I have clients who are perfectionists and they know they are perfectionists. They have been to some form of counseling or have seen psychologists and they claim that things have become worse since they discovered their perfectionism. The label "Perfectionist" has allowed them to justify their behavior and that has increased the friction in their relationships even more.

Most of them came for life coaching when they reached rock bottom in their relationship due to their high demands when their wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, friends, work colleagues or even boss said, "Get lost!" and kicked them out of the relationship or left them.

In the previous post on perfectionism, I wrote about ways to assess whether you or your children are perfectionists. In this chapter, I will give you some tips to help perfectionists. If you want to use them to help a child, remember that your goal is to plant those thoughts into your child's mind or create circumstances that will help them overcome the fear that is associated with things not happening exactly the way they want them to.

1. When they finish a puzzle, a block tower, a Lego building or anything that can be reassembled, make fun of wrecking it. It helps kids learn that Mom and Dad are not mad at them for it.
2. Allow your kids to make a mess. You can have a place for mess - a sandpit outside, a table for finger painting. Let your kids play with their food. do you know how much fun it is to eat Jelly with your fingers? If you are worried, have a plastic sheet underneath the mess. Remember, everything can be wiped or washed in the dishwasher or washing machine, so is not worth fussing about it. If you cannot handle the mess, let someone else do it at first, and get involved gradually.
3. When you need to be on time at school, a meeting or an appointment, be prepared and plan your time well. Do not talk about being late as the end of the world. If you are in panic mode when you are late, that gives your kids the message they must not be late and makes them fussy about being late and demanding towards others who are late. If you are going to be late, take a deep breath, let the other party know and just be there as quickly as you can.
4. Encourage kids to be involved in activities that are not competitive and are not graded or judged. Choose activities in which they are measured on progress relative to themselves or by working in a team and achieving something together. Better yet, choose activities that are all about fun, like going to the pool, exploring nature or playing at the playground.
5. Give kids challenges without comparing them to others. If you are travelling to France and you give your child the task of finding 10 things you can do in Paris, it is a challenge, but the child cannot fail and there is nobody to compare with.
6. Avoid using the word "should" like the plague. This gives a message that there is a right and a wrong way to say, do and be, and perfectionist children (and adults) add it to their vocabulary and fear every time they say, do, think or believe in something they "shouldn't". The word "should" implies there are some external, absolute standards they must obey, when the world is really about personal preferences.
7. For the same reason, avoid using the words "have to", "need to", "ought to" and "must". Instead, use "maybe you can", "how about", "can I suggest" or "it might be better to".
8. Teach your kids to start conversations with others. Go over "conversation starters" with them. A good way to start a conversation is by asking questions like "How was your holiday?", "What did you do on the weekend?", "I watched Harry Potter 7 on the weekend. Have you seen it?", "It's so hot today", "It's freezing cold today" and even "Would you like to play?"
   The main idea is to find something you have in common with the person you start the conversation with and invite them into the conversation in a kind way. It is scary but possible.
   I gave a group of kids at a leadership camp the task to gather personal information about others in the group (that they had met for first time) or the leaders of the camp so they could use it to start conversations with them. It is amazing how quickly you can teach kids to work up the courage to do it. It was easier for me because they did it in a group, everyone knew everyone else was having the same challenge and everybody could say, "Ronit told us". It might take you longer than two days, but it is possible.
9. Change the order of the furniture in the house from time to time. Make it sound like you are exploring different ways of positioning things. Ask the perfectionist child for their opinion to make it easy to manage the change. Get them to help move things around themselves too.
10. Create monitored surprises. Perfectionists do not like surprises, so work with them on it. First, tell them you want to make them a surprise a week before the surprise day. When things work well, tell them 5 days before, and slowly reduce the time to telling them a day before and eventually, surprise them totally. Gradual adjustment is the key.
11. Play the game of "Three funny mistakes". At dinnertime, every member of the family tells the rest of the family, in turn (do not start with the perfectionist), about three mistakes they have made during the day as a funny story.
12. Share your weaknesses with your children so that they learn it is safe to have them. Most perfectionists have suffered from exposing their weaknesses and therefore choose to hide them. They need to believe this will never be used by others to humiliate them. Make sure no one in the family makes fun of them or bullies them for their weaknesses - it will only make them hide these more and prevents you from knowing there is an issue that needs to be addressed.
13. When in competition, talk to your children about the losing kid or the losing team to make them realize that the losers have feelings too. Help them see that in most competitions, there are many more losers than winners, which makes them part of the majority.
14. When your kids express expectations that are too high (of themselves or of others), help them realize that it is not realistic. Ask, "Do you know someone who gets perfect scores on all of their exams?", "Do you think it's possible to always, always, always be on time?" Emphasize the words "perfect", "all" and "always" to help them recognize they expect the impossible.
15. Put their accomplishments on display. Make a diary of accomplishments for them to use if they have doubts about their successes. Teach them to measure small achievements like making dinner, helping their siblings or meeting a challenge, successes that are self-rated or that requires kindness and not being perfect (we call them "emotional stretches").
16. Help them express their feelings or attach a feeling to their successes and challenges. Teach them to rate their emotions. When they say, "I feel like a failure", ask, "On a scale of 1-10, how much?" At first, they will say 10, but after a while, they will understand they do not really feel the same and start noticing the difference in their feeling, which will help them recognize the fear that triggers their perfectionism.
17. Agree on a signal with your child that tells them they are being perfectionists and could relax their expectations a bit.
18. Celebrate with your children 90% or 80% scores on their exams, so they will not think that you expect them to score 100%.
19. When you use behavioral management, do not use 100% as a point when they get a reward. If they need to clean the room, it does not have to be spotless for the room to be considered clean.
20. Teach your kids to enjoy the process. If they are frustrated with achievements, help them realize they have achieved a lot on the way. 3 years ago, Tsoof participated in a competition that he had spent a lot of time practicing seriously for. He and his teachers were very frustrated he did not win anything in the competition, because all of them thought he played much better than those who won. In the week following the competition, we focused on how much better he was playing the marimba after two months of practice as the real achievement, which made it easier for him to move on.

Competitions, scores and awards are stepping-stones on the long and exciting journey of life

I hope these tips will help you help your perfectionist child and if you need the help yourself, translate them into adult vocabulary and your own circumstances and make perfectionism a period in your life, not a lifestyle.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• The Perfect Child: Is your kid a perfectionist?
• More Control – Less Power
• Living in a Dress Rehearsal

As a life coach promoting happiness, I find myself talking a lot about perfectionism as an obstacle on the way to a happy life. After researching the science of happiness and seeing thousands of clients, including many parents and children, I can tell you that happiness and perfectionism cannot live in the same body. They are like the good and the bad wolves living in your body and when you feed one, the other one starves.

The problem with perfectionism is not only that perfectionists are not happy but also that those who are close to them are not happy either because of it.

