Steven is So Mature

Why? I will tell you.

1. When Steven and I had been dating for about a month (maybe less) I took his car to the store, and as many of you know, my depth perception isn't the greatest, so sometimes I park a little weird. I had pulled REALLY forward in my parking spot, there wasn't a car opposite of me yet, so I didn't think it would be a big deal. 

When I came back out of the store, a van had parked opposite of me and was about an inch away from the bumper, and right above the front license plate on Steven's car there was a HUGE crack. 

I was so worried. The whole ride back I was trying to think of ways to tell him without making him mad, how I could fix it, etc. 

So he got to my house a little bit later and I tried to carry on a normal conversation before I sprung the terrible news at him, but I just couldn't hold it in, so I told him about the whole ordeal. I was completely expecting him to run outside and see the damage before he decided whether he still liked me of not.

Instead he just snuggled me and said that it wasn't a big deal and that he still "liked" me the same as he did before I told him about the gargantuan crack. I told him to go outside and look at it before he said anything like that. 

Now here is what amazes me: He refused to go outside and look at it until I accepted that his feelings for me would not change no matter what he was about to see. 

Turns out the crack was already there. But isn't that amazing? He is SO mature.

2. At the end of the semester my cleaning business was totally failing and I was so overstressed that after a bunch of crazy and sad events transpired I told Steven that I wanted to leave Rexburg THAT NIGHT. So we put our affairs in order, packed up our cars, and left late that night. 

His selflessness in just picking up and leaving with me shows how mature he is. He knew that I would regret leaving early later, he knew that I was overreacting to all of my stress, he knew that we'd be driving into the early hours of the morning, but he didn't even blink when I told him we had to leave.

3. Sometimes I get stressed and grouchy for things that are out of my control (finding lost passports/birth certificates, how much the government charges us for copies of these things, traffic, etc)... and you know what? Steven NEVER gets mad at me when I get grouchy, he never gets frustrated, he just lets me vent and then loves me till I feel better. He has the foresight and maturity to see what I need and then he does what is best for us.

I am the luckiest person alive. 

I'm a 3... And I'm OKAY with it.

In response to our class's activity last week, I couldn't stop thinking about one of my favorite quotes:
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are poweful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a Child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
-Marianne Williams
from "A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of a Course in Miracles

Okay, so we all have these flaws -some people are boring, some people are shallow, but really, our good traits severely outshine those bad ones, and though I personally must be aware of my weaknesses so that I can turn them into strengths, I must ONLY see the good in others, because while it is easy to see the light in others, the energy I waste in finding the bad takes so much out of me and damages my Spirit.
I believe that as Children of God we should never get discouraged and our class that day did discourage me to a certain point, because I felt as though I was the lowest of lows, but as I continued to keep this quote in mind, I realized that yes, I do have quite a bit to work on, but really, I am a Child of God, and I need to remember that while I work through my weaknesses.

Interpersonal Conflict Article Summary - http://www.drbalternatives.com/articles/cc2.html

In my article, I learned the most from the paragraph that talked about how people usually deal with conflict. They gave four negative responses that are generally the most common. They were:

1. Deny or Avoid the conflict
2. Getting mad and blaming the other person
3. Use power and influence to "win" over the other person
4. Manipulat the other person into believing that you have compromised, when really, you've forced them to let you win.


I thought that the rest of the article was pretty surface level. They talk about how to resolve conflict in a healthy way, how to prevent conflict, and how to recognize conflict. All of the instructions they gave would be very helpful to someone who has lived in a lead box their entire life and has never had to communicate before, but for those of us who have actually been in situations of conflict, the suggestions were shallow and, in my opinion, didn't really complete thier objectives - they simply water down the conflict, and put a mask on the person using these techniques.
For example, two of their suggestions were completely they opposite of what Brother Adams has been teaching us, and heaven forbid any other ideology be right.
The first suggestion was called the "diffusion" technique, where you simply agree with the other person, "Yes, I'm an idiot. Yes, I deserve to be punished." etc.
The other suggestion was to ask "probing questions to see what the other person is thinking and feeling." This obviously is the polar opposite of what Brother Adams has been reiterating for the past two months.
Something else that I thought was kind of funny was the "stroking" technique - in other words, sucking up. Personally, if I was in the middle of a heated argument, I would get more upset if the other party were to say something like, "I admire your courage in speaking to me in such a manner, Brooke." I just might react violently.
Basically, I learned to recognize what I do in interpersonal conflicts, and I learned that I need to find my own ways to solve conflicts on a case-by-case basis, rather than have a canned response to every problem.

Okay so something I was thinking about today...
I just found out what my primary and secondary love languages are, and I was talking about it with a friend of mine. He told me what his were, and all of a sudden our relationship kind of shifted, and we suddenly understood how to treat each other so that we could communicate our feelings more effectively. Already I'm seeing how he is using my love language (words of affirmation) to boost me up and let me know he cares. It's really neat.
When you really know someone, when you know their likes and dislikes and their preferences, it is so much easier to be unselfish because you know how to treat them.

http://sfhelp.org/02/listen.htm

I can't get the article to paste onto this entry, but basically what I got from the article is that it's important to be non-judgemental when you are trying to listen empathically because the person that you are talking to is probably being harsh enough on him/herself. It also said something cool about how when you are listening to someone - especially if it's a conflict that's going on - that by empathically listening you aren't agreeing with them or giving in, you're just listening.

January 29th

A typical argument in the Chapman household.
"What's wrong, Brookie?"
"I'm just really upset."
"Why?"
"Because when you said ____ it hurt my feelings! That was so mean of you to say!"
"No one can make you feel bad without you letting them, Brooke. You just need to calm down and snap out of it."
Long silent pause
"Okay, you're right. I'm sorry I got mad."
"It's okay. I will try not to say things like that anymore."

Conflict, resolved.

I think in this role play, both people are equally at fault and that neither should have to over-compensate for the other. In my opinion, this is very unlike real-life, and so it's very hard for me to go along with it - maybe I'm just way too skeptical?

January 26th

-Unconscious incompetence: I don't know what I don't know
-Conscious incompetence: I know that I don't know
-Conscious competence: I actively try to practice what I know
-Unconscious competence: What I know has become second nature
I think this just shows how important it is to learn by the Spirit. If what you are learning is something that will benefit both you and others and is truth, then the Spirit will definitely help us to be able to learn and implement what we learn in our lives quickly, so that it will become part of our nature to act in that way.
I think that sometimes we rely a lot on the ideas of others instead of simply just trying to have charity and treat others as children of God. I think that communication needs to be plain - not planned out, not charted, not manipulated. Just clear and simple, and if we have the Spirit with us, we won't go wrong.