This was first published on KSL.com 

Question:

This is kind of a generic question, but things happen and I don’t know how to figure out the right way to respond and fast enough. I am a slow processor and struggle with immediate reactions. I also just wonder if you have a process or way to find the right response in a situation that would help me avoid bad behavior?

Answer:

I am going to share a process in this article you could use to help you find the right solution or response to any issue that may arise, though it is most useful with people problems. This is a procedure that will help you make sure you are seeing the situation, yourself and other people involved accurately — which is the most important part of good decision-making. If you are reacting without the whole story, or you have made up a story that isn’t really true, you are not going to respond appropriately.

We all have a subconscious tendency to apply “story” to events, which complicates them and creates more suffering. For example, if someone says they can’t go out with you this weekend, you might add story that they don’t really like you, you must have offended them, they like other people more than you, or you are just not enough. All of those scenarios are story. The only fact is they can’t go out. The story you tell yourself is fiction, and it is completely in your control. You could tell yourself a different story, one that might create better behavior if you wanted to.

Here is my Clarity Questions Process that will help you remove inaccurate story and choose a balanced, love-motivated response to any problem. Not every question will be relevant every time, but some of them will.

1. Is this problem really about you? Or, is it really about the other person’s fear issues and it just got projected onto you? Remember that it's hurt people who hurt people. Most of the time when they are hateful toward you, they are spewing their own self-hatred and fear of failure at you because they aren’t strong enough to own it. If this is really about them, let it go and work on being balanced, mature and loving yourself.

2. If the problem is about them, what are they afraid of? Are they afraid they aren’t good enough? Are they afraid things won’t be the way they want them to be? Are they afraid of being mistreated? Has this created fear-driven, bad behavior?

3. What are you afraid of about this situation? Is it failure or loss?

4. What do you need to feel safe right now?

5. What do they need to feel safer in the world?

6. Is there anything you can do about this? What is actually in your control? You can only be responsible for things that are in your control. If you have no control, it isn’t your responsibility or your problem. Let it go and work on being balanced, mature and loving yourself.

7. Take 100% responsibility for whatever is in your control. Don’t make excuses. Own that you behaved badly as much as possible because the more you were — or are — responsible for, the more power you have to fix things. (Ego really hates being responsible because it prefers blaming and complaining, but these actions leave you powerless to improve things.)

8. Remember you have the same infinite, absolute, unchanging worth as a human being just like everyone else. We all have the same value, so no part of this situation can diminish you (unless you choose to let it). This will make you feel safer, which will help you to respond in a less selfish manner. When you are afraid of not being good enough, you always respond whichever way will make you feel safer. You won’t be able to focus on the needs of others.

9. Remember that everything about this experience is here to serve your growth and learning. The universe is a wise teacher that knows what it’s doing, and it brought you this problem to stretch the limits of your love and help you become wiser, stronger or more loving. When you accept this situation as happening for you — not to you — you will see it accurately and respond better. Trusting that every experience is the perfect one for you takes away the fear of loss, mistreatment and feelings of being taken from. From this place, you can again respond less selfishly and think about what other people need.

10. Is the other person involved in this situation tired, hungry or incapable of mature behavior because they haven’t had the opportunity to learn a better way of handling life? What has happened in their past that could be affecting their behavior here?

11. Is there any chance that the emotion you are feeling right now is one that has shown up repeatedly throughout your life? Is there any chance you had the fear that this situation is triggering long before this experience with this person? Is it your issue and possibly a big lesson that you still haven’t learned, so it keeps showing up? What could this emotion be here to teach you to do? If you had to solve this emotion inside yourself without involving anyone else, what is the work you probably need to do?

12. What are all your possible responses to this situation? Write down every possible option — even the bad ones. Make sure you write each behavior option down with a good, loving attitude and again with a bad, fearful, defensive attitude. For example, you could speak your truth with anger and hate, or you could speak your truth from trust and love (same option two different attitudes).

13. Next to each option write down what you think the outcome of choosing that behavior would look like.

14. Cross out all the fear-driven, negative, bad behavior options and choose a love-driven, strong yet kind, respectful response that feels right to you.

If you still cannot tell which response is the right one, apply WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?). Most of the time, that is your answer. If you trust your intrinsic value is unchangeable and your journey is the perfect classroom for you, you should be able to respond in a strong and loving fashion, honoring and respecting yourself and your needs along with the other person and theirs. Practice this procedure and it will get easier and easier to see the answer clearly.

You can do this. 

