What Are You Doing, And Why?

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It’s All About Integrity

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.” – Sir John Lubbock 

 When we experience harmony and balance in our lives – at work, at home, at play and in relationship – it’s most often because there is a conscious alignment between what we think, feel, say and do. We are in integrity. Our life choices and decisions have a “felt-sense” of being true, honest and sincere. We have a “knowing” that our thinking, feeling, being, having and doing come from a place that is honest, sincere and self-responsible.

When we lack congruity between what we think, feel, say and do, we often experience a mental, emotional, spiritual and, sometimes, a physical sense (think of an upside-down isosceles triangle teetering on it’s tip, not on its flat base) of imbalance, disconnect, disorientation or dizziness. How could we not?

The ground of our being, the foundation of who we are, and how we are, is built on the degree of honesty in our expression – our thoughts, feelings, speech and actions. This foundation can begin to deteriorate when integrity – the concrete of the foundation – contains too much water, or too little sand or unwanted impurities. The result is our living life feeling confused, unsure, powerless – often feeling like a fake or phony.

“Honor your integrity and you will be repaid many times over with increased prosperity.”  – Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer 

The way we honor our integrity is to first be clear and conscious of the values that matter most – our core values – those that reside in our heart. Secondly, we are in integrity when we live these values – holding them, speaking them and being them.

“The first and worst of all frauds is to cheat one’s self.” – Phillip James Bailey 

 Self-Deception
When we lack alignment or congruence between what we think, feel, say or do, most often we are living a life of self-deception – hiding from our True, Real and Authentic Self. We are a fraud. We spend much of our life telling ourselves, and others, “stories.” We rationalize, justify and argue in feeble attempts to be comfortable with our deception, our excuses, our “faux” self. 

When we scan various areas of our life – career and livelihood, personal environment and organization, health and wellness, abundance and finances, play and recreation, intimacy and partnership, friends and family, and spiritual and personal growth – where are we in integrity and where are we out of integrity? Where are we forthright and honest and where are we dishonest, deceptive and cheating – our self and others? Where are we true to our word, our trustworthiness, our commitments and promises? Where are we taking a “left turn” or “cutting corners?”

Staying With The Energy of Integrity
When we are in integrity, we experience an energy, the “felt-sense” of “right knowing,” “right understanding” and “right action.” We experience a sense a strength, courage, steadfastness, discipline, inspiration, intuitiveness and will that arises from deep within. We are able to ward off thoughts, beliefs, assumptions, premises, “stories” and impulses that would otherwise knock us off our game. 

The way we stay in integrity is by being consciously conscious – continually, throughout our day, asking, “What am I doing right here and right now, and why?” We’re consistently looking at our motives? Am I angry, afraid, fearful, resentful, jealous, overwhelmed, sad, confused, etc? Am I feeling connected with others. Am I being selfish?

The question leads to motives. Motives come from values. So, an opportunity to explore what’s going on with me in this moment, and this moment, and this moment…and, why. This practice is a wonderful way to become more conscious of our fundamental motives and whether our motives truly serve us well and support our being in integrity. 

Integrity – The Planetary Connection
“The great thing in the world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes 

The core value of integrity is Purpose-related. Purpose points to why we’re on the planet. Many folks, if they’re being honest, will admit much of their activity lacks Purpose. When we lack Purpose, there’s no “center that holds.” Many folks can tell you what they’re doing in various life areas, but are hard-pressed to tell you why – they often lack a deeper, heart-driven intentionality or motives. Without Purpose-driven core values informing our thinking, feeling, speaking and action, we’re more than not experiencing imbalance and dis-harmony in our life – an experience that keeps us from being in integrity.

Character is most determined by integrity. Character is how we are when no one is watching. When we are out of integrity, we are dishonest and our dishonesty becomes the thread that runs through our dealing and associations – at work, at home, at play and in relationship. It’s hard for us to be trusted when we’re out of integrity.

So, when you turn off the lights tonight and tuck yourself in, are you (have you been) at peace and in integrity with yourself?

