,Many people tell me they struggle with faith and doubt God (or a higher power) when they see senseless death, tyranny, murder, and cruelty happen in the world. Maybe you have asked yourself questions like these, as you have watched the invasion of Ukraine happen:

• Why is God not answering the prayers of these people and stopping this?
• Is Putin’s value really the same as ours?
• Is this war, the people of Ukraine’s perfect classroom?
• Why would this happen to them and not me?
• What can we learn from evil dictators that kill people?
• How is this our perfect classroom?

 
Many of us are feeling pain, confusion, and fear, as the idea of a World War III becomes a possibility. We ask ourselves, “Could this actually happen”?  If nuclear weapons are used, our planet and way of life could be destroyed. We are sickened by the thought and wish there was something we could do. All of these, are terrifying thoughts.
 
I’d like to share a couple ideas today that may help you fight the fear and find some sense of purpose or some solid ground right now. Here are some ideas to consider:
 
You only have two choices, trust or doubt, and you must choose one:

When horrific things happen, it is natural to doubt that the world is in God’s hands. It is normal to wonder if God is in charge, why He allows such things to happen? It’s normal to feel alone and unprotected, when you watch bad things happen to other people.  But at the end of the day you have two mindset choices, you can trust or you can doubt, and what you choose matters.

Here are the options:

1) You can choose to trust God that nothing exists He did not create, for the purpose of our education. You can trust that if he allows bad things to happen there is meaning and purpose in them. You can choose to trust that though things look scary, He always has us safe in his hands and promises a perfect classroom journey for each soul.  You can choose to see in tragedy we pull together and there is also an increase in love. You should never want tragedy to happen, and you should see it as horrible when it does, but you can still trust God to use this for our benefit in the end.

If you choose this mindset you will feel like you are standing on some solid ground and from this place, you will have more access to your love. You will have more to give others and you will feel stronger, wiser, and safer.

If you don’t consciously choose this mindset, you will subconsciously choose doubt.

2) Doubt says there is no purpose or meaning in what happens, that we live in a chaos state where we are not safe.  If this is true you must worry about protecting yourself all the time, from threats. Doubt makes you believe that bad things just happen randomly and they have the power to take from our quality of life and make you lose the life you could have had. 

If you choose this mindset (consciously or unconsciously) you will feel like there is no solid ground under you, and you will primarily be focused on protecting and promoting yourself. You will have less to give others, and you will feel vulnerable, deprived, and unsafe in the world. When you feel this way you can’t trust anyone and you have very little to give. You are too busy worrying about your safety.
 
Understand, there is no proof that either mindset is the true. So, whatever you choose, it will be a belief. You might even try both beliefs on and decide which mindset gives you a better quality of life and better relationships.  In the end, you and you alone will determine how safe you feel in the world, what you trust, and what meaning you apply to your experiences. No one can make this choice for you.
 
In over 20+ years as a personal coach, I have watched many people process trauma, loss, and grief. I have seen them choose both options, and I can tell you, the overwhelming majority have created a better quality of life by choosing trust than doubt.  But this is good time for you to think about what you will choose.
 
If you choose to see life as a perfect classroom and trust God that everything is here to teach us and grow us, here are some lessons we could be learning from war:
 
We love and value people we didn’t know we loved before:
Every time we watch tragedy hit a group of people in our world, our hearts go out to them and we discover that we love them. These are strangers we have never met nor loved before, but watching their pain, loss, courage, and strength, draws them into our awareness as brothers and sisters. We have a desire to help, stand up for them, and express our love and support in donations or in any way possible.

Think about any past disaster and you will see there is always an equal increase in love that follows it. These situations destroy and then they create love. These experiences connect us and remind us we are one with all our brothers, and that’s a beautiful and important thing to realize. I just wish we could hold onto it longer or find it without a tragedy happening.  It would be worth our time to consider ways to keep a hold of these feelings from now on.
 
We clarify our values, when we see them disregarded:
There is nothing like having our deeply held values of freedom, democracy, empathy, kindness, and caring get trampled, to remind us how important they are. Suddenly we feel our values more deeply than we did last week. We are clear about what is right and wrong to us. We feel passion for what we believe and we seek for ways to live those values in a bigger way. Again, I wish it didn’t take tragedy to bring these to our values to our awareness, but we should take this chance to lock them in, and stand for them in a stronger way. You could use this experience to reaffirm your commitment to living your values and become a better person for them.
 
