Keys of Effective Communication

"Satisfaction in marriage does not come from getting the desired behavior from your spouse, it comes from feeling mutually understood."

One of the traits that sets humans apart from other animals is our ability to speak. Speech allows us to express ourselves with greater clarity and accuracy in order to communicate to those we interact with what we feel and think. However, it doesn't matter how precise we try to be with our words, we always have opportunities to miscommunicate with each other and, if we aren't careful our natural man will take the wheel, blurring that trait that distinguishes us from animals.

We tend to be quite nifty with our words, yet it is interpreting nonverbal cues that usually gets us in trouble. "Estimates are that anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of the meaning we convey is through the nonverbal part of our communication." Kinds of nonverbal communications vary everywhere from the clothing we wear to the tone in which we speak. Facial expressions, eye movement, and the way we touch people can be all too easily misinterpreted. Communication is an interactive process. Lets explore it!

"Begin at the left side, labeled the "sender." This is the person who initiates the conversation, who wants to share some idea or feeling. the first step is to encode the idea and/or feeling into language, that is, into words that will hopefully convey the meaning to the other person. If you are angry with someone, for example, you could phrase your anger in various ways. You could be subtle: "I'm not in a good mood." Or you could be direct: "I'm angry with you just now." Or you could phrase it in any number of other ways. The point is, you must encode your ideas and feelings in a way that will best convey what you want the other person to know.
The encoded message is transmitted through the media, which, in communication, are the verbal and nonverbal means of conveying meaning to someone. Thus, you can express your anger both in words and in your demeanor and gestures (e.g., a scowl, a clenched fist, and a loud voice). The dotted line from "encode message" back to ideas and feelings indicates that as you transmit the message you hear your own words and evaluate them. That ives you an opportunity to revise what you say in order to clarify the message. For example, if you blurt our "I'm not in a good mood," you may realize as you hear the words that they are not adequate, and say, "No, that;s not what I mean. I'm really angry with you."
The other person, the receiver, must decode your message--interpret your words so that he or she understands your ideas and feelings. The receiver filters the message through his or her own ideas and feelings before encoding a response. In responding to your anger, the other person may realize that he or she is perplexed and encode that message ("You have no right to be angry; I'm the one who should be angry"), and so on. The receiver, in other words, is now a sender and the process continues" (Lauer & Lauer).

Not being able to be understood by those you love most is suffocating. That is why I want to share with you Five Keys of Effective Communication.

1.  Disarming technique
2. Empathy
3. Inquiry
4. I feel
5. Expressing genuine appreciation/admiration. 

   

CRISES- Do they make or break a family?

Wouldn't it be great if everything ran as planned, smoothly and on schedule? If unexpected layoffs weren't a possibility, and if we weren't subject to illness? If kids weren't exposed to crude messages via classmates and media? If natural disasters simply didn't occur? And if our hearts weren't broken time and time again?

Every family encounters crises—those moments in which our choices either move our family in an upward direction or create additional, perhaps more serious, problems to address. Crisis is best viewed as an opportunity paired with danger; as the term implies our response to these moments are critical to our further success. 

"In their efforts to understand diverse family responses to stressful events, family scholars have used the ABCX model developed by Reuben Hill (1958). Hill (1949) began his work by studying the stress endured by families during war. He developed the ABCX family crisis model to try to account for differential success in coping. In essence, A is the stressor event and the hardships it produces. B is the management of the stress through coping resources that the family has. Since an important aspect of the impact of stress is the way in which the stressful situations is defined, C refers to the family's definition of the event. A, B, and C interact to produce X, the crisis.

For example, let us say that two families, the Smiths and the Joneses, face the stressor of unemployment (A). The Smiths define it as undesirable but also as a challenge (C), and they decide that each family member will try to find work and will do something to save money (B). The interacton of these three produces no serious crisis for them (X). The Joneses, on the other hand, define the event as a disaster (C). They expect the father to find a new job immediately and to do something to avoid any serious change in their lifestyle (B). The interaction of these three is a crisis (X)." (Lauer, R. H., Lauer, J. C. (2012) Marriage & Family: the quest for intimacy 8th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

As we can see from this example, the intensity of our crises are based upon how we define and react to the stressors in our lives. This is the key to whether crises make or break a family. Our coping patterns can unite family members as well as pull them apart. We will go over a few different coping patterns that fall under the three categories illustrated below which determine the outcomes of family crises. 



