do it. If it feels impossible, you may want to work with a counselor or coach to help you overcome the subconscious fears that are pulling you back into despair on a daily basis. The library is also full of books that teach you how to turn suffering into a positive, and the more positive material you expose yourself to, the easier it will become. You ought to read "Man’s Search for Meaning" if you haven’t read it. Hope this helps. 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:
My husband has many serious health problems that developed after we got married, and this is taken a huge toll on me. I have to work, take care of our house and our three children basically by myself. I guess I have become disillusioned with what I thought life would be like for me. He complains constantly and I am always tired. It is getting hard for me to be very excited about life. I want the spouse I married, but now things are so different and I have at least 50-plus years to go. What can I do to enjoy life again and make it through this? Answer: Everyone who reads this article will relate to you on some level, because most people are disappointed with their lives and tired of the problems. So what can you do to experience more joy and peace, if you can’t change your situation? There is only one thing you can do. You can change your attitude about your situation by changing the way you see it. To see your current situation in a more positive way, you may have to change your policy on the purpose of your life. Take a minute and think about what you currently see as the purpose and point of your life. You may think life is about being successful, being wealthy, proving your value to God or raising the perfect kids. These are worthy goals, but they aren’t your real purpose for being here. You are primarily here to learn and grow. You are here to experience every aspect of the human condition and gain knowledge and empathy from these experiences. I believe every single thing that happens to you happens to serve your unique process of growing and learning. I believe your life is your perfect classroom. I do not believe in accidents. I believe that every situation in your life is a perfect part of your divine process of learning. I developed this philosophy when studying the work of Viktor Frankl, the author of "Man’s Search for Meaning." In a concentration camp during World War II, experiencing unimaginable suffering, he discovered that a person can, through changing his attitude, change the way he experiences suffering. He said, "Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it." You just need to see your situation in a different context. What if you are in this situation — with a sick husband — for a reason? What if it’s not bad luck that brought you here, but this situation was hand-created for your journey, because it would facilitate your growth? If there was a reason for your suffering, you might feel differently about it. I think this situation is helping you to become the person you are meant to be. I think it is forcing you to find out how strong you are. If life had given you a healthy husband, you would not be pushing yourself this hard and you would not be growing the way you are. On your own, you wouldn’t have stretched to become what this situation is forcing you to become. I am sorry that the universe signed you up for this particular struggle, because it is a really difficult one — but I truly believe you are where you are supposed to be, and this situation is serving you in some way. I believe some day you are going to be proud of yourself for surviving this and becoming a better and stronger person in the process. Frankl said, "I can see beyond the misery of the situation, to the potential for discovering a meaning behind it, and thus to turn apparently meaningless suffering into a genuine human achievement." He was talking about you. Your struggle is not meaningless, and it is creating opportuntites for amazing growth. I realize that this doesn’t make your days any easier to handle, though, so I would like to make one more suggestion: Take it one small moment at a time. Don’t focus on the weight of carrying this burden for the next 50-plus years today; that will crush you. Instead, focus on this moment and this moment only. Stay really present and let tomorrow, next month and next year go until you get there. Have you heard the joke about how to eat an elephant? (One small bite at a time.) That is how you must approach your life when it is this difficult. Just make it through this moment or this hour. Focus on what is in your control right now. You can carry the weight of this moment fine. It is the weight of all the moments piled together that gets too heavy. Do not borrow suffering from the future and let it ruin today. Do not let your thoughts get away from you. You have control over your thoughts. You can choose to focus on this moment and trust your future will be what it is meant to be, and you will handle it when you get there. If this is really difficult to do (because you are really good at fear and discouragement), you may need a coach or counselor to help. That may be the very best advice I could give you. There are amazing tricks to healthy thinking you have not had the chance to learn, which could make a big difference. I hope this helps. Hang in there! 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:
