Proper Communication

Do you ever feel like you're pouring your heart out to someone and they are just not understanding. Communication is difficult, but it is also necessary in relationships. In order to communicate you need to encode a message and send it to the receiver through some sort of medium, then the receiver must decode it. A lot of issues come in when the receiver does not decode the same message that the sender encoded. Luckily in order to help us decode messages we can watch facial expressions, body language, hear the tone of their voice and receive the words they are speaking. All of these things come together to get us closer to the encoded message. This is one of the problems with texting, or even phone calls. When you use those medium it takes away one of our essential tools of decoding. 

With no visual or vocal tone cues we get easily lost and miscommunications spring up where they would easily be avoided.

So what do you do when miscommunication happens and an argument starts to arise? Let me suggest that you use the five keys of communication. First: The disarming technique. To use this you find the truth in what they’re saying, it doesn’t matter how ridiculous their words sound, there is always at least a little kernel of truth in it. So find the kernel of truth and acknowledge it. My mom is the perfect example of this. My brother would throw a fit every time he got in trouble, whining that she hated him and he was always punished more and on and on. She told him that he was right, he does get punished more than the rest of us. He was stunned.  This will throw them off so much that it will give you the opportunity to move on to step two. Step two is to have empathy with their thoughts and feelings. My mother instantly swooped in and said that it must be hard to feel picked on all the time. She then transitioned effortlessly into step three which is a gentle inquiry. She asked him what they could possible do together to make it better, asked what made him lash out in the first place so that he was punished. They talked for a while about he felt. Them came step four, an I feel statement. These statements are best formatted as When  _____________ I feel___________ because________ I would like__________.  This step is very tricky, it is not meant to assign blame or make them feel bad, it is meant to clearly explain your feelings. The statement my mon gave was something like this, When you misbehave then yell at me I feel upset because it makes me think that I was not a good enough parent and that I did not do enough to teach you I would like for us to both use our words and hopefully you can talk to me instead of lashing out. Step number five is to express genuine appreciation and admiration. She told him that she really loves having him as part of the family and that she would never want to do anything to hurt him. The biggest key to that is that she was genuine and sincere.

The Family Under Attack

Sometimes our families find opposition from outside sources, but often times the biggest family crisis come from within. In my family we have seen many of these crises. One of the biggest ones was my parents’ divorce due to my father's mental instability. It was unsafe for the family to stay with him, so my mom had to make the very difficult decision to leave. This was hard on our family for so many reasons, but I found it very odd exactly how differently each of us reacted to the stress and pressure. After the move I felt like I had finally found my place in the world. I felt like I had more freedom now that there was an increase in security. My brother just younger than me reacted with anger and resentment with my mom and did everything he could think of to make her go back to my dad. Then there were my two little sisters, they both suffered from serious attachment issues and would latch onto any adult male that entered their lives. It baffled me that I could feel so liberated while the rest of my family felt beaten down by this. This can all be explained by the ABCX model that was developed by Rueben Hill (1958). This model says that Actual events plus Both resources and responses plus Cognitions equals total eXperience.  This means that events do not solely create emotions, but rather thoughts about the events play a major role in shaping our emotions about them. I was the only one of my siblings who fully understood why we left and that made it easier for me to appreciate the sacrifices my mom had made to protect our family. I had also decided to use this as an opportunity to grow myself. A lot of the outcomes, or our overall experiences, rely upon our agency to choose. As we realized how we think greatly affects how we perceive events. I would suggest then that exercising true agency requires mastery over your mind and thoughts. If you master your mind then once was a daunting task or tragic crisis can now be seen as a wonderous blessing.

            In the November 2005 Ensign Elder M. Russell Ballard wrote an article titled “What Matters Most Is What Lasts Longest” (which I would suggest you all read).  In it he said that “Crisis or transition of any kind reminds us of what matters most. In the routine of life, we often take our families- our parents and children and siblings for granted. But in times of danger and need and change, there is no question that what we care about most is our families! It will be even more so when we leave this life and enter into the spirit world. Surely the first people we will seek to find there will be father, mother, spouse, children, and siblings.” In times of a family crisis we have the ability to come out stronger as a family unit than we were before. As we cope with situations together we can use each other as a support and strength. Coping does not merely mean getting by. Look at a coping saw for example, it is sturdy enough that it won’t break, but it is also flexible enough to cut intricate designs and patterns. To cope is to intentionally build something that will protect and grow. As families cope together they will be able to repair any damage from the crisis as well as build something even stronger and more beautiful. My family is now happy and we have all said on separate occasions that the divorce was a great blessing in strengthening our families. Just like diamonds are forged under pressure we can only grow and recognize our full divine potential through opposition and resistance. So next time you are faced with a daunting mountain take a deep breath, master your mind and press forward with faith that this is making you stronger.

