This was first published on KSL.COM

I had a client ask me about the anatomy of the argument they keep having over and over throughout their marriage. They have noticed that other couples say the same thing: they always argue over the same thing or around the same basic issue. So, I thought that maybe I would explain a simple way to take apart that argument and see what is really happening.

The first thing you need to understand is that fear is in play. I believe there are two fears we all battle with every day, and have done so since we were small children. They are the fear of failure (that I might not be good enough) and the fear of loss (that I am not safe). We all experience both of these, but each person has one that is more dominant.

Find the fear

When thinking about your most common argument, it’s important to figure out which fear is in play for each of you. Ask the following questions to determine which fear is dominant for you, and then for your partner.

Fear of failure questions

• Do you have a lot of insecurity?
• Can you be a people pleaser?
• Do you sometimes struggle to speak your truth and instead let yourself be treated like a doormat?
• Do you worry too much about what others think?
• Do you get really hurt or offended when someone accuses you of acting wrong or behaving badly?
• Do you just really want everyone to be happy so you can relax and not feel like a failure?

If you answered yes to most of these questions, you are probably fear-of-failure dominant.

Fear of loss questions

• Do you have lots of opinions and are not shy about sharing them?
• Do you speak your truth well and sometimes offend people?
• Do you need a certain amount of control of situations to really feel safe?
• Are you opinionated and picky or particular about how things should be done?
• Do you easily notice what is wrong in any situation?
• Are you sensitive about feeling taken from or taken advantage of?
• Do you get bothered when your money is wasted or people don’t do what they should be doing?

If you answered yes to most of these questions you might be fear-of-loss dominant.

Study the fight

The reason it is important to know a person’s core fear is that once you understand where their fear is based, you also know the key trigger that knocks them out of balance and brings out their bad behavior. Most of your arguments will be the same basic fear getting triggered.

People who are fear-of-failure dominant get offended when they feel judged, criticized, rejected, unloved, abandoned or insulted.

People who are fear-of-loss dominant get offended when they feel taken from, mistreated, disregarded, disrespected or like they are losing something.

Think back on your most common argument or disagreement you have with a person. Which one of the above offenses happened first? Someone started this argument when they felt one of those things. Can you see which fear was in play first?

When their first fear was triggered, the person reacted and behaved in a way that triggered the other person’s fear. Can you see which fear that was?

Whenever you react from fear, the behavior that results is almost always selfish and focused solely on protecting yourself. This behavior makes the other person feel unsafe. When you are so focused on protecting yourself, you are not going to be thinking about protecting the other person. It is important that you can see behavior that the first person displayed, or what they said that got the second person triggered, too.

What did the first person’s behavior make the second person feel? Did they feel ...

1. Judged, criticized, rejected, unloved, abandoned or insulted
2. Taken from, mistreated, disregarded, disrespected or like they are losing something

When both parties have their core fear triggered, each person involved in the argument is selfishly focused on protecting his or herself and his or her interests. In this state, no one is capable of showing up with love, understanding or validation for the other person. They both feel too unsafe to talk about the real issues. Suddenly, the whole argument has become all about seeing yourself as wronged and defending yourself.

See the solution

It is critical to understand the anatomy of these arguments so you can see the solution. At the end of the day, you both just want to feel safe, loved, respected, admired and wanted by your partner. This argument is really about the fact that you don’t feel that way.

So, the answer to ending this argument for good is to learn how to make your partner feel safe, loved, respected, admired and wanted when they first get triggered.

What if you could pause right at the beginning of the argument, when the first trigger happens, and ask yourself:

1. What is my partner really afraid of here?
2. What does my partner need to calm, validate or reassure them and bring back a feeling of safety?
3. How could I give my partner what they need instead of getting defensive and focusing on protecting myself?
4. What would it look like if I tried to listen to understand my partner (not reply) and recognized this issue is about their fears about themselves more than it is about me?
5. What could I do in this moment to make my partner feel safe, loved, respected, admired and wanted?

Mary and John

Let me give you an example of how this works:

Mary and her husband John live on a tight budget and are very careful in stretching their paycheck to the end of the month. John opens the fridge and finds a bag of salad that has gone bad and has to be thrown out. He turns to Mary and in anger says "That is just great! Why didn’t you use this before it sat in the fridge and rotted? What’s the matter with you?" Mary yells back, "Why do you have to be such a jerk? You are the worst husband ever." The argument escalates from there.

Let’s take this one apart: This argument started when John got triggered by fear of loss. He was already worried about not having enough money this month, and seeing food go bad triggered that fear. But notice that he doesn’t see it as a money fear problem; he inaccurately sees it as Mary’s problem. So, he aimed his bad reaction right at Mary, insulting and verbally attacking her.

This, of course, triggered Mary’s fear of failure, as John was accusing her of being careless and wasteful. But instead of recognizing what John’s fear was really about (the money fear), she goes on the defense and attacks him back. Now, both John and Mary feel unsafe with each other and instead of addressing the actual fear issue, they have made the argument about each other.

​Conclusion

The truth is that most bad behavior is a cry for help, love or reassurance because the person is scared of something; it’s always more about the person’s fears about themselves than it is about you.

People who are grouchy and rude and attack you for small mistakes, or right out of the blue, are usually battling a huge fear that they aren’t good enough; however, they aren't conscious of that, so they project their self-hate onto you, which is easier for them than facing it.

Many people who feel mistreated, taken from, or are easily offended are really angry at life for disappointing them. They can’t punish life for their losses, so they project the problem onto everyone around them. If you can start stepping back and looking at each argument through this filter, you will find they are easier to understand and resolve than you think.

You can do this.

This was first published on KSL.com

I have received numerous questions lately that involve stepfamilies or blended families, and I understand why. All family relationships can be hard, but these families face many more challenges than a biological family. Additionally, people who haven’t been in a blended family before are often unprepared to handle them.

Many couples marry thinking their love will be enough to make the family work, but they soon find out that’s not true. To create a successful blended family you will need to learn about the challenges and gain some new skills.

