Its funny that most of the times those we surround ourselves by most often receive the fewest words of praise from us. Maybe it is because we have become accustomed to their services and the daily routine of all that they do for us, so it drops to the side as a mundane thing, and becomes the new normal.
In one of my classes we saw a re-enactment of a family with some difficulty going on in the family. Nothing so serious as to threaten the families relationship, but just enough to be a stress-er. At first each individual went about treating the family as an individual and worrying about all that they did themselves. This only caused more stress for each individual where each thought he or she was handling the problem by themselves. The teacher then constructively began to show each member of the family that they were not alone and that the others each felt just as worried by simply having each person explain their feelings. At the end of the demonstration each person was able to recognize the support and love they had from all the other family members and recognize the things they were doing in their own way to help.
I think happier homes can be created by simply listening to other peoples perspectives, and learning to recognize the ways they are trying to help. Also by expressing feelings in a loving and positive way while expressing sympathy helps to unite families and get things done much more effectively than each individual by themselves. In a family every member is needed for the unique way that they do things.
I really appreciated your perspective and thoughts about this topic Bracken! I think it's interesting that you mentioned that we have to do two things to really strengthen our familial relationships: 1) listen and 2) expressing love. Both are focused on the other person. Do you think that there are ways to focus on yourself and strengthen a relationship with someone else? What do you think?
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