Sex Education

I know that some of the people that read my blog may have a problem with how bluntly I am going to discuss some of the topics in this post, but that’s ok because sometimes you just have to be direct and say things. Today’s topic is important enough that it cannot be sugar coated or skirted around. Today I will be talking about sex. Did you know that many sex education programs are showing pornography and teaching children things such as how to masturbate? Children as young as kindergarteners. If this does not concern you then I am concerned about you. Many people believe that the sooner we “educate” children on every aspect of sexuality the better off they are. In contrast research has shown that premature exposure to sex leads children to feel isolated and vulnerable. Children who had their first sexual experience at an early age felt as if they had all of their power taken away while those who encourage these sex ed programs believe that it empowers children. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has put out a manuscript outlining proper and age appropriate guideline’s for sex education of children. It is called a Parent’s Guide (https://www.lds.org/manual/a-parents-guide?lang=eng).

Once children grow up and get married sex is good in that relationship, but new problems set in. The biggest issue is that of fidelity. Fidelity means faithfulness or exactness. One comparison is listening to records versus music today produced through our phones or radios. On a record what you hear is what there is, pure and unaltered. Today music can be autotuned and altered so that we cannot trust what is original. Fidelity is not simply not cheating, it is remaining true and open to your partner in all things. When we start sharing feelings and personal experiences with anyone besides our spouse an inappropriate relationship begins to form. In our marriages we need to remain cautious to keep our spouses the first ones we go to in all things. Throughout our lives we can be greatly impacted by sexual activities and we need to be cautious  and use wise judgement.

Transitions of Relationships

I must admit, the transition from engagement to marriage was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. Part of that is due to all of the roles that have to change in order to form this new family. One thing we struggled with (and still are struggling with sometimes) was setting new boundaries for our mothers. Both of us have very strong relationships with our moms. I have had a very independent relationship from my mom for quite a while, but getting married meant that I would never be able to move back to Canada. The distance and separation is difficult. Then we have my husband who is definitely a momma’s boy. During our engagement we had a few problems with that. He had to learn to talk to me before going to her with problems. Another transition was talking to each other about concerns instead of just venting to friends.

I did not realize until after we were married how much should have been discussed beforehand and how much we still had to figure out. If I can offer a word of advice, discuss budgets and boundaries extensively during engagement because those things are harder to do in practice than they are to plan out with words. Being a fiancé means that you are still pretty independent, but during this stage you need to start becoming one with your future spouse because once you’re there it is so much more difficult to establish. Another thing we had to learn to do was share space together. Which in theory sounds lovely but is ultimately harder than expected.

Just before we got married we were sitting on the couch one day and Jonathon says he found some cute couch pillows. I commented that we didn’t even have a couch yet, but he said that didn’t matter because we were creating a home together. This really hit me. Anyone who knows me knows that I can be a little bit of an OCD control freak. I already had most of the furniture for our house and had the entire place set up and decorated in my mind. I realized that in order to make it our home we needed to do all things as a team, this included setting up our home. We unpacked together and got everything set up together. Now we both feel like it is our space instead of my house that he happens to live in as well.

The main thing in forming this new relationship and boundaries is just communicating. Talk to your partner. Show them that your relationship means enough to you that you are willing to listen to them. Be their partner in all things and respect them. Above all else this will create a lasting and loving relationship that will perpetuate into eternity.

Who should I marry?

This will probably be the hardest blog post I will ever write. You  know how Facebook has that silly little thing where you can look back and see what you were doing on this day years ago. Usually we look back at it to make fun of our hair or wonder what we were talking about in that vague post from our teenage years. Yesterday as I scrolled through mine I saw something that made me catch my breath for a moment, then made my husband question my sanity as I started bawling staring at my phone. The post read "Can't wait to start this new adventure! Thank you everyone for all of the congratulations and well-wishes." It was marked two years ago. I was eighteen. I graduated a semester early so I had been out of high school for five months at that point. And here is the real kicker, I had just gotten engaged. I had known this boy for two weeks and we were engaged. Poor niave me had everything all backwards. I wish I could go back to that time with the knowledge that I have now. So what exactly what went wrong? I didn't follow the Relationship Attachment Model (RAM)http://www.smartmarriages.com/uploaded/Avoid.Jerk.2004.pdf. The model shows that you need to know someone more than you trust them, trust them more than you rely on them, rely on them more than you commit to them and commit to them before you involve touch. With this boy I trusted, relied and committed more to him than I knew about him. As our engagement progressed I began to learn more about him. I learned that he was manipulative and controlling. Then the abuse started. It was a terrible experience, but a learning one. I learned that in order to have a loving committed relationship there are steps and orders, and if you do things out of order than it twists things and distorts your reality. I got out of that relationship and decided I would be alone forever. Forever did not last as long as I thought it would. a year later I met an amazing man and we began to date. I was very hesitant at first and kept my distance, but as I began to know him my walls came down brick by brick. Then he started to to earn my trust and I learned I could rely on him. Now we are happily married. No matter what previous situations are there is always a way to move forward. There is no answer about who you should marry, but the steps in the RAM can help weed out some of the bad ones and get us steps closer to our happily ever after. Also remember to relax and enjoy it because love  is fun.