Life has not been a picnic for me. It has been mostly full of disappointments and hard knocks. It isn’t turning out anything like the life I had planned. Hence, I experience a lot of jealously and resentment toward others. I’m trying not to be bitter and feel like a failure, but I can’t see I’ve accomplished much and don’t have much to show for all my work, pain and suffering. Not sure what my question is, but I guess I could use some advice to feel better about life? Answer: Your question might be: What is the point or purpose of this difficult life? Is there meaning in the painful and often fruitless experiences I’ve had? Is my difficult journey benefiting me in some way? I often quote Viktor Frankl in my articles because his discoveries in the concentration camps during World War II have greatly influenced my philosophies on life. He found that life did have meaning and purpose, even when it consisted of nothing but horrible suffering. He believed that every man must, at some point on his journey, find meaning in his individual experiences, especially the bad ones. He said, “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.” Personally, I believe there is meaning in the difficulties you have experienced, because I believe you are here in this world to do two things. You are here to learn andlove. I believe this purpose is hard-wired into all of us. We seem to innately know life is about growing, learning, stretching and becoming the best version of ourselves we can become. We also seem to know we are here to love others and help as many people as we can, along our way. (Most people who find a specific mission in life find it around one or both of these two ideas.) I believe — as part of the learning process here — we must experience many different aspects of the human condition, including suffering, grief, disappointment, joy, happiness and peace to learn what each of these experiences can teach us. Unfortunately we learn more from the difficult experiences. Suffering gives us empathy and understanding; shame teaches us compassion; disappointment teaches us to shift, change, adapt and persevere. Miserable, heart-breaking and discouraging situations usually serve us and refine us. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. It is important you remember this truth, though — the amount of difficult experiences you get here is not a reflection of your value or your abilities, as much as it is about the specific lessons you were meant to learn. You must remember that your value is the same as everyone else’s. Every human being on the planet has the same infinite and absolute value, no matter how successful or unsuccessful their life may appear. This means they aren’t better than you just because they accomplished more. They just got signed up for different classes and different lessons than you did. No one on this planet got signed up for the same classes you got. So you cannot compare your journey or your results with anyone else. When you say you have nothing to show for your efforts and your life has been a failure, all I hear is you apparently got signed up for some really hard classes. But your results here don’t affect or determine your value. You are an irreplaceable, one-of-a-kind, divine, amazing human soul. You are basically an irreplaceable diamond, which has the same value no matter it's setting or where you find it. If a diamond is thrown in the mud, it still has the same value. If it is thrown in the garbage, it still has the same value. You have the same value no matter where you end up. Do you get this? Your journey has nothing to do with your value. Some of us get signed up for harder classes here in the classroom of life than others. I don’t know why things are unfair here, but I believe there is a reason. I’ve often tried to drop a few of my more miserable classes, but apparently they were required courses because the universe didn’t let me out. I was not happy about this, but I realized that stuck in that situation, I only had two choices. I could choose to trust the universe that this difficult path was serving me in some way, focus on the lessons and let the experiences make me better, stronger and more loving, or I could dwell in fear, anger, jealously and bitterness — which would only push other people away and create more negative in my life. These are your only two choices when you are stuck in a required class. I highly recommend choosing trust and love! Here are a couple more things you could do to change your perspective on life: 1) Write down as many positives as you can about what your journey has given you, things you have learned, qualities you have gained, traits you’ve developed. Then write down some things you could be gaining or developing if you tried a little harder. 2) Remember your value is as infinite and absolute as a diamond, no matter your results or performance. Claim your power to determine your own value and see it this way, despite your results. 3) Remember, life is really about what you learn, understand and develop through your experiences. It is not about what a smooth ride you had. It is about who you become on the inside not what you have to show on the outside. 4) Whenever you feel jealous of others, remember that their hard classes are probably still coming and you have things (empathy, understanding and wisdom) they may not have yet. 5) Don’t live to please other people — follow your heart and your intuition. Make sure you are doing what feels right to you in every situation. Honor your truth and your values no matter what. 6) Choose to be grateful for what is good in your life, for every small blessing or moment of happiness. Choose joy in every situation you possibly can. 7) You may not be able to change your situation, but you always have the power to choose how you will experience that situation. There are two choices: fear or trust and love. Fear will create more suffering — trust and love will create peace. You get to decide where you want to live. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way,” Frankl said. He continued, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” I recommend that you work on changing the way you are looking at your life. When you look at it from a new perspective, it may totally change the way you feel. If this is proving difficult, you may want to seek a coach or counselor to help you. I hope this helps. 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:
How do I stop beating myself up for past mistakes? I made some bad choices that ruined an important relationship, and I made some bad choices that caused me to miss opportunities, which will never come again. I could beat myself up forever about those choices and what might have been different in my life, if I’d been smarter. How does one get past those kinds of mistakes? Answer: “Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been.” Kurt Vonnegut penned those words, and they sting every person who reads them. Almost everyone on the planet has regrets (decisions they wish they had made differently over the course of their lives). If you spend too much time here, these regrets could rob you the happiness you should be experiencing today. You can't let this happen. It doesn’t serve you to punish yourself over and over for past transgressions, especially because you can't change them. Spending time here would mean borrowing suffering from your past and letting it ruin today. The question is how can you eliminate these feelings of shame and regret? Here are six things you can do to change the way you feel about your past and change the way you create your future:
Don’t waste another minute of today dwelling in fear over things that are over and gone. Focus on being the person you want to be. Choose to focus on the future only because it's more productive. You can do this. 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:
How can person fight anxiety (without the use of medication) when they feel it coming on? I heard there was a way to change your thinking that might help. Can you explain how I can do that? Answer: First, let me clarify that the term “anxiety” can be used to describe a whole range of experiences, from just feeling overwhelmed to serious medical conditions. Anxiety can also be caused by a large number of factors — everything from genetic conditions, brain chemistry problems, substance abuse or just trying to do too much too fast. In this article I am addressing the more common, non-medical condition type. If you suffer from an anxiety disorder, you should talk to a medical professional for advice. The one commonality these anxiety experiences share is that they all get worse when you experience stress. Stress, by the way, is a fear problem. (I know some of my readers are bothered by the fact that I believe every problem is a fear problem, but I assure you it is. If you can't see that yet, keep looking at it.) Facing fear The next time you feel anxiety, ask yourself, “What am I afraid of?” You are either afraid of looking bad, being rejected and failing, or you are afraid of losing something (reputation, money, opportunities, etc.) Once you clearly define the fear, you can process your way out of it with better thinking. Learning how to think situations through in an accurate, positive way will make a huge difference, no matter what kind of anxiety you have (though some forms of anxiety will require medical or professional help along with better thinking). The fastest way to change your thinking is to choose trust in two truths that are the opposite of the two most common fears. The two most common fears that cause anxiety are:
The power of choices Remember: The one power you have in every situation is the power to choose your mindset. We learned this from Victor Frankl, a Viennese psychotherapist who was a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. In spite of everything in his life that went wrong, he chose an attitude of trust and love. What many people don’t know about Frankl is that he went on to become the father of logotherapy (a kind of therapy that encourges people to choose how they want to experience each situation). “Logos” is the Greek word that means, “To make meaning out of something.” Frankl believed that you get to decide what each event in your life means, because events don't mean anything until you apply meaning to them. You get to choose your attitude and how every experience will affect your life — but if you don't make this choice, your subconscious mind will choose for you, and it will usually choose fear. Frankl believed that you should reframe each experience in whatever way best serves you (still within the framework of reality, of course). If trusting the process of life and seeing it as a safe process with meaning and purpose gives you peace, you should choose that outlook. I believe choosing to trust that everything happens for a reason serves your process of growth, eliminates fear and makes life better. The formula This is my formula for eliminating anxious thoughts in the moment:
"Nothing in life creates more deep-seated anxieties than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties and problems." –Unknown You cannot control life and you won't always be able to make it the way you want it, so you might as well just trust it. 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 have just been called to be a welfare specialist in my LDS ward where we have more than 160 low-income housing apartments. I would like insights into how to coach those who need help in lifting their hopes and lives a little. How can I help them stay optimistic? Answer: I would love to share some tips on choosing a positive mindset, and hopefully you will have opportunities to share these principles with the people you serve. I would recommend you do a lot of listening first, though. People must know that you care, before they care about what you know. Listening shows people that you value them as they are, where they are, and are not just trying to fix them. Then, I would ask if they are open to some advice. Permission questions show people that you honor and respect them. Then you might share the following principles and suggestions. Principle 1: You have the power to choose your attitude. You may not have control over the events in your life, but you do get to choose how you will experience those events. It is the one choice no one can take from you. We learned this from Viktor Frankl, who spent time in Nazi concentration camps. They took everything he had, but they could not take away his power to choose his attitude, he said. Even though he was in the worst situation imaginable, he chose love over fear. You have the power to choose love over fear, too. Principle 2: When choosing your attitude, you have only two choices: fear, or trust and love (every other state falls under one of those). This