The statistics

I share the following statistics from Pew Research and the Stepfamily Foundation not to discourage you, but to motivate you to get some help, education, skills and tools so your blended family can beat these odds.

• 1,300 stepfamilies are formed every day.
• 1 in 4 Americans is a stepparent, a stepchild, or has some other form of a blended family; that means almost 100 million people.
• 50% of first marriages end in divorce.
• 75% of those first marriage divorcees will remarry at some time.
• 60-75% (depending on the source) of blended families or second marriages end in divorce.
• 75% of stepfamilies complain about a lack of resources to help them.

Fortunately, that last statistic is changing, as there are more resources today than ever before. I highly recommend that couples who are in a blended family or are thinking about getting married, find a coach or counselor who is familiar with the challenges. You should also find every book, conference or seminar you can on the topic and read them together. These steps can considerably up your chances of making it. Knowledge and awareness of the challenges make all the difference.

Tips for blended families

Jeannette Lofas, an author and stepfamily expert, says the No. 1 factor in the success or failure of a blended family comes down to getting outside education, help and resources to deal with the inevitable challenges. Here are some important facts about blended families, from her book “Step Parenting,” which I highly recommend.

1. A blended family is very different from a biological family.

The issues that arise in a blended family will be some you haven’t ever had to deal with before. In a birth family, there are natural roles everyone falls into; but in a blended family, these roles can look very different.

No stepmother can fully replace the child’s actual mother (even if she is deceased). The stepmother role is a unique one that most people have never had before. The rules are completely different, and the same goes for the father, mother, stepfather, and even the oldest child, who now might not be the oldest anymore.

It takes time for everyone to understand and master their new roles. This cannot happen overnight and the road will be bumpy. All parties must be patient, easy-going, and slow to get offended or defensive. Everyone has to give everyone else some slack to learn and get comfortable with their new roles.

2. Love is not required, but respect is.

You cannot force your child to love a stepparent, but you will need a firm rule about respect, consideration and kindness. These are required from all parties all the time, even from the adults toward the children.

Everyone has the right to be honored, respected, heard and thanked for what they do. If a child or adult is struggling with giving respect, that is a sign that a conversation needs to happen where they can express their frustrations, pain or fears around the situation. As the adult, you must be able to listen to the child’s feelings and honor their right to have them, even if they are attacks at some level.

Everyone has the right to their feelings, but being disrespectful is not an option. If the adults are behaving emotionally or defensively, they need to seek some professional help with processing their own fears and feelings so they will be able to show up mature and stable and earn the family’s respect.

3. Your individual emotional intelligence is vitality important.

If you struggle with strong emotions, losing your temper, feeling mistreated or offended, you may want to seek some professional help to work on your triggers. Do not wait to see if things improve. Get professional help at the first sign of trouble. Every expert I talk to says this is the No. 1 thing they recommend. It is so much easier to fix relationships and families at the onset than to wait until things get really bad.

4. Blame the stepfamily situation, not the people involved.

Lofas says "One of the greatest mistakes is blaming yourself for the feelings and difficulties of the stepfamily situation. Such blame only makes you feel helpless, and it often keeps you from taking steps to deal with the problems."

It is not easy for anyone to be a stepparent. It is not easy for any child to have a stepparent. The entire experience is complicated and, at some level, can be scary or threatening. Everyone needs someone to talk to and resources to help them sort through the emotions involved.

5. Remember that transfer moments can be painful.

Every time children go from one home to the other (these transfer moments), all the pain around the divorce is brought to the surface again. Expect children to struggle and have emotions that can lead to behavior issues at these times. Overlook most of this and give them some room to feel bothered and even act out to some degree, because this type of behavior is natural as they process loss.

6. Everyone will have feelings of guilt.

Parents feel guilty for breaking up the family and loving someone their kids don’t like. Stepparents feel guilty that they can’t feel loving feelings toward these children that don’t belong to them. Children feel guilty for liking the stepparent or for disappointing the parent they aren’t with.

All this guilt leads to feelings of failure, which creates all kinds of bad behavior. A trained professional can help you process the guilt and, again, blame it on the situation, not on yourself.

7. Stepcouples should set rules together — alone.

Stepcouples must spend a great deal of time having validating conversations about rules, consequences, boundaries and who will do the disciplining and how. Do not have these conversations in front of the children. These things need to be worked out in private and then facilitated the right way (usually, this means having the biological parent do the discipline when possible).

Everyone must have a voice and feel heard and validated about their feelings. Even if you disagree, it will go over better if the other party at least feels heard. If you don’t have the skills to have these conversations in a validating and productive way, seek some professional help to learn how.

These are just a few tips and tricks to shine the light on some of the challenges stepfamilies face. In upcoming LifeAdvice articles, I am going to share advice and tips for fathers, mothers and stepparents in their unique roles. There is also a conference on blended families coming to Utah on Jan. 21 that I highly recommend you attend if you have, or are considering having, a blended family.

You can do this.

This was first published on KSL.COM
​
I have heard from lots of people who are worried about family holiday gatherings and dealing with difficult relatives.

We all have some complicated family relationships that can trigger tension, defensiveness and fear because of what they do and say. During the holidays it is difficult to avoid these relatives, so it's helpful to work on becoming more resilient and "bulletproof" before these parties happen.

Note: The following advice is not advice for dealing with abuse or trauma. This advice is meant for people who have some annoying, rude and disrespectful relatives who say hurtful things or treat you in a judgmental way. If you are dealing with abuse, trauma or really toxic people, avoiding family gatherings might be the best call. 

For the rest of your people-problem situations, I have one powerful truth that can help you to stay balanced around your challenging relatives and hurtful things they might say this year.

'I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts'

A Course in Miracles lesson says: "I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

This is a tricky concept that might take some thinking to understand, but it means it is not someone’s words that hurt you, it is the thoughts you have about their words that hurt you.

