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SALT LAKE CITY — Have you noticed the way the coronavirus pandemic is making you feel wary and unsafe around other people?
You may be seeing other humans as a huge threat to your well-being. Though this sensation is especially noticeable right now, this is a tendency of human nature that all of us experience (to a lesser degree) every day, and especially with the people we love most. As a master life coach, I teach people are haunted by two subconscious fears, the fear of failure (that you are not good enough) and the fear of loss (that you aren’t safe). Every human on the planet is fighting these same two fears/beliefs every day, and this means we all function in a fear state most of the time. A fear state means you feel generally unsafe in the world, and this feeling makes it seem like every person around you is a threat. These people could take from you, mistreat you, take from the quality of your life, and/or make you feel like a failure, and this is especially true about the people closest to you. Your relatives, children, and spouse or partner have more power to hurt you more than anyone else. They know your faults and flaws and the shame you have around them. They know how to push your buttons. You also care what they think of you, which means insults or slights can hurt worse than if the same offense happened with a stranger. You are much more prone to take slights from loved ones personally. Assess your relationship Feeling unsafe with a family member can be a great obstacle to your happiness. You cannot have a close, rich, fulfilling, intimate relationship with someone you don’t feel safe with. Ask yourself these questions to check the safety level in your relationship:
(Note: The suggestions in this article are for dealing with garden variety unsafe feelings in your relationships, not situations that involve abuse. If you feel unsafe because you experience emotional, mental or physical abuse, you must seek help and not settle for the suggestions below.) Make changes Here are some tips for increasing safety in most relationships:
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Difficult people and the lessons they facilitate can bless you, educate you and help you grow. Life is a classroom and everything that happens here can be a springboard to amazing growth, even the really hard things.
Think about some people who aggravate you, try your patience, irritate, anger or upset you. We all have some people who push our buttons, and the first step to resolving these difficult relationships is to recognize they are here as perfect teachers. When you see them as such, and you embrace your experiences with them as lessons, you will be surprised how much less aggravating they become. (Note: In this article I am just addressing how to deal with garden variety difficult people, not situations that involve abuse.) Pick one of these difficult people to think about as you read this article. Ask yourself these simple questions:
Viktor Frankl, who wrote "Man's Search for Meaning" after being a prisoner in the concentration camps during World War II, said, "In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds meaning." If Frankl could choose to find meaning in his horrible suffering, I believe we can do it too. He also encourages us to see the difference between necessary suffering and unnecessary suffering. He said, "Unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic." When pain becomes self-inflicted, because the event is long over, growth happens as you let it go. The important thing is to recognize that difficult experiences in your life have the potential to bless you. Here are some possible benefits or blessings that come from dealing with difficult people:
When you feel threatened or defensive around someone, this is your clue that there is a part of you that needs reassurance that you are safe and loved and that other people can’t diminish you or your life. They can only teach you and help you grow. At least, you have the power to see them this way, with this perspective, if you want to. When you choose to see difficult people as teachers (not jerks), you will find you have the answers and the power to rise above the fray and deal with them in a confident loving way. You can do this. SALT LAKE CITY — Being a lifelong student of human behavior, I was curious about why we shout "jerk" (or something worse) when someone cuts us off in traffic, even though they can’t hear us. Why do we scold ourselves about a mistake even when no one is around to hear it? If you walk into a room and realize you forgot something, why might you say out loud, "Oh shoot, I forgot to get the widget, darn it"?
