I had a lot of trouble thinking of what I wanted to talk about this week. The majority of this week we discussed different concepts in a family. For example, the idea of circular causality. Circular causality is the idea that person A will do something because person B did something. While the only reason person B reacted, that way was because of what Person A did. It’s basically a cycle of blame or reason behind behavior.  It can be positive, but most of the time it seems a cause of negative behavior. Other things we talked about were different types of boundaries that are set withing a family. Or the different rules and roles that are usually silent in family systems.

                Something we spent a lot of time talking about that I wanted to share was about boundaries. There were three different types of boundaries that we talked about closed, open, and clear. Closed boundaries are when there is no discussion or really contact with anyone outside of the system, like a husband and wife for example. Open boundaries are when a couple may go to outside help without talking to the other person. For example, when one person will complain about the other to another outside source. Clear boundaries are the ideal option, it is clear where the line is, but you are also welcoming to others. However, when you go get outside help the couple needs to go together.

                I could go on and on about what topics came up in class and what the exact definitions those topics. But I don’t want to. This was a hard week for me, and the lessons we had in this class this week were hard to hear. Basically because, there are a lot things that my family can improve on. And this is something that is really hard to hear. I don’t want to make it seem like my family makes the worst decisions, because we don’t, but just like every family there are things we can improve on. However, it is one thing to talk about topics like this in class, and another to have it be demonstrated in your own life. But I did walk away with some goal that I want to achieve within my new marriage.

                Even though it is hard to hear the ways you are doing something wrong, if the Spirit is there it can be a comforting thing. All of these principles we talked about this week from subsystems in families and the importance of clear feedback I was able to clearly see how important family is to our Heavenly Father. We are apart of His family and He wants us to have joy, and one of the greatest ways we can find joy is within our families. That is why the family is central to the Plan of Happiness.

It would have been really easy for me to be bitter during our discussions. Or to have a closed mind on the things I could improve on. But the family, my family is too important to me. I don’t want to continue doing anything intentional that could hurt my family, especially my new marriage. Tradition doesn’t need to continue. It doesn’t have to be tradition. That is what is so wonderful, we can change. We can learn, we can improve.

That was really comforting to me. As obvious and as silly as it may sound, it was nice to realize and be reminded that I don’t have to keep making the same mistakes. This post may be really confusing and maybe jumps around a lot. But I learned a lot about how I want to move forward with my family, and ways I would like to improve. Anyway I’ll stop rambling now, thanks for listening.