If someone makes a hurtful remark to you — something that triggers pain — it can feel like a poison dart fired straight to your heart. It will sting for sure, but how long it stings and how badly it stings is something you do have some control over.

Do you ever let a dart stay in causing you pain all day or all week? How often do you pull the dart out and throw it on the floor so you can move on, but then later pick it back up and stab yourself with it again and again — for months, years, or even decades? It’s over and it happened a long time ago, why do you still think about it when it just causes you pain?

When the event is over and you are still feeling the sting, it has become a self-inflicted injury. You have the power to stop the stinging if you can change the way you are looking at what the other person did. If you can change the way you look at it, you can change how you feel.

This is high-level emotional intelligence, and it might take some work to get it right. So don’t be discouraged if you are not here yet. The more you read, practice and learn, the easier it will get. This is not victim shaming, though, because the fault does lie with the other person; however, at some point, you have to process the situation and decide to stop letting it hurt you. You have to take your power back. You do this by thinking about words, thoughts and opinions that come from other people. What are they? What are they made of? What power do they hold?

They are nothing. They are wisps of ideas drifting through people’s minds and out their mouths. They have no form and no matter. They do nothing. They mean nothing. They have no power unless you give them power. 

Your thoughts about what the person said or did are what create the sting, and you are so powerful you can create that sting from almost nothing. This is especially true if you have some deep negative beliefs about yourself in play — beliefs you have had since you were a child. These old subconscious beliefs are your open wounds; they are spots where others can barely touch you and it hurts.

I have a deep fear that says, “I am not good enough.” Because I have had this fear my whole life, it is my problem. It belongs to me. But just like an open wound, it's a place where it’s very easy for other people to hurt me.

These other people are completely responsible for any unkind things they say or do, but I am responsible for my original fear issue that makes their comments hurt me so much. I am also responsible for the thoughts I have that intensify and prolong the hurt.

Your ego thinks stabbing yourself with these old darts for decades is a good way to protect you from further pain. It thinks the constant stabbing will remind you to protect yourself from that person in the future, but the cost for this perceived protection is decades of pain anyway.

Solutions

Instead of allowing thoughts that make mean comments hurt longer than necessary, practice the following:

1. Trust that your intrinsic value as a person is infinite and absolute.

Nothing anyone says or does can diminish your value. No matter what happens to you, you still have the same value as every other person on the planet. When anyone makes an unkind comment, remind yourself that it doesn’t have any power and changes nothing. You are still intact and fine. Imagine the dart bouncing off and landing on the ground. Then, leave it there.

2. Trust that every person around you is in your life for your own good.

Everyone who surrounds you is there for one reason: to help you grow and become stronger, wiser and more loving. Some of these people help you by pushing your fear buttons, to give you a chance to work on your insecurities and issues. When you see them as teachers in your classroom who are giving you chances to practice being strong and loving, you won’t take their comments as personally.

3. Remember that thoughts or words other people say about you are irrelevant.

These words mean nothing and do nothing. They are wisps of energy that are immediately gone and have no power to sting you. You can only have pain if you think about their actions stinging you. Instead, send them on their way with this thought: “Thanks for giving me a chance to practice being strong, but I am done with that lesson and moving on.” Send them on their way (figuratively) with a blessing and hope for their own growth and learning.

4. Focus all your energy on being the love in the room at your family gatherings.

Find others around you who need validation, love and support, and spend the whole party giving these things to them. Turn your party into a focused, giving love session instead of a minefield of offenses and insults. Go into it with a mission in mind and don’t let anyone knock you from that focus.

Love works miracles because you cannot do love and fear at the same time. If you are focused on love for other people and yourself, you don’t have time to be offended.

You can do this.

Question:

I hate family holiday parties because there is one person who completely ruins them for me. They are negative and critical, and they never fail to insult me in some way. Do you have any advice for managing this situation, since I am expected to attend like it or not?

Answer:

You are not alone in dreading this part of the holidays. Many people find family gatherings trying. If it’s not annoying relatives, it’s dreading the questions people will ask about your life (and your lack of good answers). Most families today are made of people with different beliefs, values, standards and ideas too, and these differences can create conflict, defensiveness and arguments.

There are a couple key things to remember to help you survive these parties:

1. Differences don’t mean better or worse, or right or wrong — they just mean different

The reason differences might scare us and make us feel judged and criticized by others is we might assume someone is right and better, and the other is wrong or worse. That's not true, it's just a perspective option, but it’s not your only perspective option.

You could choose to believe that all human beings have the same, unchanging, infinite, intrinsic worth — no matter their differences. This means different can’t make anyone better or less than anyone else. If you choose this perspective, you can be bulletproof at family parties or any other social setting. No one can judge you as less or worse and hurt you with their opinions, unless you let them. You can choose to believe you still have the same value as they do. If you choose this though, you also have to give up judgment and stop seeing them as bad or worse. Can you do that? Can you give infinite, absolute value to everyone else? If you can you will at the same time choose it for yourself, and no one can hurt you with their opinions again.

2. Give up judgment of others and let them all have the same value as you

You may subconsciously like being in a place of judgment toward certain family members and like spending the holidays complaining about them. You may do this because placing blame on these “bad people” makes you feel superior in some way. If you have low self-esteem (and are afraid you aren’t good enough) blaming or judging others might be part of your coping strategy. Be honest with yourself. Is there an ego part of you that likes complaining and gossiping about this person? Or are you ready to change yourself to feel better?

​3. Choose to see life as a classroom and your relatives as your perfect teachers

I believe the real purpose for our being on this planet is to learn and to grow and the most important lesson we are here to learn is to love ourselves and other people. If this is truth, it means every single thing that happens to you here is a lesson on learning to love at a deeper level.