makes the choice a simple one. In every moment of your life, you can consciously choose a mindset of trust and love, or you can react unconsciously without thinking. If you do this, your subconscious mind will usually choose fear. I recommend consciousness. Conscious choice requires you to wake up and become aware of what you are experiencing and how you are reacting to that experience. You have to get off autopilot and choose how you want to feel in this moment. This will require practice and effort if you have been asleep most of your life. You may also have created some subconscious bad habits: things like taking things too personally, over-generalizing, catastrophizing or creating unnecessary drama to get attention. You will have to start catching these behaviors and consciously choosing something better. The first step is choosing to see the process of life as a safe one. Principle 3: Choosing to see life as a classroom, not a test, will take your fear of failure off the table. When you choose to trust the process of life and see it as your perfect process of growth, it will take the fear of loss off the table. Living from this place will create more peace and joy. I recommend you make this your official policy: life is a classroom and my value isn’t on the line. Give yourself permission to be a work in progress, a person who doesn't have to be perfect. This mindset will change the way you feel about mistakes and misfortune. Dr. Martin Seligman, in his book "Learned Optimism," said the main difference between optimists and pessimists is that pessimists see failure and misfortune as permanent and personal, while optimists see misfortune as non-permanent and non-personal, meaning they don't let mistakes affect their value or define who they are. You get to decide how you want to experience each situation in your life. I highly recommend seeing each experience as a lesson or a location on your journey, which has nothing to do with who you are. Here are some other suggestions for a positive attitude:
I know that it is hard to stay positive when things go wrong, but the only other choice (fear and depression) will make you more miserable — so keep working at choosing trust and love, and it will get easier over time. 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 worked hard for 48 years, now I am retired and drawing a pension. My question to you is, “Is it normal to have feelings of guilt for being retired?” Most days I can do chores, projects or whatever comes along, without a thought of guilt. Then all of a sudden I feel guilty about this money I am getting, when I’m not doing anything to earn it. How do I get to the point where I don’t feel embarrassed or guilty about being retired? Answer: You must change the way you see your situation and consciously choose to replace feelings of guilt with something more productive. There are situations where experiencing guilt is appropriate and productive, namely when you do something wrong or mistreat someone. In these situations, a little guilt is a good thing because it motivates you to change, but experiencing guilt when you have done nothing wrong is not appropriate and doesn’t serve anyone. Feeling a sense of guilt because you aren’t working for a living (when you have worked hard your entire life to get here) is unproductive guilt and a waste of energy. it also prevents you from showing up for other people. Your guilt keeps you focused on yourself and your fear of not being good enough, and in this place you might not see other people and their needs. You cannot experience guilt and love at the same time. Guilt is about you, love is about other people. The fastest way out of guilt is to focus on your love for someone else. Your guilt may also be tied to your fears of what other people think of you. If other people (and their judgment of you) weren’t in the mix, you might not feel guilty at all. If this is true for you, remember people who judge you are usually jealous or worried they won’t get what you have. This fear of loss may, at times, cause them to cast you as the bad guy (because it subconsciously makes them feel better) but that doesn’t make it true. You are not a bad person because your situation makes them feel insecure or unsafe. The way they choose to feel about your situation is not your problem. You have no control over how they choose to feel, and it is not your responsibility to feel guilty so they feel better. It would be more productive for you to focus on validating, caring about and encouraging these people, choosing love instead of fear. You may also need to work on your self-esteem. You might see yourself as less valuable because you aren’t working anymore. You may have used your job as your main source of validation and without it your sense of self-worth may have taken a hit. You may need to work on reinventing a new sense of self-worth around who you are now. (You may want to get some help from a coach or counselor to do this.) The following is my recipe for increasing self-esteem and eliminating non-productive guilt: 1) Get busy doing productive things, learning and growing every day. If you stay active and constantly work on improving yourself, your life will have purpose and meaning. 2) Give yourself permission to be a work in progress (a student in the classroom of life). Choose to believe there are no mistakes, only perfect lessons. Embrace the lessons and let guilt and shame go. 3) Trust that your value isn’t on the line and what other people think of you is irrelevant. If they are jealous or judgmental, it is because they are afraid for themselves. It has nothing to do with you. Choose to love them instead of feeling guilty. 