And that is no way to live. It is not good for the parents and it is not good for the kids.

What happens in these situations is that the parents try to control their children. In fact, they try to control the fine details of what their children do, say and sometimes even feel. They tell themselves and anyone else who will listen how important it is to get all the answers on every assignment correctly. That is how they justify the hours of grilling their kids over homework. They explain the long-term impact of passing a basketball using the scientifically proven motion on their kids' sporting future. That is how they justify the yelling from the sidelines and the intensive drilling at home.

But how important are these things really?

Who are they really important to?

And what are the effects of this controlling behavior on the children, the parents and their relationships for the rest of their lives?

In parents' defense, I would say it is probably the way they were brought up themselves. I even think many are doing better than their parents did, considering the circumstances. They do not know another way (unless they have read enough of this blog).

In a strange way, by trying to control our children, we give them power over our levels of stress and our emotional wellbeing. By nagging, correcting and micromanaging them, we give THEM control over us. They simply use our obvious motivation to throw us to the mat and pin us down.

Ronit and I had a couple of good friends with a 5-year-old boy who refused to eat "good food". His mom begged, threatened and then offered a bribe. "If you eat your lunch/dinner/food, I'll buy you a big ice cream", she would promise. He would then say, "No, I want my ice cream first. I'll eat the food after". She would buy him the ice cream, he would eat it and then refuse to eat anything else. She would go absolutely nuts, but then do the same thing again the following day.

She was so eager to get him to eat some healthy food, she made a big deal out of it, so he leveraged it to get what he wanted every day and twice on Sundays (literally). She cared so much about how his eating habits reflected on her parenting quality, she put her little son in charge of her self-esteem.

This kind of situation is very scary for the child. It means the parent does not have a sense of priority and enough self-confidence to be in charge. Kids view their parents as almighty and being able to shake them so easily makes them unable to rely on the parents for their own security.

So what should parents do?

The secret to trading failure to control with real power involves developing a personal perspective, having clear priorities, focusing only on truly important things and assuming a coaching position.

How to develop a personal perspective in parenting

As always, start by finding a quiet time and place, then relax by taking a few long, deep, slow breaths. Once you are calm and your head is clear, imagine the last scene in which you tried to control your child and ended up pulling your hair out.

Freeze the scene, as if everyone in it suddenly turned into metal or stone (ice is too cold). Now, float out of your body and position yourself opposite the image of you. Take a good look at your face and your body language. It is very likely you will recognize a fear in yourself, which you have not been aware of, but seems to be the source of your pressure during the scene.

Ask yourself, "Why do I really want my child to do [whatever it was]? What was I afraid would happen if he/she didn't do it?"

In many interpersonal conflicts, at least one party considers their views universal and absolute. Often, by accepting them as personal preferences, the conflict goes away. In a struggle with your kids, it is important to realize that although you may believe you are doing what is best for them, you are always first and foremost serving your own interests. When you are afraid of something, you become defensive and uncompromising. That is just human.

Now ask yourself, "Realistically, if I said and did nothing that time, what is the worst thing that could happen?"

In our friend's case, her son would have become hungry over time without ice cream, which would have given her enormous power over him, because then he would have eaten anything she allowed him to eat. If only she overcame her fear for 30 minutes or so...

How to have clear parenting priorities

No matter how many times we ask parents this question and no matter how we present it to them, what parents want most for their children is happiness. They just want their kids to be happy. The rest is just ways to get there.

Now that you are calm and being honest with yourself, ask yourself, "Would my kids be happier if I taught them how to do everything right or if I let them experience life on their own?" Again, consider the most recent incident or perhaps the most common conflict with your kids for perspective.

As a minimum, children need to be healthy and safe. Beyond that, they need to be happy and learn how to stay healthy, safe and happy on their own. Anything we force them to do that serves another aim hurts everybody.

In our friend's case, the little boy became less and less secure and more and more defiant, searching for the point where his mother would finally provide a boundary for him. He was not happy, she was not happy and his father was not happy. A few years later, the couple split and the boy went to live with his dad.

How to assume a coaching position with your kids

Kids are just little people. They are people in the making. From the minute they are born, we need to treat them as individuals. They are not us. They are not part of us. They grow up in a different world and have different needs and different physical and psychological abilities and limitations.

If we deal with them to serve our own happiness, this will often result in conflict. They may not be able to explain it to us, but they can feel it.

But if we do our best to help THEM get what THEY want out of life (using age-appropriate methods, of course), there will be fewer conflicts, our kids will feel safe and supported and life will be good for everyone.

A split second before responding to anything your kids do or say, stop, breathe, look at the scene from a neutral position (do the scene freezing exercise above until you get the hang of this), find the response you believe will make everybody the happiest and then act.

If you do this for a while, your kids will learn to trust you. Then, when you need to stop them from doing something they shouldn't, they are likely to just follow your guidance, because you always look after their best interest. This belief in you, this trust, this confidence, is the real source of power in parenting.

So stop controlling your kids. Relax, focus, let go and be powerful.
Gal

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• Questions, Questions
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Role Model
• Nagging Your Kids

Nothing is worth more than this day
- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Kids are little philosophers practicing the theories of the great philosopher of all times in real life. They live in the simplest stage show that is their life, without much sophistication and with no budget. This is ability smart, knowledgeable and experienced grownups need to learn from their children.

Kids do not have tomorrows. The younger they are, the more limited their understanding of time and the harder it is to explain to them what they will gain tomorrow if they just try a bit harder or wait a little bit longer today. One of parents' biggest frustrations is their inability to explain why to try harder today for some imaginary tomorrow. Kids, on the other hand, do not understand why they should try harder, because from their point of view, fun is the best way to navigate through life and "hard" and "fun" do not go together.

Fun as a Compass

Kids' attitude to fun as a compass is perceived by grownups as a limitation, a lack of perspective and experience. I wonder sometimes who is missing perspective. Kids, the artists of living in the now, whose present is full of fun, or their parents, the champions of living in the future, whose present is an endless cycle of anxiety?

Children invest all their energy in what they will achieve in the short term. Adults, convinced they need to delay their gratifications, exaggerate this and without meaning to, they have invented the opposite of enjoinment and fun and have turned their life into a dress rehearsal for the "real thing".

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things
- Henry Ward Beecher

If you are a parent doing everything you can to better tomorrows, if you are a parent telling your kids off for behaviors today that you are afraid they will keep doing tomorrow, if you believe that whatever happens today is a sign for what will happen in the future, if you think that pain today justifies potential gain tomorrow - you have just passed the most important audition of your life and have been accepted into The Big Dress Rehearsal, where you might spend the rest of your life.

Many parents fall in the trap of separating life into living in the show of life and rehearsing for it, as if they need to prepare all their lives for an imaginary future, when they will have everything they want, but they never take center stage and actually play in the show. The problem with living in a dress rehearsal is that you become very good at rehearsing and not at performing. Many parents invest in preparing their kids and become very good at preparing and not at implementing these preparations. In extreme cases, this imaginary future makes parents so anxious they torture their kids today and justify it by claiming they will be happy for it someday.