Some questions for self-reflection:

• Are there choices and decisions you need to make that could take you out of integrity? How so? Do you make them anyway? Why?
• Do you use the same definition to define integrity for yourself as you do for others? If not, why not? Do you consistently walk your talk? Would others – at work, at home and at play and in your relationship – agree with you?
• Do your life choices and decisions support you to hold yourself in high regard?  How so?
• Do you feel integrity is a robe you can put on and take off when convenient? How do you justify that perspective?
• Who or what stops you from acting in integrity? How so?
• When you’re not acting with integrity, what kind of self-talk do you engage in?  What kinds of feelings do you experience?
• Do your needs for control, recognition and security stop you from acting with integrity?  How so?
• Does it matter if you’re not acting with integrity? 
• Do you ever excuse, justify or rationalize acting without integrity? If so, when and why? 
• On an integrity scale of 1 (low) to 10 (high), how would you rate yourself when it comes to the following behaviors: gossiping, bullying, viewing or downloading porn, stealing physical materials, stealing intellectual property, stealing time, telling the truth, making excuses, being direct, open and honest in your communications, respecting others, obeying rules and regulations, and being faithful? 
• What was your experience around honesty and integrity like when you were growing up?

—————————————————–
(c) 2022, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful.
Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is…maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

“The Microwave is Too Slow!” – a Question of Patience

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“There art two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.” – Franz Kafka

The other day I was speaking with a friend – a single, 50-something individual who’s a high-level executive for a Fortune 50 company. They was returning from work in the evening, carrying some packages. At the end of our conversation I said, “Enjoy your evening.” They replied, “Oh, I will. I have some delicious take-out.” Taking a step, and perhaps feeling guilty or, perhaps feeling she needed to add some context, she stopped and added, “I have some good food in the fridge but the microwave just takes too long.” Takes too long. Hmmm.

Impatience
If you Google “dealing with my impatience,” you’ll come up with about 25,500,000 hits; “feeling impatient,” 26, 200,000.  It’s a familiar topic these days. So, let’s consider some aspects of living life from a place of impatience, and patience.

If we reflect on how we live life from a place of impatience, here are some ways impatience might show up::

At work:Being short or rude with co-workers, colleagues, clients, customers and other stakeholders; cutting them off, interrupting them, and verbally and emotionally pushing them away;

Incorrectly taking in/down information; e.g., a phone number, email address, or other data-entry bit;

Making faulty choices or decisions when it comes to strategic planning, new business or new product development, hiring errors;

Jamming the copier or fax machine;

Spilling food or drink or making other messes;

Completing tasks and projects which require re-work or additional resources;

Giving up too quickly on tasks that require deeper focus and concentration, leading to less than optimal, or disappointing, results;

Cutting corners, being unethical, and not acting in integrity;

Experiencing stress, burnout, absenteeism, presenteeism, rustout and dis-ease;

Needing to control

At home:

• Treating our spouse/partner, children, parents with disrespect as “we don’t have time for them;” “you’re being a bother (or irritant);”
• Overcooking or undercooking meals;
• Making accounting and banking errors;
• Carelessly completing inside/outside work and repairs;
• Engaging in love-making and intimate moments that are rushed, impersonal and meaning-less (for one, or both);
• Being rude and insensitive towards retail and service personnel – in person, on line or on the phone;
• Having fender-benders more often due to driving too fast and too close;
• Going through the motions of an exercise routine or spiritual practice without a conscious focus and awareness;
• Inappropriate shouting, escalating tension or unhealthy silence.

At play:

• Being argumentative and defensive when things don’t go “my way;”
• Experiencing repeated sports and exercise injuries or accidents;
• Losing out on the “joy” and “fun” of sports and exercise;
• Being hasty and inconsiderate of colleagues or teammates;
• Cheating.

The downside of impatience is we often spend inordinate amounts of time and energy repairing, re-working and re-doing what we did when we were feeling impatient.

The bane of patience? We’re in a hurry.
We live in a culture of “hurry up.” Fast-food, drive-throughs, immediacy, getting here and getting there – almost as if any delay spells “death” – not unlike the shark that needs to keep moving to get oxygen into its lungs. The question underneath the question is, “Why am I so in a hurry to get to the next thing?” Why is it that so many folks’ define “short-term” as tonight, and “long-term” as “next Friday night?” What’s the rush?

The loss of joy
The obsessive need for people to “be somewhere else,” results in a joy-less life for many – joyless in the sense they cannot find deep(er) meaning in where they are in the moment. Joy must be “over there” and so their obsession to “finishing this to get to that”  – a perspective that creates a life akin to living in a void bereft of pleasure, joy and happiness. And in that place, devoid of happiness, pleasure and meaning, they cannot settle, breathe or be at peace. 