Coach Kimberly Giles is a master executive coach and a popular corporate trainer doing people skills training and team building experiences with her 12 Shapes Relationship System. She is the CEO of https://www.upskillrelationships.com

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 am 25 years old and suffer from anxiety and overthinking. My biggest issue right now is death. I am scared of death and every second I think of losing my parents or siblings and it destroys me mentally. I have never lost anyone close to me but for some reason I can’t get the thought of losing my family out of my mind. It eats away at my brain and causes me to have more anxiety and more overthinking. How can I deal with this? How can I learn to accept it and how can I stop thinking about it?

Answer:

We define overthinking as: Ruminating over things that don’t protect you and aren’t productive. It makes sense to spend time thinking about tasks you need to accomplish, cautions you could take to keep you or others safe, or processing emotions or experiences to work through them. If you spend your time planning out what you can do to prevent problems, it’s productive thinking about things over which you have some control.

But if you are spending valuable time worrying about things that might not happen or things over which you have no control, you are wasting your time and energy and overthinking.

Here is a procedure to follow when you catch yourself overthinking about unproductive things:

1. Practice mindfulness

Take a minute and notice what’s going on in your head and the effect those thoughts are having on your body. Become the observer of your own thinking and what it's creating inside you. Use your senses to bring you back into the moment. This means pay attention to what sensations are happening in your body from head to toe.

Notice what can you smell, hear or see right now. There is a reason people use the phrase "come to your senses" when they talk about becoming calm — you can literally use your senses to calm anxiety.

2. Relax your nervous system

Studies have shown that when your body is in fight-or-flight mode, your frontal lobe, which you need to logically think your way back to peace, shuts down and stops working.

To get access to your frontal lobe again, try diaphragmatic breathing. An article on relaxation and stress from Harvard Health explains how to do this exercise:

"Breathe in slowly through your nose, allowing your chest and lower belly to rise as you fill your lungs. Let your abdomen expand fully. Now breathe out slowly through your mouth (or your nose, if that feels more natural)."

Take a few minutes to try this.

3. Identify which fears are causing the overthinking

Is this a fear of failure problem where you are worried about failing, looking bad, being insulted, judged or criticized? Or is this a fear of loss problem where you are afraid of things going wrong, being mistreated or losing things or people you care about?

In this instance, your fear of losing family members is a fear of loss issue.

4. If you are overthinking because of a fear of failure: choose to see that all human beings have the same intrinsic value that can’t change.

When you choose to see all human beings as having the exact same value all the time, you take failure off the table. You cannot be less than anyone else. No matter what happens you will still have the same value as every other person on the planet.

If you see life as a classroom and every experience as a lesson instead of a test where you must earn your value, it becomes a lot less scary. You can’t fail if there is no test. No matter what anyone thinks of you, you still have the same value.

5. If you are overthinking because of fear of loss: choose to see the universe as a wise and loving teacher who brings experiences to help you learn and grow.

We believe there are two mindset options about the nature of life: You can see life and the universe as a dangerous place, or you can see it as a classroom journey, where perfect learning experiences show up.

We cannot prove this idea is true, however, because there is no ultimate truth about the nature of life and the universe. This means, either way, you will choose a perspective or belief in your imagination. You might as well choose one that makes you feel safer in the world and improves your quality of life.

This means letting go of the illusion that you have control over anything and choosing to have a positive outlook, even if difficult circumstances occur. If you ever lose a person you love, you can choose to believe it was their time to go and the universe (or your higher power) will see you through the experience and make you better for it.

Overthinking about death and losing your loved ones is not keeping them safe and it is not creating solutions or preventing bad things from happening. What happens to them is completely out of your control. It is unproductive thinking that does only one thing — it takes away your peace and joy.

You are stealing suffering from the future and using it to ruin today.

We suggest you leave future suffering where it is and choose as much joy and peace as you possibly can today. This moment, right now, is the only one you have any control over. This moment, right now, is the only place you have any power to choose anything. Use that power to choose gratitude, trust, love and peace.

6. Choose gratitude, in this moment, for all the things right in your life.

Count your blessings and make a choice to focus on something fun, joyful and rich going on around you right now. Take time to send a note to a loved one and let them know how you feel about them. Focus on something you have control over that is based on love, not fear.

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

Question:

I have a hard time controlling my emotions because I feel things deeply. Do you have any advice for helping me calm my reactions and get control of myself? Also, how can I teach my children to get control of themselves so they don’t inherit my bad habit of throwing a fit over things?

Answer:

I’m so glad you asked this because many of the techniques I teach in these articles involve thinking your way out of reactions.

The problem is when you get upset and triggered into a fear-based reaction, you are functioning in fight-or-flight mode.