If you have ever had a conflict with your child that was very critical for you and you were worried they would take this to their future, while your child thought you were making a big thing out of nothing, you have been in the conflict between life as a rehearsal and life as a show.

A classic example of the life as a rehearsal and life as a show conflict is school. In my parenting workshops, when I ask parents about big conflicts with their kids, they say that most of their parenting energy is spent around school, homework, managing time, grades and teachers. Every argument over school starts with our belief as parents that the imaginary rewards of our kids' schooling in the future will justify their pain in the present. Not many parents ask themselves whether school today is really preparing their children for the show of life they will have to perform in their future.

Our kids do not go to school because they want to. We keep them there with our belief that their future will be better for it. In the cheapest format of schooling, we invest 13 years and tens of thousands of dollars on this school rehearsal and we do not stop to ask if we know for sure what will be the format of the show they will have to perform in the future and if it justifies the long preparation. What we can say for sure is that we have become so good at preparing that we have no clue on what kind of a stage our kids will have to perform in 15 years.

Parents differ from their kids in courage. Kids are not afraid of a show that is not perfect, a bit clumsy, without any status or experience, because what directs them is having fun right now. Their primitive compass, called "fun", has stood strong in the auditions of all times, in shows of all generations and on stages of all successes and challenging experiences. By following this primitive compass, many authors have written thousands of books kids have never read, producers have made movies kids have never seen and philosophers have described theories kids have never heard of.

Enjoy the journey, enjoy every moment and quit worrying about winning and losing
- Matt Biondi

Many parents, on the other hand, prefer the illusion of "the future". They prefer putting off the fun of now and invest lots in preparing for life, in hope that fun will come, later. Parents go to work and dedicate hours of being away from their partner and kids in order to make money and have fun with their partner and kids on a short yearly vacation that they end up spending on renovating the shower, "because it cannot be postponed any longer". They get into an endless cycle, where they do not know what started first, the chicken or the egg.

Kids live without too many conditions. As long as they have fun, with a little bit of company, not seeking a big crowd and not dedicating hours for rehearsing or putting on makeup, they will perform on a small stage or in a solo performance, holding a balloon and celebrating their total ignorance of the future. Parents, on the other hand, have endless conditions on the location of the show, who will be the stage manager, what the content will be, who the other players will be, the director, the salary, who will be invited and how hard they will need to clap. But so many conditions and fun do not go hand in hand.

We can learn from kids how to have the courage not to treat life as a dress rehearsal or an imaginary show that we constantly need to prepare for, but to live in a simple, magical, natural show that happens every day in every second of our imperfect, clumsy, fun life.

We should learn from kids about "performing" and having fun today, because there is a real danger that if we keep preparing, when the time of our show comes, if ever, when we are finally thin, rich, happy, pretty, successful, with a high social status and lots of the latest gadgets, it may be too late.

If we argue and worry about a show that never happens, we can only imagine a sad show, in which our kids will be just like their parents and stop believing that more importantly than being thin and skinny, we need to love our body, more importantly than making money, we need to be content to put it to good use or give it away, more importantly than striving for happiness, we need to be happy along the way, more importantly than being pretty in other people's eyes, we need to feel pretty, more than wanting to be successful, we need to celebrate our existing successes, however small, more importantly than social status, we need to enjoy our friends and family and more importantly than buying gadgets, we need to enjoy them.

For kids, every experience is a show. It is natural and without conditions. They cry a little, laugh for no reason, sometimes they fail and they always get up. They do not have to have an audience and if they do, they do not try to please everyone. When they do not get any cheers and claps, they applaud themselves for participating.

We can learn philosophy from our own children, small, inexperienced and lacking perspective. We can learn from kids that life is a show that starts when we give up on endless rehearsals, when we stop trying to come up with the best show ever and we just participate and have fun. We can learn from kids that fun is an enormous force.

May the force be with you!
Ronit

You may want to read

• The Mean Average
• How to Handle Pressure
• More Control – Less Power

At first, I thought Australians were just sick more often than others in the world, but after a short time, I came to the conclusion they were taking a day off when they were tired, sneezed too much, had some errands to run or just needed a day off.

As a parent, that freaked me out. I could take myself one or two years into the future and imagine my own children substitute "Mom, I want some time off" with "Mom, I'm sick". I believe that if you say you are sick enough times, you will convince your body that you are and then you will actually feel sick. Gal and I put a lot of effort and thinking into raising healthy kids and the thought of them being "sick" every time they needed to rest made me feel sick ;P

I fully understand that people need some a break from time to time and the regular days off on weekends and public holidays are good, but they do not always come at the right time or provide enough relief. It makes sense to me that kids do not plan to need time off exactly on those days, so it is just natural that they want time off on a school day.

The problem with "being sick" is that you cannot really enjoy the day and rejuvenate, which defeats the purpose of taking a day off. Taking these needs into consideration, I came up with a solution that has been working for me for over 12 years.

No more sick kids

I told the kids that if they are healthy the whole term (each term is about 10 weeks long), they can pick a day in each term to have a break and on that day, we can do some fun things together. There are some rules to this contract:

1. You cannot pick an exam day
2. You must let me know ahead, so I can plan it and be home with you
3. You cannot pick the same day as your sibling (this allow me to spend individual time with each one of my kids, although on special circumstances, we have had lots of fun with the whole family)

Advantages of picking a day off over being sick

There are many advantages to picking your day off when you are healthy over saying, "Mom, I'm sick" and pretending to be sick.

• The greatest advantage is that kids do not associate having time off with being sick, so they are sick less often.
• I have seen so many people that say, "I can't out so that no one will see me, because I'm supposed to be sick in bed". Not much fun being stuck at home. On a planned day off, you can do whatever you like.
• You do not have to lie to the teachers, so this is a good reward for being honest. I always send a letter to the teacher beforehand and say, "Noff is going to be away on that day". I never lie about this. Remember, teachers and schools are giving you a service and being afraid to be honest is not good for your relationship with your service provider. The teachers will appreciate that more. They know that some parents write "sick" letters even when their kids are not sick (because they do it themselves).
• You can arrange for one of your or your partner to take a day off instead of having to ask family members, neighbors and friends to take care of your sick child.
• You can pick better days for time off so that your child does not miss things that are important to them at school.

I have had this agreement with my kids for 12 years. Tsoof hardly ever used those days, because he was busy and did not want to miss out. In the last two weeks of term, I would ask him, "Which day would you like to take off?" and he would say, "Monday ... no, I don’t want to miss Show Choir ... Tuesday ... no, I don't want o miss Wind Ensemble ... Wednesday ... no, I don't want o miss Drama ... Thursday ... no, I don’t want to miss Percussion Ensemble ... Friday ... no, I don't want to miss Big Band. That's OK, I won't take a day off this term". This was true almost every term for the last 6 days of his schooling.

