The Family Under Stress

What is the difference between stress and crisis? 

Stress is a type of strain or tension. I like to use the example of a bridge and compare it to stress. A bridge uses strain to stay together. A bridge stays together because it balances the force equally. Stress is not always bad, it can actually be very beneficial. Stress can help give us the push we need to be motivated. Don't let stress bother you; instead, let it strengthen you! We can then relate this bridge to our families. Stress is harder on families internally. The reason being is that feelings come from within us, which determines our body's ability to respond and deal with outside forces. We cannot control all of the things that go on in our lives. However, we can control how we respond to them and define them. 

Perception is our way out of stress; we alter what we think about the situation we are in so we know what is happening. Sometimes how we deal with our experiences can lead to pileup, which can play a part in the next stressor event in our lives. 

Here is a 15 minuet Ted Talk by Kelly McGonigal that we all would benefit from watching to make stress our friend. How we define stress determines whether it is positive or negative. Instead of getting rid of stress, let's get better at dealing with it. Stress makes us social, because the hormone oxytocin urges us to talk to people about how we feel instead of keeping it inside of us. We can handle the challenges that await us in our lives, and we don't have to do it alone. 

Now crisis brings change and sometimes loss, but it brings opportunity with it. When I was two years old, I was climbing on a high chair in my home, and fell breaking my elbow. The closest hospital was one hour away. When we arrived at the hospital, the doctors thought that my parents had abused me. Doctors at hospitals take their clients seriously, especially when they are babies and children. The opportunity that came to me with this crisis was that my father gave me a priesthood blessing. I have more compassion for children and babies that do go into the emergency room because they were being abused. The doctors look out for those who have been abused, so they treat all their patients like that.

Sometimes, crisis is critically needed. Opportunity and danger make up crisis, because where there is risk, there is also opportunity. When we experience crisis, it could be helping us to be effective for the next time something similar happens. 

There are ineffective and effective patterns of coping with internal and external demands. 

Ineffective patterns include the following: 

Denial: when we refuse or reject reality or face a fact. We need to openly admit when there is a problem occurring.

Avoidance: when we avoid confronting and dealing with a stressor. 

Scapegoating: where we focus on uncalled-for levels of aggression and frustration and blame others. 

Effective patterns of coping include the following:

Take responsibility for yourself and your family. Believe in yourself, and your ability to deal with difficult situations. We need to balance self-concern with other-concern, which means not thinking of yourself always. Re-define the meaning of something, which is changing how you look at a certain situation. We can find available resources, such as internal and external. Effective coping means that an individual will achieve a new level of maturity, and the family will attain a new level of intimacy. 

If we do not address our problems, including in our families, then the family system goes down. Let us open up our boundaries when talking about problems. Do not let problems get in the way of your family. Bond with them, and rely on them.  Create that healthy family relationship that you can achieve. 

To close, why do bad things happen to good people? I don't always think that certain things happen by coincidence. I think that it is God helping to prepare us for our future, to be a strength to our families and friends. With God's help, our outcomes can be different.