Why do we find the need to say these kinds of things out loud and narrate why we are behaving as we are? In one of his books, Aaron James, a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irivne, says you can lash out at people and use words like "aha, bleh, eeww, goody, humph, oh, oops, phew, whee, yikes, or yuck" to narrate your experiences, but it might serve you to understand why. There is a payoff you get by vocalizing your experiences and emotions, and I call it the self-elucidation payoff. What does elucidate mean? The word "elucidate" comes from the Latin word "lucid" which descends from the verb lucēre, meaning "to shine." So, elucidation is about shining some light on something to clarify or explain it. Self-elucidation is clarifying the situation you are having because you deserve to be acknowledged or understood in it, even just for or by yourself. James says a person who knocks over a glass might be a klutz, but if he says whoops, then at least he knows he didn’t intend the outcome and didn’t do it intentionally. This is our way of clarifying or elucidating that we aren’t a clumsy or careless person. We are just having an unintentional experience that should not be a reflection of who we are as a person. The funny part is we need this so badly we even do it when we are alone. We need our experiences to be acknowledged because it validates our worth and makes us feel safer. ... yelling at the driver who cuts you off (even though he doesn’t hear you) is elucidating the situation and basically defending yourself by announcing to the world (and yourself) that 'it was not right to treat me that way.' This validates your worth and makes you feel a bit safer. For example, yelling at the driver who cuts you off (even though he doesn’t hear you) is elucidating the situation and basically defending yourself by announcing to the world (and yourself) that "it was not right to treat me that way." This validates your worth and makes you feel a bit safer. There is nothing wrong nor necessary about doing this, but it could be an interesting practice to allow yourself to have experiences without the need for clarification. Instead you could just sit with the experience and notice why it feels unsafe without some vocal elucidation. What would not clarifying this moment out loud give you? If you let go of the need to elucidate this, what could that teach you? Does it matter how you respond? The benefits of not talking Years ago I attended a meditation retreat that included 10 days of total silence. There were incredible lessons that came from not talking for 10 full days. The most profound thing I learned was that 90% of what I wished I could say was simply explaining my behavior. It was frustrating to not be able to elucidate, avoid judgment, explain my intentions, or validate myself. Instead, I had to allow people to think whatever they were going to think, risk being misperceived, and practice knowing I was safe without clarification. This experience gave me a different level of love and compassion for myself. I highly recommend trying it. Victim self-talk It may also serve you to think about why you say things like this:
It can also be a way to project responsibility away from yourself, which also makes you feel safer. The reality is that you didn’t watch where you were walking, you weren’t careful about spilling, and you were careless when you dropped the glass. You were responsible for all of these experiences, but saying “oops” is your way of saying, "I didn’t intend to be careless, so the experience is not my fault." You subconsciously want to believe this was bad luck so that it doesn’t diminish your value. What might serve you more? What if you owned responsibility for all your experiences and saw each as a perfect lesson that was there to bless you in some way. You could choose to trust that every experience happens to educate you and help you grow, so there is no lack or deprivation. Instead of swearing at the person who cut you off, you might just acknowledge that you do deserve better treatment — but without a fear-driven need to attack the other human involved. This would validate your worth and rights, and it would be a love-motivated response instead of hate-motivated one. Try having compassion for yourself the next time you spill on your shirt, but see if you can have the experience without explaining or scolding yourself out loud. You don’t need sympathy around this because this is your perfect classroom journey. Expressing compassion and love for yourself is all the self-elucidation you need. Your value is infinite and unchangeable no matter what you experience, and you are always safe — or at least you can choose this perspective if you want to. You can do this. SALT LAKE CITY — The truth is, we all have a shadow side that encourages ego and bad behavior.
You are a nice, kind, caring person, but there is also a part of you that is selfish, petty, lazy, controlling and angry. You have this dark side because there has to be opposition in everything (the ying and the yang). Knowing this and understanding your two sides can actually help you to become a better person. What psychology teaches us Sigmund Freud taught that all humans have three sides: an id (our dark side), a superego (our higher thinking, moral side), and an ego that tries to manage and balance the other two in a way that will make other people like you. Carl Jung, who was the first to use the term "shadow side" said it is made up of all the qualities and behaviors society taught us are unacceptable. We were taught as children that a “good person” functions only in their Superego — being nice, kind, proper, composed and self-sacrificing all the time. We were taught that taking care of our own needs is selfish and giving in to improper thoughts makes us a bad person. This isn’t necessarily true, though. If you do nothing but sacrifice yourself for others, you will soon have nothing left to give, and there is a high cost when you