Family like Friends

Brother Williams posed a question that I found interesting. What would your family be like if you made a distinct effort to try to get to know them. I then posed this similar question for myself. "what would my family be like if I treated them like I do my best friends?" this is a valid question. Would my relationships be stronger with my siblings if I was polite to them like my friends, if I joked around with them like my friends? I talk to my family differently, topics discussed are different, information is different. Would my relationships with my parents and siblings be better if I treated them just like I do my best friends. I believe my friends probably know me more deeply. nothing bad, my relationship with my family is great, don't get me wrong I just wonder could my relationship be better? for example, I never, ever, ever talk about boys with my family. I just don't I have nothing worth telling them, but with my friends we talk about boys all the time. We talk about our dreams and aspirations and such, with my family we talk about family stuff and things we all have in common right then. I often find myself showing more love to my friends then my family which is not good. My friends know i am thankful for them and that i appreciate them. my family knows this too, but I never say it. Is this making sense? I am more polite towards my friends cause I don't want to loose them. I am relaxed with them, and joke around with them, but our relationships are built off of consideration where as my family relations are built off of being together forever. Just like i do not want to upset a roommate cause I have to live with them for another semester; i should not want to upset a family member because I have them for eternity.So here it is, I am giving my self this challenge as well as all other fellow bloggers who are actually reading this cause I bet I have tens of billions of people reading this very post. yeah I said it.Here is my challenge. Treat your family like you do your friends. lets do it! This should be interesting!!!

I've got the POWER

Power can be a great or devastating aspect to a family. If power is handled in the right way it is beautiful in the family dynamics. When I think of power i think of the terms: respect, control, dominance, authority, presiding, and so on. Some of these terms can have a negative connotation and other terms give a warm spiritual relation. This exemplifies the fact that power is wonderful and needed, but when taken advantage of is detrementing to a family. We must have referent power. This is the type of power you give to someone because you love them, you listen to your parents because you love them. As a child you give them that power because they have it and the more you honor that the more your home will be at peace.We need to learn respect and by watching those who abuse power does not make it easy for a person to automatically give their respect. Power goes hand in hand with respect, with out respect we do not have any positive relationships. All relationships we are involved in should be based off of respect, it is a key factor into holding authority in a powerful way. (see what I did there)
In marriage we are told to not overuse our power, if power becomes manipulating, that is when we have let the power get out of hand. Many people get divorced over this conflict of, "Who has more power?" I say Let's share the power, delegate task, compromise and RESPECT one another.

Feedback is King

Communication...this is my main squeeze! Is that appropriate to say?  forgive me Brother Williams/TA I promise I don't usually say things like that. I am just excited about this topic. This year I have had many lessons on communication and I have learned there is way more to communication rather than talking and listening. It actually gets quite complicated. There are terms for common experiences everybody has that I had no idea had an actual definition. If that made sense. Anywho, Today I want to touch on the importance of being a good Communicator. The best way to be a good communicator is this Give feedback instead of responses. By this I mean when we have a friend, or an acquaintance speaking to us we should give feedback instead of just making a non-verbal response. For example, I will set up a little scenario:  You just walk through your apartment door after a long day on campus, no one is in the front room which is unusual so you make your way to the back to see if anyone is in their room. One roommate is home, so you talk to them about their day and she starts to tell you that she had a tough day, she failed her test she prepared so much for, it's Monday and she received no emails from missionary friends, her teacher assigned another research paper, and her little sister if annoying her. She asked if all those reasons to be upset are valid. Instead of just simply responding by saying something like "that stinks, sorry you had a bad day" you should give her feedback and tell her something like "it's stinks that all that happened today, its not the end of the world, you can bring up your grade by writing a bomb research paper and reaffirm that little sister's will always be annoying until they reach the age of 20." giving her feedback on not only things she wants to hear by just agreeing with her but by helping her realize some good that comes out of her day. Feedback has more meaning than responding with a simple statement or expression. Feedback expands on the initial response.

When Crisis Hits..

Stressors in the home can either strengthen or pull apart a family. Most likely it is the latter of the two which is sad. When crisis hits families usually respond negatively and let the problem tear them apart no matter how strong they are. why? Why is this? Why can't families figure out that they must take whatever is thrown at them. Giving up is cowardly, disrespectful to yourself and others, and defiantly not an option. Its like making a cake and not eating it. Who does that? To there are only a couple reasons for someone to break a relationship. Why work so hard, take so much effort and time to just diminish a good bond. That is why I believe we must use our trials to strengthen our ties to our families and relationships. Trials are a great tool for people to grow closer together. having the same experience is what brings people together in times of crisis. Often when a sibling dies the others become close all of a sudden. This is because they had to lean on each other because who else understood their situation?  When disaster strikes we must use our resources and choose how to respond. Our choice in what way to respond will determine how the whole process will go. This is important. no matter what the situation choose a good response. There is something good in everyday no matter what else happens. Use our trials and hardships to build our relationships with those we will be with for eternity, and with those we will be with here on earth. Being positive and reasonable is the best way to be. Do not let stressors pull a home apart, let them build a more stable home.

Curse Words...

Cheating is a curse word in "girl world".

 It should be a curse word in all worlds. Universally I believe cheating, as in adultery, is frowned upon. This is the type of cheating I am referring to, not cheating on a test something much more heart wrenching, cheating on people. No one encourages having romantic relationships with more than one person at a time. If they do it is not okay. (just my opinion) Here is a little fun fact for all those millions of readers I have following this blog, there are two different types of cheating, usually they go hand in hand, there is physical cheating and emotional cheating. When people start to get attached to someone in the sense when they love their personality and start to develop those strong romantic feelings that is considered emotional cheating. Physical cheating is having a physical relationship with someone else other than a spouse or partner. (partner meaning girlfriend or boyfriend)  Now here is that fun fact I was talking about: men rate physical cheating worse while women rate emotional cheating as worse. I would imagine that both types of cheating would bother both genders, however one type bothers each gender more than the other. In class we talked about infidelity and factors that lead to it as well as high fidelity. Don't we all want those types of relationships that are strength building and are not perfect, but that is okay because it IS perfect because both people are happy and can work through anything? Those are the types of relationships that never end, the kind you have to work at.  The relationships that are based off of lust and what is considered "easy" do not last, ever. Just a thought.