Research has shown when people go into fight-or-flight mode, they don’t have access to their frontal lobe, which is the rational, thinking part of the brain. So you are not capable of choosing your way out of these upset reactions — at least until you calm your body down, get out of fight-or-flight and get your frontal lobe back online.

Learning to calm yourself down is a skill everyone needs to learn and teach their children. Children and teens who learn how to calm their nervous system have less anxiety and stress and are more emotionally intelligent, studies have shown. They also have more capacity to choose their mindset in any situation.

It is very normal to get upset and emotional when you feel mistreated, insulted, criticized or threatened, and it’s normal to have strong emotional reactions to these situations. These reactions are kind of like riptides — they are strong and fast, and can pull you into dangerous water — in this case, bad behavior that sabotages your relationships — before you even consciously know what’s happening.

Understanding real riptides can help you learn to escape emotional reactions. A riptide is often misunderstood because it does not pull a swimmer under water — it simply carries the swimmer away from the shore.

Many people who get caught in riptides do not understand this and they try to swim against it. The danger here is they can exhaust themselves and drown.

But if they were educated on how riptides work, they would know they can easily exit the riptide by swimming at an angle to it. If they swim sideways, parallel to the shore, they can easily exit the current and return safely to land, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website.

Experts recommend this approach if you get caught in a riptide:

1. Don’t fight the current.

2. Stay calm to conserve your energy and think clearly.

3. Think of it like a treadmill — it cannot be turned off, but you can easily step to the side and get off. Swim sideways following the shoreline and when out of the current swim for the shore.

You can calm down your upset emotions the same way. Here is a simple procedure you can practice when experiencing strong emotional reactions to calm yourself down and choose a better response:

1. Don’t fight the feelings of anger or hurt. Just sit with them for a minute and don’t do anything yet. Each emotion is an interesting dimension of the human experience and feeling them can teach you things. Make note of how your ego (the reactive, selfish part of you) wants to respond. Can you feel how much your ego wants to respond with selfishness, defensiveness or anger?

These are strong feelings, but the more you sit in them, you will see they are not your only option. Feeling this upset is a choice. But you can always choose to change the story you are telling yourself around this, see the situation in a different way, and choose a calmer, more mature and unselfish response.

2. Stay calm. Take a step back from the event and do some calming exercises. We recommend learning diaphragmatic breathing or engaging your peripheral vision by focusing on seeing the two sides of the room at the same time. This may sound weird, but you can’t activate your peripheral vision and stay in fight-or-flight at the same time. Read more about why this works in this Panicyl blog post.

3. Think your way through it. Ask yourself, "What am I really upset about? What am I afraid of here? Why do I feel threatened? Am I applying meaning here that may not be accurate? What will happen if I choose to be upset? Is that what I want? Is being upset a choice? Is there any other way I could choose to feel in this moment?"

4. Exit the reactive current. This is where you get to step to the side or exit the reactive current by choosing a mindset that runs parallel to principles of truth — principles that provide solid ground and safety, like the shore. If the fear reaction is the riptide, you can choose thoughts based in trust and love, and you can step right out. Choose to trust these principles of truth instead of embracing fear in any moment:

• Trust your value isn’t on the line here, because life is a classroom, not a test. Nothing anyone does or says can diminish your value, because it is unchangeable, infinite and absolute. You are bulletproof, and if no one can hurt you or diminish you, is there really any reason to get upset here?
• Research has shown that negative behavior is often about the person behaving badly. This means instead of getting offended, you could choose to give love and validation to the person, or you could choose to forgive them for being afraid and love them from afar.
• There's something to learn from every situation you encounter. Everything you experience makes you wiser, kinder, stronger and more empathetic. If you see life as a classroom, you realize no matter what happens, you will be all right. You could choose to feel safe right now.
• You are not better or worse than anyone else. We are all one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable human beings with the same infinite, absolute value. Just because someone casts you as the bad guy in their story, doesn’t make it true.

Principles like these help to get control over inaccurate, emotionally charged, fear-based thoughts and emotions. Stephen Covey once said, “The ability to subordinate an impulse, to a value, is the essence of the proactive person." We can learn to use principles like the ones above to control our impulses. As we work on this, we will experience more happiness and more stable relationships.

It will take some work to master this, but you can do it! 