It also means the annoying, hurtful, bossy, rude people in your life might be here to serve as teachers and bring your fears, defensiveness and weaknesses to the surface so you can work on them. It's really important you see your family as your perfect classroom. It's no accident that this person is in your life and you are in theirs. Think about that annoying relative and ask yourself how they could be the perfect teacher for you. Do they trigger a fear or insecurity that you need to work on? Do they inspire you to be different than how they are? In what way could they possibly be here to help you grow? When you see them as here to serve you, you might be less bothered and more compassionate toward them.

4. Everyone is in their own perfect classroom journey experience, learning different lessons from yours, but they still have the same value

This also helps you stay out of judgment and stop comparing your life with theirs. The lessons you need to learn are different from theirs, so your experiences and struggles will be different too. Allow them room to be a work in progress with much more to learn (just like you).

5. Ask yourself these questions to help process your feelings toward this annoying relative:

• What emotion does this person trigger in me?
• Is this emotion something I’ve experienced at other times in my life?
• What fear does it bring to the surface? Is it my fear of not being good enough? Is it my fear of loss or being taken from?
• Has this fear been an issue before now?
• Where did it come from?
• Would it serve me to beat the fear and gain more confidence, strength and resilience?
• This person is not responsible for how they make me feel. I am responsible for how I feel because I create my feelings with my thoughts. How could I change my thinking so I could feel better?
• Take responsibility for how you feel around this person. Choose to feel an emotion and have an experience that would make you happier during the family party. What else can you focus on to create this better experience?

6. Treat everyone with love, kindness and respect

Do this because it’s the kind of person you’ve decided to be. Spend your time at the family party asking questions and listening to others. Show people you value them at the deepest level and see their infinite worth. The more you do this, the better you may feel about yourself.

During those family parties, remember no one can hurt or diminish you because your value is infinite and absolute. Don’t give anyone the power to take away your peace and joy.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a life coach, speaker and people skills expert.

This was first published on KSL.COM

SALT LAKE CITY — In this edition of LIFEadvice, Coach Kim shares a fresh perspective on why we disagree and how to resolve it.

Question:

I live in a small planned unit development with four families. This is the second year we have lived in the community, as it is a new development. The control box for the sprinkler system is in my backyard. The park-strip grass we all share is watered by a valve in that control box. Every summer, I consult the water conservation website for irrigation frequency, and follow that guideline. This means that the grass is not lush and green, but rather, closer to yellow in color.

My retired neighbor is extremely unhappy about this and badgers me relentlessly to increase the watering for that area. He has become hostile and abusive. When I called a meeting with the other families to discuss what to do, he went into victim mode, saying that he is the only one trying to save the grass and maintain the appearance of the grounds. He does do a lot of work around the planned unit development, such as repairing sprinklers, fertilizing, etc. He is home and able to do it, and is compensated by the HOA.

How can we find a happy medium? Is it even possible?

Answer:

Most disagreements like this happen because of differences in values. It has been my observation, as a life coach and human behavior expert for 15 years, that there are four value systems that drive most human behavior. When you understand what someone values most, you will then understand their thinking, behavior, and why they make the choices they do.

We all value all four of these, but we usually have one that is more dominant than the others. Understanding this is the trick to resolving conflicts and disagreements.

Here are the four value systems that create most disagreements:

1. Some of us value people most. These people don’t like to be alone and highly value relationships, connection and feeling wanted and included. They would sacrifice getting things done for time to visit with friends, and they care more about people than things, tasks or opinions.

2. Some of us value tasks most. These people are driven by their “to-do” lists and are constant workers and doers. They care most about getting things done and would rather work alone and be productive than visit with others.

3. Some of us value things most. These people care about how things look, taking care of things and creating things. They can be artists, inventors or good stewards, who carefully manage what they have or are in charge of.

4. Some of us value ideas most. These people care about causes, opinions, rules, politics and the environment most. They are rule keepers and system followers. They are often advocates, teachers and well-educated. They also believe in fairness, loyalty and are community minded.

It sounds like you are someone who values ideas and principles most. This is why you follow recommended guidelines and believe in doing what is right for the community, city and state, not just for yourself. You highly value doing the right thing, even if it means sacrificing some of your quality of life.

Your neighbor appears to value things. He spends a great deal of time making his yard look good. Having a nice yard feels important to him because it creates his quality of life and he hopes others will benefit from it too. I am sure he cares about the community and environment, but it sounds like he cares about things looking nice a little more. He also values hard work and wants to see the fruits of his labor.

The most important thing you need to know in this situation is there is no right or wrong— there is just different. Your value system isn’t better than his, and you both have the right to be who you are and see the world the way you see it. You both have the right to have your value system honored and respected, and you have the same intrinsic value as every other human being. Neither of you can resolve this problem if you continue to see yourself as right or better and the other as wrong.

Whenever you find yourself in a disagreement, the solution lies in having a mutually validating conversation with the other person, a conversation where both people feel respected and honored. There are five steps to doing these conversations right, and if you follow them, you can usually create a compromise.

Steps for a mutually validating conversation:

1. Make sure you see the other person as having the same intrinsic worth as you. Make sure you aren't talking down from a position of better, smarter or more right.

2. Set all your opinions aside up front. Don’t start the conversation expressing your view. Start the conversation ready to listen to them.

3. Ask questions about what they think, how they feel, what their concerns and opinions are. Actively listen and validate, honor and respect their right to see the world the way they see it. This comes from how they are wired, and they cannot see anything else at this time. Make sure at this step you are not agreeing or disagreeing (those are about you). This is the time to make them feel heard and understood. The longer you spend here the better. This kind of listening helps to lessen defensiveness and create a safe space for you to share your views too.

4. Ask permission to share your views. Ask your neighbor if he would be willing to let you explain why you think it’s important to follow recommended guidelines and do what you feel is right for the whole community. Ask if he would be willing to be open-minded and at least consider your view. If he is, then go to step five. If he isn’t willing to hear you, say you respect that and thank him for his time. (You must do this if you want to build trust where further conversations could go better.)

