WHAT IS TRUST AND WHY DOES IT MATTER  ?

There are two types of trust: external, i.e. expecting a positive outcome or internal, i.e. expecting to be able to turn everything into an opportunity or something positive. Essentially the first type is trust in others/the world and the second one is trust in yourself.

Both types of trust result from YOUR CHOICE – subconsciously or consciously. Once you realize you can’t control everything (and trust me you can’t), you only have two choices: trust or distrust.

If you have been lucky enough to have had parents or role models that created a safe environment for you you probably trust naturally and the whole idea hasn’t emerged to your consciousness much. If, however, you weren’t quite so lucky you probably naturally distrust. In that case becoming more trusting will be an ACTIVE effort that will pay rich dividends to you while being a gift to those around you.

Research has shown that trusting people are happier, better liked by others, more honest and more moralistic do-gooders. If you feel trust you can let go of some of your need to control. You can let things happen and “go with the flow”. It’s a peaceful stress-free way of life.

Trust creates a feeling of safety for those around you. Think about it. If you feel that those around trust you, you feel safe in trying out new things and excelling at whatever you do. Mistakes become opportunities to learn. If you feel there’s distrust, you play small, you are afraid to make mistakes and focus your energy on avoiding them rather than learning from them.

WHAT IS YOUR DEFAULT POSITION ?

Everyone trusts some and not others. I am talking about your general disposition here. Even a trusting person who has been hurt or disappointed stops trusting a certain person but he/she doesn’t stop trusting the rest of the world. A distrusting person generally distrusts everyone and continues to do so even after one person has managed to earn his/her trust. Are you generally someone who trusts until proven wrong or someone who distrusts until proven wrong ?

WHAT IF I CAN’T TRUST ?

Well, that means you live a life driven by fear. You constantly expect others to have negative intentions and exploit you. You expect life to disappoint you and you look for proof for it of which you find abundant occurrence (you’d find equal proof of the opposite but you’re not focusing on that so you don’t see it).

Using the word “can’t trust” is misleading yourself. It suggests that you are not in control of “doing the trusting thing” and that someone or something else is in the way of you being a more trusting person. Who or what would that be ? Of course there is nothing or no one else ! You are not in control of others’ behaviours and the world’s events but you are in control of whether you trust or not.

Face the reality. If you really wanted to be more trusting you could. The issue is not that you can’t but that you don’t want to because you are afraid of being hurt or disappointed That’s being honest. Now have a look at the chart below and you will understand that the risk of being hurt occasionally is still well worth the effort of being trusting.

WHY TRUST IS THE ONLY WAY !

.. .. .. OTHER PERSON		ME
		I trust	I don’t trust
	Good Person	I was RIGHT Rewarding deep Experience	I was WRONG Missed Opportunity
	Bad Person	I was WRONG Unexpected Disappointment/Hurt	I was RIGHT Expected disappointment/hurt or No relationship at all

Only when you trust do you have a chance of a positive enriching experience/relationship ! Not trusting garantuees that you will have no rewarding relationship because you either miss the good ones or at best correctly predict the bad ones which you then – understandably – dismiss. Net, if you want meaningful relationships you must trust.

Do you see how you can dare to try being trusting because the alternative is so undesirable,  such a certain  loss ?

You know already that trust is a conscious choice. It’s something you can choose to believe “ I believe that the world and the people in it are inherently good “.

HOW TO HANDLE DISAPPOINTMENT WHEN I DO TRUST ?

Now you have understood that the only chance to develop meaningful relationships (both with people and general events) is by trusting. That of course entails a risk of being disappointment every now and then. Here are a few stragies to keep the hurt and disappointment small.

1. First of all, know that trust breeds good behaviour (like a self fulfilling prophecy) and that trusting people therefore experience fewer disappointments then non trusting people because

a. We feel honoured when someone simply trusts us or gives us the benefit of the doubt. In return we behave better in order to live up to that image (signs of trust are openness, sharing of intimate, personal or sensitive information, somebody makes himself vulnerable, somebody tells us they trust us).

b. We feel a bigger barrier to distrustful behaviour or to being dishonest when we know someone actively trusts us. It’s as if betraying someone who actively put their trust into us is a more serious betrayal then someone who never really trusted us anyway.