​Question:
 
We moved to Utah from out of state and we are good Christian people with high standards and values, and like most people outside of Utah we drink coffee and wine. We also use a phrase that apparently is taboo here. We say “Oh my God” quite a bit and never in our lives considered that a swear word. But twice since moving, here my children have been told that’s bad to say that, and this has been very confusing for them because it is so normal at our house. The way they were scolded about their language was very judgmental of my husband and I as parents. We have also have had numerous families tell my children they can’t play with theirs, because we are not Mormon and have wine in our house. We have never had wine in front of their children and we actually don’t drink very often, but really, we’ve never experienced anything like this. My children have good manners and are kind, sweet kids, but they are cast as bad in our neighborhood because we are of a different religion.  I am not sure how to handle it?  I am shocked that religious people would be so unkind. Do you have any suggestions?
 
Answer:
 
First, we would like to openly apologize to you (on behalf of our state) and say we are so sorry this kind of thing happens here. Please know there are many Utahans, who would never treat you and your family this way and are saddened to know this has been your experience.
 
As for some advice, you have two options in this situation. You can be angry, bitter, resentful and unkind back, or you can take the high road and demonstrate your beliefs better than they have theirs.  Our advice would be to take the high road and treat them with kindness and love anyway. Do this, not because they deserve it, but because it’s the kind of person you want to be.
 
You might consider killing them with kindness, instead of being unkind back. Take them cookies, shovel their snow or find other ways to demonstrate what love looks like.
 
Let your children know these people are afraid. They have a fear problem around certain words or actions that make them feel unsafe. If we see their behavior as scared, instead of judgmental and unkind, it’s easier to have compassion for them. They are doing the best they can with what they currently know and see, though ignorance isn’t innocence.
 
Suggestion for righteous people everywhere:
 
We would also like to offer some suggestions to you, who find yourselves feeling uncomfortable with people who are different from you, or not of your faith.
 
We hope you will be open minded and consider you might have some subconscious fear issues that arise when interacting with people who are different from you, and this might trigger behavior that is less than loving.
 
We all have subconscious biases in play, but that doesn’t excuse unloving behavior. It is always your responsibility to identify your discomfort around certain things or people, and force yourself out of your comfort zone. This is the only way to grow and learn to accept and embrace people, who are different.
 
We believe this one lesson (loving people who are different from you) is the primary lesson we are on the planet to learn and it is why the universe is filled with diversity. Diversity gives you an opportunity to see “the limits of your love” as they show you the boundaries of your comfort zone and challenge you to learn to love bigger. 
 
If you are uncomfortable around people of a different race, religion, or sexual orientation, people who drink coffee or wine, have tattoos, swear, or have gauged ears or piercings, you need to find some of those people post haste, and spend some time with them. Get to know them. It is simply a matter of choosing to expand your world. You will probably be surprised too, because these people are often the kindest you will ever meet.
 
We were at a conference recently and saw a transsexual woman sitting alone at a table. Because we haven’t had the opportunity to know many trans people, we could immediately see getting to know this person would be a good stretch for us. We asked if we could join her and had the most amazing time learning about the challenges she faces and feeling of her goodness. You must also do this kind of thing if you want to grow.
 
We also recommend asking yourself, what does being a righteous person mean to you?
The dictionary defines righteousness as: being morally right or virtuous.
 
This is definitely a noble pursuit, but that is about one’s own choices and behavior. You get to decide what your values are and what behavior you deem right, but it does not include putting those same values on others. As soon as you do that, you have moved from righteous to self-righteous.
 
The dictionary defines self-righteous as: believing one is totally correct or morally superior to others.
 
This is where it all goes wrong. When you believe you are morally superior to another person, you are no longer righteous, in our opinion. It is not right to push your beliefs on other people or scold them for language you have decided not to use. When you do this, it is not defending God’s name, it is making another person or family feel small. You are choosing to see some human beings as having more value (or being more right or better) than others, and this is a problem.
 
If you want to raise confident, loving, wise children, who grow into mature, kind adults, then teach them to see all human beings as having the same value, no matter the difference in their journeys, language or behavior.
 
We know you are trying to teach your children your values, which in this case includes the idea that drinking coffee and wine are bad. We understand the fear you have, that children, who don’t see drinking as bad, might be prone to do it. The problem is you are also raising judgmental children, who will miss out on getting to know a large number of amazing people all over the world, because their fear will overpower their ability to love them.
 
There is a way to explain to children though drinking is against your family’s personal values, it doesn’t make a person who drinks bad or less than you. You can teach the dangers of alcohol, while also teaching them to accept and love those who have different values. There are good kind people all over the world who drink responsibly and live healthy lives. You may also have a child who drinks at some point, and they need to know there is nothing they could do, to separate themselves from your love.
 
Most of all, make sure you are teaching children to accept and be kind to everyone and the only way to teach this is by example. If you have ever made a neighbor feel judged for being different, don’t underestimate the power of a sincere apology. It’s not too late.
 
