FRaI: Take A Deep Breath

Here is a list of suggestions which will I hope are helpful.

1) Like the title says - take a deep breath. Inhale for five seconds, then exhale for five seconds. This is difficult to do when all you want is to wring that person's neck, but it may keep you from doing or saying something... regrettable.

2) Say "I'm sorry, I need some distance to cool down," or something close to that. Then leave. DO NOT stop or turn around to respond to further insults, etc. Just keep on walking. It is amazing how distance allows you to realize that you aren't thinking as rationally as you thought.

3) Use what school counselors term "I" statements. Ex: "I feel angry because ." It helps keep things from escalating.

4) Avoid "You" statements. Ex: "You are an ." All this accomplishes is to put the other on the defensive, so kiss goodbye to solving anything. Stick to "I" statements no matter what.

5) Put yourself in the other's position. Try to understand what the other is thinking. Listen truly to what that other is saying.

Another Apology & Announcement

I apologize for seeming to drop off the face of the Earth. If it makes you feel better, you are not the only ones who are missing my dazzling intellect. ;) I have not posted anything to several places. ^^;; Ever since my sister came home from college, and a brother's car - he works nightshift, and there are few buses making their rounds then - that has stopped working, I have not had the alone time to reflect upon life and to write.

Okay, enough with the sob story, ne? I will just find another way to get things done. *a crowd is heard going wild and yelling "Ganbatte!"*

First, I will bring to your attention (if you did not notice when the site loaded) that the background music is back. Yay! Just under a week ago, I began organizing the music files on the computer. I won't delve into why, but I will say that Chaos would feel downright orderly compared to the mess of mp3s. Anyways, I forgot that this would affect the site's music. (A simple metaphor: The mailcarrier arrives at an address only to discover that the person - the music file in this case - has moved and has not left a forwarding address. The mailcarrier ignores this problem and moves on to the next batch of mail to be delivered. This keeps the mailcarrier unstressed, but unluckily stresses the person who forgot to leave a forwarding address and who now has no mail; and will not get that specific mail until that person goes and fetches it.)

Wow. I really do need to learn to condense my writing.

The small serie, 'Family Relationships and Interactions,' has one last part to be written. The last part will be harder to write, even harder than the one I had to write while the TV was being watched. So far, I have written about what causes unhealthy stressors in relationships and why they are caused. I plan for the last post in the serie to suggest some ways of removing or minimizing to bearable levels these stressors. Each person is unique (an oxymoron, but a true saying nonetheless), and I must consider this when creating suggestions. That is why it will be hard-going with the final post for 'Family Relationships and Interactions'.

I hope to have everything done by 11:59 tonight. *the crowd goes bug-eyed* Yes, I know I went on about the difficulty of writing it, but I have something special planned for Saturday, and I do not want the post to get in the way of what I have planned. Thus, I will pull myself by the bootstraps to complete the serie.

Ja mata!

"ne" is Japanese and translates to "right?" (not the direction!). "Ganbatte" is also Japanese and basically means "You can do it!". "Ja mata", also Japanese, means "Until then".