2. If, however, you do get disappointed, use the following strategies:

First of all, don’t take it personal. We suffer most because we believe a betrayal was an act against us but it hardly ever is. When people betray us they usually act from a place of low resources, from feeling trapped and cornered. Secondly, try and understand the betrayal from the perspective of the other person. Often you will be able to understand their perceived lack of options at the time. Understanding their deceitful behaviour doesn’t mean you are forgiving it, although it might well make you want to forgive – provided you still believe in the person as a whole. If you empathize enough with the other person, see their tricky situation and decide to give the person a second chance, go for it. Otherwise, exclude him/her from your circle of trusted people.

Research has found that trusting people forgive readily as soon as they understand the other person’s problems or what made them deviate from their normal pattern.

HOW CAN I GET STARTED WITH TRUSTING MORE ?

Trust is something you learn from your parents or the significant people around you in your early years. When you have had repeated experience of being able to rely on those around you, you feel safe in your environment and you dare to feel trust towards other people.

If you haven’t been lucky enough to have trusting people around you, you can still become more trusting:

1. Start with being more honest with yourself AND become more self-accepting at the same time. Who are you ? Write an honest description about yourself and pretend it’s for your grand or grand grand children. Include your good and bad traits and all your roles, e.g. a parent, a colleague, an entertainer etc. We tend to forget our good ones and exaggerate our faults, so make sure you include what your friends and those who like/love you, would have to say about you. Now have a look at the not-so-good traits and habits of yours. Accept them by saying “I am xyz and it is OK”. This doesn’t mean you’ll never change but you accept them right now. They are part of you and make you the wonderful person you are.  The more accepting you are about who you are and who you are not the less vulnerable you are and the easier it will be for your to trust others (ok, I am crap at ironing and I don’t like it and it’s OK ! – there’s other things I am good at).
2. Consciously choose to believe that the world and the people in it are inherently good. This belief will feel uncomfortable at first but commit to finding evidence for it. For the next 7 days collect evidence of all the good and decent behaviour around you. Don’t take it for granted, notice it, acknowledge your neighbours greeting, your butchers honest weighing of your meat etc. You will conclude that there are indeed good people around you. And don’t forget you don’t have a real alternative anyway: you either trust and have a chance of rewarding experiences/relationships or you dis-trust and get garantueed dissatisfaction – a no-brainer really !
3. Now act as if you totally trust, i.e. as if you totally believe that the people around you are good, mean well and want good for you. When your partner doesn’t come home at the expected time consciously think that this can only be due to the car having broken down, his mate holding him back or anything else out of his control. See this as a sign of your loyalty to your partner and enjoy the strength that comes from such thinking. If life throws a disastrous event in your path, trust that there must be some good in this and that you just haven’t spotted it yet. Look out for it. It’s ALWAYS there.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORRIED AND HAPPY PEOPLE
Stressed people always have too many worries all rooted in one basic fear: the fear of not meeting expectations (whose expectations anyway? and how important are these people really?).
Happy people have worries, too, but the difference is that they know how to deal with them effectively and get rid of them fast. This article will make these tools available to you, too.

WORRIES GROW WITH ATTENTION TO THEM
Most people cannot let go of their worrisome thoughts as if forgetting about them will make the dreaded thing happen. Guess what? The opposite is true. Worries grow the more attention you give them. The great news, however, is: you already have the power to make them go away. And this article will show you how to use it.

WORRIES ARE THOUGHTS WHICH MAKE YOU FEEL BAD – REPLACE THEM
To reassure you straight away that it is possible, just make yourself aware of the fact that worries are nothing but thoughts which make you feel bad. Yes, worries are thoughts that derive from thinking about a possible negative outcome, an unwanted turn of events. Who chooses what you think? I hope your answer is: ME, or else we have a different issue to tackle. So if YOU decide what you think, then YOU are in control of what sort of thoughts you want to have, right? Once you become aware of this simple fact, you instantly know WHAT to do: replace the painful and unpleasant thoughts with more uplifting and energizing ones.
This leaves the question of the HOW to do that. After a few more important facts about worries, this article will show you several strategies on how to take control over your thoughts.