You can do this. 

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:

Thank you for all your wonderful articles. I love them all and the idea that life is a classroom, not a test, has really helped me. I'm wondering what insight you have on the suffering and horrible circumstances some people get in life, by no fault of their own, while others seem to have a classroom that is so much easier. I struggle to see how some trials will ever be a lesson and serve us, when they seem to be just pointless misery with no hope for growth or recovery, like those with horrible mental illnesses. I can see that the people around these people may learn and grow, but what about the people who get these horrible classroom journeys? It really grieves me for people like this and I can’t imagine why God or the universe would want innocent people to suffer so pointlessly. All I can come up with is that might trust, that at some point, probably not in this life, God will make up for the injustices people face. But I wondered what you might say about this.

Answer:

This is such a good question, one that many wise men, clergy and philosophers have tried to answer for thousands of year. And the truth is, there is no absolute knowable truth on it. It is a mystery of life why bad things happen to good people and why is life often so unfair.

Because there is no ultimate truth on this, you get to choose which, of all the perspective options, would work best in your life and make you the happiest. We are going to give you some of the most common perspective options and explain which ones we like best and why.

Here are some of your options on why life is unfair:

1. You can choose to believe life’s challenges happen randomly to random people, for no real reason.

Stuff just happens. If you choose this perspective, you could decide to learn and grow from whatever happens to you and use it to make you better, but the universe itself doesn’t have a purpose in mind, nor does it influence events.

One of my favorite books on this perspective is Harold Kushner’s book "When Bad Things Happen To Good People." He said, "I don’t know why one person gets sick, and another does not, but I can only assume that some natural laws, which we don’t understand are at work. I cannot believe that God 'sends' illness to a specific person for a specific reason. I don’t believe in a God who has a weekly quota of malignant tumors to distribute and consults His computer to find out who deserves one most or who could handle it best.

"'What did I do to deserve this?' is an understandable outcry from a sick and suffering person, but it is really the wrong question. Being sick or being healthy is not a matter of what God decides that we deserve. The better question is 'If this has happened to me, what do I do now, and who is there to help me do it?' It becomes much easier to take God seriously as the source of moral values if we don’t hold Him responsible for all the unfair things that happen in the world."

Now, this is not your only option, it is only one, but many people think this makes sense to them based on their spiritual beliefs. It does not offer much consolation or sense of purpose or meaning in events, but if you choose a positive attitude and make the most of whatever you get, you could still turn challenges into human achievements, you could also face life with some peace and purpose anyway.

2. You can choose to believe in predestination.

This is the theory that our lives are all planned out by a wise higher power, who knows in advance what we will each choose and has a custom classroom experience in mind (ahead of time) for each of us. This makes some people feel like there isn’t freedom or purpose though. If everything is already known ahead of time then what is the point of playing it out?

The positive part is that you could choose to trust a loving higher power that it knows what it’s doing and that in the end, all will be well because he or it is in charge. You will have to see how this option feels to you.

3. You could choose to believe that there is a loving higher power in charge, who has created a universe to be your classroom with forces that work with your choices, moment by moment, to create the perfect classroom journey for each of us.

This would mean there is no predestination, but complete freedom to choose your path, but the universe in its perfect wisdom uses all of our choices to create the exact perfect lessons or opportunities each soul needs to grow and learn (what they are meant to learn here).

This would mean there is both agency, freedom, and also purpose and meaning in everything that happens. Many who choose this philosophy (including Nicole and I) find that it creates a sense of safety in the world, no matter what horrible challenges come, we can trust there is a reason, and that reason is always to serve us. (Though often we have no idea what the reason is.)

This mindset motivates us to rise to the challenges that come and try to make something from them. It also means when bad things happen to good, innocent people, things that make no sense to us, we can still choose to trust that (though we can’t see or understand the purpose) there is one.

We are not going to tell you which of these options (or maybe there are still others you can think of) you should choose. We encourage you to try them on and see what feels the best or most peaceful to you.

We love the story of Viktor Frankl in his books, where he explains his search for answers to this question. He pondered whether he ended up in the concentration camps during World War II, because of random bad luck, or if there was meaning and purpose in his having been captured and dealt with the way he was.

As a psychotherapist, he spent a lot of time watching his mindset and reactions to his situation and pondering what he believed was truth about the predicament. He also decided, at the end of the day, there was no way to know for sure what truth is around this age-old question, and that left him with the choice to choose his perspective.

