Week 3/4/13

This week's discussion was very interesting in family relations class. While talking about crises, the book specifically mentioned some tools that are effective for coping with crises that gives all those involved the best chances for growth and to learn. One of these things is to take responsibility for yourself and your family. This means not playing the victim game and then being proactive. Then it is important to affirm your own and your family’s worth. Crises are detrimental to people’s self-esteem – and that being the case, we have to remind ourselves that we are worth changing the situation, we are worth making an effort to do better, and we are worth standing up for. Also, balance self-concern with other-concern. Just because we take responsibility for our own well-being doesn’t mean that we need to ignore the well-being of others. It is just as destructive to be self-focused as it is to be other-focused. Learn the art of reframing. Reframing means to redefine or to change our perspective on the situation. Instead of seeing something as troublesome and a burden, look at it in a way that can best benefit everyone. Finally, find and use available resources. Find encouragement and support from sources such as family, friends, religion, etc. This helped me especially this week as I was having a bit of a crisis with a fellow roommate. My roommate, Rose, doesn’t like my boyfriend and has made this clear to me through word and deed. It has been particularly hard to deal with her snide remarks that she makes to my boyfriend (whom I care for deeply and may possibly marry). I have spoken to him and made it clear that he wasn’t to talk to her and that if she said anything she would have to go out of her way. She is just forward enough that she had no problem going out of her way to do just that. I first recognized that I was feeling excessive anger towards her. I was fine to handle her in person and keep calm, but after the fact I grew more and more angry. So I pondered on what to do and how I could possibly help her to grow and still keep the peace and learn myself. I decided to talk to her. Ignoring her wasn’t working as she persisted upon insulting my boyfriend (not to mention it was when I left the room), so I expressed to her my feelings of injustice. We give full respect to her and her fiancé and I requested for the same treatment. After a discussion, I felt better and the problem is now resolved. It was important to not see myself as a victim though and to stop sulking in silence but to go and take action to fix the problem.