There are people who feel as if everybody in the environment is hostile to them.

For a person like this, there is another technique that will lessen his fears.

One could ask any of several different questions, depending upon the situation. Examples of these are:

“Find something people say or do around here that isn’t hostile to you.”

“Is there one person in the company who isn’t actively hostile to you?”

“Is there anything said today that wasn’t directly and immediately hostile to you?”

Ask the person one of the above questions (or a similar question with a wording more appropriate to the person’s situation). For example, ask him, “Is there one person in the company who isn’t actively hostile to you?”

Continue this until the person feels better, is happier and has had a realization about himself, the environment or life in general.

5. Handling a Loss

A fellow who has just lost his girl, or a woman who has lost her man, feels the horrible sadness and loss it imparts to everything. Actually, everything in the environment will “talk” to him or her about the lost love. For some period of time, it will be impossible for him to look around and not be reminded of this person.

When one’s concentration has been heavily on an individual, it is sometimes almost heroically difficult to not associate everything with that person. The trick is to find something that isn’t reminding the person of the one he or she lost. One might have to search a long way to find something.

This is the way to recover from a love affair. The situation is in actual fact a simple one: the individual has identified everything in the environment with his unrest. By directing the person’s attention to things in the environment which are not so connected and making him find things which are not actively reminding him, one gets a differentiation where an identification existed before. And where differentiation exists, intelligence and judgment can return.

Do the following:

Tell the person you are going to help them. Tell him or her, “Find something that isn’t reminding you of __________(name of person he or she lost).”

Repeat the command, getting the person to find something else that is not reminding him or her of the person until he or she has a realization and feels better about the situation.

This simple procedure can help the person recover from his or her lost love and begin to live again.

6. Arranging One’s Life

By having an individual plan a life by which he could live calmly and unthreatened, the life he is living becomes less threatening.

Let us take, for example, the poor fellow who is on a complete treadmill: he has to keep his job, even though it doesn’t pay enough and there’s no opportunity of advancement, because if he loses it, he feels he won’t be able to get another one or he won’t be able to survive. This man is in a box of his own making, and he finds that environment very hostile.

Get him to plan a life which would not be so threatening, no matter how imaginative or seemingly unattainable his plan, and he will be able to go on working at his job much more happily and feeling much calmer.

7. Knocking Off Things That Upset One

There is another action which consists of simply having the person stop doing things or associating with people that upset him.

One could say, “Knock off some of those things in your life that make you upset.”

“Who upsets you? Well, don’t talk to them for a while.”

“What activities leave you feeling worse? Well, just don’t do them for a while.”

“What things in the environment aren’t really a threat to you? All right, have you got some of those? Fine. Associate with those. Pay more attention to them.”

This will benefit the person more than one might imagine.

A broken love affair can result in the person being in a state of mind where everything in the environment is a reminder of the loss.

But a person can be helped to recover. If one can find something in the surroundings which does not bring to mind the lost love...

...The person’s attention can become unstuck, which allows her to feel better.