Many grownup perfectionists started out as perfectionist kids. In my kids' assessments, I can tell if a child has a tendency towards perfectionism from age 3. Most people believe this cannot be helped. Some kids are born perfectionists and that is that, but I think this attitude makes our life much harder, because repeating this mantra guarantees there is nothing we can do about it.

Much like any other "disease", perfectionism can be cured and the best time to do it is during early childhood, before the child develops strong behavior patterns that are hard to change.

I also believe that the best people to cure child perfectionism are parents, because their love for their child will help them overcome the resistance.

The origin of perfectionism is fear. Perfectionists have a strong need to control life around them for some reason. Anything they, or other people, do that threatens that stability or control increases the fear and therefore increases the perfectionism.

Many parents react badly to a child who shows rigid thinking and reacts badly to changes. Unfortunately, that increases the fear and does not give a child the stability he or she is aching for. It is a cycle of bad reactions that helps nobody.

For parents to help, they need to be convinced that this behavior is going to be a huge obstacle to their child's good health and wellbeing, their relationships and their success in life.

If the parents are perfectionists themselves, they tend not to see the problem at all. Unfortunately, if this is the case, there is no cure. Perfectionist parents must first heal themselves before helping a child overcome perfectionism. After all, to cure perfectionism, there must be a desire to change.

Parents need to find if the child's behavior is a form of perfectionism, so I have compiled this list to help with that. If you want to assess yourself first, this will be very helpful for you too. To assess yourself, though, you need courage and honesty.

Please remember that for a person to be considered a perfectionist, he or she does not need to exhibit all of the behaviors on the list and does not have to exhibit them all the time, only most of them and more than once or twice.

Here is a list of perfectionist behaviors:

1. Perfectionists have high standards for themselves and others. They have high expectations, which are often unreasonable or impossible to achieve.
2. Perfectionists pay attention to details. This can be a good thing, but sometimes, after all the important things are covered, they keep focusing on little things.
3. Perfectionists have an "all or nothing" mentality. If they cannot do things perfectly, they do not see any point in doing them at all. Many times, people say they have lots of potential, which is true, but if they think they might not be able to achieve their high standard, they do not try.
4. Perfectionists procrastinate a lot, which goes together with their high expectations. If they think they will not be able to achieve something, they postpone doing it.
5. Perfectionists experience lots of anxiety. Their desire for things to follow their expectations is so high that anything that does not follow it creates anxiety.
6. Perfectionists are afraid to make mistakes, which contributes very much to their anxiety and avoidance.
7. Perfectionists have challenges with their relationships. They are very demanding, their behavior makes people avoid their company and in most of their relationships, the blame others and complain.
8. Perfectionists are highly competitive and constantly compare themselves to others. They define themselves in comparison to others. Not every competitive person is a perfectionist, so match this with other items on the list.
9. Perfectionists seem very unhappy and dissatisfied when good results, good scores and even very good achievements are not good enough. Since they are not perfect, they are no good.
10. Perfectionists are very critical.
11. Perfectionists show some compulsive behaviors, as they prefer things to be organized, predictable and stable. They need life around them to be consistent and adopt a lifestyle that consists of many routines.
12. Perfectionists do not take risks. Risks cannot be predicted by definition and they avoid doing things they cannot predict.
13. Perfectionists mainly focus on problems, difficulties and mistakes of themselves and others.
14. Perfectionists do a lot to hide their weakness. If someone knows something about a weakness they have, it is a sign for them they are not perfect, which they find hard to accept. They will hide it by having many justifications for their behavior and attitude.
15. Although perfectionists may tell others about their mistakes, they do not like it when others tell them about their mistakes and are very sensitive to criticism.
16. Perfectionists find it hard to be in the moment. Their mind is so future-oriented they find it hard to stop and enjoy the present.
17. Perfectionists are prone to depression.
18. Perfectionists consider love as conditional, so they find it hard to feel loved and often find it hard to express love.
19. Perfectionists consider their self-worth a result of their achievements. If the achievement is good, it is not enough. For them to be worthy, they need to be extremely high achievers.
20. Perfectionists consider things to be "right" or "wrong". They expect others to think the same and if they do not, they will invest a lot of energy to convince the others their way is the right way.
21. Because they have the "my way or the highway" mindset, they can often be seen as self-centered as they expect and demand those around them to fit in with their way of thinking.

Use this list as an assessment tool and measure the intensity of each behavior. Remember that the sooner you discover something, the sooner you can heal it.

Join me next time for how to help perfectionist kids.

Calm and happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• The Perfect Child: How to help perfectionist kids
• More Control – Less Power
• Living in a Dress Rehearsal

When Gal and I lived in Thailand and the humidity was extremely high, I never complained. I take a shower with such hot water that it is too hot for Gal. I have lived in Texas and loved it. I have lived in California (that was OK), Thailand and Singapore (loved it), and now I live in Brisbane, Australia, doing my best to forget the 3 miserable years in Melbourne, Australia, because I was so cold there.

There is a joke that says Melbourne has 4 seasons in one day, because the temperature changes dramatically every couple of hours. I found that to be true, but the only 4 temperatures I recognized were "cold", "very cold", "extremely cold" and "freezing cold". Maybe I have different temperature receptors. I just love the warmth and the heat, and it boosts my health and wellbeing.

Our emotional state is very much like the weather. Everyone has different receptors and a different optimal temperature. It is important to understand that we have different ways of reaching our optimal temperature.

In the same way we adjust our water temperature and volume in the shower, Gal and I use different ways of coping with situations in our lives. Gal prefers to talk about the situation and analyzing reasons and options, while I prefer doing things that will make me happy and distract me, at least for a while, until I calm down and consider the situation from a distance and come up with solutions. It is very important to note that both of us, although we use different methods, are trying to reach happiness within.

One-weather people

Happiness is a vague concept for many people. It strikes me as a problematic idea when people ask me if we, at Be Happy in LIFE, are always happy.

Unfortunately, some people think that constant happiness exists. I call them the "one-weather people". They are doomed to feel frustrated all their life, because having 100% of days with optimal temperatures is an unrealistic goal, like searching for a place that does not exist. Even our very sophisticated body does not have the same temperature constantly and needs mechanisms to monitor and bring the body back to the optimal temperature whenever we are sick, when it is hot or cold outside, when we are physically active, when we stand next to an oven, and the list goes on. Our body uses many functions to bring us to our optimal temperature.

We need to do the same emotionally.

Life is full of different kinds of "weather". The things that happen to us in life throw us off our optimal emotional "temperature" and we need to find ways to bounce back to a clear, sunny, warm, happy state.

Emotional winters

We often describe successful people as having the sun shining on them, leading them forward with its light and warmth. When I talk to my clients about successful people, they are convinced that successful people never experience emotional winters. I tell them that successful people do not go through more emotional summers than winters, but they know how to reserve some sunshine to keep them warm when winter comes.

Here is a partial list of examples of situations, circumstances, feelings and thoughts that can bring emotional winter to your life.