Ineffective Coping Patterns (#2 & 3): Denial, avoidance, and scapegoating. 
Effective Coping Patterns (#1): Taking responsibility, affirming your own and your family's worth, balance self-concern with other-concern, learning the art of reframing, and finding/using available resources. 

The wonderful thing about life is that although sometimes things don't turn out quite as we expect them to, they turn out beautifully when we rely on God.

"Each of us will have our own Fridays -- those days when the universe itself seems shattered and the shards of our world lie littered about us in pieces. We all will experience those broken times when it seems we can never be put together again. We will all have our Fridays. But I testify to you in the name of the One who conquered death -- Sunday will come. In the darkness of our sorrow, Sunday will come. No matter our desperation, no matter our grief, Sunday will come. In this life or the next, Sunday will come."

                                                                                       -Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

Types of Affairs

Infidelity- is it more than a sexual matter?

Oft we hear "infidelity" and immediately associate it with adultery, however, in giving it some thought we will quickly see there is much more in being faithful to a spouse than abstaining from adultery. When we commit ourselves to someone through marriage we essentially vow "to have and to hold [our spouse], from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part".  Or, as President Spencer W. Kimball taught "Marriage presupposes total allegiance and total fidelity". 

We are commanded that we "shalt love the Lord [our] God will all [our] heart, and with all [our] soul, and with all [our] mind" (Matt. 22:37); our spouse is the only other person we are to love in the manner we love God. This being said, it is important to understand that it does not take two participating parties for infidelity to occur. One can be unfaithful through the mind and the heart. 

Affairs can be categorized based on the type of involvement (emotional or physical) and the level of relational attachment (attached or detached). Fantasy, visual, romantic, and sexual are the four types of affairs there appears to be based on the former dichotomies. 

Fantasy Affairs. These types of affairs are emotional and detached, meaning there is no physical relation with an outside party and there is no attachment- or in other words, with someone who is anonymous and would likely never be met. Examples of Fantasy affairs include romantically fantasizing about someone who is not your spouse (an actual person or a fictional character in a book, movie, etc.), flirting online, or simply imagining what life would be like with another person. The deeper the unfaithful spouse gets into their fantasy affair, the more emotionally detached they become from their family. 

President Kimball has warned, “There must be no romantic interest, attention, dating, or flirtation of any kind with anyone” outside the bounds of marriage. “Even the thought of adultery is sinful.” President Harold B. Lee taught that “thought is the father of an act. No man ever committed murder who did not first become angry. No one ever committed adultery without a preceding immoral thought. The thief did not steal except he first coveted that which was his neighbor's.” It is important to remember "For as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he . . . (Proverbs 23:7).” 

Visual Affairs (aka porn). These affairs are those that are detached and physical- which insinuates that the unfaithful spouse is acting out sexually. This is the most common type of affair. Pornography is any medium that elicits sexual arousal, and it is one of the greatest plagues of our day. It is found on the web, billboards, in books, magazines, music- almost everywhere.   

President Kimball said, “There are those married people who permit their eyes to wander and their hearts to become vagrant, who think it is not improper to flirt a little, to share their hearts, and have desire for someone other than the wife or the husband. Many acknowledge the vice of physical adultery, but still rationalize that anything short of that heinous sin may not be condemned too harshly; however, the Lord has said many times: ‘Ye have heard that it was said by them of old times, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her in his heart (Matthew 5:27-28.).’”

Romantic Affairs.  Now we move on to the attached affairs. Romantic affairs are emotional and attached; they occur when an individual is becoming emotionally involved with a specific person other than his or her spouse. These are the type of affairs going on when you hear about cases where a person has successfully been balancing two lives/relationships and are caught. This kind of action is a result of trying to escape the monotony of everyday life. 