WORRIES ARE USELESS – HERE IS THE PROOF
Worries are the anti-thesis to happiness. They distract you from enjoying life and the NOW – the only time to experience happiness. Here is why ALL worries are wasted:
40% of worries are about events that will never happen
30% of worries are about events that have already happened
22% of worries are about trivial events
4% of worries are about events we cannot change
4% of worries are about real events on which we can act
(and these are also wasted because we can actually do something about them)

THE ROOT CAUSE OF ALL WORRIES
There is one underlying for all sorts of worries. It is the fear not to be able to handle the situation. That’s it. Whatever you worry about, ultimately, you are afraid of not being able to handle the consequences. The truth is, however, you will always be able to find a way forward. That way forward may not be the one you had in mind before, but it will be there. Even if you don’t know a way forward now, trust that you will figure it out when it all comes to it. TRUST is a key concept here. Just imagine, you would KNOW that whatever happens, whatever life throws at you, you will manage somehow, you will find some sort of way forward. If you knew that, what would there be left to fear? The answer is: NOTHING. And what if life always gave you exactly what you needed to make progress in your personal development? Then you could relax and let it come – whatever it is. Decide to trust: ” Whatever happens, I will handle it” and notice how it makes you feel.

FACT: THERE IS NO PROGRESS WITHOUT FEAR AND WORRIES
The fact is, as long as you develop fear and worries will ALWAYS be in your life. Yes! They will NEVER go away. Everytime you try something new, you step out of your comfort zone, and the uncertainty about the outcome will produce feelings of fear and worrisome thoughts. This is the same for everyone. Once you know that fear and worries will always be part of a meaningful and exciting life, you can relax and focus your energy on managing your worries rather than fighting them. The best way to manage fear and worries is to go ahead regardless of them and trust that you can handle whatever comes next. Make fear and worries your companion in life.

6 STRATEGIES TO DEAL WITH WORRIES:
1. USE LOGIC
Ask yourself what is really true about this fear or worry? Go and find the facts alone or with a partner. You will see that most worries are totally generalized, over-exaggerated or plain false! Thoughts like “nobody likes me” are rarely ever true and yet their devastating effect on your emotions is as real as if it was. So don’t TRUST your worries! Once you have the facts (e.g. well, my mum likes me, my neighbour/doctor likes me etc. etc), the worry loses its power. There is a story about a man seeing Dr. Schuller I would like to share with you”

The man said, “It’s over. I’m finished. All my money has gone. I’VE LOST EVERYTHING.”
Dr. Schuller asked, “Can you still see?”
The man replied, “Yes, I can still see.”
Dr. Schuller asked, “Can you still walk?”
The man replied, “Yes, I can still walk.”
Schuller said, “Obviously you can still hear of you wouldn’t have phoned me.”
“Yes, I can still hear.”
“Well,” Schuller said, “I figure you have got about EVERYTHING LEFT. All you have lost is your money!”

This story is a bit simplistic but simplistic examples make the point: we tend to generalize “lost everything” and feel the respective negative feelings, when in reality we (only) lost some/a lot of money.

2. REMIND YOURSELF, THAT BAD THINGS DON’T HAPPEN THAT OFTEN
We tend to expect the worst everytime but the worst hardly ever happens. How often has the worst case scenario truly come to life for you? Rarely, I bet. So why do we insist that next time it will happen? It’s simply a bad habit. So tell yourself, that the worst thing happens very rarely!

3. REMIND YOURSELF, THAT EVEN IF THINGS ARE A LITTLE BIT BAD, YOU CAN HANDLE IT AND GET THROUGH IT
So even if things don’t work out the way you hoped. It’s hardly ever the end of the world. Focus on the things you are still grateful for and try and see something positive in the outcome even if it’s difficult to spot at first. I had cancer a couple of years ago and it felt like the end of the world at first, but it was also a blessing for me, a wake up call to re-focus on what truly matters to me, rather than blindly following the expectations of my boss/my company/society as a whole. If nothing else, you will always find some learning in a bad outcome – learning you would never have had, had it turned out otherwise! So look for the little good in the bad and keep going.

