Communication/problem solving

What is the top complaint of those going into counseling with a spouse or family? I just don't know how to communicate. Here's the thing, it is natural to be able to talk, but to actually say what you meant and have it heard the way you want it to is a lot harder. With words only being 14% of the way you communicate what you say doesn't matter as much as how you say it. What you are doing is encoding your ideas into words or actions sending them to the person your talking to who has to decode your encoding and then send back a reply message which could be not saying anything at all. It is important to remember that this is a cycle so when you interrupt someone talking you are causing it so they can't finish encoding their message and just get frustrated. I used to do that to my husband and wondered why he wasn't talking anymore. Good thing we can learn how to communicate so we can fix these kinds of problems. Now on to Problem solving. Problem solving is learning to come to a consensus on issues while validating both people opinions, giving each time to think and express what they feel and not giving in just because you don't want an argument. One of the best ways to do this is the council method which I feel Elder Skousen and President Eyring describe it best (watch video). This is  how you should have your family, especially your spouse. We all have different perspectives and all receive different answers different ways. For those who are religion it is from God, from those who are not it is inspiration. counseling brings unity. Any problem solving you do should bring you closer because it isn't about winning, it is about finding out what is right, what is best for the family and it is easier without side help. 

Are we human or are we dancers?

The song human by the band Killers inspired by the quote " America is raising a generation of  dancers" by Hunter S. Thompson. So are we able to think for ourselves or will we just conform to the patters of society or the culture or even in our family that we are used to. I am not trying to give a big stink and say we all should be rebels wear our pants backwards and never do any traditional thing ever again in our lives, but we shouldn't be afraid of doing something different. The different thing I am thinking about for today is admitting that we, as human kind, are  vulnerable . We have always been that way, emotionally, physically and mentally.  We build up in our minds that we have so much power and then something happens to us to show we are vulnerable and suddenly we aren't following the normal steps that we should by being weak. When my mom died four 4 1/2 years ago it was hard for me to think I was so vulnerable, that I was so weak that I needed to ask others for help. It felt like if I mentioned it to anyone it was like a trump card, I was playing the victum. It made others uncomfortable and hesitate to share experiences in their lives because mine was just so big. This week we have been talking about family crisis and how we handle it.
One way to look at it is the ABCX model  the picture basically explains it. So the event with how you react to what it makes you think equals your total experiences. This is why we have people within a family that experiences crisis or two families that experiences the same crisis and their experiences is completely different. Part of behavior and cognition is copping patterns. What behavior or thinking do we use in order to help protect ourselves from pain. Many copping mechanisms work in the temporarily, like alcohol, addiction, denial and avoidance. For that day or week or whatever amount of time it works for you, but some of them compound the problem and cause the crisis to be bigger. A good copping pattern is reframing, all you are doing is changing how you think about a situation. Nothing about the actual even changes, just how you are looking at it. Most religious people are good at this. We have something really crappy happen to us and then we look back on it and think that it has changed us for the better. That it helped us have a better relationship or prepared us for something else. However reframing is not saying that because it happened I know I can handle it so at this moment of great need I am going to try and take care of everyone else and ignore all of my negative feelings because I should have those because this is a good experiences. That is called avoidance. I had this problem because I didn't want to be seen a a victim and then people would call me strong and then I would feel  hypocritical because I wasn't that strong. What I didn't understand then was that is is alright to be vulnerable and even if an emotion doesn't make sense you can't logical yourself out of it. It is your feeling you need to bridle it, not run away, not beat it to death, not drowned it, but bridle it. It takes practice and work and it helps to talk to other people.

Side note revelation before real post

I like copping by avoidance, meaning that I know the problem is there and I recognize it but do nothing about it. I use my computer to get away from the world, which then makes me feel guilty for not doing what I am supposed to be doing and makes me more stressed and more likely to avoid things. Now that I have found this cycle I am going to kill it....don't know how yet, but I will...most likely...as long as I don't look at pinterest. *sigh* Its harder when you think about it.  I often feel like this picture.