This week, Noff asked to take her day off. Our new kitchen was arriving and she wanted to be home to watch it being assembled. I was so happy she just asked to stay home instead of having to pretend she was sick. We had to go to school early to bring back something she had left there, so she went to school without her uniform, walked into her classroom and told everyone she was staying home to watch the instillation of the new kitchen. I was very proud she felt comfortable to tell the truth, not to mention that she had been healthy the whole term.

Please try this at home! It works like magic (you can even reward yourself with a day off after being healthy for 3 months solid).

Happy, healthy parenting,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Literacy, Numeracy, Emotionacy
• The Wonders of Ritalin
• The Mean Average

In Australia, there is now something called NAPLAN - National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy, officially described like this: "Every year, all students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9 are assessed on the same days using national tests in Reading, Writing, Language Conventions (Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation) and Numeracy".

This means that absolutely NOTHING else matters to most of the teachers and parents of students in Years 3, 5, 7 and 9. After having quite a bit of fun in Prep and Years 1 and 2, the poor kids in Year 3 are taught things by the book, tested every week, deprived of play time, music, art, sport and extracurricular activities and subjected to constant pressure to perform. State Education ministers go nuts from it, so Department of Education executives go nuts from it, so principals go nuts from it, so teachers go nuts from it, so students go nuts from it.

The same thing happens all over again 2, 4 and 6 years later.

And that is really bad.

Because learning should be fun and because all that stress actually blocks learning.

Think back to your time at school for a moment, particularly to 3^rd Grade. Could you study well when you were tired? Could you concentrate in class when you were hungry or when you had to go to the toilet? Was it easy for you to work with numbers after witnessing your parents having a big fight the night before? How well did you do on exams when your dog died or your best friend moved away?

Not too well, right?

School systems are just like conventional medicine - they focus on the symptoms, ignore the personal context and completely miss the underlying issues. They do it because the symptoms, literacy and numeracy in this case, are easy to test and measure. It stands to conventional reason that by teaching more reading, students' reading will improve and by administering more math homework, students will get more practice and get better with numbers.

Ronit and I see just how wrong this approach is with every child that comes to our assessment service. One after the other, parents bring children aged 5 to 14, asking for help with their performance at school. One after the other, these children reveal gaps in their learning due to emotional traumas and communication style incompatibility with their past or present teachers. Ronit advises all of their parents to handle their emotional wellbeing first and one after the other, they pick up speed in their studies as soon as they are able to smile and feel free.

We have seen close correlations between gaps in reading, writing and math skills due to the illness and death of a father. Would you care how much 2 + 5 was if your father was dying?

We have seen gaps in academic performance due to frequent changes of teachers. Young children look up to their teachers and idolize them. That is why they trust their teaching and follow their instructions. Would you be able to trust your 6^th Grade 1 teacher after being "deserted" by the previous 5?

We have seen children whose mother or father had a mental disorder, which forced them to help extensively at home and gave other students at their school plenty of bullying material. Would you be able to motivate yourself even to go to school if this were your situation?

When a child is overwhelmed by strong emotions, pressure to perform only makes things worse. The child feels ignored, abused, rejected and belittled. They lose trust in teachers, parents and sometimes even in "grownups" in general. So they hide their challenges, which makes them even harder to detect, and they go on missing more and more spelling, grammar, arithmetic, shapes, money, graphs and all those other things that show up later as low test scores.

Emotionacy

What kids really need to learn is not literacy or numeracy, it is "emotionacy". They need to learn how to recognize and manage their emotions. They need to be encouraged to express themselves, to explore and to learn what and how they like. They need to be valued as people-in-the-making (my kids have an awesome music teacher who refers to her students as "short people") and to be developed based on their own choices.

Reading something interesting is far more beneficial than reading standard text. Sure, it is not as easy to monitor and regulate, but kids who follow their heart LOVE to read. They read without any external pressure, they learn far more from what they read and they read so much that their level of literacy is actually better over those who are forced to read standard boring stuff.

Give any child a cool science project where they need to measure quantities, calculate fractions, draw a graph and analyze numerical data and they will jump for joy at each discovery and conclusion. They will remember the experiment forever, keep the results in their room for months, show it to everyone and proudly EXPLAIN the math to anyone who will listen. In the context of something exciting, kids have all the skills for math.

Pay attention to how a child learns - by writing and drawing, by listening and talking or by doing - and adapt your teaching to it and all of a sudden, a "slow" child seems "bright". Suddenly, they like coming to class or doing their homework, they love the teacher (or you, their parent) and their scores improve dramatically.

Find out how a child feels, no matter how long it takes and how difficult it is for them to describe (particularly at a young age), help them feel better and you will get a bundle of joy that finds little in class challenging. Use stories, symbolic play with dolls, drawings or any other non-verbal method and you will discover the blocks to natural learning. Give affirmations, touch, quality time, little presents and helpful services and you will see moping turning into energy and a long face becoming a smile.

When you need to teach a child something, present it as a game. Learning happens much better when it is fun and then, the child wants to learn even more, because it is fun. Kids would play games all the time if they could, so just let them. Use their endless energy and fill their games with useful learning and they will be unstoppable.

Academic performance is natural for children when they can "afford it" mentally. When they are too busy surviving emotionally, they can learn nothing, but no matter what their top potential is, they will get a lot closer to it when they are happy.

So check your child's emotionacy and help them get better at it. Write your local representative and speak out at parent-teacher meetings and parent-body gatherings. What your kids need is emotional intelligence and the rest will follow.

Happy parenting,
Gal

P.S. A good starting point is to work on your own happiness, because happy parents raise happy kids.

You may want to read

• The Mean Average
• Wisdom from the School of Life
• Competition, Perfection or Happiness

Matt was a troublemaker. He disturbed the class, made lots of noises and fought with the other kids in class. It was unbearable. His teacher tried different methods to stop this behavior, but nothing helped, so he invited Matt's presents for a talk.

Matt's parents came to see the teacher and he told them about his failed attempts to calm him down and keep the order in class.

"I've tried everything I could and exhausted my options", said the teacher and asked Matt's parents about his behavior at home.

Matt's dad said, "We've tried everything ourselves. We punish him, we bribe him, but nothing helps".

"Have you tried diagnosing him?" asked the teacher.

"I don't believe in diagnosing. It won't help. It's not practical," said Matt's mom.

"Well, how about giving him Ritalin?" suggested the teacher, "It will calm him down".

"Where do we get Ritalin?" Matt's dad asked.

"Oh, don't worry, I'll arrange this for you. Matt will take one tablet every day before he comes to school and everything will be OK", said the teacher.

"Well, that won't work", said Matt's mom, "Our mornings are very hectic. My husband leaves home early and I rush the kids to school. Who's going to make sure he takes his tablet?"

"OK, then I can help you with this", said the teacher, "I will give him the tablet myself when he gets to school".

"No way!" said Matt's dad, "I don't want all the other kids to see him taking Ritalin. Having a bad reputation can be worse than causing trouble. I don't want my child to suffer from a bad reputation".