When we lack joy, we suffocate, and in our state of suffocation, we grasp on to anything, anyone who might be a source of oxygen – i.e., pleasure, joy and happiness. But, alas, it generally never works – we’ve become too conditioned to being impatient, resulting in a “fast food” approach to life that keeps us from being in the moment and from seeing there really is joy, meaning, and happiness where I am – right here and right now. So, we move, continuously – agitated, irritated, seeking the unattainable – until we learn to be patient and peaceful right where we are.

In a state of impatience, we race through life and in the process lose our capacity to experience true and real happiness, joy, fun, and appreciation for where we are in the moment. Impatience leads to states of frustration, anger and fear – like living in a consistent state of frenzy or overwhelm.

The antidote to impatience? You guessed it – patience.
“Infinite patience brings immediate results.” – Wayne Dyer

So, here are some tips that might support you to experience patience:

• Be aware of your feeling of impatience. Sense where and how impatience shows up in your body. Allow your impatience. Don’t fight it. Don’t judge it. Don’t tell yourself a story about it. Just allow it to be. Continually ask, “What am I thinking?”, “What am I feeling” and “What’s going on in my body?”
• Breathe deeply into your belly. Feel your feet on the floor and, if sitting, feel your butt in your chair. Allow the floor to support you; allow your chair to support you. Breathe deeply.
• As you breathe deeply, send your breath to any areas of discomfort in your body. Don’t make any effort to “fix” anything or make anything happen. Just send the breath to the areas of discomfort.
• Welcome the breath and invite it to go to those uncomfortable places. Notice your experience and as you do, and time will  begin to expand a little, then a little more, and a little more. As you watch, witness and observe your self in this experience, the discomfort, the agitation the impatience itself can begin to dissipate. Then, notice what comes in to replace the impatience. It might feel like an inner peace, or quiet, or relaxation, or softness in the once-tense areas of your body. Stay with your experience and see what arises.  As your feeling of impatience subsides, you’ll fine an opportunity to experience an inner OK-ness, right here and right now, in this moment. And in this moment, there’s no need to be “somewhere else.”  Patience has arisen.

Impatience is an ego-mind quality. The mind always needs to be “somewhere else.” Patience is a heart/soul quality. The heart/soul is just fine, right here, right now.

Patience brings focus, clarity and discernment – the capacity to be in the moment and gain clarity in terms of “right knowing,” “right understanding” and “right action.” That is, we are in a state of responsiveness, not reactivity.

Patience allows us to experience the moment, no matter where we are or whom we’re with without the urgency to be “somewhere else.”  In this state, we are practicing presence or mindfulness – the antidote to impatience – focused on the moment – during a meeting, speaking with a co-worker, standing in line at the supermarket, hitting a golf ball, eating a burger or peeling a carrot. Again, no need to be in the future, no need to be somewhere else.  

Even when using the microwave.

Some questions for self-reflection:

• What does patience mean to you? Has patience taken on a pejorative, negative, connotation? How did you come to view patience as a vice rather than a virtue?
• Write ten words or phrases you associate with patience. What do you see about yourself as a result of dong this exercise?
• When you hear the phrase, “Be patient,” how do you feel?
• Do you dislike waiting? If so, why?
• Do you have a daily spiritual practice, e.g., walking, meditating, journaling, etc?
• What was your experience of patience like when you were growing up?
• Can you envision a world where patience is the virtue it once was?

“Learn the art of patience. Apply discipline to your thoughts when they become anxious over the outcome of a goal. Impatience breeds anxiety, fear, discouragement and failure.” – Brian Adams


—————————————————–
(c) 2022, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful.
Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is …maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

I coach by phone, Skype and in person. For more information, 770-804-9125, www.truenorthpartnering.com or pvajda(at)truenorthpartnering.com
You can also follow me on Twitter: @petergvajda. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueNorthPartnering

If you know someone who would be interested in receiving this weekly reading and would like to add their name to this list, please send me their email address–after having asked for, and received, their permission. If you would NOT like to receive this weekly reading, please hit REPLY and simply say “No thanks.”)

My Lawn Mower Made Me Do It.

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During the week of August 4th 2008, a man in Milwaukee loaded his shotgun and shot his lawn mower because it wouldn’t start. (See, also, 2021 Tesla incident.)