He tried all the options on though and found when he chose to believe there was purpose, meaning, and reason why things happened (even if he had no idea what that meaning was) he did better mentally. He felt more hope and more inspiration to rise and do something positive with the experience. He went on to write a book about his experience there called "Man’s Search for Meaning" that has been named one of the most influential books ever written, and in which you could read more about his story.

We have played with these options ourselves, and we have found that the idea of seeing life as a classroom and the universe as a wise teacher constantly conspiring to educate and grow us, and has brought comfort and peace to us when our lives have been unfair.

People often say, in the comments to these articles, something to the effect of, "These coaches surely have no idea how hard and painful life really is." I want to assure you that our journies have not been easy ones. Many might say we have had more than our fair share of problems and pains.

So we can say, from experience, when life’s challenges feel terribly unfair, it brings great peace if we choose to believe the universe has delivered this problem for the express purpose of making us better, stronger or more loving in some way (or to help those around us to do the same). When we choose option three, life feels better.

When terribly tragedy happens to people around us though, and we watch others suffer, I don’t think we should ever feel OK or peaceful about their suffering. We should feel pain and sorrow for and with them, it would be wrong not to.

Imagine how wrong it would be to justify their suffering saying, "Oh that’s their perfect classroom, they are fine and this is perfect for them." We are supposed to feel horrified at the suffering of others and have great sympathy for them, pray for them, reach out to help and offer compassion. I think this is why — we aren’t supposed to know the ultimate answer to your question. If we did, we may no longer mourn with those that mourn and feel their pain.

We encourage you to play with your options above and find the one that works best for you, while at the same time continue to hold onto the beautiful empathy you feel toward all those who struggle.

You can do this. 

Master Life Coaches Kim Giles and Nicole Cunningham are human behavior experts, coaches and speakers. You can learn more about them at www.12shapes.com and www.claritypointcoaching.com. Make sure you see their two amazing books here.

This was first published on KSL.COM

SALT LAKE CITY — In this edition of LIFEadvice, coaches Kim and Nicole share some ideas for coping with the hardest challenges of life.

Question:

I have a very serious illness that no one has ever heard of and I find it extremely devastating and lonely. What can someone like me, in my position, do? I've struggled with this for over 30 years and this is impossibly frustrating and miserable. You have no idea. Do you have any advice for dealing with this?

Answer:

Many of life’s challenges are impossibly hard and painful. Many of these problems have no answers, solutions or remedies. They are painful and they are going to stay painful for a long time. In this situation, with no escape available, your options are limited. For the most part, all you can do is work on choosing your attitude and mindset inside the challenge.

Vivian Greene said it best: "Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass…It’s about learning to dance in the rain."

Here are eight suggestions to help you dance in the rain (and find joy and peace) despite an impossibly hard challenge:

1. Accept what is. 

"It is your resistance to 'what is' that causes your suffering," Buddha said.(Read more about this concept here.) It is your wishing and wanting things to be different, that is the real cause of your pain. You have created, and attached your happiness to, expectations about how your life should look or feel. The problem is, life rarely meets our expectations, and more often it takes us in a direction we never saw coming.

So, now that you are here, how much time and energy are you going to waste wishing you were somewhere else? All this time and energy is wasted and it might be making you suffer more. You will suffer less, if you stop resisting and choose to accept this path as the right one for you. You are here for a reason and that reason is to serve you (read more below).

2. Trust there is order in the universe and purpose and meaning in everything.

Choose to see the universe as a wise teacher, who knows what it’s doing. Choose to see life as a classroom whose objective is your learning ad growth. This would mean every experience you have is here to facilitate learning and make you smarter, stronger, wiser or more loving in some way. This means things don’t happen to you, they always happen for you.

During times of intense suffering, it is difficult to believe your pain is here for a positive reason and I cannot prove to you it is (though you can’t prove it’s not, either). Choosing to trust there is a purpose in your pain, does make you suffer less. I first learned this from reading about Viktor Frankl, who during intense suffering in the concentration camps of World War II, found if he chose to believe there was meaning in his suffering (that it was here for a reason) he not only suffered less, but also felt motivated to rise and get through in the best possible way. He wrote: “Suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it finds meaning.” 

If you choose to see the universe as a loving teacher that is on your side and working for you, not against you, and if you choose to believe every experience is therefore the perfect classroom journey for you — you will find more peace and joy in the difficulty. This might be one you have to play with and try before you believe me, but I promise it's truth.

3. Focus on this present moment only. 

If you try to process the weight of all the coming years of loneliness or pain, it will crush you. It is too much, too scary and too discouraging. So set that weight down.