The teacher thought about it and said, "I have an Idea. Every day during the first break, I will ask him to go to the staff room and make me a cup of coffee. I will leave his Ritalin in my pigeonhole, he will take one tablet and no one will know about it".

The parents were hesitant a bit, but decided to give it a go.

The plan was brilliant. The teacher left the Ritalin in his pigeonhole in the staff room, explained to Matt what to do and every day during the first break, he asked Matt to go to the staff room and make him a cup of coffee. Matt brought the coffee and everything went smoothly. The environment in class calmed right down. Matt was relaxed, he was no longer nervous, did not get involved in any fights or cause any trouble to his teachers.

Three weeks later, Matt's mom asked him about what was happening in class.

"How's school, Matty?"

"Excellent!" said Matt.

"Is the teacher happy with your behavior?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. Everything's great now. Everyone in the class is happy," said Matt.

"Wow", said Matt's mom, "How come everything got so much better in such a short time?"

"Oh, it's very simple", Matt explained, "Every day, my teacher tells me to get him a cup of coffee. I go to the staff room, make him some coffee, take a tablet from his pigeonhole and put in his coffee. He drinks it and everyone in class is much more relaxed!"

If you are reading this and saying, "Ha, ha, it worked on the teacher", that was no my point. I believe it would have worked even if Matt had thrown the Ritalin into the rubbish bin every day.

You see, perception is a powerful thing. What we believe to be true is sometimes stronger than what happens to us in real life. If we interpret a child's behavior as "troublemaking", we will see troublemaking in every move he or she makes. This is why medical researchers always consider the "placebo effect" to find out if the person reacts to the medication or the thought of being medicated.

When diagnosing kids with learning difficulties, the real problem is often "teaching difficulties". Diagnosing ADD, ADHD, ODD can be a result of "teaching and/or parenting difficulties". We try some strategies and say we have done everything we could.

But we have not!

I had inspiring Special Education teachers that gave me the best belief every teacher and parent needs.

If you have tried some things and the child is still struggling, it only means you have not found a solution ... yet!

How to work with troublemakers

Instead of searching for labels or using a magic pill, search for a solution. Here are some things to keep you focused and to keep you going.

1. Try every approach for at least 3 weeks. It takes 21 days to make a habit and preferably 21 days in a row.
2. If something has worked for someone else and not for you, be happy! You are closer to the solution, because now you know something you did not know before trying it. You know what does not work.
3. Be open minded about potential solutions. If you do not understand something, that does not mean it is out of the question. I was very skeptical about finding a solution for my kids' dairy allergy when I went to see a kinesiologist. I still do not understand how he did it. One visit and $75 later (mostly paid by my health insurance) our life was changed forever.
4. Be creative! If you have tried conventional ways and they have not seemed to work, try something different.
5. Consider the placebo effect. Give your kids Vitamin C in a special container without a label and tell them it is a magic pill and that every child who takes it feels relaxed, calm and able to manage difficulties better within 3 weeks. Tell the teachers to assess the child's behavior during those three weeks. From my experience, the teacher will tell you the child is much calmer. If you want to boost your credibility with your child and with the teacher, tell them an expert has given you this special prescription, along with a story about how expensive the tablets are, how many kids use them and what wonderful results they all get.

If you think you have tried everything, think again. This is an overused phrase and it is never ever true.

If all else fails, before you lose hope, take some Ritalin yourself.

Happy times,
Ronit

You may want to read

• Parental Troubleshooting
• Make a list: Beliefs about Kids cont.
• Mom, I’m Sick

Being a parent and having to raise kids adds another dimension to the pressure, because we not only have to stay calm ourselves, we also have to help our children relax and teach them how to handle pressure or everyone will go nuts.

I was unlucky in that respect.

My dad was raised by a very strict father, who taught him there was a "right" way to do everything - eat, dress, shave, speak, study, work and behave. Every other way was "wrong". This was not a matter of personal preference but of "general consensus" and he treated any deviation from propriety with the same high severity.

There were things my dad decided not to do to me, like using physical violence. I was not beaten as a child, although my dad was beaten when he was little. That was a good thing. However, I grew up with strict rules I was expected to follow and not many things were open for discussion.

I remember I was about to leave home when I was 16 to go to a party wearing jeans and sneakers. My dad asked me, "Where are you going dressed like this?"

I said I was going to a party with my friends. He said, "You can't go to a party wearing jeans and sneakers. You have to wear something more appropriate. I will not let you go out like this".

No matter how hard I tried to convince him I would look like an idiot being the only one wearing dress pants and shoes, he would not give up. There was a "right" way to dress up for an evening out and I was going to dress up that way. End of discussion.

When I brought home an exam paper with a score of 97 out of 100, my dad would ask, "Why didn't you get 100?" When I played my accordion for him to show my progress and I had not mastered the piece yet, he would say, "That's good, but keep practicing until it's perfect".

So I grew up expecting perfection of myself, because nothing else would do. It was frustrating and scary. Trying something new was dangerous, because it is impossible to get perfect results from the beginning at most things. Meeting new people was stressful, because without knowing everything about them from the start, I might say something inappropriate or make some stupid mistake.

This kind of pressure got me to the point where I had to know everything in advance before I made a move. I remember Ronit and me moving from one place to another, which we did many times, and my response to the enormous task was to stop and wait for it to blow over. With so many things to consider, there was no chance I could guarantee a perfect outcome, so I shut down and poor Ronit had to give me one task at a time and make sure I did not run away.

At work, things were very similar. As long as I had time and control over the situation, I produced great results, but I did not do well under tight deadlines or with managers who looked over my shoulder and wanted updates every day.

For many years, as long as I was employed, I had the comfort of steady pay coming in and having something familiar to do, but whenever that changed, the uncertainty nearly drove me mad with pressure, and that made it harder to find and secure a new job.

"Hi, my name is Gal and I'm a perfectionist".

What's wrong with a little pressure?

Quite simply, although it is good to have goals, pressure blocks the mind. Stress has been proven to inhibit memory and creativity and without these, it is very hard to function.

Imagine someone walking towards you. You recognize his face, but the context is different from where you normally meet him. More than likely, you will feel pressure to remember his name, so you will not. That pressure almost ensures the name of that person will stay hidden from you, until ... he is out of sight and you relax. How many times has this happened to you?

In a famous research, students were given a simple task. Some of them were told this would determine their future and some were told it was fun. Can you guess how many of the first group completed the task successfully? 0. None. Can you guess how many of the second group did? All of them.

This was because the first group was put under intense artificial pressure, which effectively blocked all of their creativity. They could not think of anything "out of the box", which the more relaxed and playful group worked it out easily.

In kinesiology and other alternative healing methods, the main aim is to combat stress. Stress messes up many biological processes in our body, creates toxins and makes our physiology deteriorate more rapidly.

So what can I do?

Well, I decided at some stage to switch from the mental rule "Nothing counts unless it's perfect" to "There is only so much I can do. As long as I do my best, that's good enough".

