LWL08. Addressing Challenging Relationships
CHECK-IN section – Maximum time 20 minutes.
Mindfulness: Take a break from what you have been doing, breathe deeply, relax and recharge.
Step 1: Find a comfortable seated position with both feet grounded on the floor. Put a hand on your stomach. Close your eyes.
Step 2: Take a deep breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Notice your thoughts and feelings and any tensions in your body.
Step 3: As you inhale and exhale, breathe deeply so your belly fills and empties with air. The hand on your stomach helps you practice belly – not chest breathing.
Step 4: For the next two minutes make breathing in and out your only focus. Let your thoughts come and go without trying to control them. If you find an area of tension in your body, relax it and let the tension go.
Step 5: At the end of the two minutes slowly open your eyes. Gently bring your presence back to your surroundings.
Gratitude: Taking time every day to be grateful can help our health, relationships, emotions and happiness. What is something you are grateful for this week? (Everyone in group shares.)
Review “How Are We Doing?” worksheet. (Led by loved one with behavioral health disorder.)
· Past week’s recovery activities.
· Goals for next week.
Discuss: How did you benefit from working on last week’s commitments? (Everyone in group shares.)
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SKILL FOR A LIFE WORTH LIVING section – Maximum time 20 minutes
Discuss: How did you benefit from working on last week’s commitments? (Everyone in group shares.)
Think: Are healthy long-term relationships you are familiar free of normal disagreement or occasional conflict? How have they overcome their differences?
Life can be messy, so can relationships. No relationship has ever worked without work itself. We don’t commit to a relationship with someone because there are perfect, we commit to them in spite of that fact. We need to be willing to be by someone’s side not only during the bright days but also during the dark ones. We need to encourage others to become the best version of themselves while accepting them as they are today.
Healthy relationships are often based on strong friendship. People respect and trust each other, enjoy spending time with one another, and keep up with what is going on in each other’s lives. They check in with each other and know what makes the other person sad and what makes him or her happy. People who have a strong friendship are also better able to deal with conflicts and stresses that come up in their relationship. Friends support one another and are there for each other. During this group we are learning skills to improve our relationships as family/CSOs.
Be validating and non-judgemental. How we perceive and judge situations and others can impact our happiness. We all make judgements, having a tolerant and open-minded perspective goes a long way in building relationships. Taking a non-judgmental, thinking error free, attitude and learning that there will be differences in opinion serves the purpose of making relationships safe and trustworthy.
Be more empathetic. Empathy is a state of perceiving and relating to another person’s feelings and needs without blaming, giving advice, or trying to fix the situation. There are many situations that can’t be fixed. Being empathetic doesn’t fix anything, it simply communicates that because of our love and caring we are aware of others pain and really care about them
Discuss: Share an experience when you felt someone really understood you. How did that make you feel about them and yourself?
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Be in the moment or “mindful”. When you are with someone, truly be with that someone and don’t dwell in the past or worry about the future. Mobile devices are an effective tool for communication, they also can be a complete distraction in relationships. Technology has eroded our ability to build relationships as we attempt to multi-task by texting and talking at the same time.
Become a good “reflective” listener. If you're like most people, you probably seek first to be understood; you want to get your point across. And in doing so, you may ignore the other person completely, pretend that you're listening, selectively hear only certain parts of the conversation or attentively focus on only the words being said, but miss the meaning entirely.
Be positive in our communication. Long lasting relationships have 5 times as many positive communications as every negative one and really good happy relationships have 20 positive interactions for every one negative interaction. Being positive isn’t always easy, especially when been we are dealing with everyday struggles. Although it may sometime not ‘taste’ good, analyzing our behavior helps us get a different perspective.
POSITIVE/NEGATIVE COMMUNICATION ACTIVITY
Step 1: Think about a relationship that is important to you.
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Step 2: List as many opportunities as you can think of for communication or interactions with that person during a typical day or week.
Step 3: Indicate if the communication or interaction was positive or negative.
Communication/Interaction Positive?, Negative?
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Step 4: How many of opportunities you listed were positive? ____ How many were negative ____
Step 5: What was your ratio of negative to positive communication or interactions? ____
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COMMIT & BENEFIT section
Commitments. This week I will:
· Have 5 times as many positive connections as negative interactions with a family/CSO group member.
· Reinforce and celebrate recovery by sharing a pleasant recreational activity with members of my family/CSOs group. (See “Celebrate Recovery Handout” for ideas.________________________________________________________________________
Benefits from keeping commitments:
· Establish and maintain successful relationships.
· Sharing pleasant recreational activities helps keep us close and can become a buffer for negative interactions that can be part of any relationship.