For the fellow in Milwaukee, it was about his lawn mower. What about the rest of us? What brings us to, or close to, the breaking point, where we want to shoot something, or smash it, or kick the stuffing out of it?

How to you react to things like a malfunctioning stapler, a computer hardware/software or app glitch, washing machine breakdown, Smartphone issue, an elevator door that takes forever to close, coffee that brews too slowly, a red light, an ATM that’s out of cash…? I’m thinking you can come up with your own list of irritants in a very short time.

Carl Jung said, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” So, let’s take the liberty of stretching this thought a bit and paraphrase, “Everything that irritates us about inanimate objects can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” How so?

First, consider two definitions:

Inanimate – 1: not animate: a: not endowed with life or spirit; b: lacking consciousness or anthropomorphism; described or thought of as having human attributes 2: ascribing human characteristics to nonhuman things

So, what’s at play here? Again paraphrasing (this time Eleanor Roosevelt), “Nothing can make us feel what we don’t want to feel.” This bears repeating. Nothing can make us feel what we don’t want to feel.

While blaming and feeling the victim has become an art form in our Western culture, this fact remains a fact. Nothing can make us feel what we don’t want to feel.

So, reflecting on our definitions:

When walking through Home Depot and coming upon a lawn mower, my sense is you wouldn’t rush over to beat it senseless. When coming upon the words “fax machine” in a dictionary, my sense is you don’t immediately go into a tirade and tear the dictionary to shreds. Inanimate objects. No life, no consciousness; just objects, things.

When we become reactive, what’s most often operating is our need for the world to operate exactly as we want it to operate – i.e. perfectly. We want/need the security of being in control. When something takes us out of our comfort zone, when something happens that makes us feel or believe we’re not in control, then we (consciously or unconsciously) become reactive. Reacting means to “do without thinking,” to become emotional.

Lest you begin to think you’re “justified” in becoming angry, frustrated, emotional or irrational and grab on to the notion that some object caused your reaction, consider this.

The “stimulus” or trigger of your reactivity is possibly, yes, an object, event, circumstance (even an animate being, e.g. a human) or event outside of you. However, the “cause” of your reactivity is inside you. It is all about you. Feeling the victim, feeling out of control or put upon – whatever/however you feel, – you are responsible for your emotions and for your reactivity. You. Nothing, or no one “out there.”

It’s helpful, too, to remember what Shakespeare said, “An event is neither good nor bad; only thinking makes it so.”

Emotions don’t come from nowhere. They bubble up from inside. Our reactivity begins the instant we tell ourselves a story about an event and this is where the inanimate object become animate as we ascribe anthropomorphic/human qualities to it. “It’s doing that to me!” We, consciously or unconsciously, take it personally. We sometimes even go so far to have an actual conversation with the object.

We create a story in which we allow the lawn mower, the fax machine or the elevator door to take on actual qualities and a personality that are “doing something to me” – it’s making me uncomfortable; it’s ruining my day, it’s making me late, it’s making me unhappy and it’s interfering with my life and my need for control or security in some way, shape or form.

Somehow, this object has acquired all these personality qualities and intentionality that are out to get me and make my life miserable.

We experience the event, we are catapulted out of our comfort zone and we create a story – all happening sometimes in a nano-second. Our adrenaline begins to flow, energy pours into our head, anger-based chemicals flow from the brain, emotions and physiological discomfort take over our body and, well, we load the shotgun and blast the lawn mower to pieces, or become verbally violent and explode.

Let’s review the Jung paraphrase: “Everything that irritates us about inanimate objects can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”

When the event occurs and I feel myself becoming reactive, two immediate questions to ask myself are: “So what’s going on with me, right here and right now?” and, “How am I feeling?” See a list of feelings here.

It’s critical to be able to name what you’re feeling. If you can’t name it, then you can’t work with it. So in addition to reacting with “I’m angry,” you’ll gain much more insight into your story if you can say, for example, “I’m feeling all alone (or afraid, angry, ashamed, cheated, confused, controlled, trapped, worried, put upon . . . )

Naming your emotions in this way and exploring why you feel the way you do, will give you a greater understanding of the historical nature of your reactivity and support you to see what’s really underneath your reactivity. You’ll see how your immediate reactivity is not about “now” even though right now you think it is. It’s deeper.