We are more connected than we think:
The pandemic taught us this lesson, that what happens to our brothers, far away from us, impacts us all. We are so connected it only takes weeks for a strain of Covid, in a village in China, to reach every corner of our world. When any of our brothers (even on another continent) are suffering, it is a world problem and one that we must all face together.
 
The invasion of Ukraine is about all of us. It’s a blow to our common values and it must be solved by us all coming together. I get a warm feeling when I watch other countries like Germany and Sweden step us to help Ukraine. I suddenly see them as my brothers too, and I love them for their commitment to peace in our world. It serves me to appreciate and honor their loving actions. These events make the world feel smaller and more connected in a good way. Viruses spread quickly, but so does love.
 
We all have the same worth, though we have different classrooms:
All the time, when I teach the principle of ‘all humans having the same value’, I get asked, “What about Hitler?” Everyone wants to know how I can see an evil dictator, who murdered millions of people, as having the same infinite value as the rest of us. 

This is the thing, every problem on the planet can be traced back to belief ‘that some groups of people have more value than other groups of people’. This one idea has caused more human suffering than any other. It is what caused Hitler to do what he did.

Albert Einstein (one of the smartest humans that ever lived) said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” So, we cannot solve the problem of human suffering by believing any human has less or more value than any other. We must adopt another belief, an opposite one. The idea that all humans have the same intrinsic worth, no matter what they do, is an interesting alternative.

This doesn’t mean that a person’s choices don’t have consequences. You are co-creating with God, your perfect classroom with every choice you make and Hitler made some horrific choices with some horrific consequences. I believe he signed himself up for some pretty hard lessons, which he is probably still learning from. But, we must still see all humans as the same in value, or we create a slippery slope of exclusion. We go from excluding Hitler, to that neighbor we don’t like, to our mother-in-law who is truly difficult, and you soon right back where you started. 
Seeing all human souls as having the same infinite, unchanging value just creates a lot more love, compassion, empathy, and understanding, than it’s opposite.
 
There is no source of ultimate truth about the value of human beings though. So again, this means whatever you decide to believe and however you decide to determine the value of human beings, it is belief not fact.

I promise though, if you try both beliefs on, you will find that choosing to see all humans as the same produces much more happiness, confidence, and love in your life, than judgment ever could.
 
Attacking other people is never justified:
This is a really interesting lesson that is coming from this experience that we could all benefit from. We are disgusted, right now, about the unfair, unjustified, attack of Ukraine. We are horrified that this innocent group of people, should be needlessly attacked, but the truth is, we all attack people all the time.

Not to murder or physically hurt them, but to protect ourselves from mistreatment, defend ourselves from perceived slights, and stand up against what we see as wrong behavior.

Just the other day I had a woman yell and swear at me (attack me) saying I wasn’t handling something correctly. It was uncalled for, inappropriate, and rude. I immediately told the people I was with, about this woman and her behavior (attacking her character). As I look back on that experience I can see we both felt justified to mistreat each other and we all do this to people all the time. If they do something we see as offensive, we feel perfectly justified in attacking them.
 
How often does this behavior show up in you?
 
This is a wonderful opportunity for us all to grow. If you are disgusted by Russia’s (and more accurately Putin’s) behavior, start by making sure you don’t justify attack in your world.

Make sure you see honor, respect, and love others, while maintaining healthy, respectful, boundaries. Respect is the only worthy response, towards any soul perfectly created by God. People will do things that bother you and hurt you, but you can always respond with humanity, empathy, and respect for whatever they are experiencing. It’s not easy, but it’s the behavior you would be most proud of later.
 
I am sure as this experience unfolds, there will be many more lessons on love that we can glean from it. The trick is to use every experience to make you better. There is not much most of us can do to assist our brothers being attacked on the other side of the world, but we can do this.
 
You can do this.

First published on KSL.COM

​SALT LAKE CITY — Amid the uncertainty brought about by the coronavirus pandemic and recent Utah earthquake, it is important to understand that fear about our own safety can create selfish behavior.