1. Loss of a loved one
2. Loss of a job
3. Jealousy
4. Uncertainty
5. Feeling of failure
6. Conflict with partner
7. Worries
8. Loneliness
9. Financial instability
10. Conflict with family member
11. Lack of income for basic needs
12. Sadness
13. Feeling ignored and unappreciated
14. Physical pain
15. Sickness
16. Rejection
17. Regrets or shame
18. Fear
19. Being under threat (of losing your job, for example)
20. Being bullied
21. Having to justify or defend yourself
22. Being bored
23. Being so tired it is hard to think and stay calm
24. Anxiety
25. Being criticized a lot
26. Having a new baby
27. Being around people who drain you from energy
28. Thinking of yourself as inferior
29. Not having enough time
30. Change

Each of the items on the list above can bring winter to your life and, like any winter, it can be drizzles, light showers, storms with hale and even heavy snow and ice. For each of these, you will have to use different mechanisms to make sure you can stay warm. For some, using an umbrella is enough, and for others, you will need gloves, long woolen underwear and a beanie to cover your head and face.

Emotional winters cannot be totally prevented, as they are mostly caused by circumstances beyond our control. Once they appear, every person needs enough skills to make sure their winter does not last too long.

Life is not about what happens to us but what we do about it
- Ronit Baras

Depression is Everlasting Winter

Everyone experiences winters. This is why in the medical world, the diagnosis of depression has a clear distinction between temporary and chronic depression. A depressed person is a person who has had too many winters over a certain period.

You are probably asking yourself, "How long is too long?" Well, a person is depressed when the sum of all their emotional summers is lower than that of all their winters.

Although the aim to have summer 365 days a year is not realistic, we can consider ourselves happy if we have managed to scare the rain and storms and to give more time and space to sunshine and heat - when we do not have to dress up with extra layers to protect ourselves and add more layers every year.

How to have an emotional summer

1. Go through self-assessment. Every day before going to bed, analyze your day and label it as a "summer day" or a "winter day". This is highly important to do with children to help them interpret their emotional state, pay attention to winters and make sure they are kept short. Once you have rated a month, aim to have one more summer day the following month.
2. Store rays of sunshine in the form of a success journal, talking about your successes, achievements, acts of kindness and everything good that has happened to you during the day. It is strange, but we tend to forget the good things. Whenever you see that winter is approaching, you can always look at your journal and scare it with some of the stored sunlight.
3. Make an effort to surround yourself with sunny people. Some people carry winter on their shoulders. As soon as they appear, it starts raining. Find the winter people - negative, complainers, victims, critics, gossips, superiors or inferiors. Find them and limit the time you spend with them.
4. Have a hobby. Hobbies bring lots of warmth into your life and every winter can be chased away by dedicating more time to your hobbies.
5. Set powerful, realistic goals and work towards achieving them. Success in achieving goals brings lots of satisfaction and a strong belief in your abilities. Every goal achieved is an amazing summer day and the memories and conviction in you ability can be stored for a rainy day. Like the story of the ant and he cricket, we need to collect grains of food on summer days to have enough during the winter. Each grain you collect helps.
6. Make sure you are in a physical contact with someone every day. Research on physical touch found out that people feel better when they have lots of physical touch, especially from those they love. Remember the rule: 12 hugs a day keeps the winter away".
7. At dinnertime, when you share your day with your family, count your blessings. Tell everyone how many good things happened to you today and what you appreciate in yourself and in others. Going to bed 3-4 hours later, you are more likely to mark the day as a "summer day".
8. Practice pride therapy. Remember, being proud is not boasting. You do not have to make anyone feel bad when you are proud of your achievements. If you have kids, that is easy - you can always tell them how much you are proud of them. Every pride has some self-pride in it, which adds to your feeling of summer.
9. Be kind to others. This is a great way to bring the sun. Research on kindness and volunteering discovered that giving is a wonderful way to receive and that people who help others are happier and more content than those who do not. Aim to be kind to someone once a day. Do not mix what you have to do with what you can choose to do from the kindness of your heart. Making dinner for your children or your partner is not a form of kindness, but making a special dinner with their favorite food is, especially when they really need it.
10. Make a list of 100 things that make you happy and use your list every day. Share your list with loved ones and they will help you. I call this list a bucket of sunshine. If you work this list every day, you can scare away even long, hard winters. No two lists ever look the same. Your list is a way for you to get to your optimal temperature your way.

Everyone has emotional winters. We differ by the methods we use to overcome them with the sunshine of our summers.

Life coaches are traders in sunshine. If you need help in bringing summer to your life, you can contact us at Be Happy in LIFE.

Until next time, I wish you many summers!
Ronit

You may want to read

• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction
• Exploring Happiness
• A Little Bit Unhappy

Having a depressed family member is not easy to handle. Most of the time, the depressed person cannot admit he or she needs help and rejects any help attempt. Those around them feel helpless and drained.

Gail was very creative in her attempts to help her husband. She went to the doctor and talked to him. She tried to make him go to the doctor, without success. She got him some vitamins and he refused to take them. She arranged holidays to make him happy, but he stayed depress.

"What happened with the boys?" I asked.

"They left. For five years, we didn't have a life. Everything revolved around him. Everything we did was done to please him. He was unhappy with everything we did and with what we didn't do. We had no friends left. No one was willing to come to our house and those who dared only did it once. Every second around him was fighting and complaining, so they gave up and left".

Gail' sons were 18 and 21, both studied at university and had to support themselves. Their dad was so unhappy with their move he did not "allow" their mom to see them.

Helping a depressed person is not easy, especially when he or she is an adult. Adults must choose to accept help and we cannot force them to receive our help.

Eventually, after 5 years of trying, Gail left home.

Her moving out was very effective. Not having Gail and the boys around helped her husband understand he had a problem.

Most of our sessions were spent on managing the process of going back home. The most effective tip I gave her was to use are. I introduced her to a research about depression and art and that worked like magic.

I hope it will help you too.

A research done in Norway with over 50,000 people using blood tests, urine tests, interviews, questionnaires and clinical examinations discovered that art can successfully fight depression. "There is a positive relationship between cultural participation and self-perceived health for both women and men", says Professor Jostein Holmen.

The researches claim, "Up to now, physical activity has been recognized as a measure that promotes good health. But our study shows that other daily life activities may promote good health from a holistic point of view. The results suggest that the use of cultural activities in health promotion and health care may be justified".

The research found that people who were exposed to art feel healthier overall. If they see music concerts, painting or sculpture and visit galleries, they are healthier and happier and less depressed then others. If they make art themselves by playing a musical instrument, singing, painting, sculpting and dancing, the results were even better.

The surprising thing was the results were true for all participants, regardless of their lifestyle and socio-economic background.

Gail's husband loved carpentry. He had not dealt with the loss of his job properly and had not touched his tools since he had stopped working. When Gail came back home, she encouraged him to take is tools out and build a drawer for the living room.