When you understand the nature of your reactivity (and your experience of loss of control), you’ll be better able to witness an event for what it is – an objective event – without needing to attach your history to it and become reactive (that was then; this is now…and there’s no connection). There is a 99.9% chance that what you’re feeling in the present moment is not a “one-off.” There’s a good chance you’ve experienced this same feeling, albeit in different circumstances, before. The reactive feeling that comes with a sense of loss of control is most likely an old feeling, just leaking out again in the current circumstance.

With a deeper, patient and curious exploration and understanding of who you are and how you are in this moment, and how it relates to earlier childhood experiences when you sensed a loss of control, you’ll discover and be able to call upon your internal, heart-felt (and not ego-reactive) essential qualities such as: courage, strength, wisdom, compassion, clarity, steadfastness, discipline, patience and will that can support you to cope with life’s misadventures without getting knocked out of the box or becoming reactive. Like I’ve said in previous posts, you will be able to stop “futurizing your past.”

With this deeper, conscious and sincere exploration, we develop the capacity to respond to events – with considered reflection and contemplation – rather than with knee-jerk reactivity.

We can get clues about our unconscious programming if we observe our reactions, responses, feelings and thoughts about events (and other people). Until or unless we take the time to look inside and explore the nature of our reactivity, life will continue to give us a series of events in which we play the victim and martyr and remain reactive.

Asking yourself, for example, “How do I judge or stereotype events (or people)?” “What pushes my buttons?” “What makes me angry or fearful or sad?” “Do I need the world to operate perfectly?” etc., will support you to see what it is that you need to work on “inside” you that attracts events that continually push your buttons.

If you didn’t have deeper (often unconscious) beliefs, expectations, assumptions, and preconceptions about the circumstances and events that trigger you reactivity, then, pure and simple, you probably wouldn’t react the way you do.

So when outer events spark a reaction, we need to look inside to explore what’s going on. As Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet, “an event is neither good nor bad; only thinking makes it so.”

So, finally, it’s never about the lawn mower – ever.

Some questions for self-reflection:

• What negative experiences or events do you consistently or frequently encounter? Why do you think that is?
• What do you not know about yourself (e.g., your history, memory and past experience) that might be leaking out now in a negative way?
• Who can help you to explore and consider more clearly what you need to discover and see about yourself?
• Do you consider yourself to be a “blamer?” (victim, martyr…)? Would your colleagues, family, and friends agree with you?
• What are your “lawn mowers”? How do you react to it/them? Are these  one-offs, or patterns of reactivity?
• What are you like when you become reactive? What would others say?
• Have you ever explored the sources of your reactivity?
• On a scale of 1-10, how positive are you, generally? What would others say about you? Would you feel comfortable asking some of these other folks?
• What one or two baby steps can you take in the next week or two to become less reactive and more responsive to (one of) your “lawn mower(s)”?
• What was feeling out of control like for you when you were growing up?
• Do you consider yourself to be a perfectionist? If so, what were your earliest childhood experiences that pointed you in this direction? Over the course of your life, where has being a perfectionist put you on a 1-10 continuum of happy…unhappy (angry, frustrated, sad, confused…)?

—————————————————–
(c) 2022, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful.
Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is…maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

I coach by phone, Skype and in person. For more information, 770-804-9125, www.truenorthpartnering.com or pvajda(at)truenorthpartnering.com
You can also follow me on Twitter: @petergvajda. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TrueNorthPartnering

Hearing Voices –The Seeds of Fear, Doubt and Mistrust

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“People are disturbed not by things but by the view they take of them.” – Epictetus

The single most important building block of successful relationships is trust. Without trust, relationships are put in jeopardy and people disengage, pull back, and resist connecting. Without trust, people feel unsafe – physically, emotionally, mentally, or psychologically.

Mistrust is a fact of life in many relationships. Although many partners in current relationships experience mistrust (their own or another’s), mistrust most likely did not originate in the current relationship. Mistrust is a consequence of experiences individuals have long before their current relationship(s). Mistrust is brought to the current relationship; it did not originate in the current relationship.

The voices we heard then
We are not born with a natural sense of distrusting others. However, long before we could spell “relationship,” the seeds of fear, doubt and mistrust were subconsciously planted in our minds, in our psyches by our parents or other primary caregivers when we were very young. In the early stages of life, during the developmental process from birth to about age seven, we absorbed the seeds of doubt, fear and mistrust. These seeds  were nurtured by the voices we heard – voices that communicated to us, in various ways, shapes and form, that:

“You are not good (worthy, valued…)”
“You are not wanted.”
“You are not loved for who you are.”
“You are not seen for who you are.”
“You needs and wants are a problem (bother, irritant…).”
“Your needs are not important.”
“You are not safe.”
“You will not be taken care of.”
“You will be betrayed (dismissed, misunderstood…).”
“Your presence does not matter.”