I accept that I need to sleep, take breaks to eat and go to the toilet. I accept that I need to do things to keep my body active, healthy and in good shape. I accept that I may not finish everything on time and that I may make mistakes sometimes. I accept that I do not know everything and that learning is part of every task and every day.

The most important things for me now are making steady progress and doing my personal best.

The rewards of this change are great. By working on my health, I gradually become more productive and actually accomplish more. By being comfortable with my limits, my work estimates are more realistic and I communicate better with those who await the outcomes of my work, which allows them to relax too. By learning all the time, I keep getting better and better at what I do. By remaining calm, I am more creative and I produce better results.

How can I help my kids?

The movie Monsters, Inc illustrates this point clearly at the end, when the amount of energy collected from laughter breaks all the records of what had been collected from screams.

Once you change your view about pressure and its effects, and you realize that encouragement goes a lot further than pressure, it is easy to switch your parenting style from that of a strict boss to that of a loving guide.

I have been truly lucky to have had Ronit by my side all these years. I have been lucky to have found life coaching before I popped. I want you to be as lucky as I was and I want your children to be even luckier.

So:

Step 1: Relax

Take care of your health first, do things to relax deliberately, have fun, do the best you can and let go of the rest. As you do this, pay attention to the results and you will see you are actually using your time better.

Step 2: Show the way to your kids

Take care of their health first, teach them how to relax when they need to, help them do the best they can and let go of the rest. As you do this, pay attention to the results and you will see your children blossom, do better and love you endlessly.

Have a peaceful, fun day,
Gal

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• The Mean Average
• Disengage Your Autopilot

Gal and I used to eat whatever our parents ate. We went to the supermarket and picked from the shelves the exact same things we had seen our parents choose or whatever was on sale. It took us 5 years of managing our own economy and a sick girl to discover that what we eat and how we eat has a strong impact on our life. Some things you just cannot learn at school.

It happened more than 20 years ago and since then, we have learned more and more about what to eat to be healthy in body and mind. I know that not everyone is convinced that healthy eating is the right solution and I understand. After all, the concept of "health" is very wide. When I sit with my clients at a cafe and order iced coffee with ice cream and whipped cream, I am 100% convinced it is healthy for my soul. So we may not agree about what food is healthy, but I think we can all agree on how to eat.

We live a very fast lifestyle. All the people around you will tell you they have no time - no time for the kids, no time for fun, no time for hobbies, no time for friends and no time for eating. Many shops and massive businesses have come to life to cater for this "fast food" lifestyle. We grab a shake, eat a meal on the way, in the car, during a meeting, while watching TV, during phone conversations and when reading a book. We think we are saving time, but we are making it harder for our digestive system to make the best of our food and this creates a never-ending cycle. What we eat is not digested properly, we lack essential nutrients, we feel tired, we become ineffective and what usually takes us 2 hours, suddenly takes us 4 and we have just lost 2 hours of our precious time, so we need to catch up and save time by grabbing some fast food or eating our healthy food on the run.

Unfortunately, our kids are like little monkeys. They see how we eat and they do exactly what we do. If you watch TV while you eat, you cannot complain that your children want to do the same.

The way we eat has a direct impact on our digestive system and as a result, on our health and well-being, our energy level and on our ability to handle stress.

There are 4 simple things you can do to help your body make the best of what you eat. Teaching kids how to eat will make sure they do not start their own "eating on the run" cycle. Good habits will last them for life.

Enjoy your food, eat comfortably, eat together

Eating needs to be an enjoyable experience. When eating is complicated or lonely, we associate food with need rather than with pleasure. Many theories about health and food emphasize the importance of enjoying your food.

French people eat lots of cream and drink wine, yet they have no issues with fat in their diet, because they love food and instead of thinking about it as burden or a source of worry and heartache, they enjoy their food and there is no better way of enjoying your food than enjoying it in friendly company.

I have worked with some families that did not have a dining table. Everyone ate at different times and at different places in the house. When we lived in Thailand, we noticed that the Thai people seemed to be eating all the time, every waking hour, and they always ate together.

Gal was a manager in a company and used to bring his own lunch to work. The people he managed always ate together. When they saw him eating by himself, they invited him to join them and around the table, everyone was equal.

Make sure you have special family eating times with your children. It is a wonderful opportunity to bond with other family members and make the experience an enjoyable memory for the kids. Meals are not just for food, they are social events.

Eat warm food

Our body is like a washing machine that heats the water before it washes the dirty clothes. If you connect the washing machine to a hot water outlet, the washing will start straight away. If you connect it to cold water, it will take time for the machine to heat the water, and only when this is completed, the washing cycle will start.

Using cold water will use more energy. When eating, if you eat warm food and drink warm water, the body will start digesting the food straight away, if you eat cold food and cold drinks, it will take the body time to heat the food before it starts digesting.

Digestion and stress are the two things that take most of our energy. If you feel exhausted and tired after having a meal, it is usually a sign that your digestive system is working hard. If your food is cold, or even frozen, your system works harder and you use up a lot of energy (if you are wondering about eating hot food, there is nothing to worry about. When we feel the food is too hot in our mouth, it never reaches the digestive system).

The solution is not to eat or drink straight from the fridge, especially when you are not feeling good, when you are sick or when you are tired. Take fruit, vegetable, dairy food or drinks out of the fridge and let them stand outside for a while before you eat or drink them.

When you eat, eat!

The second thing you can do is use the rule "When you eat, eat!" According to traditional Chinese medicine, digestion and concentration use the same energy. It means we cannot eat and do other things at the same time, because our energy goes to the other things and our digestive system does not have enough left.

It is a very easy and simple rule: when you eat, focus on eating. No books, no TV, no radio, no computers, no work and no talking on the phone. Just eating. If you follow this rule, your kids will do the same. Our family loves music, but we make sure we turn it off while we eat. When we finish eating, sometimes Tsoof brings his guitar and we sing. Make it easy for your digestive system to do what it needs to do.

It is easy. Try it for two weeks and you will see a huge difference in the kids' behavior.

Chew!

Digestion starts in our mouth, using our teeth to break down the food and our saliva to soften it and break down the starch. When we chew the food, we send a massage to the digestive system to produce enzymes to break down the food.

If the food gets to the stomach too quickly, there are not enough enzymes to break it down. Our digestive system also does a much better job when the food reaches the stomach in very small, soft chunks. If we swallow the food too quickly, it takes longer for it to break down and sometimes, it is pushed along only partially digested and we do not absorb all the nutrients in it.

If it takes long to digest, our body does extra work and that makes us feel tired and exhausted, but if we cut the food with our teeth and chew it well, it will be digested quickly and easily. Chewing our food makes it easier for our digestive system and can save us lots of needed energy.

It takes our body 20 minutes to notice we have eaten. Chewing every bite 20 times (Yoga says 27) will make sure we eat more slowly and feel full after a smaller amount of food. Eating too quickly actually makes us eat more.

