Week 8

Part one:

We started class out with writing about the word conflict. “Once a negative climate has been set, it is stoked by other unconstructive communication” (Wood, T., Julia 2010) this is how arguments and conflicts get out of control, great saying. We had to put conflict in the middle of our paper and branch off of it. I had argument, yelling, disagreeing, solving a problem, and war. As you can see all my words were more on the negative side then the positive side. I really didn’t look at conflict as positive, until we did this activity. For positive conflict there can be, gets everyone involved, develops understanding and skills, and causes real communication. As a group we made a PowerPoint about life skills: conflict. I thought our power point turned out really good. Each one of us took a quiz to see how we solved conflict, I was collaborating, which is working together to solve a problem, trying to make everyone happy not matter what it takes. Which I think is definitely me I always think of others when trying to solve a problem. As a class we tried to guess what everyone was and how they solved problems. We guess most of them right and others were harder. We also played a game that you were supposed to win as much money as you could. It didn’t go very well as a class we went into the negatives. Nobody really caught onto the game. At the end of class we started writing about a problem to Dear Abby, and the class was supposed to help us solve our problem.

Part two:

Out of the four choices I would have to say when my boyfriend and I first started dating we always did the exit response. We would both get in an argument and get really fired up over nothing and either storm out or go for a walk or something. We never solved the problem or talked about it just let it go away. Which really didn’t help the problem because later down the road it always got brought up again but now I would definitely say we have grown and use voice response. We try to solve the problem then, and listen to what each have to say. We try not to get as heated up so we can talk about the conflict and solve it because usually its nothing to be fighting over and ruining our time we spend together.

Week 7

Chapter 7

Part 1

Chapter 7 starts out on emotional intelligence, how a person recognizes their feelings, how they act with their feelings, and which ones are necessary for the situation. The author says “In her 1989 book Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, Carl Tavris argues that anger is not entirely basic or instinctual. She shows that our ability to experience anger is influenced by social interaction, through which we learn whether and when we are supposed to feel anger” (Wood, T., Julia. 2010). I really liked what she had said there, because sometimes I get really angry and I think to myself later why am I so angry. Sometimes it just takes over and there is no control. We need to learn to identify our emotions, how we express them, and when we express them. It’s like you have to think before you express what you are about to express for people to judge you! 

Part 2:

I think that anger should be expressed in another form but yelling or shouting. I think that yelling just makes the other person more upset and it keeps the others raging. Maybe instead of yelling they could to be silent. That would make an awkward feeling in the room and would maybe help the other person realize that something is the matter. Instead of yelling they group or people talk quietly about their feelings. They could also when they get angry walk away cool off and then carry on their conversation. Know when those anger feelings are coming and control them.

Week 6

Chapter 6

Assignment:

Mindful listening is the topic of the week and I was looking through the book and really liked this saying “To listen well, we rely on our ears, mind, and hearts” (Wood, T., Juliea, 2010). We listened to each other talk and had to keep them talking no matter what it took. My partner was really hard to keep talking. We had to listen, keep eye contact, and keep repeating what they are saying so they know that you are listening to them. We had to practice on staying interested and keep them talking. I thought it was pretty hard, especially when you are with someone that doesn’t really like to talk in front of a class anyways. Then we practiced talking each other through a maze of balls while we had a handkerchief over our eyes so we couldn’t see and we had to give good direction to get them to the end without touching anything.

I work with a girl at work that is a very good listener, not only with me but others. She makes you want to tell her anything because she is so into the conversation, even if she doesn’t want to be she always is. With customers that are having a problem or need help she keeps really good posture, eye contact, and repeats what they are saying so they know she is taking in what they are saying to her. She keeps her mind and what the person is talking about and doesn’t space out, she keeps bobbing her head so they know she is following them. She doesn’t interrupt them to tell them her story or what she is thinking, she lets them completely finish their story and then she begins to speak.