These messages may not have been delivered in these exact words. However, the messages took the form of statements and behaviors (verbal and non-verbal) that otherwise dismissed us, made us feel small, invisible and unseen, negated and/or ridiculed our efforts, our creations, our imaginations, our ideas, our thoughts, our beliefs, our interests, our aliveness, our juiciness, our silence, even our individuality.

The many positive voices we so wanted to hear, so needed to hear as children – the opposite of the voices in the above list – were often lacking, or seldom heard. For many of us, the voices we heard were so often negative that to this day, when we hear someone call our name, we often/sometimes react in a “startled” way, fearing something negative or fearing another admonition that says we are “bad” or “wrong” – messages that are at the heart of our most basic fear, doubt and mistrust. 

The voices we hear now
Read each of the statements in the list above. Examine your interactions of today, the past week, past month, six months or past year and see if you can pinpoint events or circumstances at work (or at home or play) where you interpreted and reacted to someone else’s words or behavior as one of these messages. After reflection, follow your story to ascertain the “truth” of your interpretation or reactivity. In other words, did the other person(s) actually mean, for example, that you are “not good,”  “not wanted,” “not seen for who you are,” “do not matter” or are
“bad” or “wrong” in some way?

Experience shows that our interpretations of the messages we hear (read, etc.) are most often subjective, and judgmental and, in fact, are most often “stories” we make up – not having dug deeper to explore the truth of our interpretation. When we move to fear, doubt and mistrust of others, our “story” is usually the cause. The question is, “Is my story accurate?”
 
Experiencing our “family” in our current relationship(s)
Psychologists have long told us that “we bring our family to our (current) relationships” – that many of our psycho-social-emotional dynamics which we exhibit in our current relationships reflect our “stuff” – feelings, emotions, behaviors that we initially experienced in the company of our immediate and extended family (and friends, teachers, clergy, etc…) when we were growing up.Only now, in the present, in real-time, we unconsciously react to others in our relationships (our colleagues, bosses, direct reports, partners, relative, siblings,…) who push our buttons as “our familymembers” who pushed our buttons “back then”. We project our childhood fear, doubts and mistrust on to current individuals. We “futurize out past.”

Based on our internalized beliefs, we then often experience, in our current relationships, feelings such as: feeling small, invisible, unworthy, unimportant, insecure, unsure, a potential liability/problem, unsafe, stupid, incompetent, mistrusting and on and on. And, why wouldn’t we?If we’ve not done any personal work to explore the nature of our feelings of unworthiness and deficiency, our fears, doubts and mistrust, well, that’s what our antennae and radar are looking for. It’s our wiring. We turn the radio dial in our heads to “vigilance” and “mistrust” and allow our preconditioned dispositions of fear, doubt and mistrust to direct our lives in our relationships.  

So, as we feared, doubted and mistrusted then, we often come to our current relationships, consciously or unconsciously, armed to fear, doubt and mistrust now. When we hear the oral or written voices of those who we feel are attacking us today, we are really hearing the voices of those who surrounded us as we were growing up. 

“Do not abandon trust when your ego thinks things should be different than they are.” –  Wayne Dyer

The antidote to fear, doubt and mistrust
When we observe and watch our reactivity – our fear, our doubt and mistrust – there are six steps we can take to discern whether our fear, doubt and mistrust are justifiable or not, and take action to move towards being trusting and building trusting and healthy relationships.