Chewing 20 times is not easy, but you can make a game out of it and have an evening a week when you make a conscious effort to chew your food and help your body save energy. Ask them about the different flavors they can taste and about how the taste of the food changes as they chew. Playing chewing games with kids will also help with the fun and enjoyment.

I see "eat and run" as a form of eating disorder. Most people do it to save time, but what they lose is energy and even more time. Having good food habits food is as important as what we eat and starting young can make sure this will become second nature to them and accompany them for life. Having a general positive attitude towards food will keep your kids away from eating disorders.

Patience is a virtue with food too.

Bon appétit,
Ronit

You may want to read

• The "Light Thinking" Diet
• Teenage Problems
• Ronit’s Parenting Bible: Food

You could compare a modern person, at least in Western society, to a Jumbo Jet. Change starts for us by making a lot of noise, feeling heavy and hardly moving. Then, we start rolling forward and pick up speed for a long time until we finally take off. But as soon as we are in the air, we look for a nice "cruising altitude" and "switch to autopilot".

When you are a parent, this matters a great deal, because you are "carrying passengers" and these passengers are very precious - your partner and your children. Where you take them is important and how comfortable they are during your "flight" is also important. So sometimes, you have to disengage your autopilot and pay attention.

If you think about it, this unaware "flight mode" is a coping mechanism. It is a result of the overwhelming demands on our time, mental power and emotional intelligence placed by modern technology, lots of people, ever-changing world around us and massive barrage of information. We need to protect ourselves from all this noise, so we build a quiet cocoon by filtering out as much as we can.

How to disengage your autopilot

Relaxing and centering

As with everything related to stress, the first step is to relax and center yourself. Fortunately, this is as easy as closing your eyes and taking a few really deep breaths. Draw in a much air as you can, then let it all out and keep letting air out until the bottom of your belly is out of air.

Your next breath will be very deep. Take it all in and let it out as slowly as you can, exhaling every bit of air in your body before inhaling again. You will find that taking 4-6 breaths a minute is easier than you have ever though and that after 4-6 breaths, your mind is a calmer, cooler, quieter place than it was before.

Slowing down

We do many things in a hurry, which causes us to them without paying attention. We feel busy and try to save time, so our mind keeps looking for ways to do multitask and cut corners. Regrettably, this also makes us miss stuff sometimes, including the joy of doing what we do and creating what we create.

So next time you make a cup of coffee, do it slowly. Smell the coffee before you put it in the cup or the machine. Coffee smells best dry, you know. Or tea. Watch the swirl of water and color or brown and milk in your cup as you add other ingredients to make a hot drink just the way you like it. Bring the cup to your nose and enjoy the aroma again, take in all the flavors in every sip and even close your eyes to enhance the effect. The world can wait.

Next time you wash the dishes, feel the water and the soap, play with the bubbles, conquer every spot of dirt until the dishes sparkle and the sink is empty and clean thank to you.

And next time you come home, stop for a second before you walk in the door, take a few deep breaths, put a happy smile on your face and really pay attention to the reaction on your partner's and your kids' faces as you enter. You are important to them and they love you, so enjoy seeing it in their expression from the moment you walk in the door.

Quiet Observation

One of the main distractions to our awareness is our tendency to talk as soon as we can think of something to say. When other people talk to us, we spend much of the time coming up with a good response that will seem clever, help roll the conversation forward or even help us win in an argument.

When I worked at National Semiconductor in Texas, the new plant manager declared "no phone hour". He required every senior manager in the facility to spend an hour a day, typically in the afternoon, in strategic thinking and planning. Managers were supposed to disable their phone extensions, close the door and reflect. Everyone else was told to respect these times and save their questions and concerns for other times.

This is very easy to do. I have regular things to do on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays every week, so I only make appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Those who work with me regularly already know and those who do not quickly find out. This makes my scheduling and planning a lot easier than if I had to juggle every day and it allows me to start things and finish them on the same day.

There is a story about a monk who joined a monastery where he had to take a vow of silence. He was allowed to talk once every 7 years. It so happened that there was a nail sticking out from his bed and for the first 7 years, this bothered him every night. After 7 years, the head monk asked him if he had anything to say and he said, "Oh, yes, can I have another bed? This one is very uncomfortable". The monks kicked him out, because he did nothing but complain.

Now, contrary to this monk, we generally judge and complain more when we feel pressure and quiet moments can be very awkward for people, so they create pressure too. However, if we decide to say nothing, no matter what happens, and we calm and center ourselves, a wonderful thing takes place - we start to observe without judgment and get a deeper understanding of people, relationships and things.

So you can declare a periodic quiet time with yourself or the occasional quiet time when you are with others. Spend that time listening to them, looking at them and feeling their feelings. You can even mimic their posture and facial expressions (but try not to be too obvious about it), because that is like the proverbial "walking in their shoes" and will help you connect to who they are and what they feel.

At home with your family, this can bring a surprising change. After calming and centering at the door and exchanging loving smiles as you enter, attuning yourself to your partner's and children's moods and stories will get you to appreciate them more than you have ever thought possible. Without the urge to finish their sentences, provide them with solutions and "get on with things", you will rediscover the people in your life and develop and strong connection with them.

"Bonding" is not just a word. With calm, slow, quiet observation it can be a profound emotional experience for you and your family.

Try it, because you're worth it (and so are they),
Gal

You may want to read

• How to Handle Pressure
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Trish came to my life coaching deck with her partner. Ben, her partner and the father of their child, had said she needed help but he had no idea how to get it. Trish had not contacted me, had not completed the session preparations and had not even talked to me before coming, so this was an unusual session.

Trish was a beautiful young woman. Her hair was tied back and she looked tired, as if she had spent weeks crying. She was 27 years old and was preparing for her wedding. She had a one-year-old boy, a great job and ... a demon.

"Hi, Trish. Thank you for coming. What brings you here?" I asked.

She looked at Ben and started crying. I gave her the tissue box and waited. She tried very hard to stop. Every time she started saying something, tears started again and she choked. Ben held her hand and whispered, "You can do it". She looked at him and looked at me for a while before she finally started telling me her story.

After her son was born, memories of a childhood trauma had come to life. In-between sobs, she said, "At first, I thought it was a dream, but then I realized I see the same scene over and over again even when I'm awake".

"Can you please tell me what you see?" I asked.

"It is very vague... I think it had something to do with my dad... I can see myself at the age of 6 or 7 playing with another girl... She was my neighbor and we played a lot together. I think someone did something to both of us... I can see my dad screaming and having a fight with her dad... I think my dad raped both of us", she managed to say.

"Do you remember your dad doing something to you?" I asked.

"No", she said.

I asked many questions and joined some pieces of this puzzle. At the age of 7, Trish's mother left her father. Trish and her 14-year-old sister Kelly went to live with their mom and her 12-year-old brother Sean stayed with their dad. "I miss Sean a lot", Trish said.