Humans who are afraid often succumb to a self-preservation mindset, which can make them behave badly. They might even do things like buying up all the available toilet paper and leave none for anyone else, and we are seeing examples of this fear-driven behavior all around us.

Fear makes other people feel like a threat to your safety and well-being (on the subconscious level). This can cause us to see others as the enemy, and we might be quick to judge or criticize them too. Watching this behavior play out all around us helps us to better understand this interesting human tendency and how this behavior might show up in our daily lives, even when there is no emergency.

Every day, we get triggered by fear in all kinds of situations, and this can create selfishness too. As a human behavior expert, I think it might be helpful to understand how and why this happens.

2 core fears

I believe there are two core fears that are responsible for almost all of our bad behavior:

• The fear of failure (that we might not be good enough)
• The fear of loss (that we might not be safe).

Fear of loss is obviously the one driving the hoarding of toilet paper, as people are afraid they won’t have what they need and see others as a threat. Fear of loss can also include any experience where you don’t get what you want or are afraid of being mistreated. For example, if you come home and find the kids trashed the house, you will get angry because this is not what you wanted (so it’s a loss). You may also feel taken from (robbed of your time and energy).

Whenever you are having a loss experience like this, your ego will step up to protect you and other people’s needs will become much less important. Whenever you are afraid of being mistreated or stressed that things might go wrong, you experience fear of loss. This fear can also make you distrustful of other people, and you might become controlling as a way to feel safer.

Fear of failure is easier to understand. It is the fear of looking bad, being judged, being criticized or feeling not good enough. Any time you feel insecure, unattractive or stupid, you are having a fear of failure experience.

Which is your biggest core fear?

Both of the two core fears affect you (and every human on the planet) to some degree, every day. We all experience both of them but are each dominant in one. Take a minute and decide which is a bigger issue for you.

Are you more insecure and worried about judgment or criticism from others? A people pleaser? If so, you’re probably fear-of-failure dominant.

Are you more controlling, pushy and critical if things aren’t right around you? If so, you’re probably fear-of-loss dominant.

It is helpful to know which is your core fear because this is the trigger that drives your bad behavior and selfishness.

How fear of failure drives selfishness in relationships

When you are afraid you aren’t good enough, you can become overly needy for validation and reassurance to quiet your insecurity. You may get easily offended by anything that looks or feels like criticism or attack. In this state, your focus won’t be on giving love and validation, it will be on getting the reassurance you need to quiet your fear.

People who suffer greatly from low self-esteem often can’t see the selfishness in their needy behavior. They can’t see that worrying about being accepted is still focused on themselves. They might also make their loved ones feel responsible for their self-esteem and sense of safety in the world, which is unfair and won’t work.

It is impossible to give an insecure person enough validation to make up for their own belief that they aren’t good enough. If your spouse or partner expects you to validate them enough to cure their fear of failure, they are setting you up to fail. If you are in a relationship with someone who is overly insecure, this might also start to feel like a great burden to carry; you may even start to resent them for being so needy.

If this kind of selfishness shows up in your relationship, work on changing your belief that a human can be "not good enough." You would benefit most from some coaching on changing your beliefs on how human value is determined and on seeing all humans as having unchangeable value all the time. This is the only way to quiet the fear.

You must trust that you have the same value as everyone else on the planet, no matter what you do. When a person gets committed to this new belief, they should be less needy and have more love to give.

How fear of loss drives selfishness in relationships

When you are afraid you aren’t safe in the world, every situation and every person can feel like a threat to your safety. You may become overly controlling, opinionated and/or dominating as a way to make the world feel safer. If you can make or force everything to be right, and you are always right about everything, you would feel safer.

This behavior can look like you always need things done your way, that you’re constantly on the lookout for mistreatment, and you’re struggling to put up with behavior that bothers you.

If you are in a relationship with a person whose fear creates this kind of behavior, you might feel like you’re walking on eggshells trying not to offend them. Everything in the relationship is centered on keeping them happy. This also wears on relationships and can push people away from you.

If this kind of selfishness shows up in your relationship, what is really needed is to work on changing your belief that your journey can be ruined or diminished by other people. Play with the idea that God and/or the universe are working with the choices we all make to create the perfect classroom journey for each of us, every day. See how it feels if you believe that everything you experience is here to bless you, serve you and help you grow.