Next time you find yourself despairing, ask yourself these questions:
1. Have I got enough air to breathe?
2. Have I got enough food for today?
3. Am I going to survive?
If the answer is YES, things are already looking up!
So often, we magnify things out of proportion. The worst thing that could happen is probably very inconvenient, but not the end of the world.
If it helps you, make a plan of what you would do in the worst case scenario. This often helps to realize that things won’t be all that bad after all and you will gain some valuable peace of mind.

4. IGNORE YOUR WORRIES
You already know that worries grow with attention. The opposite is true as well. When you don’t spend time on them, worries shrivel and go away!
Obviously you cannot simply NOT worry at all but you can manage your worries. Set a specific worry time every day: 15 minutes in which you are allowed to worry about everything and anything. Just don’t do it outside your worry time.
If your worry pops up outside worry time, either imagine a box in your mind in which you lock this worry till it’s time or simply write it on a piece of paper and then put it away till worry time. You know you will spend time on it later.

Ask others to support you with this. Inform them about when your worry time is! Distract yourself with something else in the meantime. As if you switch a television channel, change thinking channel by remembering a happy memory, something that made you fell fabulous. Remember it with all your senses (what you see, hear, smell, felt, tasted). Alternatively think of something you are good at (comforting your child, folding clothes, skiing or coming up with ideas etc etc). Use this tool everytime you need to, ideally 5 minutes daily.

At first this will feel hard, as you have so many worries and you can’t wait to think or talk about them. After a while, however, something remarkable will happen…your list or your mental box won’t be as full as you thought.

5. STAND UP TO YOUR WORRY & TALK BACK
Did you know that your worry is actually a bully? As long as you take it, the bully will continue to mistreat you. Imagine the bully as an ugly creature. Get angry and talk back.
At first the bully is still stronger than you (after all it had you under control for so long) but you can train to win this match. You already know that your worry bully generalizes, over-exaggerates and lies. He will try and make you believe that the worst thing will definitely happen when it is very unlikely to happen. So don’t trust it! TALK BACK and imagine kicking or flicking it away. Keep doing that (the bully sees you as a weakling you listens to everything) as the bully will try again several times. Keep busy with something else.

6. STRENGTHEN YOUR BODY – RELAX AND EXERCISE
Research shows that good nutrition, regular exercise and sufficient 6-8 hours of sleep keep worries away. Without it, you literally invite the worries into your life.

In her book “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway” Susan Jeffers reveals some excellent truths about fear which I must share with you. The core message is to understand that fear will always be there as long as you continue to develop and grow. But you can deal with fear just fine  if you develop the TRUST that whatever happens to you, whatever life throws at you, YOU CAN HANDLE IT.

3 Levels of Fear

There are 3 levels of fear. Level 1 fears are the surface story and they are situation-oriented (such as Aging, Dying, Illness or Changing a Career, Making a Mistake, Ending a relationship). Level 2 fears are not situation-oriented, they involve the ego and reflect your sense of self (such as Rejection, Failure, Disapproval, Loss of image). There is only one fear on Level 3. It is the bottom of all fears: the fear that you “can’t handle it !”.

If you knew you could handle anything that came your way, what would you possibly have to fear ? The answer is: NOTHING.

This is tremendous news. It means that you can handle ALL your fears WITHOUT having to control anything in the outside world ! Isn’t that a relief !?

How ? All you have to do to diminish your fear is to develop MORE TRUST in your ability to handle whatever comes your way !

Just keep telling yourself again and again:

Whatever happens to me, given any situation, I can handle it !

5 Truths About Fear

TRUTH 1 : The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.

So unless you decide that you are satisfied to stay exactly where you are today in all areas of your life, you will not be able to live without fear. Fear is an inevitable part of growth. The two go together. So don’t wait for it to go away for it won’t ! Take it as a relief that you won’t have to work so hard anymore to get rid of your fears and get ready for a new productive relationship with your fears.

TRUTH 2: The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out and do it.

This is not contradictory to truth 1 at all. Fear of particular situations dissolve when you finally confront them. The “doing it” comes before the fear goes away.

TRUTH 3: The only way to feel better about myself is to go out … and do it.

The “doing it” comes before the feeling better about yourself. So when you do something that’s scary you will not only get rid of the fear, you will also build your self-confidence.

TRUTH 4: Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I’m on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.