5. Speak your mind using “I” statements, not “you” statements. Tell him about your values and why you see the situation the way you do. Ask him if he would be open to a compromise and suggest something that honors both your values. Maybe you could water more, but do it at night or water a little longer, while still conserving, to some degree.

The trick lies in being willing to let go of the “I’m right and you are wrong” mindset, and being truly open to seeing the right in the other person's perspective.

Remember, they aren’t wrong, they are just different. The world would be a boring place if were all the same, and we need social connectors, get-it-done workers, artists, stewards, advocates and rule keepers to make the world work. There is a place for everyone.

Make sure you validate your neighbor's strengths and talents, and appreciate the work he does on the property. He will really appreciate some praise and validation. If you start the conversation with that, you can resolve most problems.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is a human behavior expert and master coach. Visit www.12shapes.com and www.claritypointcoaching.com to learn more.

Question:

I’m a 40-year-old woman and I am truly struggling with the relationship between myself and my parents. From the time I was 19 to now, our relationship has continually gone downhill. I believe this has to do with differing life choices, values and lack of respect for our different views. At times I would like to resolve the issues, but the majority of the time, I’m fine not having a relationship with them. What would be your advice on how this should be handled? Should I try to get counseling with my parents and I? Should I just accept it’s an unhealthy relationship and move on? Avoid and evade them? I acknowledge that I’m as much of the problem as they are ... and that I’m holding on to some hard feelings. So what could or should I do?

Answer:

Most relationships are worth trying to salvage and improve, especially with your family members. It's hard to avoid your relatives and if you are going to have to interact with them, you will want these hard feelings repaired. So here are some things you could try:

Work on Forgiving all involved (them and yourself) for all your past wrongs to make this easier — work on these 5 perspective shifts.

1. Understand their bad behavior is driven by fear. We are all scared, struggling students in the classroom of life, who are scared of both failure and loss all the time and those fears are the reasons we sometimes feel unsafe and behave badly. When you understand your parents are just scared people and their behavior is about their fear (it isn’t really about you), you might have more compassion and less judgment toward them. Their value system may have taught them to have great fear about your value system. They may not be able to separate loving you from fearing for you, and when they react from this fear, the behavior isn’t very loving or validating. Understand this isn’t personal, it’s just hard for them to access their love when they are so scared.
2. We all have the same value no matter what we do. No one is better or less than anyone else, despite their values and choices. This is a choice you make to view all human beings as having the same value. This perspective helps to make you bulletproof, so nothing anyone else says can diminish you.
3. The universe is your perfect classroom. If you choose to see this conflict as your perfect classroom and here to serve you and them, you won’t have as much fear, stress and charge around it. You won’t feel as threatened and you will show up with more love toward them. Choose to believe you got these parents for a reason, because you could both teach each other important lessons that apparently you both need. Resolving the conflict and learning to love people with different values is part of this lesson. So, embrace the challenge to stretch the limits of your love.
4. Not forgiving them for past wrongs isn’t doing anyone any good. It isn’t hurting them and it’s not helping you. It won’t create justice and it won’t protect you from further pain. It will make you feel better, lighter and happier, though, if you can forgive.
5. Forgiving gets a lot easier when you trust the universe that it knows what it’s doing, and this is a perfect classroom lesson on love for all of you.

Once you have worked on forgiving and shifting your mindset, you may decide to have a loving, mutually validating conversation with them. I taught how to do that in this article. These conversations mean, upfront, you do a lot of listening (not talking) and validating their right to their thoughts, feelings, ideas and opinions (even if you don’t agree with them.) It will require you to remember nothing they say diminishes you unless you decide to let it. If you handle this conversation exactly as we advise and don’t let them trigger you and pull you into fear, this could fix the whole thing.

Get a professional involved to help you have a conversation with them. We do these types of meetings with families all the time, and we have found it works best if we meet with each person separately first, to prepare them for the meeting together. Find some professional who will do this prep work so a family meeting session accomplishes as much as possible. This also makes people more willing to attend this kind of meeting because they have had the chance to tell their side to the professional beforehand.

If family members are unwilling or unable to change 

If they feel threatened or unsafe about any kind of conversation or meeting, or if they are unable to accept any fault on their side, or show any willingness to change or work with you, you are then left with two options:

1. Be in their life, but don’t let them hurt you. This means seeing them accurately as people who are not capable of behaving better, and then not taking what they do or say personally, or let it hurt you. This requires great strength and wisdom. So, you might need some professional help yourself to get here. You will have to become bulletproof and let all offenses bounce off.
2. Avoid and stay away from them. If you can’t be around them without feeling beaten down, hurt, or offended, then avoiding them might be the loving choice. It is loving toward yourself. Remember you are just as important as everyone else is, so making a loving choice to take care of you is not selfish, it’s wise.

You might also want to read this article about when family members have different beliefs and values, and how to handle that. It would be very helpful.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles and Nicole Cunningham are the human behavior experts behind www.12.shapes.com. They host a weekly Relationship Radio show on

This was first published on KSL.COM

Question:

I just read your article on adult children rejecting the parent’s religion and I agree with what you’re saying, however, my heart is still hurting. I understand my pain is all about me and that I need to just love them, but I can’t help resenting my son and his wife for causing me this pain. He is my only son and I resent his wife taking him away from the way he was raised. I find myself resenting them and not wanting to hang out with them. I don’t want to feel this way, but my heart is so sad that there will not be baby blessings, baptisms and temple marriages for my grandchildren. I'm just not sure how to bridge the gap, stop grieving and feeling so emotional about it. Thank you for any thoughts on this.

Answer:

First, we want you to choose a perspective about why we are on this planet. Most people feel we are on the planet to do two things: 1. Learn, grow and become the best version of ourselves we can be and 2. To love and serve others and try to make a difference in their lives. We find these two ideas are consistent with most religions and life philosophies.

If you think these two ideas feel like truth to you, you might consider seeing life as a classroom. This philosophy means that everything that shows up in your life is there for one primary reason — to help you learn to love at a higher level.