Three month later, the boys came back home.

Have a happy day,
Ronit

P.S. If you ever need a reason to encourage your children to engage in artistic activities or a reason to visit a gallery or go to the theater, you know it now. Art makes you happy!

You may want to read

• Emotional Summer
• Hugs: The Ultimate Antidepressant
• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction

A lot of energy and resources are given to the victims and their families nowadays. If the victims did not need that much help, it would be easier for our society to help the bullies.

My cure for bullying is a strong family. I believe we can change the picture by giving parents the strength, tools and support to help their families break the bullying cycle.

Here are some more important things parents can do.

Associate with successful parents

Most successful people will tell you that when they want to overcome some problem or reach some goal, they hang around people who already posses the knowledge and skills to achieve that. If you want to overcome your own bullying behavior or help your kids with some other bully, hang around people who are successful at parenting and use them as role models. You can recognize them by their confident, social and accomplished children.

It may sound simple, but it takes courage to hang around people you want to use as role models, because you first need to accept that they are successful without being jealous of them. Jealousy prevents you from recognizing things you can copy, because it blinds you.

Another problem you need to overcome is that usually, successful people hang around with other successful people and they may not be willing to hang around you. You need to find something that you can contribute to the relationship in order to feel comfortable around them, at least until you have learned enough.

Generally, hanging around people who are better than you at something is a good personal development strategy. You can always learn from them and improve. Instead of re-inventing the wheel, you can ask them about their experience. Usually, you will find that they have gone through rough patches and they can save you making mistakes on your own.

Be willing to listen and learn from them. Again, you can find those parents through their kids. Confident, successful, well-mannered and talented kids must grow up with parents who support and encourage these attributes.

If you hear yourself saying, "All the kids are the same. They probably all face the same problems", you are blocking yourself from improving. It is not true. Not all kids are the same and do not ever accept bullying as "just the way things are".

Defend your kids

Whether you are going through bullying or your kids experience bullying, you both need support. Most kids and grownups never seek help from outside the family, because they feel threatened and unsafe, but they can help each other.

You must build trust with your kids so they will know you are their support in times of trouble. Most bullying acts stop when a grownup intervenes, but kids must tell a grownup for that to happen. You want your kids to tell you something has happened as soon as it starts, long before it gets out of proportion, so you must be a trusted person they can tell and feel safe with.

Parents who are bullies themselves are not trustworthy in their kids' eyes. Some of them are so weak that if the child tells them of a problem, they will use it against the child and blame them for everything that has happened to them.

I never went to my parents for help, because they felt so weak when authority was involved (like a teacher or the principal) that whenever I asked for help, they blamed me or asked me to give up, so they would not "get into trouble". In my parents' home, this type of incident happened with almost all of the kids.

For example, my older sister, who was the smartest girl in her school, came to my parents and asked for help, saying a teacher had given her a lower grade than she deserved. They said, "The teacher is always right", and told her she was making a big fuss out of it. But my sister was so strong at school (she was head of the student council) that she talked to the teacher and when that did not help, she declared she was not coming to school until her report card was fixed. After 3 days at home, the principal of the high school himself asked her to come and made sure her report card was fixed.

When the same thing happened to me, my parents did the same thing again, but I did not have my sister's confidence and gave up. When it happened to my younger sisters, my parents blamed them for it and said again, saying the teacher knows what she is doing and did not do anything to defend them or help them, but I did.

Every time we had a problem with the neighbors, my parents also justified them and blamed us, so none of us trusted them with our personal problems. They were so weak, we never expected them to step in and defend us when we needed protection.

I am not saying that parents must take their kids' side all the time, but they always need to help them and be by their side. Kids sometimes have unjustified complaints, but if they do it once, twice, three times, ten times and they always get the blame, they will stop coming to you.

If you want your children to trust you, you must show them you are there for them. They are your kids even when they make mistakes. They must know that you will be there for them when something bad happens.

Have family goals

A strong family bond can be a great healer for many problems in life. It can help you as a parent and each member of the family to feel that you belong and to build strength and confidence. Having common goals as a family is a great way to build this bond, because it makes up a good topic of conversation and helps each person learn about the others. Family goals can be housekeeping goals, special family projects, financial goals, vacation goals and leisure or hobby goals. Some goals can even be about helping one member of the family achieve something.

The important thing in every goal is to make sure everyone takes part and everyone can see how they benefit from participating. Sometimes, participation means getting more attention. Sometimes, participation means the joy of making another family member happy and feeling kind. Sometimes, participation means being able to take part in the reward. It is always important to attach a family reward to every goal - a form of celebration that everyone takes part in - so that everyone can stay focused on the outcome.

If you are the bully in the family, letting go of your desires and working on family goals can help you to be flexible and accommodating towards others while gaining something for yourself.

This technique is not always easy and smooth, because there is a chance that some family members will be grumpy and selfish and will not want to join in. The best thing you can do is make sure you have enough participants and have lots of fun with the goal so that the other person will feel left out. A sense of belonging is very important to everyone and if they recognize they are missing out, they will eventually join in.

Build a family team

This is the next step up from having family goals. If you look at families that are close to each other and support each other well, you can see that they somehow work as a team. You can overcome many challenges as a group rather than facing them on your own.

Of course, every team requires a leader. It is the parents' responsibility to build the family team and function as the "leaders", because they have the most experience and can see the "big picture" of life. Your team can be built around a challenge, a reward and naturally, when the members of the team find an advantage in working together on your own, rather than doing it because you want to.

Challenges that influence every member of the team can help both parents and children compromise, be flexible and show sensitivity towards each other. When you are part of a team, work together and have a bond with your family, you strongly believe in "All for one and one for all". If your family is your "A Team" and you know they will be there for you, it gives you so much confidence that you can easily handle many bullies around you.

My kids are such good siblings to each other and they speak so highly of each other that they draw a lot of energy and support from each other. Whenever they face challenges, they know they are not alone and their siblings are there for them.

The difficulties with building a team are typically when there are conflicts between the two leaders of the household and there is no clear direction. Amazingly, single parents can do a better job at building a home team, because the conflict between the parents is not an obstacle they have to overcome.

Not all parents are natural leaders, but every team must have a leader, so it is necessary that someone takes charge and leads for family. If you communicate well with your partner and you can do it together, great! If not, choose the parent who is the more natural leader and let him or her lead the family team. The leader needs to be organized, relaxed, with good social skills to identify different needs, flexible and a good communicator.

Change places!

Sometimes, bullying can drive people to do horrible things. There are horrible stories of bullying victims who commit suicide or do other things that ruin their life and the lives of their families. In extreme situations, extreme measures are required. If the bullying towards you or your child is getting out of control, make that courageous act of changing your life. Change your place of work, change the kids' school and even moving to a different city, state or country.

Every parent who has lost a child because of bullying will tell you that given another chance, they would moved to a new environment to keep the child away from those people who dragged them to suicide.

