Communication

Well guys, this week was another great week of learning about marriage and preparing to have a successful marriage. This week we went over communication, and how not all communication is through our words. It is interesting because when we perceive communication verbal is the least amount we perceive. When we perceive communication, it goes words are 14%, nonverbal 51%, tone 35%.  Nonverbal communication can come in many ways such as body language, movement’s, etc. Something to think about next time you are in an argument with a spouse, family, or friend. I know it made me think about times when me and my fiancée are fighting and he asks, “are you okay?”  and I just say, “fine”, even though my words say I am fine, he can always see through my body language (such as: arms folded, pouty face, glaring eyes) and knows that I am not fine, and he precedes to try to make up what has happened.

Another cool thing we learned was the communication model, of how we perceive communication. For the one who is speaking it starts with thoughts/ feelings-Encode (symbol to the brain) – Media – Decode – Share/Influence thoughts and feelings. So, to break this down we understand how we are feeling through thoughts, then we encode them, such as understanding how we can share these feelings through symbols (body language, etc.), then we have media and decode them by knowing how we are going to share then we share, and hopefully the person perceiving them can be influenced by what is said.

A great concept learned was understanding empathy. Empathy is being able to feel with someone what they are feeling. Sometimes this comes through knowing what they are going through and being able to help them feel comforted. Now, this is very different then pity because, pitying someone is just feeling bad for the circumstance that they are going through, while empathy is feeling with them. Emotions show a need or a need that is fulfilled. It reminds me of the movie Inside Out and how they are truly so many different types of emotions and you can have more than one emotion at any single moment. I know for me when I go through hard times such as moving I can be excited for a new place, yet sad to be leaving great friends behind. Even though, I am feeling sad and excited at the same time. God created us to have many different emotions.

We talked about how to communicate and discuss when having to come to a conclusion. You first hold a couple or family meeting then precede to express love (this is important so, when discussing you all know that it is out of love), then start with a prayer, followed with discussing the concerns, then realizing what the Lords will is for you, and then close with a prayer of gratitude. This is an amazing tool that has been told to us by the general authorities to be able to have family councils, and include the Lord in all that we do.

I feel so very blessed to be in this marriage and family class and have this knowledge to strengthen my someday family. I hope this can help anyone else in need of family advice. Everyone should take a class like this to learn more about families.  

Stress vs. Crisis

Well this week was another really interesting and good week. We learned about stress and crisis. Something I never thought about was the difference between the two. First, stress is a temporary hard time, whereas crisis is more of a long term effect. I know in my life in particular a few weeks ago in my home city there was a school shooting. Where many teenagers were affected and in particular there were two girls I knew very well affected, one of which passed away. Now even though crisis are hard times, what is interesting is they can also bring good things to pass. For example in my home city because of this shooting many were able to come together and really realize the importance of life. I know it really opened up my eyes as well as those I am close too. We are able to more fully understand God’s plan as well as know how to truly help one another and focus on the good during such hard times.  

Now on a family stress and crisis can be good and it can also be bad, according to how we take it. When a family really relies on each other than the family can help take different roles and shift the family so they can function during a stress or crisis. Now, if families can’t do this and can’t learn how to shift those different roles, then that when stress can be too much for a family and can lead to destruction. Nobody wants destruction and that why families are so important and are built to help one another, each of us are born with special gifts and talents and when needed can learn and be blessed with gifts to help take on new roles. For example, when a family member such as a mother leaves, then it is up to the family unit to replace her role and divide it up among everyone. Now, before the stress or crisis that would have divided them up they would not normally know how to do the mothers role or all it entails, but because God is looking out for us he helps us learn and be able to take those roles to help one another.