are too nice all the time. Dark or improper thoughts don’t go away either. Sometimes the more we try to suppress them, the more insistent they become, whispering and nudging you to be selfish, take care of your needs, seek pleasure or be petty or mean. You fight this nudging and work to suppress that negative voice, but maybe you need to listen to it and make note of what it’s saying. All human emotions teach you something You are on earth to feel every aspect of the human experience firsthand for what these experiences can teach you. This means feeling joy, happiness, acceptance, love, success, empathy, sympathy and humility. But it also means feeling shame, guilt, anger, superiority, failure, hate, desire, passion, selfishness and jealousy. These are all the fabric of being human. If you try to suppress any part of this, without processing the emotion or the experience, you are suppressing part of who you are and missing part of your classroom. Dark and negative emotions and thoughts are there to teach you lessons, and if you never allow yourself to process them, they will keep coming back until you do or they might get bigger. How can you work on changing or shifting negative thinking or behavior, if you never look at it? Try shadow journaling I often recommend to clients — especially those that are trying really hard to be nice and loving all the time or who are really fighting with negative thinking — to start a shadow journal (or do shadow journaling on paper) that you will destroy after writing, because this will not be for your grandchildren to read one day. This is a place to process your emotions in. When someone triggers a negative emotion or thought in you, get this journal or some paper out and write down every dark thought and impulse that shows up. Write down the awful ideas and responses your shadow side comes up with. Write about the jealousy or the anger you have toward this person. Write everything that you wouldn’t want anyone to know you actually thought. Let yourself be your worst self — that is the point of the exercise. Go where you usually would not allow yourself to go. Be petty, immature, angry, or full of self-pity. Then, sit back and look at what your voice of fear/ego had to say. Process this by asking yourself these questions:
Some experts, like Dr. Aziz Gazipura, believe not processing your negative thoughts can lead to health problems down the road. In his book "Not Nice," Gazipura said, "Avoiding your shadow side creates a host of problems in your life, ranging from depression to physical pain. This is because it takes a great deal of energy to keep something down and out of awareness. The more we avoid it, the more scared of it we become… while befriending it gives you greater self-control and radically increases your self-esteem. It turns out your shadow is your greatest source of power." Just like pain is an indicator that something is wrong that needs attention, negative emotions and dark thoughts also have something to teach you. Processing them and getting real about what they say, and the behavior they recommend (instead of hiding it away) gives you the chance to fix underlying beliefs and fears. For example, If a great deal of hate shows up toward a specific person, this is something you really need to explore. There is something in that hate that is tied to how you feel about yourself. You need to figure out what that person triggers in you and how that is your fear issue to solve. You may want to find a coach or counselor, who can help you process these thoughts and feelings in a safe environment. If what shows up really scares you or is tied to addiction, abuse or mental illness, find a licensed mental health professional or program to assist you. You can do this. This was first published on KSL.COM
Uncertainty is the fear of the unknown, and we are all experiencing that these days. Fear is triggered when we feel out of control or when someone or something doesn't meet our expectations. We all live with various amounts of fear every day. But when a massive problem like a pandemic happens, it throws our entire society into fear and we can quickly become overwhelmed. Last week, I interviewed James Purpura, founder of Powerful U and the author of the book "Perception: Seeing is Not Believing," to get his thoughts about dealing with the uncertainty and fear we are all feeling. Understanding where fear comes from Purpura said that in order to get a fundamental understanding of fear, we must first understand the core principle that dictates all of our experiences: Humans can only act in accordance with their beliefs based on their current physiological state. The "belief" part is where many experts contend that we don’t actually have free will, Purpura said, because we can only act in accordance with our beliefs. This is true because our beliefs create our perception of everything, he said. Why are so many people acting irrationally when the vast majority of them know logically that they are not at risk of dying from the COVID-19 virus? The answer might shock you. Purpura said it’s because they don’t have a choice to act differently. This is where your physiological state (your body’s ability to function) comes into play, because it dictates which parts of the brain you are able to access, he said. When you’re in a fear state — fight or flight — you only have access to the part of your brain that deals with survival. When you are in survival mode, you are in a reactionary state and you don’t have access to the area of the brain that dictates logic or reason. Purpura explained that when you are in the physiology of fear, your mind views everything as a matter of life and death, which means it weighs every decision against your need to survive. This is why you feel so much resistance when you are in a fear state, and why you sometimes act irrationally and do things you don’t really want to do, he said. Everyone knows that there is no logical need to have hundreds of rolls