I personally know people whose kids went through life-threatening situation before they realized they needed to take them out of that school. A kid I taught over 10 years ago got into trouble with a gang and was targeted as a snitch by the school authority. Only after he was brutally injured by the gang did his parents take him out of that school. He was afraid to leave home for 4 months after that. He never finished his studies and even now, a year later, when he goes to a shopping center, he only goes with other kids. The thought of him changing schools in the middle of the year was so hard for his parents they risked his life. He is lucky to be alive.

I also know people who were strong and courageous enough to give up lots of stability and change their workplaces just to be around their kids and help them. Changing a school, changing a workplace and moving to a new environment can work miracles. It is not the end of the world and it may be the difference between ruining your life and starting a new life.

If you are the bully, it usually means you have a bully that you need to stay away from. Be courageous and stay away from your bully. Sometimes, the bully can be (one of) your own parents, but you do not have to live next door to them. Sometimes, the bully is a friend or a work colleague. Go! It is not giving up. It is eliminating the stressor from your life. Trying to change the bully or make them suffer might cost you too much, a lot more than moving.

Join me next week for the more anti-bullying personal development tips.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Bullying (32): How to stop parent bullying
• Bullying (34): How to stop parent bullying
• Bullying (27): How to stop parent bullying

Parents as Role Models

The next 10 tips (this post and the next one) focus on the concept of role modeling. Raising strong kids with confidence so they will not become victims of bullying, not even from you, requires courage, self-awareness and self-control. If your kids see you fighting back and strengthening your confidence, they will think this is the norm.

Take responsibility

It is not easy for people to take responsibly over their life, because taking responsibility requires courage and practice, but when we are weak, our courage is hidden and even if our mind tells us we need to do something, we just cannot.

Whenever things are hard and we think we cannot handle them, we tend to blame others or circumstances for whatever happens in our life that we are unhappy about. When we blame, we say that it happens because of someone else - my mom, my kids, my husband or the dog. When we cannot handle the circumstances, we use them to justify ourselves. Justification and blaming are the two survival techniques that kick in when we feel too weak to handle a situation, but when they are "switched on", responsibility is "switched off".

Bullies mark you as a victim the minute you start justifying or blaming, because these are obvious signs of weakness. It is like walking around with a sign saying, "I am weak. I am a victim. Come bully me", regardless of who the bully might be.

Responsibility helps strengthen your confidence and make sure your blaming and justifying buttons are switched off, so notice when you are justifying or blaming, stop yourself and rephrase.

For example, instead of saying, "You make me mad", you can say, "I feel mad" (please do not say, "I am mad", because that is labeling yourself). Instead of saying, "I could not have a career because of the kids", you can say in a very responsible way, "I had kids and chose to put them ahead of my career at the time".

Even when you tell bully stories, instead of saying, "The boss was rude to me", you can say, "I felt his behavior was rude", because you do not know the boss was being rude. That was your interpretation - reasonable, but still an interpretation.

Whenever you are angry with someone, change your language from "You did this to me" to "I interpreted it as…" or "I felt…" At the same time, be very careful not to confuse responsibly with taking blame. Blaming others damages your self-esteem, but blaming yourself is even worse.

Manage your finances well

Financial challenges are a big reason for bullying. We live in a very materialistic society and when parents feel they do not have enough resources, they appear weak. The problem is not only that they are perceived weak but that they feel weak and inferior when around those who are wealthier. You can see it with kids' gadgets and clothes at school. Grownups are no different - they continually compare themselves to others and that does not help.

People who do not have money must compromise a lot. They compromise on the types of jobs they can do, on working in a bullying environment, on the quality of their relationships, on their location and on many other things, because they do not really have a choice.

Managing your financial situation ought to be taught at school or by your parents at home. My dad was never a wealthy person, but he took himself out of poverty to being financially stable with his skills in money management and I learned a lot from him. However, not everyone is lucky enough to be born in a family where someone is a role model for good financial management.

Still, you can develop this skill. Having enough money to survive, having financial stability and achieving financial freedom are on a scale and you can learn to move from each step to the next to keep bullies away from you.

Be financially stable and you will have to compromise less because you will have more choices. See my Happily Wealthy Family series for more.

Read about personal development

Personal development is a process that never ends. Even when you think you have reached the top of your success and everything is going smoothly, there is more to learn and more develop. Bullies are people who have not developed enough to understand that power is not something you gain by making someone else feel bad but by developing yourself. Personal development is the art of finding strength within, as most of it is self-discovery.

Personal development gurus will tell you that you have all the power inside of you and you only need to realize it. There is something wonderful in this discovery. There is much understanding and acceptance, forgiveness and love, not to mention the extreme power you feel when you know you can control your feelings, thoughts and actions. Personal development can be learned and to do that, there are endless personal development articles you can read and audio CDs to listen to in your car. At any time, you could be working on something you want to develop. Personal development builds confidence and, as I said, confidence repels bullies.

If you want, you can do that exercise:

1. Rate your confidence right now
2. Write 50 things that need to happen for you to feel more confident
3. Pick the responsible things (things you have the power to do, as opposed to things you cannot control, like winning the lottery, your wife throwing you a surprise party, etc) and write them down as goals to achieve
4. Start executing your list

If you go through that activity from time to time, you will find you have progressed and have built your confidence over time. You will also notice how other people's attitude towards you has changed and bullying, if any, has gone down.

You are not a victim!

A big problem of bullies is that they feel bullied somehow, being victims of others they perceive as more powerful in some way. This powerless feeling makes them try to gain this power in a dysfunctional and destructive way. If you talk to bullies, you will hear from them that they are victims and that they have not done anything to deserve the negative actions and attitude towards them. It is as if they are disconnected their behavior from the attitude of others towards them.

It is true that sometimes you will be picked as a bullying victim not because you have done anything wrong but just because you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and the bully felt threatened somehow or found you weak in some way, but it is never permanent. It can be changed.

Being bullied is sometimes devastating, but there is something you must keep in mind: it is not done against you. Bullies pick whomever they can. They do not do it against you but to gain something for themselves. If there was anyone else around, they would have picked the easiest target.

People with a victim mentality ("Everyone is against me", "No one likes me", "They all hate me", "They never invite me", "I'm a loser", "I'm no good" or "What could I do?") are easy targets.

You are not a victim!

No one is born a victim and has a label on their forehead that says, "Come bully me". The victim mentality puts that label on your forehead, so find your victim thoughts and erase them. The way to do it is to find one example where it is not true. For example, if you have the thought, "Everyone hates me", find one example where it is not true ("My parents love me", "My wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend loves me", "My kids love me", "My brother/sister/friends/teammates like me") and never say it to yourself (or anyone else) again.

Parents who have a victim mentality pass it to their kids in their daily interactions and risk their kids having the victim mentality too. Remember, victims attract bullies. Keep them away from your family by eliminating victim thoughts and feelings.