Now another great thing we learned about is the mood model. This model shows to we can help others who are going through stressful or crisis times in their life. This model helps change thought processes to be able to take negative thoughts and change them to positive. The first thing to do is log their emotion and rank how much they are truly feeling these emotions. Then have them tell their thoughts and then help them change them to positive thoughts and then re-asked what their emotions are. This weekend I was with my fiancée and he was very depressed more than I have ever seen him. I didn’t know how to help him so I did this model with him. He told me he was feeling sad, resentment, and stupid all in the 90-100% zones. Then we talked about his negative thoughts, which was very hard for him to open up about. Then we read some scriptures on how Satan changes our thoughts to negative if we let him in. So, we went through all his negative thoughts and changed them all to positive and true thoughts. By the end, he felt so liberated. I asked him his emotions how and they were peace, gratitude, and he no longer had feelings of sadness or resentment or stupid. I know and testify that this works and it truly can change lives. We must work together and not leave anyone out. I know how much showing love and kindness really does affect everyone and can help people you wouldn’t think were in these hard times.

"Let's talk about sex baby, lets talk about you and me, lets talk about all the good things and all the bad things that may be."

Well I am sure that title got your attention, and it should! This week in class we had such a great conversation on sex and marital intimacy. It was really great to learn about and help prepare for my marriage, as well as get knowledge of what sexual intimacy is all about.
So, lets start off with the 4 stage sex cycle. Now, this was super interesting to learn about because men and woman both have very different sex cycles (same 4 stages and same order just different in how it plays out). So, the 4 stages are excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution. Let me first explain how men go through the sex cycle. So, for men they can get easily excited just by looking at their wife, it does not take much to get a man excited. When they move on to plateau, men can stay excited for a decent amount of time, then they orgasm. As soon as they orgasm they very quickly end their resolution, and will be turned off for a little chunk of time. Until the cycle starts again. For women, it takes a lot more time to build excitement, it will not be as easy as it is for men. Woman don't get as turned on just from looking at their husband, but rather get excited through touching and foreplay. As soon as they are excited their plateau is rather short compared to mens, but woman can orgasm many times. Then slowly end to resolution.
Another thing that is interesting about sex is for woman to make sexual connection they need to feel safe and close to their husband before getting into that kind of intimacy, while men it is the opposite they have sexual intimacy and that is how they feel safe and close to women. It is interesting to see how men and woman can be so different, yet they both benefit the same amount from sexual intimacy.
Also, we learned about the "Model of Female Sexual Response" now this was interesting to me to learn about. So this model is a cycle that goes in a circle. The way it goes is: Sexual Stimuli leads to Sexual Arousal which leads to Sexual Desire which leads to Emotional and Physical Satisfaction which leads to Emotional Intimacy. Now what is interesting to me  is how this makes so much sense and how I have never thought about it in this way before, that there is a pattern that women's bodies naturally go too. It would be great if all men were able to recognize this and learn from it.
A fun analogy of how men and women work that I heard in class this week was: "woman are like ovens, they have to be preheated . Men are like microwaves, can just be turned on." I like that analogy a lot because it shows that woman need that extra love and touch (not only physically but emotionally too), while men it is easy to be ready and in the mood. Now, this doesn't apply that all men just always want sex, this just shows that it is easier for men to be ready for sex.
There is just so many good things we learned about this week that I wish I had time to share and expound on. But, one thing I do want to mention is how important it is to stay away from pornography. Pornography can kill relationships, it is a gateway that can lead to things such as infidelity and affairs. It not only kills relationships but miss figures what woman are and shows woman as objects not as real people. Stay away from any pornography in any form, wether it be books, music, movies, commercials, billboards, etc. STAY AWAY!
Until next time!