of toilet paper stockpiled in a garage, yet some otherwise reasonable people still buy more than necessary. Breaking free of fear How do we break out of the physiology of fear and regain access to the rational parts of our brain? Purpura said we do it the same way our species has for hundreds of thousands of years. But first, he said, it’s important to understand that we can’t rationalize our way out of fear. This is because our minds are no longer in control; our bodies are. Your body has to send a signal to your brain that the danger has passed and it is time to move out of fear into a higher state of awareness, Purpura said. You may need some deep diaphragmatic breathing to calm yourself down and change your state back to logic. Back in the days when our ancestors really were fighting for survival, when they finished running to escape or were done fighting, Purpura explained, the first thing they did was catch their breath. This would be impossible to do until they were safe. That is why deep breathing is the signal to your brain that you can relax. That is also why meditation can be effective. Deep breathing in meditation lets you take control of your physiology, Purpura explained. Most people don’t meditate because they find it hard to clear their minds, he said, but most of the benefits of meditation come from the breathing. What to do when you're overwhelmed by fear First, recognize the shift in physiology due to the fear.Fear usually shows up in your body in the chest, midsection or stomach, Purpura said, but it can show up anywhere. If you catch it early enough, you can just breathe until the anxiety associated with the fear dissipates. Then you can process the fear rationally. If you don’t catch it right away, you can try the process below, but there are a few things you need to know first, Purpura said. This will take practice, and you will likely fail a few times before you get it right. Your mind may resist this process until it realizes that there is less pain associated with doing the process than defaulting to a fear pattern you instinctively run to. When you experience fear that overwhelms your system, you will default to actions or behaviors to escape the pain, Purpura said. These behaviors become patterns that now run automatically whenever your fear is triggered. These patterns can be almost anything, including: addiction, expressing anger, beating yourself up, or even buying more toilet paper than you need. Awareness is the key to changing your automatic response to fear, Purpura said. As feelings of fear, pain and discomfort intensify, you will start moving toward the behavior pattern you think will keep you from pain. But just before you engage in that unhealthy behavior, there will always be a pause. This pause, Purpura said, is your opportunity to shift out of the fear state before you engage your old pattern. Once that pattern is activated, it is very difficult to interrupt because you are then on autopilot. Here are some steps Purpura recommends for taking advantage of the pause:
You can do this. Coach Kim Giles is a master life coach and James Purpura is the author of the new book and Sundance Award Movie‘Perception: Seeing is not believing’. Powerful-U offers tools and assistance to all those who are seeking growth. This was first published on KSL.COM
SALT LAKE CITY — This week I have been thinking a lot about perception and the way you see every situation in your life. Perception is defined as the act of being aware, recognizing, discerning or understanding things. But the problem with human perception, according to human behavior expert Beau Lotto, in his book "Deviate," is that our brains were not wired to perceive accurately. They were wired to process the world efficiently, and this means you use the past to make assumptions about the present, so it’s easier and faster to understand things. Everything you have experienced in your past becomes a filter or lens through which you see everything that happens now. You don’t see the world as it is; you see the world as you are. You are constantly projecting what you think you know from your past experiences onto the present, even though many of those assumptions or beliefs aren’t true. A common assumption learned in childhood is "It’s safer to stay quiet and not talk about things." This may seem true to you if your trying to communicate in the past led to conflict and made you feel unsafe, but there is a cost when you don’t talk about what bothers you. If you accept that your perceptions might not be accurate, then you have the power to question them. If you are open to other meanings and beliefs and questioning the way you see each situation, you will have the power to choose meanings or beliefs that serve you better and process your life in a more mature way. Here are a few of the most common projections that cause misperception and problems in your life: 1. Perception of others comes from projections of yourself Your perception of other people and who they are comes from you projecting the way you feel about yourself (and your own value) onto them. If you have accepted a belief (created from past experiences) that you might not be good enough, you can’t help but project that belief onto other people and see them as not good enough, too. The more fears of inadequacy you have, the more you will be prone to judge, condemn, criticize and even reject other people. If you are prone to gossip or fault finding, you might be projecting your own insecurity or self-hate onto another person, causing you to see them as flawed too. Whatever level of flaws and faults you think you possess, you will see others as equally flawed. 