"An adulterer might feel like he or she is empowered and reinventing his or her life. However, research by Duncombe and Mardsen suggests that those who enter affairs to escape everyday life will be disappointed over time, since everyday life has a way of catching up with us. Initially the affair can seem spontaneous, romantic, and thrilling. Over time “the exciting lover ceases to be a stranger and routine becomes the enemy of spontaneity."

Sexual Affairs. These affairs are physical and attached and in some cases the onset is Visual Affairs. In contrast to the Romantic Affair, a Sexual Affair occurs when a person engages in adultery with or without emotional attachment. 

President Kimball warned, “The adversary is subtle; he is cunning, he knows that he cannot induce good men and women immediately to do major evils so he moves slyly, whispering half truths until he has his intended victims following him, and finally he clamps his chains upon them and fetters them tight, and then he laughs at their discomfiture and their misery.”

Many will justify their [affairs] claiming their love is dead, however President Kimball taught that when love wanes or dies “it is often infidelity of thought or act which gave the lethal potion.”

I am so grateful for the guidelines God has so lovingly given us in order to protect and nourish our marriages. If you are interested in learning how to avoid infidelity-which we are all subject to no matter how much we love our spouse- you can find some very useful tips by reading INFIDELITY: PROTECTING OUR MARRIAGES by Scott Gardner & Christian Greiner.

Preparing for Marriage

حب - Maite - Agape - Phillia - LOVE - Eros - Storge - Amore - 愛 -

We all come from different places, with different cultures and different beliefs; yet as we learn from Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, there are at least five things we all have in common, one of which, is the need of love and belonging. 

There are many relationships and activities we can engage in that will provide us with a sense of belonging and being loved. Ideally we are born into a basic family unit wherein we have parents and siblings who love and accept us as we are, we grow to develop friendships with other people as we interact with them, we form part of teams or clubs at school, we serve in our communities, and so on. However, there is one relationship that is crucial for our survival as a species- MARRIAGE. 

"Marriage is perhaps the most vital of all the decisions and has the most far-reaching effects, for it has to do not only with immediate happiness, but eternal joy as well. It affects not only the two people involved, but their families and particularly their children and their children’s children down through the many generations." (Spencer W. Kimball, 1976, Marriage and Divorce, 2)

Understanding the vitality of marriage ought to drive our preparation for this celestial goal. So how do we prepare? A wise man once said "Dating is how you position the cannon that once shot will determine the rest of your relationship." Dating is the best preparation for marriage; not hanging out, not hooking up, nor shacking up- rather, good old traditional dating. 

"How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk" is a phenomenal book written by John Van Epp, that gives us excellent ways to optimize our dating experience and ultimately choose a suitable spouse who will help satisfy our needs of love and belonging. In his book, Van Epp teaches us about the "Know-Quo":  Time + Togetherness + Talk = Knowing someone. 

Time. It takes time to truly know someone. Van Epp suggests that you need at least three months to begin to know a person. Watching this short clip will really help you understand why the 3 months Relationship DUI- are you sure you're in love?. 

Togetherness. This refers to the wide variety of activities you share with the person you are dating. Taking the time to plan and execute different activities will help you get to know how your significant other reacts in different situations, their likes and dislikes, it will provide you with opportunities to work together and solve problems, and so much more! 

Talk. There is an infinite amount of things one can talk about, however, Van Epp teaches us that mutual self disclosure (what we think and feel) must reveal something about us. Talking is how we become vulnerable with each other. 

Another thing I really appreciate from Van Epp's book is a model that helps us understand the natural progression of healthy relationships:

Basically, we do not want to move past the point of the previous slider; doing so will create a false sense of knowing someone, and an unhealthy attachment to them. The R.A.M. helps us avoid a relationship DUI.

If you really want to become proficient at understanding marriage preparation, I encourage you to read Van Epp's book. I also encourage you to study Elder Dallin H. Oaks' address to young single adults titled Dating versus Hanging Out. There are some really interesting connections that you can make between the test of the three p's Elder Oaks talks about, and the responsibilities of fathers as taught in The Family- A Proclamation to the World.