Gender and same sex attraction

Caution: Controversial Topic

Well this week we touch on one of the most controversial topics of our days today. Same sex attraction and gender. In the world we live in right now this can mean many things to many different people. There are so many views on this topic. So this article I write today is strictly my views and how I perceive the information that I learned in class. In my class we only learned the facts about same sex attraction and gender, and everything I am writing is my own thoughts and feelings, nothing to do with my teacher or education, purely my own thoughts and impressions.
So this week, we talked a lot about the gender differences in males and females, especially how we are for the most part born different. When pondering upon the differences, the ones we came across were females have more of a relationship recall, are more verbal, can read emotions and body language, are more emotionally expressive, more cooperative, etc. This is a very generalized list and doesn't fit for every female. As for the male list we came up we found males are more competitive, more assertive, have more upper body strength, more aggressive, have a protective nature, hands on, etc. Again, this is generalized. It was interesting for me to think about how each of us are born with different traits that are very generalized to our gender, it testifies to me that God has a purpose and a plan and men and women have their differences to fulfill that plan here on earth.
We also watch a funny video called men brain vs. women brain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KrOZe2SxoQ), this man I think explained it so well, how even men and women think differently. We again have such different traits, yet the whole gender generally thinks the same. To me this is very interesting to see how we are generally made the same, yet each of us have such diverse personalities and traits.
Now for the more controversial portion on my beliefs. We discussed a lot about same sex attraction. I pondered and thought a lot about this, whether or not we are born that way, whether or not we can change, whether or not this is what our punishment or our destiny. My personal thoughts are that God does have a path and destiny for us, some of us I truly believe are born with same sex attraction as their struggle in life (while others may be, physical disability, struggle with genetic alcoholism, etc.) we are all born with struggles, and some of us our struggle can be same sex attraction. But I firmly believe that it is not a sin to be attracted to the same sex, but acting upon that attraction is where the sin lies. Just as when married it is okay to be attracted to other women, as long as you are not lustful or acting upon it. It is all where your thoughts and actions lie.
I also believe that there may be times where you can get help through bishops, church members, family counseling, family, etc. where you can grow our out of those feelings (now this is not for everyone and may be for only a select few but, it is possible). I know for some that all their life they are called names like gay, fag, etc. and then think that they are. Even though they normally would not have thought of them selfs as that and tend to then start liking the same sex due to their thought process from the name calling, but as soon as they can see that those differences in personalities can be more then just gay, they can change their thoughts and begin to liking the opposite sex.
With all of this said, I am not by any me a homophobe, or hate LGBT. But in reality I love them, no matter what they identify with or who they have feelings towards. We are all God's children and are all apart of His plan.

Gender Roles

Hey!

So, this week was a pretty interesting topic, gender roles. It was interesting to learn about what male and female contribute to relationships, as well as, seeing how it fits into God's plan. 

We watched this video "John Stossel, Men, Women, and the Sex Difference." Which was a fascinating video on finding out if we can raise children the same, will they still end up either girly or tom boy. The did many researches where they put a group of boys and girls in a room with both "girl toys" and "boy toys" to see if the girls would go for the boy toys or the girl toys and vice versa. The conclusion was the girls would go for the Barbie’s and pink toys and the boys would go towards the building blocks or race cars. This research wasn't convincing evidence for some, so they interviewed parents who had both sexes of children and asked if they raised their kids in knowing they were a girl or boy. The families that said they would raise the kids equally and without boy or girl titles, still would go for the toys that are towards their sexes. Some still argue through that their environment changes them, by the tv shows kids watch or clothes selections at stores.

The main question was being most of us born into this stereo type of liking the toys

or color according to sexes or if are environment change us into liking what we should. The conclusion throughout this video was that we truly are born this way, and it is wired into us. It is a part of God's plan for us to be boys and girls. It reminded me of a video from lds.org called "Gender is an Essential Characteristic." (https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2010-07-132-gender-is-an-essential-characteristic?lang=eng).  In this video, there was a clip from a talk, which talked about how God has a plan and a part of that plan is each of us are by design made into men and women. Which, reminded me of the “A Family Proclamation to the World” and says, “ALL HUMAN BEINGS—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.” Now, I don’t know what everyone’s personally purpose is on this Earth, but I do have a testimony that we truly are here for a purpose and that through prayer, ponder, and following the commandments that we can find that purpose and work our hardest to know how it fits into God’s plan for each of us individually.

After seeing how important gender is and how each are very different, have you ever noticed how gender effects the family role? How mothers naturally are more nurturing and fathers tend to be more of the bread winning roles in the family? How girls tend to be more emotional while boys are more destructive? It was interesting thinking upon this and my family, and seeing how my mother always more nurturing, not only to our family but to others at church or at work. While my father enjoyed his role of providing and caring for our family. Think back on your family roles and how gender played a part in them. It is amazing to see how our natural instincts are exactly how God made us, when in the Family Proclamation it says, “THE FAMILY is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan... By divine design, fathers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners. Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. Extended families should lend support when needed.” As we see, we are a part of God’s plan and are built in the ways that God attends us to be male and female. The way we are born and act are all a part of God’s plan.