2. Perception of yourself comes from projections you see in others Your perception of yourself and your value comes from projecting how you view other people back onto the way you feel about you. The previous point was the exact opposite, so you might be thinking: How can these both be true? Well, they are inexplicably tied together because it goes both ways. If you grew up in a family that was often critical of other people and you learned to be judgmental, you will project this judgmental attitude back onto yourself, too. You will be more self-critical and blame yourself when things go wrong. The bottom line is, it is impossible to have good self-esteem if you judge other people as not good enough. To fix these first two projections: You should choose a new belief (assumption) that all human beings are created equal. The belief that all human beings are created by a divine or higher power — and therefore perfect and guiltless students in the classroom of life with infinite, absolute, unchangeable value — allows you to see everyone as "good enough" all the time. This means it is impossible to be "not good enough," and both you and others have nothing to fear. This will require practice, though, to consistently choose this new belief. But the more you do it, the easier it will get. 3. Perception of what others think comes from projections of yourself Your perception of what other people think about you comes from you projecting the way you feel about yourself (and your own value) onto them. If you have accepted a belief that you might not be good enough, you will assume other people think you aren’t good enough, too. You might add this meaning to whatever they do or say and always think they are criticizing or judging you. To fix this: Practice choosing to believe that what other people think of you is none of your business and completely irrelevant. Also, remember that what you think they think of you is usually wrong. They are actually so busy worrying about themselves, they don’t think about you very much at all. Finally, they don’t know you and what’s in your heart. If they judge or criticize you, remember they are only projecting how they feel about themselves onto you, and that isn’t about you at all. 4. Perception of God can come from how you see your parents Your perception of God might come from the way you saw and experienced your actual parents. If you felt safe and unconditionally loved by your mom and dad, you are more likely to see God as having a similar love for you. But if you felt unsafe or struggled to earn your parent’s approval, or were often punished or even abused, you might see God as scary and very hard to please. Take a minute and reflect on how you felt about your actual parents. Is there any chance you could have projected those feelings onto God and might be seeing him the same way? Because we cannot actually meet God and have firsthand knowledge of who he is, everything we believe about him will always be just belief (not fact). If your actual parents were selfish, emotional or out of balance, you might have a really skewed perception of God, and this can create a lot of fear of loss in your life. To fix this: Choose a belief about God and that helps you more than it hurts you. You might choose to believe he is more loving and forgiving than angry and vengeful. Choose to see him as the essence of perfect love and trust that you are safe in his hands all the time. If you don’t consciously choose a belief and perception about God, you will subconsciously choose one based in fear. Choose a belief that serves you and makes you feel more loved. 5. Perception of safety can come from your childhood experiences Your perception of life and your safety is a projection from whatever you saw, experienced or heard as a small child. Inevitably you saw or experienced some bad things that probably created the assumption that you are not safe in this world. You probably perceive the world to be a scary, unsafe place where you have to be vigilant about protecting yourself from other people who could take from you. This might make you quick to be offended or to feel taken from, and this could create a lot of conflict in your relationships. To fix this: You have to choose a belief that life is safe all the time. Choose to trust God (or a higher power) that there is order in the universe and every experience is here for your good and is the perfect classroom for you at this time. Choose to believe that nothing exists God did not create, therefore there is nothing that isn’t perfect and here to serve you. Choosing these beliefs makes life look safer, and you will get offended and bothered less often. Understand that everything you see and feel comes from your projecting your past onto it. This can help you to question your beliefs and give you the power to reframe the present in a more helpful way. If you find yourself often unbalanced, upset or stressed out by life, this may be something you want to hire a coach or counselor to help you with. Coaching to change your subconscious beliefs is the fastest way to change your behavior and the way you feel about your life. You can do this. This was first published on KSL.com
Question: Something happened at a family party recently, and I have been so upset I can’t seem to get past it. One of my siblings said something that really offended and hurt me. I was humiliated and embarrassed. It has thrown me for such a loop I can’t find my peace again. When people say or do things that upset us, how do we manage that and process it in a healthy way? Why can’t I let it go? Answer: This is going to be an answer that you may need to re-read and sit with it a bit. If you feel yourself resisting the ideas, consider that it might be your ego that doesn’t like what I am recommending. Ego feels more powerful if you choose to be defensive, attack back or stay angry, but your ego is not the real you. You will feel better faster if you choose a love and trust-based approach. When someone hurts you, it is your ego (the self-image you created) that steps up to protect you by getting angry. It thinks staying upset is the only way to protect you from further mistreatment. Ego also believes you can be diminished or hurt by other people and that their words have power, but all of this is just