Notice when you are depressed

Depression is a general state of weakness and lack of motivation and energy and it makes people very weak in their interactions with others. Depression is a very vulnerable state and everyone feels depressed from time to time.

It is very important to distinguish between episodes or short periods of tiredness, disappointment and sadness and full-blown depression, but still, it is important to make a point and recognize when it starts to make sure it does not last long.

When people are depressed, their physical strength and motivation deteriorate and their thinking is distorted. It can affect their functions at work and at home. Depressed parents' performance often drops and that can be used easily by a bully as a weakness. At home, the drop in depressed parents' functionality creates extra load on the family and makes it harder for them to notice when their children need help, like when they are in a bullying situation that requires intervention.

Depression is a very debilitating state and working out the issues when they are "small" is easier than working them out when there is a pile of issues that need addressing. Parents must find the things they do when they feel down and use them as warning signs. For example, some people eat like crazy when they are depressed or they eat a lot of chocolate. If this is the case, notice how many pieces of the chocolate you have eaten and make a rule that if you have finished a whole pack in one go (yikes!), you need help. Some people have good techniques to get out of a depression, which is really great, because it means they notice they are depressed and do something immediately to change it. For example, go to the movies, call a friend, cook, do some art, play music or watch comedy. Find one of those techniques and force yourself to get out of depression.

Depressed parents are not much help to their kids who needs help. Make sure you notice when you are there.

Join me next week for the next 5 personal development tips to stop the bully parent.

Happy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Bullying (33): How to stop parent bullying
• Bullying (34): How to stop parent bullying
• Bullying (27): How to stop parent bullying

As always, Ronit was introduced to the participants warmly by Derek Brady, the principal of the school. When he was done, I asked him to say a few words about his experiences with Ronit and particularly the results his school was getting out of them. I have put his answers below in text and video, but saved you the agony of my own voice, which hardly came out (I was pretty sick).

Background

Mental health is a big concern in Australia, especially depression and particularly in young people. The Commonwealth Government recognizes this problem and has started, among other things, a program called Kids Matter, which guides schools in discovering, analyzing and solving any mental health problems.

Derek is a great believer in emotional intelligence, so Upper Mount Gravatt State School is getting the most out of working with Kids Matter. In fact, the school has done so well is has won awards for leadership in mental health for the past 2 years.

But Kids Matter only provides the framework and incentives for focusing on mental health. The school still has to choose good services and good providers to make real impact and Derek has chosen Ronit to run Happy Parents Raise Happy Kids and Happy Teachers - Happy Students.

Having a life coach attached to your school as a school partner has huge implications

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Q: Why did you engage Ronit in the first place?

Derek: Being part of Kids Matter and focusing on mental health, we saw a real need for that to be across the whole school and Ronit's influence is in all of that stuff. We've already had 100% of our staff trained in Be Happy in LIFE coaching. We've also had 60 parents trained. That has huge impact, because it creates "spin-offs" - the common language we're using through the school, it's just helping with the wellbeing and, ultimately, the learning outcomes.

Q: What are the main benefits you see out of Ronit's involvement?

Derek: The main improvement I see is the behavior of our children. I haven't had a suspension in 4 years, there's no Detention room, the attitude of the kids, there's a real happiness around the school, kids really vibrant, bouncing around. I see kids handling issues and being more resilient. I see families using common language and staff using the same language and having a positive mindset and approaching things from a very positive angle.

Q: Are there any specific comments you can share with us from parent's feedback?

Derek: They just love the workshops. They come away feeling inspired. I had my P&C (Parents and Citizens - PTA) President last year come up to me and say "My husband has to do this. We need to work at things and we can be a happier family if we do this". People have come up to me and said their kids are doing better because of that. Teachers have said "I had an issue in class, but I thought about the Pink Elephants or about the way I can approach this staying calm" and it has really helped them in their day-to-day dealings with kids and in their own lives.

Q: Can you share something about how the workshops have affected your own life?

Derek: I'd love to. In my family, I knew there were a few blockers happening with my daughter. I remember this little activity we do, called the "I believe in you" letter, and I remember after the workshop, I emailed my daughter and told her how much I loved her and how much I believed in her and that was the catalyst to change some of the things that followed from there. I think I realized then that you can't change your children, you can't create a perfect world, but you can do is share how you really feel and share how much you care about them, so that was one of the real winners for me. 12 months down the track since doing the course, I feel that relationship building and getting stronger and stronger, so it's definitely helped us as a family.

Q: How would you describe Ronit as a presenter?

Derek: She's really interesting. She's got this really zany way of putting things. You can sit and listen to her for hours and she just brings things from a different angle that you haven't thought of. She doesn't preach at you - it's not one of these courses where you get told how to be a better parent - she gets to be focus on how to be happy. She's also very flexible - she allowed you to be different and do things in the way that you want to engage.

Q: What would you tell other school principals?

Derek: I would be advising them to think about how they can use someone like Ronit Baras. I think having a life coach attached to your school as a school partner has huge implications. It builds up capacities in the family community, parents are on the same page as the school and life coaching really helps people grow and see how mental health positions their kids to do well academically. At the end of the day, I want better results. I want learning outcomes to be high - that's academic outcomes - and by focusing on the mental health of my whole entire community, that's where you can do it. And Ronit can help!

So what is Derek Brady saying here?

He is saying that parents make a major difference to their kids and that when parents learn to be happy, EVERYTHING works better - the kids are happy, their academic performance improves, the teachers like them more (which makes everything even better) and the school can spend more time and resources on fun stuff (which makes everything better again).

He is saying you should talk to your school principal, wherever you are, tell them about the awesome benefits of creating a happy community around the school, including staff, parents and kids, and send them to The Motivational Speaker.

And if your school does not run parenting workshops and you live in the Brisbane area, register for our parenting workshop on Sunday, 25 July 2010, at the Southern Cross Sports Club on Klumpp Road, Upper Mt Gravatt and improve the life of your kids, partner and, most importantly, your own.

Happy parenting,
Gal

You may want to read

• Literacy, Numeracy, Emotionacy
• Wisdom from the School of Life
• The Fun Incentive

I looked at Nicole and the kids. It is just an irony that when you feel you need lots of strength to survive the heartache in your life, worse things happen and change the whole picture. They stood there carrying a burden that I sometimes wonder if time can heal.

The dead are always at peace. It is the other people who remain to suffer their absence. The members of the Lance Family were left to suffer the shame, the guilt and the secret.

A week before, 45-year-old Bryan hung himself in his garage.

There is something selfish in suicide. If he could imagine this scene seconds before he pushed the ladder underneath him, he would never have done it. "It was a split second of insanity", I tried to convince myself when I heard how he had died. He did not plan it, he did not leave any letter and he did not make any special arrangements. He just looked for a way to hide himself from the shame and the pain he had caused his family for two years and the solution he had found was to drag them to the dark side of life with him.