Focus only on this present moment or hour. Get through this hour choosing to be as positive and happy as possible. What can you do at this moment for yourself to relieve pain, create joy or just distract yourself?

You have great power in this moment to choose your mindset — it is actually the only time you have the power of choice at all. Use that power to choose loving feelings towards yourself and others. Choose gratitude and count your blessings. No matter how bad things are, there are still things to be grateful for. Choose to create a life of happiness, kindness, service, joy and fun, one moment at a time. Don't worry about what will or won't happen later at all.

4. Find a passion project.

During times suffering we can often find ourselves unproductive, stuck and useless. It helps if you can find a passion project of some kind that makes you feel fulfilled, productive, and accomplished. Even if it is just a journal or blog, a puzzle or a scrapbook. What could you do with your time instead of wallowing? Find something productive you can do.

5. Allow yourself limited pity party time.

It is natural during times of suffering and challenge to feel self-pity, sadness and grief. You should feel and experience these emotions, and not try to suppress them all the time. It is actually important you give yourself time to feel these feelings and have a good pity party or cry every once in a while, just don’t live there.

If you feel these emotions coming up today, give yourself a limited amount of time (like an hour or 30 minutes) to deep dive into the negative emotions and cry if you need to. Giving yourself this time is an important part of the lesson this experience is here to teach you. You will also find you actually feel better after a good cry. It gets some of the pain out so you always feel better after.

6. Lower your expectations.

When you are going through an impossibly hard experience at least half your brain power and energy are being used to process the trauma of the situation. This doesn’t leave you with enough bandwidth for all the other tasks or interests you usually do.

Go easy on yourself and expect less. Give yourself permission to have a messier house or get less done. Be realistic with the energy you have and say no to things you know will wipe you out. Give yourself permission to lower these expectations without any guilt.

7. Give up envy and wishing you had someone else’s life journey.

It is really easy to find yourself in a place of envy when your life is hard. It does seem unfair that other people get lives that seem easier than yours, but dwelling on this does you no good and in fact, will make you feel even worse.

Remember, their journey isn’t over yet and all of us will face some challenges sooner or later. Remember, this journey, though painful, is the right one for your soul, or you wouldn’t be here. Trust the universe knows what it’s doing and that growth is its purpose. There are amazing lessons, knowledge, and strength to be gained from your journey, and though you would rather not go through this or gain them, there will be a benefit down the road.

8. Use this experience and the unique knowledge (on the human condition and suffering) it is giving you, to bless the world in some way. 

Your misery can often become your message. If you suffer with chronic illness you could show others how to cope in a positive way. If you are a single mother, you could help newly divorced women handle their new reality with more joy. If you lose a loved one, you can be a resource to others who are suffering grief. There is always a way to use what has happened to you to make a difference in the world.

At some level that is why I write this column every week. My journey has not been an easy one at all. I apparently signed up for many hard classes in the classroom of life, and have experienced suffering on almost every level. I tell you this only because using my challenges to help others, helps me. Most of these articles are full of practical ideas that I have really used to get me through my hard times. When you can make your suffering useful to someone else, it helps.

There is nothing I could write that would take away the pain of your suffering, but I do believe you can lessen it (at least to some degree) by using these eight ideas. Every day is another chance to practice the power of choice, choosing joy, peace, happiness and laughter, and you don’t have to do it perfectly, just keep making progress.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles and Nicole Cunningham are master life coaches and the owners and founders of Claritypointcoaching.com and www.12shapes.com - They are sought after authors and speakers on human behavior and healthy relationships.

Each January for the past four years, I have written an article for you with my best advice for a New Year’s resolution, which would make the biggest difference in your life. Here are the links if you’d like to read them:

• 2013 — Tips for better communication
• 2014 — Forgiveness is critical
• 2015 — The New Year's resolution that could change the world
• 2016 — Why you can trust the Universe

This year, the one resolution we recommend you consider, which would make the biggest difference in your life, is to see life as a classroom and each experience as a lesson. This will be powerful in your life, because when you choose to see every experience (without exception) as today's perfect lesson to teach you something, it completely changes how you feel about the events, and believe it or not, you suffer much less.

When the kids mess up the house, if you see it as today's lesson to make you stronger, wiser and more loving, you will handle it much differently than you would if you saw it as just an aggravating event.

When you struggle at work, but you see the challenge as your perfect classroom, you spend less time complaining and more time working to solve the problem.

This idea came from the great Viktor Frankl, who was a prisoner in the concentration camps during World War II. In that horrible situation he found himself pondering on a powerful question, “Is it just random bad luck I am here in this place or is there meaning, purpose and reason in my being here?”

