5/9/05

I don't know why i am so lost today. I really don't know what work i should do. I'm just feeling excited about receiving my new comp tomorrow. I need to make full preparation for it. What abt my old comp? Trash it!

I'm really blur on what i have to do. Work work work. When I seems to have nothing to do, i'll panick. Cuz i wonder if i'm slacking too much. Shit. Let me think. FYP typing, ES105 presentation preparation, AA206 tutorial, AA205 Tutorials, AB311 case preparation. Thats for next week. And usually i do those on Fridays to sunday. Now.... what can i do??? I better go do some research on my AB311 project. Perhaps type my FYP when i have time... tonight. Tomorrow i can't do work cuz i'll have lots of things to handle for my new comp.

Slice of life

Managing Conflict with Family & Friends

Do you often feel the desire to lash out at your partner, family members and friends? Do you often find yourself questioning their love and concern for you?

When an upsetting event occurs - say a family member does something that you think is incredibly insensitive and stupid; or a friend says something you feel is hurtful - you have a choice of how you are going to explain it to yourself - what you are going to tell yourself about it. This will influence how angry, stressed, or upset you become over the event.

Because we take our family members and friends' affection for granted, we assume that they'll always see eye to eye with us or behave the way we expect them to behave. When we observe an action or remark that seems to contravene our expectations, we immediately suspect that they're trying to upset or disparage us.

Let's say your wife secretly buys you an LCD TV for your birthday. But because it cost so much money, you are displeased with her for not discussing it with you first. Besides you've always preferred plasma, it doesn't have the features you want, and so on. Your wife is left dumbfounded and you're fuming over why she would do something foolish like that. You've completely missed the point. You've ignored the wonderful motivation behind the gift and focused on the flaws.

Or say for example, you're having a beer with an old friend. The conversation turns to your success in life. Wanting to compliment you, your friend tells you how far you've come, how much of an inspiration you are to others, given your background with a dysfunctional family. But rather than seeing this as a compliment, you become offended, focusing on the fact that he brought up your family.

Learning to change what you tell yourself -your self-talk- can break the cycle of negativity that can often poison our minds when we get angry. We all have 'scripts' in our minds that tell us messages and stories about family members and how they behave.

In the next programme, we'll explore some ways of overcoming this negative self-talk, so that we stop ourselves from over-reacting or misjudging our loved ones behaviour.