Isn’t it a relief that you are not alone ? All those successful people out there have been afraid, too. They had to push through a tremendous amount of fear and they are probably still pushing. Change your habit of retreating when you feel fear to seeing it as a green light for moving ahead. Keep reading the fear truths until you they become part of your being.

TRUTH 5: Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

There is no security in the “cocoon” we build for ourselves. The more helpless we feel, the more severs is the undercurrent of dread that comes with knowing there are situations in life over which we have no control – such as the death of a partner or the loss of a job. This is the irony of truth 5: People who refuse to take risks have to live with a dread that is far more severe than what they would feel if they took the risks necessary to make them less helpless – only they don’t know it!

Summary:

We can’t escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us in all our exciting adventures.

So let’s do it ! Alone or together

Have you been following the principle “work before pleasure” or “business before play” and wondered why you always feel stressed ? The hard scientific truth is: these principles don’t work !

Let’s first have a look what stress actually is: You feel stressed when….

… you feel helpless

… you feel driven by others

… you don’t know how long the pressure will last

… you feel you are a victim

… you feel you can’t handle it

Stress is a natural body reaction to cope with extraordinary pressures. The key is not just to know how to avoid those stressful feelings but to know how to get rid of them fast.

The more you are in control of your life and the way you spend your time, the less stressed you will feel. So stress relief is a matter of organization !

First Aid against Stress:

1. What is the source of my stress ?

Your first task is to figure out the real source for your stress. Just ask yourself what really causes you to feel pressured. The daily way to work ? The routine tasks at home ? The noise ? Your boss’s comments .. and what about them exactly ?

2. Relaxation

Breaks from your work are vital for staying balanced. This sounds simple and yet, sometimes, the simplest solutions are the best. Taking a break allows you to switch off or step back so you can see the big picture again. It will put your current task in perspective and allow you to see new solutions and opportunities. At the very least it will just recharge your batteries for you to keep going.

3. Sport

Find a sport or a form of movement that you enjoy. Enjoyment is key here. The impact of sport on eliminating stress hormones is well documented. And regular activity is also proven to prevent stress from building up in the first place.

4. Say “No”

Many people say “yes” to often when they wish they had said “no”. As a result we pile up to many tasks and finally feel we can’t cope anymore: stress emerges. So why do we say “yes” when we mean “no” ? Most people think that “yes” makes them look competent, strong and helpful and that saying “no” is a sign of weakness. Yet, the opposite is true. Saying “no” is a sign of strength. It takes courage to say “no” to a friend or a boss and it shows that you value your own goals, family and friends.

Quick – Fix for Any Stress Situation

Often stress is a matter of perspective. Ask yourself the following questions to find new perspectives that will immediately relieve your stressful feelings:

1. Is my life in danger ?  Yes: Act quickly ! No: Relax, it’s not all that bad.
2. Is the life of someone I love in danger ? Yes: Act quickly ! No: Relax again.
3. If I had only 3 more months to live, would I get annoyed now ?
4. If I explained my situation to a 4 year-old child, would it understand what I find stressful ?
5. Could I imagine that I’d laugh about my current situation in 5 years ? Or in 5 months ? If so, why not laugh about it in 5 minutes ?

Most people are way to pre-occupied with themselves to truly be interested in you. Everything they say and all their behaviour is only an expression of what is going on in them, what is on their mind and needs an expression. So when these people say something about you or behave in an unpleasant manner vis a vis yourself, what they are actually doing is giving away information about themselves. If they judge you e.g. by calling you lazy, you get to know that laziness is something that bugs them, probably about themselves. If they try and push you aside at work, you get to know that they might be afraid of you, that they might feel insecure and worry they might not succeed otherwise. If someone snaps at you without much of a reason, you get to know that they might be very stressed or have been snapped at themselves….maybe by their partner….

Once you realize that other people’s comments or behaviour are nothing personal but simply information about them, then you can relax. You can even become curious and maybe even feel sorry for their situation or behaviour. The main thing: you are free.

So next time you feel the rising anger or hurt because of someone else’s comments, tell yourself “It’s not about me !” and become curious instead “I wonder what is going on with that person ?”

Try this for the entire next week and see what difference it makes !