If everything is a blessing, then there is no loss. It is a radical idea, but just as likely true as believing in chaos. When you see the world as on your side and safe, you will have more love for others and bandwidth for making them happy too.

Grow and serve

During this season of pandemics and earthquakes, we can all benefit from trusting that our value can’t change, failure isn’t on the table, and that the universe is sending this experience to grow us and serve us. When we trust we are safe — that there is order, meaning and purpose in these unusual experiences — we will be more capable of thinking about others, and our selfishness should decrease.

Even though hoarding toilet paper made you (your ego) feel safer, reaching out to your neighbors to see if they need any toilet paper would make you feel even better. Love is more rewarding than safety.

You can do this.

This was first published on ksl.com
Question:

I went through a horrible divorce many years ago and it made me feel unwanted and unloved. I can’t seem to get past those feelings, and because of that I am not dating or trying to meet anyone. I think it’s a combination of being afraid, thinking I am not good enough, and being afraid of rejection. Is there anything I can do to get past those fears and move on?

Answer:

There are some things you can do that would help you move forward and feel more courageous about dating. But before we get to that, I want to explain how our past experiences create beliefs, mental rules or policies that dictate our behavior in the future.

This process started when you were a small child and everything you saw or experienced created ideas and beliefs about who you are and how you fit in the world. But it's possible that many of these conclusions may not have been accurate.

It sounds like the divorce also prompted you to make some new beliefs about your value and relationships. You may have drawn conclusions that the rejection meant you aren’t good enough to deserve love. This isn’t a fact, though; it’s just a belief (or a subconscious policy or rule) you may have applied to the event.

The good news is while you can’t go back and change what happened, you can go back and change what it meant. This is where "time travel" comes in. You have the ability to visualize when you went through that experience and choose a different meaning around it. You can also change the beliefs it created.

To change the meaning of some of your past experiences, find some quiet time when you won't be interrupted and follow these steps:

1. Close your eyes and go back to the situation when you created these assumptions or beliefs about your value or your life. Sit in that place for a while and really feel the feelings that show up. What are the exact conclusions you drew at this time? How did you feel because of these conclusions? After you sit with that for a little while, stop and write the conclusions or beliefs down on paper. What meaning did you apply to the event?

2. Look at those beliefs and write down the ways those beliefs have served you or protected you. You may have held onto them because they served you in some way.

3. Now, think about what these beliefs have cost you. Write down all the damage they have done and how they have negatively affected your life.

4. Ask yourself, are these beliefs worth the cost or would you like to change them?

5. If you think your life would be better if you changed these limiting beliefs, what would you like to believe instead? How would you like to feel about yourself? How would you like to feel about your life?

6. If it would serve you to change these beliefs, try applying new meaning to the event in your past and choose new beliefs to draw from it.

Here's how to do this:

• Choose to believe that all humans have the same value no matter what happens to them. This means this event didn’t make you less than other people. It didn’t change your value at all.
• Choose to see this event as part of a perfect classroom experience that was in your life to help you learn and grow. Bad things also prompt growth, and you have the option to see this event as something to serve your growth if you want to. This would mean it was just a lesson experience and has no power to change your value or influence your worth.
• Can you think of 10 positives this experience has created in your life? How might it have been a blessing and made you stronger, wiser or more loving?
• If you chose to see this experience (your divorce, in this case) as something to help you grow, and if it doesn’t change your value or mean anything about who you are, how would you feel about it? How does it make you feel if the event doesn't affect your value or mean anything permanent about you?
• What would be some better beliefs, conclusions, or policies you could take from the event? You have to choose what everything means; and if you don’t consciously choose meaning, you will subconsciously choose meaning. So, I suggest choosing some meanings that make you feel better about yourself and your life. Take some time to write these new conclusions and beliefs down.

7. Now it’s time for some more time travel. Close your eyes again and go back to that time in your mind. This time apply the new meaning or beliefs and process the event with these new conclusions. Use your imagination to experience the event again with new beliefs. Spend some time here really feeling the new feelings that come from applying the new meanings.

8. Take some time to write down how you are going to choose to feel and process present experiences in light of the new meanings around the past that you have chosen.

You may want to repeat this process a few times, because the more you do it the more you will internalize your new chosen beliefs. According to the neuroscientist, Beau Lotto, in his book Deviate, your brain doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality. So, when you use visualization and process events in a more healthy way, you actually get the same benefits you would if you had really had the experience that way.