I chanted the serenity prayer, "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference".

I have been to funerals before. There is an energy of devastation in the air and everyone prays inside for some sense and comfort. Death does not make sense and suicide cannot bring comfort to anyone.

15-years-old Jane had a frightened look on her face. Her dad had hung himself after having a big argument with her. She never forgave him for what he had done to her and now she will never forgive herself for pushing him to the edge.

A couple of months ago, she sat on my balcony for a session and said her whole world had collapsed when she discovered her wonderful family had been a total lie, because dad had had an affair with another woman. She used the word "shattered" many times, yet expressed no desire to pick up the pieces.

When Bryan sat on my balcony to try and sort out the life he blamed himself for ruining, he expressed many concerns for Jane's wellbeing. I never knew he was worried about her hurting herself, because he had tried to hang himself 5 times since the affair and had failed.

How ironic it is you cannot enjoy the success of killing yourself

During the past year and a half, every member of the Lance family sat on my balcony. Missy Higgins' song "The special two" was on my mind the whole time I coached them. They were all tormented inside, trying to bring back time and change the past.

I worked with them on leaving the past where it belonged - far away behind them - and allow it to fade, yet Bryan made sure the past would always be present. Every time he came for his coaching session, he looked for a way to go back in time and change that one mistake he had made.

Who would have thought that one mistake, just one mistake can be so devastating for the rest of the lives of so many people around him?

Missy Higgins wrote a song about the pain people put themselves through when they cheat on their loved one. She said, "Well I guess the answer is 'Don't do it in the first place'". Bryan said the same thing and refused to forgive himself.

I looked at them at the funeral home and could understand why death seemed such a relief. When others do not forgive you, you can keep away from them to find peace, but if you cannot forgive yourself, you need to be out of your mind.

His daughter had said to me he was a "loser". She was a teenager whose life was shattered, who had to hide a terrible secret from everyone she knew, because all her friends' parents were her parents' friends. I guess "loser" is an understatement of what she had felt towards him.

Most of the participants in Bryan's funeral only knew he had been using antidepressants for a while and had been under lots of stress with his job and the house. I examined their faces and only about 10 of them carried the truth. I wondered how many of them were examining my face.

24 years ago, I had to submit a research project on comparing special education professionals, social workers and psychologists' personality traits and their ability to survive the emotional drainage of therapy and working with people living on the edge. It is inevitable in these professions to meet someone who finds death more appealing than life.

As I stood there on Friday, I asked myself, "What am I grateful for?" This is my way of dealing with pain. I knew I have been very lucky to work for 24 years with so many clients without attending their funerals. My luck had just ended. On Friday, at the funeral home, Bryan's death was my "acceptance ceremony" into the "club" of therapists whose clients have decided to give up.

As I said goodbye, among the painful silence torn with pain of cries, I could imagine Missy Higgins singing (lyrics below):

Take good care of yourself, because you ARE worth it!
Ronit

You may want to read

• Troubled Teens: Disturbing Thoughts
• Crazy, Stupid, Love
• Anger Management: Be Prepared

Someone very close to us lost her son to teen suicide. Her son was 18 years old, a great kid who took his dad's gun one day, sat in his parents' car in a park and shot himself to death.

He is gone and is probably not suffering anymore, but a whole family he left behind is still picking up the pieces of their shattered life and cannot find comfort.

I am writing to you because I pray you never have to be in the same position.

Burying your own child is the most painful thing for every parent. I once went behind a small coffin and the scar never healed.

Suicide among teens (15-24 years old) is a big problem around the world. In Australia alone, more than 400 young people kill themselves every year! 400 families and thousands of people are left behind, asking themselves over and over again

What could I have done to prevent it?

The teen years are tough, mainly because the shift from being a kid to being an independent adult is complicated and hard. Too many expectations at school or at home create lots of confusion and stress.

When I was gathering information for my book Be Special, Be yourself for Teenagers, I found out that from teens' point of view, parents are the biggest stressors in their life. The strongest feelings teens have are that they are alone, helpless and unable to find a way out of their situation.

Teens at risk of committing suicide

Although it is hard to pin point the reasons for teen suicide, it seems that living is more painful for suicidal teens than dying. After they have committed suicide, it is too late to help them, but we can (and should) identify teens at risk and give them the tools to find hope.

Here are the types of teens who are at a higher risk of committing suicide:

• Teens who have already made a suicide attempt.
• Teens having relationship problems with family and friends - these relationships are very demanding for teens and the difficulties may seem unbearable to them.
• Depressed teens - although everyone feels depressed from time to time, feeling down for more than 3 months is a sign that something is wrong. If a teen you know is showing any of the following signs, he/she may need help:
  • Lost interest in daily activities
  • Stopped enjoying things he/she used to enjoy
  • Expresses negative thoughts about himself/herself
  • Shows a sudden change in weight or in sleeping pattern
• Teens with significant mood swings - some mood swings are normal and related to hormonal changes, but stay tuned and if you feel they are too big, seek help.
• Teens who drink alcohol - if you think your teen is overusing alcohol, if it clutters his/her decision making and makes him/her do risky things, get them help! Also, alcohol is a depressant (see above).
• Teens who take drugs - learn about the symptoms of drug use to allow you to find out if your teen is using them and get them help if they do. Some drugs are depressants and some have a depressing after effect (see above). Being on and off drugs can cause severe mood swings (see above).
• Teens from dysfunctional families - although this is not a 100% accurate, teens who are exposed to the following things are more at risk of committing suicide than others:
  • Domestic violence
  • Abusive relationships in the family
  • Overprotective or extremely restrictive parents
• Teen with mental illnesses, such as Schizophrenia.
• Teens who fail at school.
• Teens living in an environment of chronic unemployment and lack of direction and purpose.
• Teens who are confused about their sexuality - they find themselves alone and unable to express their thoughts and feelings more than other teens. Many times, they are also teased and even abused for being different.
• Sexually abused teens.
• Grieving teens - the loss of someone close during the teen years can become far more significant than any other time. This is especially true when the person lost was the teen's role model in life.
• Traumatized teens - teens who have experienced war, persecution or any other forms of trauma may feel helpless and weak and are at a higher risk of committing suicide.

Helping teens to choose life

I am sure many teens go through tough times (I have written about some of them), but most of them find ways to fight the thought of suicide if they have the right person to help them out of "the dark place". Parents, teachers, close family member and friends can be a flashlight to light the darkness.