The million dollar question is: How to find my passion ? And my simple answer is: CREATE it ! Yes, this is no mistake. You don’t need to search for it, discover it or find it. Your passion, purpose, reason for being or life contribution can actually be created ! Sure, you will need to spend a bit of work on knowing and understanding yourself. But from there PASSION IS A CHOICE (just like happiness is a choice) ! All you need to do, is to decide that you WANT to live your passion, that it matters to you.

There are lots of techniques to get you in touch with what brings you alive and what you feel passionate about. In my workshop “Discover Your Life Purpose & Love Your Life” I use the major one’s. But you could start with taking 15 minutes for yourself answering 3 simple questions:

“What do I love doing (even if I got no money for it) ?”
“If I could anything I wanted to do and money/time/family would be no issue, what would I do with my life ?”
” What did I use to enjoy as a child ?”

Answer each question with 10 lines at least. Don’t stop until you have filled all 10 lines. Then have a look at your answers. Anything you had lost touch with lately ? Anything that gets your hear beat faster ?

How could you get more of that into your life now ? What if you CHOSE AND DECIDED to put these passions into the centre of your life ? How would your life be different ?
What changes would you have to make ? And if you made them, what (or who) would you have to say “NO” to from now on ?

Now commit to ONE ACTION for the coming week that will have you live (one of) your passion(s). Then learn from it. Stay conscious about how you feel and what impact this one action has on you and those around you. Then decide to do it again until it becomes your life and who you are !

CHOOSE TO LIVE YOUR PASSION.

A poem from Celaleddin-i Rumi Mevlana

Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
how can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don’t sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

I have worked on this with numerous clients and this summer, when realizing my dream of moving to and coaching from our beautiful new location in the Alps, I have experienced the full blast of it myself.

To create the life you really want, you most likely need to break with the familiar, “break shells and bust out of boxes that may have become quite familiar and neatly decorated, lined with the soft illusion of safety”. This is likely to be painful. Staying where you are is certainly easier, yet the question is: does it make you happy ?

Once you have become clear about what really matters to you, what uniquely defines success for you, you are ready to take the jump, make the changes towards a life that is more aligned with who you are inside. At that moment you can garantuee, absolutely garantuee that your inner critic, that voice that says “don’t try”, “it won’t work”, “you are crazy, stay where you are”, “what if you won’t make enough money”, etc etc will shout out its objections loud and clear. People around you might join in, pointing out all the risks….all the risks whether real or just their own fears and worries.

It is very important for you to know, that it is inevitable that your inner voice will point out all your fears, most likely blown out of proportions. This doesn’t mean you are on the wrong path. The fact, that your inner critic presents those worries and counter arguments so strongly, is a sign that you are on the right path, the path to fulfillment, to becoming alive !
The way to handle those objections is not to give up and return to where you were, but to explore those worries “you will not make enough money and starve”, and cut them back to realistic size “well, I will earn less at first, but I will survive, won’t starve”. Or maybe you realize them as your parents’/grandpa’s/teacher’s old voice. Ask yourself, what life would be like if you it stayed as it is for the rest of your life. Would that be ok for you ?

Knowing that you can expect those objections to come up is 90% of the battle won, because you are prepared, ready to tackle them, rather then being tackled by them.

When we had decided to leave Dubai and move to our dream location in the alpine countryside (with no major industry nearby), we had our own inner critical voices as well as many parents and people around us pointing out the risks. We could have kept talking and day-dreaming about it and stayed where we were.
Having taken the jump, gone through restoring an old house this summer (work I had no idea how to do) and creating our new home and coaching base was the best thing we have ever done. We are living the outdoor life, climbing mountains, cycling along lakes and running through the fields. We spend loads of time together as a family and engage with our neighbours. And we are helping other people realize their unique definition of a fabulous life, coaching them from this magical place – mostly on the phone.

But, yes, moving along the road of fulfillment is a RADICAL act. It is not about not having fear, it is about keeping going despite the fears, knowing that what lies on the other side is worth it.

Instead of feeling the full impact of your emotions, become your own witness for one day and observe your actions as if you stood next to your real self watching what’s going on. Imagine you could see yourself as you have breakfast, walk out of the house, get in the car, drive to …whereever. “Move” your consciousness up by one level and just notice what you see, including the emotions you see this person (you !) having. If you get angry, let the witness in you notice this anger.