We believe this experience might be in your life for that very reason. It has the potential to stretch you out of your comfort zone and teach you to love, forgive and accept people when it’s harder to do. It’s easy to love and accept people that are the same as us, it’s much more challenging to love those who are different. It’s especially difficult if their choices trigger fear of loss in you.

We want to make sure you really understand what a “fear of loss experience” is, as we define it. We believe there are two simple core fears which cause most of our suffering.

The first is the fear of failure and you experience this whenever you feel you aren’t good enough, or get insulted or criticized. This fear causes suffering, insecurity, stress and sadness as it makes us feel inadequate. This fear is easier to understand since you experience it to some degree every day.

Fear of failure experiences give you wonderful opportunities for growth. They can help you practice not caring what others think of you, getting your self-esteem from your intrinsic value instead of your appearance, or trusting that all human beings have the same value.

Fear of loss is also a wonderful classroom opportunity for growth. Loss is triggered whenever this moment or event (that you didn’t want to happen) is taking away from the quality of your life. If you get stuck in traffic, on the way to a big meeting, and you hate to be late — you are having a loss experience.

You can feel loss whenever people mistreat you or take from you, but you can also experience loss when life itself doesn’t turn out the way you wanted it to. You can feel robbed by life when you don’t get blessings or experiences other people get. Whenever you find yourself in self-pity around what you have been dealt, you are having a loss experience.

This is the most important part of this article we want to make sure you get this point – Life isn’t fair and no one gets the journey they wanted. They get the journey that fosters their growth best.

If we always got what we wanted, we wouldn’t grow, and that’s the point of the whole thing. One of the best things you can do for your mental health is to throw all your expectations about how your life should look out the window now.

Life is not going to meet your expectations. It’s going to be messy, ugly, painful and even embarrassing at times. It’s going to include some wins and some losses and sometimes it’s going to pull the rug out from under you completely. If you haven’t had those experiences yet, they are probably still coming.


We are not telling you this to scare you, because life is also going to be rich, wonderful, sweet, beautiful, amazing and thrilling too. The point is it’s going to surprise you and if you stay attached to your expectations, about how it should look at each stage, this is only going to create misery.

Instead, we recommend that you choose to trust the journey, the universe, or your higher power that it knows what it’s doing. Whatever interesting twist or turn your life has taken, that you didn’t see coming or didn’t want, it has a purpose for being here, and that purpose is always to serve you.

Having your son leave your religion is definitely not what you wanted, but it’s not as bad as a lot of other challenges you could be having. Talk to some people who have a child with cancer, or a child that died, or people who have a host of other awful challenges that life can throw at people. The truth is that you still have much more to be grateful for than you have loss.

Here are some things you can do to feel better about your situation:

1. Be grateful. Every day make a list of things you are grateful for in your life. This list will always be longer than the list of what isn’t right. Focus on your blessings every time you feel loss pain.
2. Find people to serve, who have it worse. Or even make a list of all the losses you could be having that would be worse than this one. Get rid of your self-pity around your situation and understand it does you no good.
3. See the universe as a wise teacher and trust it knows what it’s doing. Choose to see life as a perfect classroom that is providing the exact lessons you, your son and his family need to learn the lessons they need to learn.
4. Let go of the picture of what you thought life should look like. That was a fantasy and when you stay attached to it, think about it and wish for it, you create suffering. Choose to trust life instead.
5. Focus on how this could make you better, wiser or more loving. This is the most positive thing you can do. Focus on becoming a better you (not on fixing anyone else). This experience could make you more trusting, more unselfish, more faithful, peaceful and unconditionally loving. This is probably the whole reason you are having this experience so it deserves your focus. Every time you want to change your son, work on changing yourself instead.
6. Let go of the idea that you are right and they are wrong. Understand that from another person’s perspective your right is wrong. It’s all perspective and you must honor every person’s right to believe what they believe, and have the same value as you.
7. Love unconditionally. This means sincerely loving, giving and serving without any comments about your disappointment, feelings of sadness, or fear. For this to be sincere though, you really need to stop being afraid or sad. You must hand your fear over to your higher power and trust (that in perfect love and wisdom) everything will be fine. When you do this you actually release your son from needing to please you.
8. Release your son from needing to meet your expectations. This means you must need nothing from him and only be there to give love to him and his family. You don’t need them to please you or live a certain way for you, because you know you are safe, whole and cared for all the time. You are lacking nothing. If everything that shows up in your life is there to serve and bless you, then you are not deprived in any way. There is no loss if all is perfect.

Just play with this idea and see if it changes how much pain you feel. We find it completely changes loss experiences for us. We realize this idea (that you always get your perfect journey) is not something we can prove is true, but you also can’t prove it’s not true. This means you can, and actually have to, choose a perspective.

You can see yourself as at risk of having your life ruined, being taken from, robbed or deprived if you want to, but it will only create suffering. Or you can play with seeing yourself as whole, blessed and well. You could actually believe you can’t be deprived because the whole universe is conspiring to bless and educate you all the time. If it is always for your benefit, it’s not a loss. From this place of wholeness, it is a lot easier to love others unconditionally and let go of the pain.

Play with it and see how you feel.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com. She is the author of the book "Choosing Clarity: The Path to Fearlessness" and a popular life coach, speaker and people skills expert.

This was first published on KSL.COM

Question:

I am about to get married for the second time and my fiancé and I both have children from our first marriages. I heard the odds of these second marriages are dismal and I’m wondering what advice you have for us, that might make it more likely to work out.

Answer:

You are right, the odds are against you. The divorce rate for remarriage is 40 percent. 

We believe in first marriages children are a more stabilizing factor, which can actually bind the couple together, where in second or third marriages, they can destabilize the relationship and in some cases purposefully undermine it. If the family has no education about the challenges of blending and enters these marriages unprepared for the difficulties, it is even more likely that children can disrupt the couple’s relationship.