belief, perception or story; it isn’t fact. Consider the idea that you're scared, vulnerable, ego can be hurt, but the real you — the amazing, divine, perfect soul you really are — cannot be diminished. Consider the possibility that you are invulnerable and that nothing another person says, thinks, or does has any power to hurt you. Notice that these ideas are just belief, perception and story, too. I cannot prove these ideas are truth, but you cannot prove they aren’t. Truth in perception The truth in everything is perception, and your perception (the beliefs you see your life through) determine how you feel about every experience you have. So, if you are upset by something, it is only because of the way you are looking at it. There is always another way to look at it that would make you feel completely different about it. Sit with this idea: Nothing can make you upset but yourself. It is not what happens that upsets you; it’s the thoughts you are choosing to have about what happened that make you upset. You could always choose some different beliefs that would change the story and make you feel much better. Another idea to sit with is: You are never upset for the reason you think. You are not upset because this person said what they said. You are upset because of the meaning you are applying to their actions or words. Because they insulted you, does that mean you aren’t good enough? If others don’t think you’re not good enough, does that mean it’s true? The only reason these ideas or meanings hurt you is because there is a part of you that already believed them before this person even came along. These ideas caused you pain because they triggered a pain you already had. Their words hurt your already “self-inflicted sore spot.” If you didn’t already believe you might not be good enough, it wouldn’t hurt you when people implied it. Questions to ask When you get offended, stop and ask yourself these questions, which might change the lens you are viewing the situation through:
If these questions bother you, your ego may want to keep casting the other person as the bad guy and making itself the victim. But I’m hoping you would like to feel better. The path to feeling better is through love, forgiveness, accuracy, and respect for yourself and other people. If you choose to believe you are bulletproof because nothing can diminish your value and you're always safe, because every experience is here to serve you, teach you and bless you, you may find that there is never any reason to be upset. When people say or do hurtful things, see it as a chance to practice standing in your truth and focusing more on learning than protecting yourself. Again, I know this one might take a little time to sit with, but keep thinking about it. With practice, you can do this. This was first published on KSL.COM
A woman recently asked me how she would know if she was out of balance and too critical of other people, or just a very observant and helpful person? I think you just have to ask the people around you and they would be happy to oblige on this one, but here are some signs that you might be overly critical and need to work on that. Are you overly critical? Here are some questions to ask yourself: Do people sometimes lie to you or avoid answering your questions? If you are someone who is overly critical, the people in your life may not feel safe enough to tell you the truth. They might avoid talking to you at times, or lie to protect themselves from your judgment about what they are doing. Do people get their feelings hurt when you are just trying to help them? Overly critical people have a tendency to give unsolicited advice, which can feel more insulting than helpful. You might mean well when you point out what they did wrong or how they could improve, but to a person who battles with the fear of failure, it hurts. If your comments often make people angry or hurt their feelings, you may be overly critical. Are you extremely opinionated and have a hard time not sharing your ideas? People who are overly critical are often overly opinionated too. Can you let someone be wrong and not correct them? If not, this is a problem. Practice just listening and asking questions, without sharing your opinion at all. Bite your tongue and allow the conversation to go on without your ideas or input. This can be hard, but it shows maturity and wisdom. Are you extremely observant? Do you notice details that others miss? Many overly critical people are also told they are too observant. You might just naturally see what’s wrong before you see what’s right. This is a great skill in certain jobs or fields, but it can be rough in relationships. Are you picky with high standards? If you reload the dishwasher because it wasn’t done right, or remake beds because they still have wrinkles, or fix pillows every time you walk past the couch, you might be too particular and your standards might damage connection with others. Again, there are certain careers where being this picky would be a plus, but it can make people feel attacked. Do you get really bent out of shape when things don’t go your way? This might happen because you create a lot of expectations and then get attached to them. The truth is, life will rarely meet your expectations. Events rarely go off as planned, and people usually disappoint you. If you are fear-of-loss dominant — meaning you get triggered whenever life isn’t what you wanted it to be — you might be bothered and frustrated a lot, which can lead to criticism. Do you find other people are quiet and have less to say around you? People might have learned that communication with you isn’t safe. They may avoid your calls or have fewer comments in conversations. If you want people to speak their truth and be open with you, you have to create a safe place for them to do that. How to make a change If you answered yes to many of these questions, your subconscious tendency toward criticism might be a problem. Here are some tips for changing this behavior. 