By removing yourself from the direct impact and choosing to experience your emotions from the perspective of the witness you gain 3 big advantages:
Not only will you see the situation with a wider angle, seeing a bigger picture…you will also notice that those strong emotions simply won’t feel anywhere near as strong as they used to and most importantly: you will gain some vital seconds before you react, some vital seconds to CHOOSE ! how you react. This gives you power and puts you in the driver’s seat.

NLP has known this technique for decades and calls it dissociation (if your life was a picture, you would see yourself in it) as opposed to association (seeing your life out of your own eyes). Feelings are being experienced more strongly when associated and less strongly when dissociated. As a result, NLP recommends dissociation for negative emotions and of course association for positive emotions (you don’t want to just be a witness when you have the best time of your life ! )

Try being a witness today ! What is different and how does it make things better for you ?

I am not going to talk about the ways in which they are harmful as you probably already know from your own experience. Instead, I would like to share with you two simple yet powerful ways to deal with these emotions in a constructive manner. I thought you might like to try them, too. They are derived from my work in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and my practical work as a coach.

The first way I deal with my own negative emotions is to simply see them as a SIGNAL that an important value of mine has been crushed, stepped on or been ignored. What do I mean ? We all have a unique set combination of values, the very principles in our lives that matter most to us. Examples of values are freedom, achievement, connection with people, respect or unique expressions such as “cherry”, “outside” (these last one’s might not make any sense to you but are totally clear and make every sense in the world to the person holding it) etc etc. Everyone has a uniquely different set. It is how well we live these values in our daily lives that determines our happiness !
So when a strong negative emotion comes up, it is usually because one of your values has been crushed or you fear that it is about to be crushed. If you are aware of this, you are empowered to take a look at which one it might be. By this very process you move from being a victim to your emotions (out of control) to being back in control. Once you have identified the value that is attacked, you will be able to understand your feelings and you take a new perspective on the matter that caused it. You might even find a new way to honour your value again.

Another way of dealing with negative emotions is using “association” and “dissociation” tools from NLP. Here is how it works. Whenever you think about a situation as if you are right in it, seeing the event through your own eyes you are “associated”. By seeing the event through your own eyes, hearing it through your own ears, you feel the FULL extent of all emotions present. Association amplifies any emotion you may have – positive and negative. When you remember a positive event in your life, always remember it as if you are right in it, see the events through your own eyes and you will re-gain the positive feelings associated to it. However, if a situation causes you to feel a negative emotion, you can diminish its impact on you by dissociating from that situation, lowering the impact of the negative feelings. Dissociating from a situation means you remember the situation as if you were not in it but instead an observer or a witness, seeing your own body in the situation (as if you sit in a movie theatre seeing your the situation with yourself in it right in front of you). This will make the impact of the emotions much less intense and allows you to take a calm decision about how to move on. Try it out ! It works.

Worries are the anti-thesis to happiness. They distract you from enjoying life and the NOW – the only time to experience happiness. Here is why ALL worries are wasted:

40% of worries are about events that will never happen
30% of worries are about events that have already happened
22% of worries are about trivial events
4% of worries are about events we cannot change
4% of worries are about real events on which we can act
(and these are also wasted because we can control them)

Next time you find yourself despairing, ask yourself these questions:
1. Have I got enough air to breathe ?
2. Have I got enough food for today ?
3. Am I going to survive ?
If the answer is YES, things are already looking up !

So often, we magnify things out of proportion. The worst thing that could happen is probably very inconvenient, but not the end of the world.

Have a look at the story of the man who phoned Dr. Robert Schuller. Here is the how the conversation went:

The man said, “It’s over. I’m finished. All my money has gone. I’ve lost everything.”
Dr. Schuller asked, “Can you still see ?”
The man replied, “Yes, I can still see.”
Dr. Schuller asked, “Can you still walk ?”
The man replied, “Yes, I can still walk.”
Schuller said, “Obviously you can still hear of you wouldn’t have phoned me.”
“Yes, I can still hear.”
“Well,” Schuller said, “I figure you have got about everything left. All you have lost is your money !”

To overcome the worry trap you need to trust that you are meant to learn things. Rather than shying away from things, take more risks. You might learn something.
Start by being grateful for what you have.
Seek growth, not perfection