If life was easy it wouldn't be hard

There is a new myth that is flying through the cosmos, that life can be easy. We don't have to put effort in to get something out. THIS IS WRONG. So many movies show that relationships just end up working out. You take someone home, get physical, get to know each other and  then  after a few years get married. This is the formula for a long term relationship and happy marriage. THIS IS WRONG. There have been many studies done on cohabitation and how it is detrimental to a relationship because instead of meshing all of your life together you have parallel lives that are very close together. It is his and hers instead of ours. Though a couple can change this with a lot of work it would be so much easier just to start off on the right foot. Some people are confused in thinking that  a relationship is like flying a kit, you get it up and going and then direct it to the best places the the best flight and that the wind (or things around you) will make it work or not. THIS IS WRONG. Starting a relationship is like shooting a cannon, however you start is how you are going to end up unless something drastic hits it off this course. This is the reason that we start out with dating without having our lips on each other so we just get to know the person.

 The Relationship attachment model was developed to help explain how a relationship should be made. In the world we have this idea that we see if we have good sex and then everything else will follow. Though good sex is a symptom of a good marriage it is not the reason the marriage is good. It you don't know someone you don't understand what they are doing so it is hard to trust them. If you don't trust some one it is hart to rely on them. If you can't rely on someone it is hard to commit to them. When you do things in the proper order physical intimacy inhances your relationship. If you get started on the wrong foot then it hinders your relationship. This is just how I feel and this is some of the patterns that are emerging in society today which show the decay of the family. The more I learn the more I realize that family is the most important accomplishment we can have. 

SOMETHING WE SHOULD TEACH EVERY TEENAGER IN THE WORLD!!!!

Misattribution of arousal. What does this mean? Why is it important?  A funny example of this is in the TV series Drop Dead Diva where Deb a model dies and comes back in the plus size lawyer Jane. She has Jane's smarts, but can't remember her life. She ends up meeting Jane's husband who she married so he would have health insurances for his cancer. At first she things that she is still in love with him because she feels hot and her heart starts to flutter and it gets hard to breath. After a while she realizes that Jane was actually angry not in love. This is the problem, the symptoms we attribute to love are linked to adrenalin. This is the answer of why your friend would date that jerk you know is cheating on them and is no good. Guys have learned this subconsciously/ culturally; if you take a girl to a scary movie she'll like you more. That if you are kissing someone that they feel like  you really have a relationship. I know I want to teach my teenagers to keep their hands and lips off of other  people if they really want a relationship. The is so much in the media that says it is about that arousal that this is love, but it isn't always. A study done by Meston and Frohlich in 2003 showed that people who got off a roller coaster. It was shown that those who were questioned after the ride rather than before the ride were much more likely to say they were more attractive and desirable date. Other studies have repeated these findings. On study had women rate the attactiveness of 10 men , watch 20 minuets of war footage and then rate the same men again. IN ALL CASES THEY RATED THE SAME MEN MORE ATTRACTIVE THEN BEFORE THEY WATCH THE WAR FOOTAGE. Does this stick out to anyone else like it does to me? Because when we are "in love" this usually causes an adrenaline rush so we think of it in that way, but being afraid or angry can cause the same actions. Perhaps this is why you have good people both male and female who date jerks thinking they are in love when they really aren't. So when you talk to your children about what good relationships are don't just say it is true love and happily ever after. Explain the needs of what a relationship needs. About how it takes work. How you need to knew someone before you give your trust and commitment and that just physical responses aren't enough to keep a relationship together.