4) Choose to see yourself and your value accurately. Choose to see other people as the same as you (not better or worse). Choose to remember your value is infinite and absolute no matter what anyone thinks or does. Your value is the same whether you are working or not. 5) Focus on loving, validating and lifting other people, especially the people who judge you. Push the limits of your love and validate the people you think don’t need it and the people who think they are better than you. You will feel powerful and amazing when you do this. 6) Ask yourself this question often, “Does this attitude serve me or anyone else?” If the answer is no, immediately replace your negative thoughts with something that does serve you. Try gratitude, love or trust. You have the power to choose your attitude in every moment, make sure you are claiming that power and consciously choosing a productive mindset. You are the one who gets to decide how you will feel about your life. You will stop feeling guilty — as soon as you decide not to. You can do this. 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 enjoyed your articles about forgiving other people, but how do you forgive yourself and move on when you have made many mistakes? That is what I struggle with. Answer: You are not alone. Most of us hold on to past mistakes and let them affect our self-esteem for way too long. This is not healthy and does not serve anyone. Here are eight suggestions that may help you to forgive yourself: 1. Choose to see past experiences as locations on your journey through life, instead of letting them define who you are If you were on a road trip and drove through Texas, would the time you spent there make you a Texan? Of course not. It was just the location you drove through; it doesn’t change who you are. Your value is the same no matter what you experience along your journey. Mistakes teach you important lessons, but they don’t define who you are — at least they don't have to. You can see them as locations on your journey if you choose to. 2. Give yourself permission to be a work in progress Choose to see life as a classroom, not a testing center. You have the option to believe that your value isn’t on the line here and you are not being graded — you are just here to learn and grow. Seeing life as a classroom helps you focus on the lessons so you can forgive yourself and try to do better next time. 3. Understand how pointless shame is I believe "shame" stands for: should have already mastered everything. That is ridiculous. You are a student in the classroom of life. There is no way could know it all, all the time. Give yourself permission to be an imperfect work in progress. You are learning and growing and that is enough. 4. Figuratively get rid of it for good You could write it down on paper and burn it. You could write what you did, put it in a box and bury it in the backyard. Then make a rule that you can’t bring it up again, unless you dig the box up first. (This exercise is great for couples who keep fighting about the past too.) Bury that stuff deep and let it die there. There is no sense wasting energy on things you can’t change. Focus on the future instead. 5. Learn some new skills Focus on making your future brighter. This is in your control. Be present and find ways to improve yourself daily. Learning new skills is great for your self-esteem. 6. Imagine there is a dark room in your house where you can stash negative thoughts and emotions Every time negative thoughts show up, which aren't worth processing anymore, visualize putting them in the dark room and slamming the door. You can always go in there, if you need to process it some more and dwell in self-pity. But you could also leave the negativity in the dark room forever. This empowers you to have control over what to do with those feelings. 7. Clean out your closets and your house Most people, who hold on to old stuff, are also holding on to old ways of thinking and feeling. When you get rid of your old stuff, you can send your old beliefs, mistakes and fears out with it. Cleaning your house out will make you feel fresh and new on every level. 8. Change it up and try new things Break out of your old ruts and change some things. Try new outfit combinations, new foods, new restaurants, new sports or new kinds of movies. The more you break out of routine and change it up, you will also open yourself up to feel differently about yourself and your life. Steve Maraboli, in his book "Life, the Truth, and Being Free," said “Incredible change happens in your life when you decide to take control of what you do have power over instead of craving control over what you don’t.” The past is out of your control; there is nothing you can do to change it. Let it go. Choose joy for today. 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’m concerned about our nation in the wake of this election. Our country is in trouble and I don’t have much confidence in this president to fix things. There is a dark cloud of discouragement and sadness hanging over me in regards to our future. I foresee more stalemates in congress and more debt. Do you have any advice on changing how negatively I feel about the president, the people in the other party and the next four years? Answer: Many Mitt Romney supporters are feeling a post-election depression this week. It may even feel like the solid ground they were standing on has been pulled out from under them. To repair this and escape the depression you are feeling, you must find some new solid ground, escape fear and choose trust and love. The negative campaign ads are to partly to blame for the fear you are experiencing. The campaigns purposely encouraged suspicion and distrust toward the other party. The people behind these ads wanted you to feel threatened and scared about “the other guy” and his ideas. The problem is, if we continue on this course of fearing each other, we won’t be able to come together and create the brighter future we all desire. Healing this division in our country must start with each of us changing the way we think about the people on the other side. If we want Congress and the president to reach across the aisle and heal the nation, we must first reach across the street and heal the animosity we feel toward our neighbors with “the other guys'” signs in their yard. We must stop casting them as the bad guys. It may be helpful to understand why we do this. We, as human beings, have an innate tendency to make other people out to be the bad