In this blog, you can find hundreds of ideas and practical tips to make sure your teens will not go down the suicide path, a path they cannot return from. But you do not need hundreds of tips. Here are 10 guidelines that will give you tremendous power as a parent in helping your teens to choose life:

1. Focus on building self esteem. Kids with high self esteem are likely to overcome difficulties in life and pass through their teen years in the most fun and enjoyable way.
2. Teach teens from as early as 2-3 years old to cope with problems not by presenting problems to them but by being with them and escorting them as they solve their problems. Every time they have a problem, tell them "You are so good at solving problems" to minimize the feeling of helplessness and develop their belief in their own resourcefulness.
3. Work on your kids' communication with you from as early as 4 or 5 years old. Encourage your kids to tell you everything. Even if it is something you hate to hear, say "I appreciate your honesty" and "I'm happy you've told me". As long as you still have good communication with your teen, you are likely to know when something goes wrong.
4. Guide your teen without using any force. Many teens are afraid of their parents' reactions to things they have done and this makes them do silly things to avoid this reaction. See yourself as a guide not a judge. Many teens think their parents do not listen to them, so always listen to what your teen has to say before commenting on it.
5. Create a supportive family atmosphere, where everyone helps one another, cares for one another and backs one another up. This will give your teens the feeling they are not alone and they can always ask for help, because a brother, a sister, Mom or Dad will be there to help.

   

6. Spend quality time with your teens beyond family gatherings. From time to time, take a day off and spend it with them, if you have to. The more good time your teens spend with you, the less likely they are to have problems and the more likely you are to notice when something is wrong.
7. Be involved in your teens' life. The more you know about their friends, their pressures, their school work, their hobbies and their work, the more you can notice when something is out of order. Discuss with your teens what privacy means and try to get involved without invading their privacy.
8. Try to support your teens when they face difficult situations, like exams, trouble with friends, romantic breakups, encounters with the police or finding and keeping employment. Always be empathetic to their problems. Do not say "It's nothing" or "No big deal". For them, it is a big deal and you need to respect that. Listen, ask how you can help and do the best from there.
9. Give your teens stability. Make sure you are around. Be a role model for good relationships. Have a stable income. Have a reasonable routine in life and avoid too many changes when teens go through tough times.
10. If your family is going through tough times, like separation, divorce or grief, it is a stressful time for you too and your ability to help your teen may be limited. Seek external (professional) help for your teen (and yourself).

May we all have happy, healthy and successful teens. Amen!

Happy parenting!
Ronit

Prevent Teen Suicide Here is a great and easy way to make your teens feel you are there for them: give them a copy of my book "Be Special, Be Yourself for Teenagers"

You may want to read

• Troubled Teens: Disturbing Thoughts
• More Control – Less Power
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model

In the Make a List series, I have written about the importance of knowing myself and presenting my identity to the rest of the world. I have written about the importance of friends in our life and how they have contributed to who we are today. I have written about why it is important to have long-term goals and desires and to plant self-fulfilling prophecies in our mind. Today, I want to tell you why appreciation and gratitude are important skills that we need to practice-every day (yes, every day)!

Gratitude is another name for "positive focus". Everything that happens to us or does not happen to us has its advantages and disadvantages. The question is which side we choose to notice. Our focus determines how we experience life.

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity… It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow

- Melodie Beattie

One of my clients, Lina, experienced depression and panic attacks related to OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). For 2-3 days at a time, she would experience a panic attack that overwhelmed her whole life. As we worked out the way to handle the situation, Line agreed with her doctor to come and see the doctor at the first sign of panic. Later, she came to me for a coaching session and talked about it again as the end of the world, looking even more depressed.

"How often does it happen?" I asked Lina.

She stopped, thought about it and said, "Every 2-3 months".

"How long does it last?" I asked her.

She stopped, thought about it and said, "2 days, 3 at most".

"Is it the same for 3 days?" I asked. Line stopped, thought about it and said, "No, the first day is the worst, but if I go to see my doctor, I feel much better afterwards. Only if it happens on the weekend and I see her the day after, then it drags for 3 days".

"OK, so in the last year, how many days have you had these panic attacks?" I asked.

She thought about it and said, "It's happened to me 5 times last year".

"5 times for a total of how many days?" I asked her.

She thought about it for a while and said, "About 8 days, maybe 10".

"So you're telling me that for 10 days every year, you can't function and you feel so sick you must see your doctor, right? OK. What happens in the other 355 days?"

You see, Lina was feeling so bad on those 10 days she did not paid attention to the other 355 days, in which she had a great time at work, pride in her kids, new and exciting relationships, exhilarating travel and joy with her extended family. Lina needed to focus on the things she was happy about.

In order to do that, I asked her to write 100 things she was happy about and she never looked back!

Gratitude is a constant reminder that even if we do not get everything we want, most of our life is worth celebrating. Gratitude is an excellent way to shift our focus from the bad to the good in life. Unfortunately, many people develop the appreciation only after some sort of trauma - death, loss, accident, etc.

Do not wait for a trauma. Make your gratitude list today and live happily ever after.

The song Affirmation by Savage Garden says it in a beautiful way:

How to list "100 things I am happy about"

• Print the list from the Be Happy in life site (it is free and makes life much easier)
• Go over your daily routine and imagine how life would be without having your vital organs - eyes, ears, legs, etc. I promise you can find over 100 things you can be grateful for.
• Whenever you meet a sick person, be happy you are healthy!
• Write a list of things in your past you are happy about. I am very happy I met Gal. I am very happy we travelled the world together.
• Add to the list the things you are like about your partner. I am very happy Gal is my boyfriend. I am very happy he is the father of my kids.
• Add the things you are happy about regarding your kids. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you should have more than 100 things already in this category alone.
• Add to the list things you are happy about regarding your extended family: parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents and other family members. One of my cousins was my best friends for many years. A family fight destroyed our relationship (it was ugly and had nothing to do with either of us) and we did not see each other for over 20 years, but she is still on my list. I am grateful for having had her as a best friend for 16 years. I am grateful for the sleepovers, for the trips and for the family gatherings we spent together. Six years ago, I contacted her again and last year, I went to visit her. Thanks to my list, I only had the good memories and the love we had for each other on my mind and it was awesome.
• List your gratitude for people you have met during your life.
• Write your gratitude for your talents and abilities.
• Think of gratitude you have for some of your decisions in life - the things you chose to do, as well as the choices not to do things that would have ended badly.
• List possessions you have that you are happy about. Since we moved around the world for several years, we rented our homes and every time we left, we had problems with the owner or the property manager over hanging the kids' drawings on the walls or leaving marks and scratches. I hated it. Today, every time we hang something on the wall, I express my gratitude for having my own place and making as many holes in the walls as I like.
• Add to the list your gratitude for the great lessons in your life. It is amazing how bad things in our life teach us so much and we can be grateful for the lesson and the teacher. Examine even bad experiences and look for lessons. Be grateful for the lessons for they are great stepping-stones on your life journey.

Remember that gratitude and appreciation are ways to shift your focus on to the good things in life. It is not a coincidence people say grace for food and, in some traditions, give thanks for everything they have in their life. The theory behind it is the more grateful you are for something, the more you have of it.

Join me next week for the 6^th part of the list making series about good memories from your childhood.

I am happy you have read this post. Thank you for visiting my blog,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Emotional Summer
• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction
• Make a list: Expectations