Most people think they will automatically be more successful the second time around, because of what they learned from the failure of their previous marriages. Unfortunately, this doesn’t appear to be true. Most people make the same mistakes again and again, especially if they don’t get some coaching, training, education, skills or tools that they didn’t have before to help them do their new relationships differently.

Diane Sollee, a family therapist and director of the Coalition for Marriage, Family and Couples Education says, "It seems that people would be older and wiser, or learn from the mistakes of a failed first marriage. … But that's like saying if you lose a football game, you'll win the next one. You might, but only if you learn some new plays before you go back on the field."

Experts agree the one way to beat the odds is to get educated about step-parenting and blending families. Studies have shown that premarital education of some kind can substantially reduce divorce rates. Couples who seek out professional help and education about creating healthy relationships are more satisfied with their relationships and stay together longer.

Unfortunately, most couples don't seek help. So, we are glad you are seeking out information — that is increasing your odds of success already.

Here are our top tips for making blended families work:

1. Set realistic expectations.

A second or third marriage is much more complicated than a first, especially when children are involved. Everyone is coming into this new family with war wounds, baggage and issues from what went wrong the first time, so you are going to have to be even more patient, understanding and prepared for bumps and difficulties.

You must be realistic about the time it takes for children to bond with step-parents and step-siblings. Don’t expect them to feel like family right away. It takes a long time, and each person will get there at their own time. The older the child, the longer this takes, so don’t be surprised if older children take years or even a decade to get used to this new family arrangement.

2. Learn what the most common challenges are ahead of time, and make a plan to deal with them.

Here are some of the most common difficulties:

• Differences in values: One family might be used to a really clean organized home, while the other was more laid back. You need to talk about all the things that are important to each of you and that bother each of you ahead of time, and work out some compromises. Both families will need to be willing to bend and be flexible on some level if you want this to work.

• Differences in parenting styles: Family or house rules need to be determined and set together as a couple, or even with the children’s input, (they are more likely to respect the rules if they have some say in them). Make sure the expectations, rules and consequences are all decided on ahead of time and agreed on. You might consider having the natural parent of each child do the disciplining.

• Unfairness issues: You will need to make sure that children as much as possible are treated the same. It is very common for step-siblings to feel jealous, and this triggers fear of loss that leads to angry or passive aggressive behavior.

• Misunderstandings: We highly recommend that you gain some new communication skills, and make sure you both know the right, mutually validating way to approach family members to talk things through. This is gold, and will assure you can work through any issues that arise.

• Stepkids not liking you: It is normal for children to go through at least a phase of rejecting a new stepparent in their life. Even if you had a good relationship with a child during the dating process, some form of rejection may still show up. If you see this coming, you will be better prepared to ride your way through it.

3. Honor the role of the natural parent.

As a stepparent, you will never be the same as a natural parent. You must respect the natural parent’s role and adjust to a new kind of role yourself. Your stepparent role is more like that of a caring uncle or aunt who can be there to provide support, encouragement and even guidance, but always honor the natural parent's right to be the decision maker and the one to discipline their children.

4. Don’t expect or demand anyone to bond, but expect and demand everyone be respected.

It is not realistic to expect everyone in a blended family to like each other, but you should expect mutual respect. If your stepfamily is going to work, children and parents must respect everyone else in the home. This means listening to their thoughts and feelings and respecting their right to feel the way they do. Respect must happen in every interaction.

5. Understand blending takes time.

It will take longer than you think, probably years longer, and this blending process cannot be rushed. Everyone involved needs time to process their pain, guilt and confusion around this divorce and remarriage. Couples will often pressure children to love their new stepparent right away. This kind of pressure will hinder the process. Give each child the time and space to accept their new stepparent and adjust to the new arrangement on their own time. If you let them set the pace, they will have a more positive experience.

6. Work on yourself. 

Don’t focus on finding a better spouse the second time; focus on being a better spouse this time, and things will go better. Work on being less selfish and more giving than you used to be. Get some personal coaching or counseling and work to repair self-esteem issues, trust issues or emotional issues you are still carrying from your first relationship. Because conflict is an inevitable part of any relationship, better communication skills are critical. Learn how to set your opinions aside up front and ask about how the other person feels first. Listen and validate his or her feelings by honoring their right to think and feel the way they do, even when you don’t agree. Then ask if they would be open to hearing your thoughts, and speak your truth with love while looking for ways to create win-wins.

7. Face all problems as a team.

Try to step back from every conflict and look at it from a united perspective as a couple against a problem or challenge, not against each other. Even if a conflict is about one partner’s behavior, still work it through together as a team trying to make your marriage better. If you commit now to not let any challenge come between you, and communicate with love, you can work through anything.

8. Give your spouse room to learn and grow.

Your spouse has never been a stepparent before, or at least not with your kids. You both need some time to figure the whole thing out. Love is about letting someone be imperfect and in process. It’s about being patient and not expecting them to do everything right and right away.

You can expect children to try to sabotage the relationship, ex-spouses to be difficult and stepsiblings to not get along. These are all par for course, but committed couples can make it work. Just seek out professional help before and throughout the relationship to increase your odds of success.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles and Nicole Cunningham are master coaches and relationship experts who founded www.claritypointcoaching.com and www.12shapes.com. They are the hosts of Relationship Radio on Voice America.

Question:

I want you to address in a column what you do when family members aren't speaking. How do you tactfully handle family holiday parties when they refuse to be in the same place as each other, but you have to invite them both? One has issued an ultimatum that they want us to choose sides, which we feel is not the right thing to do. Is there any way to navigate these bad relationships or fix them? Please give us some advice.

Answer:

Many people suffer from depression and anxiety around the holidays. Some have it because they have no family to be with, others have it because they do have family to be with. Family gatherings can be a real challenge if there is resentment, hurt feelings, and conflict between your guests.

We recommend you send this article to both parties and tell them you love and support them, and just want everyone to suffer less this holiday season. Explain that you have no judgment around this issue and totally understand how hard it is to deal with these conflicts, but you just want to help both sides heal.