feminists and homosexuality

I believe that I am a feminist, I believe that women should be respected and given equal opportunity as men in the work forces. I also believe, however, that men and women are different and that is for a specific reason. We work best that way. When Adam was given Eve it was as a help meet. In Hebrew it actually means same but opposite. Just think of it as your hands. Your hands are the same, but opposite using both means you get the most done and you use each hand for different things. I feel that extreme feminists are trying to make it so we are all just one huge hand with 10 fingers on in. Where we try to make men women and when that doesn't work women gain more manly characteristics and we call them feminine. It is alright that we have different physical and mental abilities. Men in general see the big picture while women generally see the fine details. I find  the difference to be amazing and how we come together in marriage to be something more than just ourselves a miracle. But the world seems a little confused. It is probably because of my LDS background that I see this, it is something that we are taught along with that family being the central part of the eternal plan of happiness. . Wouldn't it make sense then that Satan would attack the first step of the family, marriage. He makes people feel that marriage is binding the freedom women and that it stifles their potential because we can't be just good for being mothers. I agree that women can do more, but being a mother is more exulted then anything else you can so. I think that this also has to do with the myths being projected in the media about homosexuality.  Here is where I feel it gets tricky to talk about the homosexuality myths. First some people don't separate people, children of God, from the classification. Suddenly it is part of their identity which means that when you say anything which could be construed as against it you are attacking them. Wrong there are an equal amount of good and bad between heterosexual people as their are homosexual. What I am not talking about is the person I am talking about the concept. This means it is a generalization of what being homosexual is there are many personal exceptions. Something which had been shifting in our society is that boys must to boy things or else they are gay. The little girl who acts like a tom boy is seen as cute, but not the little boy. I think that the teaches little girls that they can be anything and are great no matter what and that little boys are only as good as they fit a stereotype. This is what pushes more men to say that they are gay. It starts with the expressive qualities instead of instrumental. Usually expressive qualities are usually seen as feminine and  instrumental qualities male. So the boys who are sensitive, you are more into conversation and building relationships are shunned from the regular boys and even in elementary school they are called gay. So later on when a experimentation or a tramatic event like molestation happens their hindsight see that they must be gay because they were always called that. Which means that two women somewhere in the world wont get married and have families. I find it heart breaking. I think that instead of trying to make our boys into girls we should be helping them to become gentlemen. That girls should understand how to respect the opposite gender as much as boys do and that there are only two genders and confusion in between. 

$$$ vs. ^_^-ness

In my capstone class one of the moral dilemmas which we had to make a decision about was if a mexican man who lived in poverty with his family should illegally enter america and get money for his family and bring them to america for better opportunity.  We look at the church's official view of "undocumented workers" is that they discourage people from immigrating from their country, but for those who have they wish for a way that they can "square" themselves with the government. It kind of seems like a neutral cop out, but is there sense? I say yes and so does  Martical L. Bacallao and  Paul R. Smokowiski who wrote the article The cost of getting ahead: mexican family system changes after immigration. What they did is interviewed parents and children about the effect of moving to america had on them and their family relationships. It was qualitative research meaning we weren't dealing with the average number or percentages , but in what they described similarities emerged. When studying the family you can't just look at individuals it is about who all of the pieces work together in order to create something greater than just the sum of its parts. Because the fathers would have to be gone for at least 6 month to get the rest of his family the family system would have to change.  Part of what I brought up in my class was how it would effect his family, that they might not be as happy. Then people would point out that he lived in extreme poverty and that they could die, but it is possible that the family system itself could die or at least change to where it would never be the same. We can't think that we can take out a major factor in our live and it stay the same. That is why separating when you fell like you are having problems in a marriage is the worst thing you can do. You become comfortable with them not being there and it is hard to bring them back in. Many of the children felt much closer to their mothers than their fathers and felt it hard to have a boss again once they were reunited with him. Also the executive part of the family, mother and father, had to relearn reach other. Being gone that long in such different circumstances changes people. Because they had come to america the mother usually had to start working so the family was disjointed and the children weren't raised completely by their parents. Plus the different cultural view of what the family is or what behaviors are appropriate between a parent and child are different. So even though they are "getting ahead" in the end their families really suffered for it. So is it better to be in poverty and have a good family structure or be economically growing and have a struggling family. I know what I think, but also I wont be in that kind of situation where you are desperate to get what your family needs. (There are social theorist that say part of the reason we are civilized is that we have enough food.) But maybe looking into promoting that someone be come an undocumented worker or that we try to pay for them to come to the USA is something we shouldn't do. That we should help them where they are at in what we can. Because these patterns of family decay are even common for those who immigrate legally. The clash of culture and stress on the family is evident everywhere.