guys so we can feel like the good guys. This tendency is responsible for most of the conflicts we have. Whenever there is a group of people we don’t understand (be it for differences in race, religion or ideology) we experience fear about them and we subconsciously cast them as the bad guys. The campaign ads have used this tendency against us. They also played off your fear of loss and your fear of safety, which are the core fears that drive your behavior. We do most of what we do because we are afraid of losing what we have — afraid of failing, being taken from, being rejected or just not being good enough, safe or secure. What we want, more than anything, is to feel safe. The campaigns understood this fear and wanted you to see “the other guy” as a threat to your safety. They have encouraged you to fear this person and everyone who supports him. They have encouraged you to see your fellow Americans as the enemy. They aren’t the enemy. Now, that this election is over, it’s time to heal this divide. It's time to focus on what we have in common. It is also time to understand where a feeling of safety really comes from and choose trust and love over fear. Here are three ways you can change your mindset and feel better: 1. Choose to see other people as the same as you. There is no way “the other guy” is as bad or evil as the campaign has painted him. He may think differently than you do, but he is not a bad person. The people in the opposing party who support “the other guy” are inherently good and loving people, too.They have different opinions because they’ve had different life experiences, but in many ways they are the same as you. They are scared, struggling, amazing, divine human beings doing the best they can with what they know at the time, and they desire safety and success as much as you do. Just because they don’t see the world the way you do — and maybe can’t see it the way you do — doesn’t make them bad people. When you choose to see them as the same as you, it will take some of the fear out of this situation. Let’s focus on the ways we are the same. We all want a prosperous nation and more good jobs. We all want a strong nation guided by hope, liberty and true principles. We all want to help the less fortunate and those in need. We all want to get out of debt and provide a more secure future for our children. We all want a government that’s for the people and by the people. We all value freedom and love our country. If we could set aside the differences and focus on what we have in common, we could unite ourselves and once again be the United States of America instead of the Divided. 2. Choose trust instead of fear: Remember, your desire to feel safe is behind your feelings of fear. You were hoping that by electing the candidate you trusted most, you would feel safe. When that didn’t happen, your fear got bigger. The problem is, a feeling of safety doesn’t come from having a certain candidate in office. A feeling of safety comes from choosing to trust that things will be OK. Choosing trust, hope and optimism makes you feel safe. That is why courageous people can feel safe even in dangerous situations. It doesn’t matter to which religion you belong, or even if you have one; everyone can choose to trust that a higher power is in charge, or you can trust the universe, life and the American spirit. You can trust the drive, ingenuity and creativity of the American people. You can choose to trust that good people, committed to true principles, can create good outcomes. You can choose to trust that things will be OK if we keep working to turn them around. Even when things go wrong, you can trust there’s a reason why things went the way they went, and choose to trust and feel safe anyway. Trust is a choice you can make any time you want, and it's a good choice because the only other choice is fear — and fear does you no good. This is the bottom line: The future is unknown. Things could get better or things could get worse, but standing in this moment you only have two choices: You can choose to trust things will be OK or you can choose to be afraid. Your choice will not affect what happens in the future; t will be what it will be. But your choice will greatly affect the quality of your life today. It will affect your relationships and the way you interact with other people. It will affect your ability to focus and work effectively. Fear (if you choose to embrace it) will skew the way you see your life, and your negative energy may attract more problems. I recommend choosing trust, hope and optimism, even though things didn't turn out the way you hoped. 3. Choose love instead of fear. Discouragement, depression and fear are very selfish emotions because they are all focused on you. You can escape these fearful emotions by focusing on your love instead. You can choose to focus on your love for the people in your home, community and country. You can choose to love and support the leaders your community elected and pray for them. You can make the most of what you do have, and get out there and make a difference in the lives of those around you. Everywhere you go, you can validate and edify others and be a force for love in the world. Or you can embrace fear, suspicion and resentment because "your guy" lost. You can fear the future and focus on protecting yourself from the bad guys around you. You can live with election depression or you can refuse to embrace it. It’s up to you. Abraham Lincoln served as president during another time when this nation was fiercely divided. He said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds.” It’s time to bind up the wounds this election caused and join together to create the change we all want. It’s not easy to choose a positive mindset when you’re disappointed, but you have to do it anyway — because the only other alternative is fear, and fear won’t fix anything. 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. |
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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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