1. Uncouple – when one experiences a sense of fear or doubt, it can be helpful to ask if the feeling, emotion or sensation is “familiar,” that is, whether this seems like an “old” feeling or belief that arises again and again. Telling one’s self, “That was then; this is now.” in the immediate moment can support one to uncouple (mentally, emotionally and psychologically) from old conscious or unconscious attachments to one’s family. In this instance, one can then choose to view the current individual(s) in a fresh light, in a way that is detached from a habitual pattern of (family-related) reactivity and allows one to take a deep breath, see the other as a separate and distinct individual and engage in a “right-here, right-now” relationship that has no history. 
2. Discern the “rest of the story” – when we tell ourselves a story about the other(s) that results in fear, doubt and mistrust, it’s helpful if we look to discover the rest of the story, that is, ask the other if the story we are telling ourselves is accurate. Saying something like, “I’m having this reaction to what you said/wrote and it’s bothering me and I want to check it out with you” can go a long way in both clarifying the accuracy of your reactivity, your story, and engendering a trusting relationship.
3. Forgive others – if someone spoke in a way that was hurtful to you.  Forgiving is not condoning their behavior. It is, however, a mental and emotional way to move beyond resentment which, over time, can cause deep stress and upset that leads to dis-ease and illness on many levels. Healing occurs when we choose to give up our bitterness, resentment and anger. Remember that resentment is like taking a drug and waiting for the other person to die.
4. Explore – your childhood history around issues of doubt, fear, betrayal and trust in an effort to see how your issues around trust are “learned behaviors” that you have carried with you throughout your life’s journey. See if you can observe where and when you “project” your fear, doubt and mistrust on to others and whether your projections are justified or, more probably, are knee-jerk programmed reactions.
5. Speak with others – whom you trust and support and air your feelings. Sometimes this dialogue can help you uncover “blind spots” and areas that are non-apparent when you are mulling things over in your head and help you gain greater clarity on an issue or feeling. Be sure those with whom you speak are good listeners who respect you, can hear you and don’t feel the need to jump in, fix you, educate you, teach you, interrogate you, or hijack your experience. This dialogue will allow you to express feelings which, if kept inside (i.e., buried alive), can only serve to rise up again and rear their ugly head, often leading to feelings of paralysis, hopelessness and helplessness that fuel fear, doubt and mistrust.
6. Empathize – when you are critiquing, disagreeing or pushing back on someone. Remember that everyone has limitations and blockages around trust, (i.e, their “stuff”) and communicating with empathy, understanding and compassion will go a long way in forging healthy and positive relationships – even when you disagree.

It’s good to remember that we are all a product of our upbringing and that the way someone relates to you is often not about you. Another’s fears, doubts and mistrust, like yours, are more often than not projections they put on you, and if you are caught in an unconscious reaction – you on them. Most often, even though we are “adults”, we perceive other adults through the lens of the child we once were and cast them according to the recognizable characters of our historical, familial story.

The voices of fear, doubt and mistrust with which we communicate to others, and these voices of others who communicate with us are colored by the past.

Understanding these voices and how they sow the seeds of fear, doubt and mistrust allows the possibility of communicating as who we really are, in the moment, right here and right now, and invites open, honest and mature interactions that bring us greater psycho-social-emotional well-being and authenticity.

Some questions for self-reflection:

• What can you do to increase your trust? What will you do? Examples?
• Can you identify and eliminate blockages to trust, most notably your fears? How so?
• Who and what do you trust? Are fear and doubt much of the fabric of who you are?
• How did you learn to fear, doubt and mistrust as you were growing up? Was it a healthy sense of fear, doubt and mistrust or was it a defensive, reactive sense of fear, doubt and mistrust?
• Are you seen or known as a “doubting Thomas?” Examples?
• Do you often doubt yourself? Judge yourself? Mistrust yourself? How so?
• Do you take criticism, constructive feedback and push-back personally? Why?
• Can you see your “family” in others? How so?
• Do folks ever say you remind them of a member of their family?

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(c) 2022, Peter G. Vajda, Ph.D. and True North Partnering. All rights in all media reserved.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share this reading with you and I hope you find it insightful and useful.
Perhaps you’ll share this with others, post it on a bulletin board, and use it to generate rich and rewarding discussion.

What is the one thing that is keeping you from feeling successful, happy, confident, in control or at peace as you live your life – at work, at home, at play or in relationship? Maybe you know what that “thing” is…maybe you don’t. You just have a feeling that something has to change, whether or not you embrace that change. And how would that change support you to show up as a “better you?”

I’m available to guide you to create relationships that reflect honesty, integrity, authenticity, trust, and respect whether at work or outside of work. I support you to focus on the interpersonal skills that enable you to relate to others with a high level of personal and professional satisfaction – unhampered by personal inconsistencies, beliefs, “stories,” and behaviors that create barriers to a harmonious, pleasant, conscious, compatible, healthy and productive relationship.

I coach by phone, Skype and in person. For more information, 770-804-9125, www.truenorthpartnering.com or pvajda(at)truenorthpartnering.com
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