"Wow, it's been 20 years since then. When was the last time you've seen your brother?" I asked and she started crying. Ben held her hand and after a long silence, he said, "She hasn't seen him since". Trish never knew why her mom had decided to leave her dad. Her mom had re-married, divorced and never kept contact with her son or her ex-husband, so both the girls did not know where he was. "When we asked Mom, she said that with dad like him, it's better to consider him dead".

"Do you remember your dad?" I asked her.

"I kept a photo of him and Sean that I took from one of Mom's boxes, but I have vague memoires of him. I remember that time with the neighbor's daughter, my dad was screaming and holding my hand and I remember I was scared of him. I do remember playing with Sean".

Trish left home with her mom and her older sister Kelly. Mom re-married and divorced again and after her sister moved out, Trish counted the days until she finished high school and drove with 2 other girls from her high school to another state.

"All my life, I felt like an orphan", she said, "I see Mom and my sister once a year and talk to them twice a year".

When I asked some questions about the relationship between them, I felt a bit confused. Trish talked about Kelly fondly, but expressed a lot of anger towards her mom. When I asked about the relationship between her mom and her sister, she said, "Kelly hates the whole world. She is a sad and angry woman. When you talk to her, you always think she is hiding something. I can't stand it".

Trish left home at the age of 17. "I learned to count on myself. When you don't have anyone to help you, you discover you can do many things on your own. I found a job in a law firm and I was so good they sent me to study and were very kind to me".

For ten years after leaving home, life smiled at Trish, until she gave birth to her first child...

"Suddenly, being an orphan was not OK. Kids need both of their parents", she cried. Ben kept holding her hand and supporting her. "I wanted to share with my family the joy of having a child and I couldn't. Mom and my sister have never seen our son and I was angry with my dad. I wanted to know where he was. I missed Sean and I searched all my memories and only this incident came up. No matter how hard I searched, this memory kept coming up".

At one stage, Ben said he would go to the car and be back shortly. They both looked at each other as if they had agreed he would leave her on her own. When he left, she said, "I think this memory is ruining my life. I love Ben very much. We have been together for 4 years and I avoid having sex with him now", she said.

I realized this was even more sensitive than I thought at first and added one more piece to the puzzle.

"Has anything happened between you and Ben since your son was born?" I asked.

"Oh, no, nothing. Ben is wonderful. Since our son was born, I love him even more, but I can't stop thinking about this. I feel invaded. I cry all day. Some days, I can't go to work. I think I'm losing my mind. We were planning to get married in two months and I'm not sure I can go through with it".

One more piece of the puzzle.

I explained to Trish that what she was experiencing was similar to anxiety. While anxiety is being possessed by a horrible imaginary future, Trish was possessed by a vague imaginary past. Trish was tortured. She wanted to know the truth but was afraid of that truth. It was like waiting for the phone to ring to hear some bad news.

Amazingly, most clients who face difficulties know what they have to do, they only need a little help to build up the courage to do it. I asked Trish over and over again, "What do you want?" At first, she said she did not want to remember it, she did not want to feel invaded, she did not want to reject Ben and she did not want to feel like an orphan, but in the end, she said, "I want to know what happened. I have to know what happened".

She had the right to know what had happened and by the time she left, I knew she would do anything to find out what had really happened. "I'll ask my sister. She was 14 when it happened, so she'll remember", she said.

Two weeks later, Trish came for another session, this time by herself. I could swear she looked different. She had some make up on and her hair was loose. She looked sexy. She smiled and said, "I didn't need to come, but I wanted to thank you".

It had taken Trish 3 days to call her sister. Every time Ben had asked if she had called, she had said she would do it later. On the 3^rd evening, he had said, "What do you want?" and she had picked up the phone, taken a deep breath and dialed her sister's phone number.

"Kelly was surprised to hear my voice. As soon as I heard her voice, I started crying... She sounded worried and said in panic, 'Trish, what happened?' Between sobs, I said to her, 'Remember just before Dad left something happened with the neighbor when his daughter and I were playing together? Do you know what happened there?'"

Trish had a 3-hour conversation with her sister, in which she discovered the missing pieces of her life's puzzle. While Trish was trying hard to remember, her sister spent all her life trying to forget. Trish and the neighbor's girl were very good friends and often played at each other's house. One day, the neighbor's daughter came to Trish's house and while playing, she said her dad had been touching her and telling her it was their secret and she should never tell anyone.

Trish's dad heard the girls talking and stormed out of the house. "Dad said he was going kill the neighbor", Kelly said. Trish's mom tried to stop him, but with no success. Everyone came out of the house while the two men were yelling at each other on the street. Trish's friend stood there screaming, her father grabbed her by the hand and said she was not allowed to come over to Trish's house ever again. Trish stood there and cried. Her dad grabbed her by the hand, pulled her back into the house and said she was not allowed to go over to her friend's house.

Trish never forgave her dad for not keeping it a secret and for being the reason she had lost her best friend. Not long after, her dad found out her mom was having an affair with the same neighbor. They had constant fights until one day, her mom took the two girls and left home.

"Why the two girls?" I asked. I felt the whole thing was taken out of a movie.

"Kelly said Sean was the one who saw her with the neighbor. One day at dinnertime, he couldn't keep it a secret any longer and said to Mom, 'I hate you, I hate you, I wish you were dead'. Dad was angry with him and followed him to his room to ask him to come down and apologize. When he came out of Sean's room, he was angry. He took his car keys and left the house. Mom knew Sean would never come with her".

At first, her dad tried to contact the girls, but Trish was convinced the whole thing had something to do with the incident with the neighbor and was so angry with her dad she refused to talk to him. One day, she told him on the phone, "I hate you. I wish you were dead", and he stopped calling.

I listened to her story and thought of her sister, "Why didn't she tell you what happened?" I asked, not sure it was my place to ask, but thinking that not knowing would drive me mad.

"She was angry with my friend for not keeping the secret, she was angry with Dad for revealing the girl's secret, she was angry with Sean for not keeping the secret of Mom and the neighbor, so she figured none of this would've happened if we all knew how to keep a secret..."

My heart sank. I could imagine the demons in Kelly's mind torturing her with the thought that it is better to keep things to yourself than to let them out and handle them. It reminded me of the movie The Butterfly Affect, in which every time Evan tires to fix a problem in his life, something worse happens. As a 14-year-old girl, Kelly concluded that revealing secrets would ruin her life. I tried to think of keeping a secret for 20 years. The thought of it was exhausting.

It made me realize that kids do not understand secrets. As soon as you say the word "secret", you allow demons to take over their mind and torture them for years. I looked at Trish. She had taken all the right facts and had come up with a totally different story, which made me think, "You never know what conclusions kids draw from their (painful) experiences".

Trish told me she was very busy arranging things for their wedding. "On our wedding night, Ben and I are going to get a room in a hotel in the city and Kelly is going to spend the night with our son". I realized it would be the first time Kelly would see her little nephew.

