I once again enjoyed class this week.
Our discussion on stress turned up something rather surprising to me. When I
took that stress rating scale, I was one of the lowest stressed people in my
group according to that scale. Even though none of my actual stressors
disappeared or lessened; knowing that I scored lower than most of my group made
me feel less stressed than I normally do. Now when I think about why, I
concluded it’s because one of my major stressors (being a single mom without a
real support system) wasn’t listed on there. When we shared our issues that we
were facing that was my main problem, while I wanted to go out and spend time
with my group members my mom will only, begrudgingly, watch my son for as long
as it takes for me to travel to and from class and while class is in session.
If I’m even 5 minutes late because I stopped for gas or anything she’s calling
me and complaining. Thus I have no real “me” time without my son, which is very
stressful.
I really enjoyed this week’s reading
on love. While I was reading I noticed a lot of the not real loving stuff were
things that my ex and I used to do to each other in our relationship. However,
we’ve recently started talking and trying to make things work out not just for
our son’s sake but because we are consistently drawn back to each other. And
for the first time in the five years we’ve been dating on and off we’ve both
come to the relationship with a new attitude/way of interacting with each other
and it is (both in feeling and according to the books standards) much more
loving. I also found it interesting to think about what barriers and
insecurities I may have had/been showing because of my childhood and having
lost my father when I was 14 months old and then having an abusive step-dad,
etc. I think my fear of losing the people I loved has held me back from letting
people get too exceptionally close to me. However, from the feedback that I’ve
gotten from previous friends and boyfriends is actually quite the opposite.
From what I’ve been told, I love in a very unconditional manner. Something that
most of them told me they’d never experienced previously. I find that
particularly interesting knowing from my side of things that I wasn’t letting
them into the whole me, yet they felt an amazingly strong unconditional love.
It’s a really good feeling knowing I made them feel so good without even
putting my full effort into it.
Last we have the (very short) article
on compassion. As I was reading it I was imaging and wondering if I would be
able to distinguish someone’s intent by their touch alone as described in the
article. I’m really unconvinced that I could. I think the major ones like love
I would, but compassion isn’t one that I could picture understanding just from
someone’s touch. I did, however, fully understand/was able to picture her
description of a compassionate look. Then I think that I can see Josep displaying compassion for other's and he hasn't yet reached the 3.5 year mark described in the book, so I feel I must be doing something right with him. So from both the book’s chapter and the
article I’m left wondering am I really bad at showing my emotions and
understanding other people’s emotions as I’ve lead myself to believe or have I
just been faking myself out all this time because the feedback I receive from
the people I interact with is that I show my/read others emotions well.
References:
Corey, G. & Corey, M. S. (2010). Love. In Brooks/Cole (9th
edition), I Never Knew I Had a Choice
(170-191). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.
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