I believe we are on this planet for one reason — to learn, grow and become better. Our main objective is to learn to love ourselves and other people at a deeper level. If this is true, forgiving would be the No. 1 most important lesson, and it's a challenging one too because our ego side really likes to hold onto judgment.

It’s easy to love people who are kind and good to us. Loving people who hurt us is the challenge that pushes us and forces us to rise. It shows us the limits of our love and gives us the chance to stretch and grow them.

If you are going to change how you feel about an offense, you will need to learn to look at the situation in a new way. This article is going to help you do that. You may feel like you aren’t ready, but "I'm not ready" is just an excuse we use when we can't articulate the real reason we don't want to forgive.

You must identify the real reason you are holding onto this offense and don't want to forgive it. Here are some possibilities:

• Do you think staying angry protects you from further mistreatment and forgiving would allow more of it?
• Is staying mad (and casting this person as the bad guy in your story) allowing you to avoid looking at your own faults, mistakes or pain? Sometimes it’s less painful to be mad than it is to deal with your part in whatever happened. Do you need to see the other person as the bad one in order to feel good about yourself?
• Are you using anger and hurt as an excuse to keep people away from you, because you actually have issues with dealing with emotions and relationships, and you would rather avoid the whole thing? Is your anger justifying or giving you a reason not to process your emotions or learn better relationship skills, yet blame it on someone else?
• Are you waiting to see more shame and guilt on the other person before you can forgive? Do you feel like they haven’t been punished enough?

Now, here is the truth about each of those:

• Staying mad doesn’t protect you from further mistreatment. Good boundaries enforced with strength and love do. You can forgive and still be safe.
• You are here on this planet to work on fixing YOU, that should be your main focus. You must stop pointing fingers at others and work on growing, learning and becoming better and more loving yourself. That is your job.
• If you have issues around emotions you must stop avoiding them and learn how to process them in a healthy way. You must learn this so YOU can have a happy, rich, fulfilled life. Staying mad at others to avoid your feelings will never create happiness. Learning some improved relationship skills will also make your life better.
• Every day you have to choose if you would rather be right or happy. Your ego wants to be right, but it’s the wrong choice. Choosing happiness is the way to go.
• Forgiving does not require that the other person be punished or repent first. If you wait for that you will only be hurting yourself and your family longer.

Here are a couple of principles that might help you to forgive and let go:

1. Remember none of us are perfect.

This person did something wrong and it sounds like this was an especially painful wrong, but you aren’t perfect either. You may not have made this mistake, but you have made others. You must remember that you are both imperfect, struggling students in the classroom of life, with lots more to learn, who both deserve forgiveness.

You don’t want every mistake you ever made held against you forever. In order to feel forgiven for your past wrongs, you must give others the same.

2. You alone are responsible for the pain you are experiencing.

No situation can cause you pain without your participation in it. Your thoughts and feelings are under your control and this means no one can take away your pain or give you pain. You alone have that power. If you struggle to understand this principle, read my previous KSL article about choosing to be upset.

You must grasp the truth that you are in control of your thoughts and feelings. You can feel better right now if you want to. You don’t have to wait until you feel ready to forgive. You can choose to be ready now.

3. The other person is guilty of bad behavior, but you both have the same infinite and absolute value. 

You both have the same value no matter how many mistakes either of you makes. This is true because life is a classroom, not a test, and our value isn't on the line.

That does not mean we can sit back and stop improving though. It means our lack of knowledge and need for improvement doesn’t affect our intrinsic value. We have the same intrinsic value regardless of the amount of learning we still need to do. You want this principle to be true because you want it to be true for you.

4. Forgiveness happens best when you see yourself and others accurately

Forgiveness will happen when you see yourself and others as innocent, completely forgiven, struggling, scared, messed up, but perfect students in the classroom of life, with lots more to learn. Most of us think forgiving is about seeing people as guilty and then trying to pardon them for those mistakes. If you try to forgive this way it will never happen. You will still be hung up on the fact they are guilty. Forgiveness will never work when it’s a gift undeserved.

Instead, let all the wrongs, pain and hurt on both sides of this be wiped clean of all selfish, fear-based, bad behavior. It is time to let go and accept divine forgiveness for both of you. Let the other person be a “work in progress” and don’t crucify yourself or them for mistakes. Accept the gift of forgiveness and see life as a classroom where mistakes don’t count against our value. We can just all erase them all and try again.

5. Forgiveness is the key to happiness and it is the only way to peace, confidence and security.

This is universal law. The key to forgiveness lies in one very simple choice that you must make over and over every day. What energy do you want to live in? You have two options — you can live in judgment, blame and anger energy? Or forgiveness, peace and joy energy?

Judgment energy means you stand in judgment of others, condemning and crucifying them for past mistakes. If you choose this mindset, you are giving power to the idea that people can be "not good enough" and should be judged harshly, which will come back on you too. You will always struggle with your own self-esteem and this energy will feel heavy, negative and unhappy.

Your other option is a forgiveness energy. Here you choose to forgive yourself and others, and completely let go of every misconceived, stupid, selfish, fear-based mistake either of you has ever made. You choose to see these mistakes for what they really are, bad behavior born of confusion, self-doubt, lack of knowledge, low self-esteem and fear. In this place, you choose to see everyone as innocent and forgiven and let them (and you) start over with a clean slate every day.

If you choose this mindset, you will feel safe, loved, whole and good about yourself and this energy will be light, peaceful and happy.

The question is: How do you want to live?

Consider letting go of the past offense and showing up at the family gathering with nothing but love and compassion in your heart. This doesn’t mean you have to be close to or deal with the other person, but it does mean treating them with respect, compassion and kindness. It means understanding that negative feelings hurt you more than they hurt them. It means choosing to focus on gratitude and being the love in the room, then on the past and casting blame.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com and 12shapes.com - She is the author of the new e-book Fearless Forgiving: The clarity path to peace - you can get this inexpensive e-book on amazon here.