He eventually realized there was no way to know for sure which was truth. That left him with an interesting revelation … we get to and have the power to decide which perspective we want to have.

He also realized that believing things had no reason and were just random bad luck made his suffering worse. But choosing to believe there was meaning and purpose in our experiences and suffering lessened the suffering and made him want to rise to the occasion and turn whatever was happening into a human achievement.

He said, “Suffering ceases to be suffering, the moment it finds meaning.”

You can bring this powerful principle into your life too, so you can suffer less and have more joy. Each day you will be faced with situations, many which will disappoint, frustrate, anger or hurt you. When these show up, you can experience loss and feel cheated, wronged and mistreated by life, you can complain and feel sorry for yourself, or you can choose to trust the universe that though this situation is rough, it is here for your benefit.

You can choose to see the universe as a wise loving teacher, who is constantly conspiring to educate and bless you. You can see life as on your side. Choosing to believe this is truth will completely change how you feel about your life and yourself for the better.

The only other option you have is to resist an experience, be bent out of shape by it, complain about it and refuse to learn from it. This attitude does nothing but magnify the suffering and discourage you. It may also make you less motivated to change and improve. Why work at things if they don't mean anything anyway?

When you choose to see a bad situation as a perfect lesson, you will always come through with more strength, wisdom and love, and you get to choose how you want to live. It is totally up to you.

If you are ready to embrace this idea and have more joy and less suffering this year, join us in a fun, life-changing exercise to record what you learned every day in 2017. Get yourself a fresh journal where you will record the lessons your unique journey provides every day. Each night before bed take a minute and write what your classroom taught you today.

Master coach Nicole Cunningham and I have both committed to this practice this year, and we also plan to leave room on the margins of each page to write the topic of each post so we can flip back through the book and find topics we want to read about again and again.

You could also do this on your Facebook wall, blog or in an electronic file (though don’t make this about showing off to others). Keep this as an exercise about you and your growth, and not about getting validation.

Take some time today and take stock of the ways you were stuck in fear or bad behavior last year, and make 2017 the year you learn your way out of it. I say “learn your way out” because "you can’t do better until you know better."

Make this the year you recruit some outside help and start creating the life you really want. Every coaching client I’ve ever had has said, “I wish I had learned this stuff sooner.” And they could have, but most wait until things get really bad, before they ask for help. Don’t wait.

There are resources and experts all around you that can make changing your life, relationships or results easier and faster. Sometimes we are afraid to seek help because the known (even if it’s bad) seems safer than the unknown. This is why we stay in abusive relationships or continue to put up with an unhealthy marriage or a bad job.

Please hear me on this: The problems in your life are easier and less painful to fix than you think, especially if you have help. You may already have a hunch about what help you need and how to find it, but you aren’t acting on it. Take action.

The universe will always guide you to the answers you need. It gently nudges you and drops hints so you can’t miss the path you are meant to follow. Life just waits for you to be brave enough to choose yourself and grow. It will not force you through your classroom, though it may hit you with a two-by-four, if the gentle nudges aren’t working.

Be honest with yourself today about the ways you may be hiding from growth or avoiding a class you need to take. Are there problems anywhere in your life you are ignoring, distracting yourself from or pretending aren’t there?

Are you keeping yourself busy or self-medicating with work, hobbies, TV, pornography, romance novels, alcohol or other interests, instead of working on fixing your life?

It may be time to admit you don’t know how to fix what is broken. That is the first step to change, and remember it’s not weakness to ask for help. It’s a sign of strength. Ask for help.

There are some great worksheets and tools on our website to help you work through your problems and find solutions. My favorite is the Clarity Questions Worksheet, and you can access it here.

Choose to make 2017 your best year yet in personal growth. Choose to stretch out of your comfort zone, gain some new skills and tools and create a richer life. Making this happen isn’t as scary or as hard as you think.

You may have noticed I end every article I write with the phrase “You can do this.” I end this way because most of us have subconscious belief that says, “I can’t do this, it’s too hard and I’m not good enough” but that’s not truth. You are meant to do this, grow, rise, solve problems and succeed. You can use the power of conscious choice (in every moment) to choose to believe you are safe, on track, ready and perfectly able to succeed in your classroom … whatever it brings.

Make sure you join our mailing list by texting "Claritypoint" to 71441 (and get a free e-book by Kim Giles too) or follow us on social media this year, as we provide you with tips, skills, tools and advice and help you to suffer less and have more joy.

You can do this. 

Kimberly Giles is the president of claritypointcoaching.com and a corporate trainer. Nicole Cunningham is a master coach for families, parents and teens.