When you coach someone, you never know how far the ripple of positive change will reach. From my point of view, Kelly was the victim, the real orphan chased by secret demons of a child trying to make sense of a family chaos. "This could easily be a script for a movie", I thought to myself.

Trish left and I finished writing notes in my folder and though I would keep it a secret for a few years and then tell the whole world.

Two months later, I got an email from Ben, "Kelly flew over and spent 10 days with us helping with preparations for the wedding. She was wonderful. I've never seen Trish so happy. Thank you!"

I think this puzzle is solved.

Have a great day,
Ronit

* The names and some details have been changed to keep the privacy of the people in this story

You may want to read

• More Control – Less Power
• How to Handle Pressure
• In My Opinion

In a newsletter I wrote in February 2008, called "Angels of Love and Demons of Fear", I wrote a story about the key holder. I am bringing it here again for you to see how I perceive the relationship between the two.

Fear is like the Devil that casts a shadow on our life. I know many people who are in constant fear. If you ask them what they are afraid of, they are unable to explain. For some, it is just a pressure they cannot identify. For others, it is more specific, but not enough.

Unfortunately, you cannot fight anything you cannot define. If we want to get rid of our fear, we must know what it is first.

As you know, I like the technique of making a list to recognize and change something we do not like. Making a list of 100 fears can help you identify the blockages in your life. If you are unhappy with your achievements in some area and you dig deeply enough, you will find there is some fear associated with achieving more. If there is a destructive pattern in your behavior and you look at it closely, you will see it is rooted in some fear.

I tell my clients that this list is a big part of our action plan. If we want to achieve something, we must clear the way to it of all the things that are blocking us from making progress and fear is always at the source of those blockages.

As you may know from making other lists (see Make a List), writing down is a way for you to recognize what happens in your mind instead of letting it consume you. This is a private list, just for you, so be honest and do not be afraid to face your thoughts and feelings. That is the idea of this list, after all.

How to list your fears and overcome them

Write everything that comes into your mind quickly and without judgment. Whether it is a statement, a phrase or just a word, writes it down. The faster you write, the more fears will come out of your subconscious. Let your associations run free.

Skip old fears. We have all had fears that are no longer there and there is really no point in bringing them back to life. Focus on what is stopping you today.

When you are angry and agitated, your list will be different from when you are in a good mood. When we are upset, we are much more fearful (this is why we are upset). In that sense, it may be better to write down your fear list when you are upset. I am not sure everyone is able to do this, but if you can, you will probably find even more distressing thoughts than you normally would.

Do not be afraid of repetition. If things seem to be similar to what you have already written, write them down anyway. This will help you find out what keeps your mind occupied the most. At the end, you can combine them into one big item with their collective importance.

Go over your life areas and find fears in each of them. What are your fears regarding your health? Others' health? Money, relationships, career, friends, purpose and emotions (what feelings are you afraid to feel?).When searching for fears, remember that anxiety, stress and confusion are versions of fear. Ask yourself, "What worries me?", "What makes me stressed?" and "What makes me feel confused?" At the root of each of the answers, there is some fear.

Rate your fears. Fears come in different strengths. Some of them are small and others are so big they are overwhelming. It is important to think of how much you are afraid of a particular issue. If you are just a little bit afraid of something, give it a 1. If you are really, really afraid, give it a 10. Rating is a very good technique in personal development that allows you to find the best areas to improve. You may find you have many fears rated 2-3, but the ones that stop you from being happy are in the 8-10 range. Focus on them first!

When you have completed your list, split your fears into life areas. This will help you discover which area is of most concern for you. Several of my clients wrote many financial fears. As we discussed them, they found common sources for some of those fears. As we worked through the solutions, we discovered that some of them relieved several fears at once and made progress a lot faster. By grouping your fears into their life areas, your journey to happiness may be shorter too.

Next to each fear, to write why you think you are afraid. More than spotting the fear, it is important to know what created it. Sometimes, something painful happened in the past and you are afraid of feeling this pain again. Other times, your fear may have no connection to the past. For example, some people are afraid of losing their money not because they have lost money but because they have a belief that "good things don't last forever". Another example is a husband who is afraid his wife might have an affair with someone else. She has never done it, but he is afraid he may not be good enough (for her). The reason for your fear is important, because the solution to a fear of a painful experience from the past is different from the solution to a fear based on a belief.

Find the underlying fear. Your answers may reveal another fear. For example: I am afraid of Mr Dang. Why? Because he is very angry and I am afraid he will shout at me. Treat the reply as another belief and start over. Why am I afraid that Mr Dang will shout at me? Because I am afraid to feel humiliated. You can continue asking "Why?" until you find the source. In this example, the source can be a belief that kids do not like playing with someone the teacher yells at. So the underlying fear is that of social isolation.

Another important thing you can find by asking "Why?" is who caused your original fear. Many people discover their fears were created by something their parents, siblings or other important people have said to (or about) them and that they keep holding these fears long afterwards. It is important to find out who started your fears, because peoples' authority and the validity of their statements fade over time. For example, parents' words are not as important to a 35-year-old man as they are to a 5-year-old boy. Another reason is that circumstances change and while the original fear was appropriate at the time, it may not be relevant anymore. Even those people change and may no longer think the same way. For example, my parents were very afraid when I chose to start a business with my sister. They had had a bad experience mixing family and business and they did a lot to make me change my mind. At first, I was concerned, but then, I decided to go ahead anyway. After two successful (and peaceful) years in business with my sister, their fear changed. Instead of saying, "Every family business relationship is doomed to fail", they changed it to, "Some family business relationships fail, depending on the people involved".

The third part of asking "Why?" is to think of the circumstances that have created the fear. I have a good financial example. While we had to be very calculated with our spending when we were a poor family with 7 mouths to feed, it was no longer the case when I started working and earned lots of money. So there was no point holding on to the fear that the money would run out. I lived in a different generation, I had a different partner, I had a profession, I had lots of savings and I did not have 7 mouths to feed, so I changed my fear to the belief "I have plenty of money. I have enough for a rainy day". That way, I was no longer afraid of money running out. When you find the fear circumstances and the time it was created, ask yourself, "How have circumstances changed since?" It will help you discover that there is always change. You have changed. You are not the same person. You have more skills, more experience, more support, more resources, etc.

Find at least one contradicting example that proves to you that your fear is not valid or real. For example, if I am afraid that I will not be able to submit my article to the editor on time, I recall plenty of times when I have sent articles on time to chase the fear away. Sometimes, just one example can shake the strength of the belief.

The process of changing your fears may be long and challenging, but it is very important. It involves recognizing your fears, finding their sources, shaking the fears and chasing them away, then swapping them with powerful, forward-facing and positive beliefs of love and happiness. This process never ends, because the fears never disappear and new circumstances breed new fears. With the list activity, some of them fade and are not strong and debilitating as much as they were before. Do not be afraid to try!

Have a nice and easy discovery process.

Be happy!
Ronit

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• A Little Bit Unhappy
• From the Life Coaching Deck (5): Making Money Addiction
• Borrow from Tomorrow