What can I do right now?

It's not true. I just want you to do better. Next, I help LENNY draw a different conclusion about the experience: We can persist a little longer than last time; Another great thing about values is that they never disappear. They are always there, waiting for us; So even if we go off track and forget about our values for weeks, months or years, at any moment we like, we can come back to them. When looking at people such as Nelson Mandela, Lance Armstrong, Joe Simpson and Martin Luther King Jr, we could focus on many different values, but I've highlighted persistence and self-development because of their key roles in the confidence game. To quote Calvin Coolidge, thirtieth president of the US: `Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; Genius will not; Education will not; Persistence and determination are omnipotent. Maybe we don't want to surrender a parking space if we have already been around the block three times looking for a place to park. But if there are dozens of empty spaces elsewhere in a parking structure, arguing over a single space isn't worth the energy. It's much easier to be compassionate and forgive when we don't feel threatened and have taken the time to listen and understand. But it is harder to pardon or forget when injuries continue to be inflicted. The process of forgiveness begins by assessing whether or not the hurtful treatment continues in the present. If it does, it's up to us to protect ourselves from harm. Resolution lies in releasing the urge to punish, which can never compensate for our losses and only adds to our injury by further depleting and draining our lives.

End conflicts that can't be resolved. It takes two people to keep an argument going. Again, if we have no realistic reason to fear the person we are arguing with, we should be able to disengage from the conflict, if we choose. PAULINE: Okay, out of role. What do you think? LENNY: I wasn't really a failure. I did most things okay. Mom was probably just really stressed. PAULINE: How much do you believe that? LENNY: I think I do believe it. PAULINE: How about if we do the role-play again, but this time we'll switch parts. You be your 11-year-old self, and let's see how well you can talk back to your mom. Following this second role play, I ask LENNY to summarize what he learned. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. IMPORTANT VALUES A quick refresher: the five main causes of low self-confidence are excessive expectations, harsh self-judgement, preoccupation with fear, lack of experience and lack of skills. So if your skills are already well developed, and more than adequate for the demands of the tasks you face, then your low self-confidence lies in the other four areas. However, if your skills aren't up to the demands of the task, then clearly you will need to work on them. So let's take one final look at that Confidence Cycle. I've lost track of how many times I've said it now (so please feel free to scream if I'm driving you crazy): if we want to be good at something, we have to practise.

And naturally, given that we are all busy people, and practice not only takes time but brings up discomfort, most of us have a tendency to avoid it. This is where the values of persistence and self-development are so useful. By connecting with these values, we can get ourselves moving in the right direction, even when we don't feel like it. Whether or not we can do this effectively depends on our ability to understand the other person's complaints without becoming defensive. A story always has more than one side. The ability to see the other person's point of view as well as our own removes the tendency to become self-righteous or to justify ourselves, enabling us to disengage without becoming further drained. Stress Reduction Leads the Way Primary skills turn potential conflicts into opportunities. The primary skills of stress reduction and emotional management play a pivotal role in conflict resolution by setting the stage for the effective use of humor and nonverbal communication. They also inform the critical part of conflict resolution that involves an awareness of our own emotions and needs, as well as those of others. These skills, which are so fundamental to the attachment process, were examined in the first half of this article. Without them, we would lack the means for turning challenging and potentially threatening experiences into opportunities for growth and development. The upset of an unexpected clash with someone we care about is enough to trigger a stress response in most people. Then we discuss how his conclusions apply to the current situation in which his ex-wife called him a failure. Technique 2: Restructuring the Meaning of Early Experience through Reenactment and Older Client-Younger Client Role Play. This technique starts out in the same way. Here are the steps: Identify a specific situation that is currently quite distressing to a client and is associated with an important dysfunctional belief. Heighten the clients' affect by focusing on her automatic thoughts, emotions, and somatic sensations. Help the client identify a relevant early experience by asking, When do you remember feeling like this when you were growing up?

Use Socratic questioning to help her reframe the dysfunctional belief that had been activated. Ask the client to reexperience the situation as if she is the child (the younger self) and as if it is happening to her right then. Until you're finished with the technique, speak to the younger self using vocabulary and concepts appropriate for her developmental level. We can remind ourselves: `Here's an opportunity for self-development. Obviously you don't have to use these precise words. A more common term for self-development is `personal growth' and more common terms for persistence are `dedication', `commitment', `determination', `giving it your all', `doing the hard yards', `going the extra mile', and so on. While practice is vitally important, it's not enough; That means we need to make room for our feelings, unhook ourselves from our thoughts and engage fully in the task at hand. Finally, once we've done that, we need to assess the results and modify our actions as needs. This is easily said and done, but to do it well we require . SELF-AWARENESS There are three essential elements for self-awareness: Mindfulness If we become overwhelmed or underwhelmed, the dispute is much more likely to go unresolved, with little chance of the relationship ending up in a better place than it started. The first thing to ask yourself when someone upsets you is, Do I feel threatened? If the answer is yes, you may want to assess your stress level before doing anything else. Do you detect an overactive fight response, an underactive flight response, or the anxious alert state that signals a freeze response? Any of these responses signal that you are overwhelmed, which can trump your ability to think and behave at your best. Here is a brief exercise to help you quickly assess your stress level at the beginning of any confrontation. Exercise: Am I Having a Traumatic

Response to This Confrontation? These questions can be written on stickers and placed on your desk, in your car, around the house, and anywhere else where you might need to be reminded to be more aware of your responses during difficult situations. Fight response: Is my foot on the gas? As she tells you about the experience, elicit automatic thoughts, emotions, and beliefs of the younger self. Ask her to rate how much she believes her beliefs. A medium amount? If you ask the younger self for a percentage, she will mentally shift to her older [current] self. Ask the younger self if she wants to have her older self come into the scene (the safer place) and help her understand what happened. Facilitate a dialogue between the younger self (the emotional mind) and the older self (the intellectual mind) to reframe the dysfunctional belief. If the younger self is confused or doesn't believe her older self, make suggestions to the older self about what she can say (using developmentally appropriate language and concepts). Ask the younger self to re-rate how much she now believes the dysfunctional belief. If her degree of belief has reduced, ask the younger self if she has anything else she wants to ask or say to her older self; Ask the client, What do you conclude from what we've just done? Let's quickly go through these. Mindfulness If we want to learn and improve, we need to become aware of our habitual patterns of thinking, feeling and acting. Mindfulness enables us to do this. Instead of wandering around on autopilot, we notice with curiosity the stories our minds like to tell us, the feelings that arise when we face challenges, and our habitual patterns of action. The more access we have to this information, the easier change becomes. Mindful awareness of our thoughts, feelings and actions gives us valuable data to work with.