1. Allow people to disagree with you without threat of judgment or argument. Let others know it’s OK if they don’t agree or don’t want to do it your way. Give them a safe space to tell you their truth without risk of conflict or correction. 2. Ask permission before giving advice. Ask others, “Would you be open to a suggestion or some advice on how to do that, or would you rather I let you do it on your own?” Give them a safe place to say they aren’t open to advice on this. Whenever you share suggestions without asking permission to do so, it can come off as insulting to other people. 3. Practice not sharing your ideas. Challenge yourself to sit through a whole conversation and only ask questions and listen with the intent to understand, without saying anything or sharing your ideas at all. Do this on a regular basis with the people you care about most. Even when you need to speak your mind, make sure you have thoroughly listened to their ideas first, and then ask permission before you speak. 4. Be observant without the need to speak about what you see. Bite your tongue until it bleeds if need be, but let some people or things be wrong. Remember, they are on their own perfect journey, and God and the universe will help them learn what they need to know. You don’t have to do that job yourself. 5. Be less picky and more flexible. Let the dishwasher be loaded wrong once in a while so you aren’t always making people feel inferior. Your high standards are fine for the work you do but shouldn’t be projected onto others. Having good relationships with people who feel safe with you is much more important. 6. Don’t get bent out of shape when things don’t go your way. Trust the universe that it knows what it’s doing and however this event or situation goes, it is how it was supposed to go. There are reasons in play you don’t and won’t know anything about. Trust life to deliver what we all need, not what we want, so we can grow. 7. Become a better listener. Notice how people light up when you are more interested in listening to them than you are in talking. They feel valued, cared about and important. The gift of validation and understanding can be the most loving gift you give to people in your life. Personal growth happens when we start to consciously see our subconscious tendencies and make powerful choices to override our programming. The first step is awareness, then using choice to force ourselves towards better behavior. If we practice this new behavior enough, it starts to establish new subconscious pathways and our new behavior sticks. Be patient with yourself though, because this process takes time — and progress is more important than perfection. You can do this. This was first published on KSL.com
For the last eight years, I have given you a new year’s resolution that, in my opinion, would make the greatest positive impact on your life in the upcoming year. (You can read the past 8 years articles here.) This year being 2020, and the beginning of a new decade, I think it’s a great time for starting fresh and making a change. The goal I recommend you consider this year is to get some professional help to take stock of your subconscious beliefs and learn how to change the beliefs that aren’t serving you. This will require professional help because it is difficult to see your subconscious patterns and change them on your own. I highly recommend you find a counselor or coach who is trained to do this kind of work. The truth is, you cannot work on yourself alone at the same level you can with someone to help you. It is much easier to see the negative patterns in other people’s behavior than it is to see your own. A caring, well-trained coach or counselor can give you new tools and skills that will make you more emotionally intelligent and balanced. He or she can help you understand how your programs of fear are driving your behavior and help you change them on a subconscious level. Trust me: A coach or counselor who can guide you through this process will help you become stronger, wiser and more loving than you ever thought you could be. That is the greatest gift you can give yourself and those you love this year. Damaging beliefs To get you started, here is a list of the most common and damaging beliefs that might be causing havoc in your life:
Remember, these are not facts; they are just beliefs. That means you can change them anytime you want to. Sit with each of them a minute and make a note of the beliefs you might have in play. These beliefs become the lens through which we see ourselves and our world. They filter all our experiences and determine how we feel about ourselves and life. They also drive our behavior — especially negative, unbalanced behavior. These beliefs stop us from being the person we want to be. Changing your beliefs Most of these beliefs play out on a subconscious level, though, so you may not be aware of how much they drive your life. But you can become aware, and that is the first step to changing them. Here is an exercise to help you change some beliefs:
Fears that you aren’t good enough or aren’t safe are the most common beliefs behind bad behavior. Agin, find a professional who can specifically help you change those two beliefs. If you can start feeling safer in the world and better about yourself, it will be a gamechanger that will shift all your relationships for the better. When you feel safe, you have a full bucket and something to give the people in your life. When you feel unsafe, your entire focus will be on you and finding safety, and you won’t have anything to give. If your relationships are struggling, your self-esteem is low, you are going through some big life changes, or you are feeling depressed or anxious, care about yourself enough to get some help. Don't spend another day stuck here. There are answers to your questions and changes you can make that will quickly change how you feel and behave. Don't wait and live in fear any longer. You can do this. Question: Coach Kim, I am in a very difficult family situation. My mother and her sister have a bad relationship, and my mom feels her sister is toxic and avoids her at family gatherings. I completely respect my mother’s decision; however, she expects me to also not have any relationship with my aunt. She says if I was loyal and loved her, then I wouldn’t have anything to do with my aunt either. This puts me in a hard spot because my aunt has always been kind to me. I don’t like confrontation and I don’t want to ignore her at family gatherings. It’s hard being caught in the middle, and no matter what I do no one wins. Thank you for any advice you can give. Answer: The real question behind your question is: When forced to choose between doing what feels right to you and pleasing someone else (sacrificing yourself to make another person happy), what should you do? This is a situation we all find ourselves in on a regular basis. It is the reason we need boundaries, or rules to protect us from our tendency to over give. I’d like to give you a simple procedure to break these situations down and help you make the right choice. If there is another person involved in this situation, take a minute to answer the following questions:
Write down as many possible options as you can think of, then write an ego/fear-driven way to carry out each option and a trust/love way to do each option. Finally, cross out all the ego/fear-driven options. I will take you through this process in your specific situation. The fears in play I think your mom has both fears in play. She is likely having a fear of loss issue because she is trying to protect herself from further mistreatment. She could also have fear of failure in play, which is saying she has to be right about her sister being the bad guy or she will feel inadequate or flawed. These fears cause her ego to step up to protect her. Whenever we feel hurt or offended, our ego’s job is to create stories that make us feel safer. It often suggests stories that cast the other person as the villain so we can see ourselves as the victim. Understanding the other person’s behavior as fear-driven will bring compassion into the picture. They aren’t messed up, broken or bad; they are just scared. Ego tells us to hold onto our anger toward the other person or we won’t be safe; it keeps us in a defensive position and stubbornly insists on staying there to make us feel safe. Understanding the other person’s behavior as fear-driven will bring compassion into the picture. They aren’t messed up, broken or bad; they are just scared. This is easy to see, too, because all bad behavior is driven by fear. (If you haven’t seen the truth around this yet, keep looking. It’s there) When you see your mom is scared of failure and loss, you will also see what she needs: validation and reassurance. Your mom is afraid of mistreatment and afraid of being wrong. Her ego needs you to justify she is right in her anger because that would make her feel safer. If you can reassure her that she is loved, valued and safe in the world, that would help her. It sounds like you have some fear of loss in play, as well. You don’t want to lose your relationship with your aunt and you don’t want to lose your relationship with your mom, either. You also don’t want to lose your agency and the right to choose behavior that is best for you. This is why the situation is causing you so much angst. You will feel better if you trust the universe will use this situation to bless and grow you, no matter what happens. You also have every right to choose who you have relationships with, and your mom should honor that, but her fear and ego would feel safer if you would join her in anger. This isn’t fair, but you can understand why it happens. A sense of safety is our most foundational need as human beings. When we don’t feel safe, we are incapable of caring about others. Your mom is struggling to see your needs because fear keeps her overly focused on her own. Ways to respond As far as your options in this situation, I can see three (but notice that each option can be done two different ways, so really there are six):
Cross out options 1, 3, and 5 because they are fear-motivated and you shouldn’t make any decision for a fear reason. Look over the love-motivated options and choose the one you feel the most capable to do or the one that feels right to you. Personally, I think option 2 or 6 are the best. Executing your response When you are ready to talk to your mom about this, start by asking her questions about how she is feeling about your aunt. Give her room to make her case and vent all her pain and fear. Do not agree or disagree, just validate her right to be where she is and feel how she feels. Tell her you can understand why she feels this way. After she feels fully heard, ask if she would be willing to let you explain your decision on your own behavior. Ask her if she would honor your right to feel what you feel too. Using mostly “I” statements, not “you” statements, explain to your mother that you must honor your truth and choose a love-motivated response to this situation. Explain that you love her, but you can’t reject or give a cold shoulder to other people. Having said that, you would never judge or condemn her for feeling what she is feeling. You honor and respect her right to be where she is, and you hope she can give you the same back. Then, after you have spoken your truth and honored your own boundary, what she says, does, or thinks about you and your decision is not your problem. If she chooses to be mad at you, keep being loving toward her anyway. Do not let anyone else’s bad behavior stop you from being loving toward them. Stay consistently kind to everyone and, in the end, though her ego might be mad, she will respect your strength and maturity. You can do this. |
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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
June 2021
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