You may also have more courage to start dating if you choose to trust that your value is the same as everyone else’s, whether someone likes you or not, and trust in the universe that the right person will like you when the time is right.

You can do this. 

Coach Kim Giles is a master life coach, speaker, and author of three books. Coach Kim offers help and resources that fit any budget. Learn more at www.claritypointcoaching.com and www.12shapes,com

Question:

I love your radio show. It is the only reason I am not completely a mess right now. I could use some help though on a specific challenge I am going through. I feel like I need some tools to deal with disappointment. My husband’s job sent us away to live in another country and I’m miserable. I do not like living here at all. I am really struggling as I hate everything about this experience. It has meant putting my education on hold and I’m totally out of my comfort zone. There was a job opening back home and I got so excited that we could move back, and then my husband didn’t get it, which has just shattered my mental well-being. How can I cope with all of this better?

Answer:

Life can be miserable, disappointing and frustrating at times, but a part of our suffering over these disappointments may be self-inflicted. Even though you cannot change the situation, we believe you can change the way you see and experience it.

The answer to lessening your suffering lies in changing your perspective about the nature of life altogether. We are going to help you do that by recommending you adopt a new policy about the nature of life: It is what it is.

If it was supposed to be something else, it would be.

If you look at the universe and the planet we live on, you will see perfect order everywhere. Everything from the smallest insect to the largest planet in the galaxy — they do what they do, when they do it, for a reason. The entire universe is perfect order, beauty and purpose. Can you see that?

Do you really think your life is an exception? Is your life really a bunch of bad luck accidents that mean nothing and serve no purpose?

There is no way to know for sure. There is no absolute, provable truth on whether there is order in your journey or it’s all just random bad luck. This means you can choose a perspective for yourself.

You can choose to believe there is perfect order in the universe and everything happens for a reason.

With this mindset you will spend your time looking for the lessons and the blessings, instead of complaining about, resisting and regretting that things aren’t different. But you are also going to have to change your expectations, which are nothing but thoughts and illusions you make up and become overly attached to. They aren’t real. You must let go of your expectations so you can make peace with life as it is.

We recommend that you get some paper and write down all the expectations you had for your life (write every small thing you expected to be different than it is). Then tie that paper to a balloon and let it float away up into the sky and let those expectations all go.

Decide to embrace what your life is right now as perfect. This doesn’t mean you give up working to make things better, though. You can keep working on improving things and finding another job in the states, while at the same time understanding that you are where you are for a reason. There is some beautiful lesson you are meant to learn by being exactly where you are right now.

Here are four more things you can do to change how you feel about your life:

1. Accept responsibility for creating the expectation that your life should be different than it is. You created this illusion so you can uncreate it. Choose a mindset based in truth about the nature of the journey. This will produce less self-pity and suffering. Live in optimism that things will get better, but also in trust that what is — is perfect, for some reason.

2. Practice gratitude. If you are going to compare your life with other people’s — at least make sure you compare yourself with those who have less or have it worse than you, not just those who have more or better. There are plenty on both sides. Choose gratitude for what you do have and count your blessings daily.

3. Accept there is meaning and purpose behind every experience. See if you can list 10 positives that the hard situation in your life has created. Look for how your experience could be improving you. Choose to focus on being a better person.

4. Understand that your journey doesn’t define you or have any effect on your value.Your current experience is just a location on your journey. It is a class you were signed up for, but it doesn’t have any bearing on who you are or your value. We believe you aren't being punished with these experiences but you are being blessed by them. You just don’t know why or how yet.

5. Forgive life for disappointing you. You might want to write a letter and vent about your disappointments. Write that you aren’t happy, but you don’t want to live in bitterness, regret, rejection, resentment, judgment, criticism and pain any longer. Choose to embrace what is — and live in love, trust, acceptance, forgiveness and peace instead.

Every moment of every day you must consciously make this choice. Some days when things are rough we live five minutes at a time. Decide for the next five minutes you will accept your situation as a blessing and choose some form of joy. The anger and sadness might creep back in, but you have the power to choose again. As you practice this it gets easier and lasts longer.

We know it’s not easy, but it is that simple.

You can do it.