Relationship and Emotions (4th Session)

A. What is relationship?

Early age relationship    Actor and Influences : Parent,Family,Friends
    Role-model : Parent

Teenage relationship
    Actor  : Parent, Family, Friends, Bestfriend, Boy/Girl friend
    Influences : Media, Culture, Beliefs/Religion

Adult relationship
    Actor  : Parent, Family, Friends, Bestfriend, Boy/Girl friend, Partner

    Influences : Media, Culture, Beliefs/Religion

Types of relationship :

• Monogamous (Married/Unmarried)
• Polygamous (Married/Openrelationship/Casual)

How role-model relationship contribute to your relationship?

• Somehow we adopt the pattern in the family ( good/bad or both ways ) and brings to our relationship,especially with partner.  

• Most of us expect partner to fulfill the unmet needs when we were young

• We create ideal-image of relationship by analyze the unmet needs in former relationship and avoiding the same situation that leads to trauma.

• Some trauma are burried and some others are healed by the capability of the person to deal with it, ussualy by time people learn to forgiving, wisdom is needed for such situation.

Why we need relationship?
Basic needs : love, joy, peaceful,sex,etc..
Practical reason : sex,money,wealth,etc..

How relationship effects your life?
The more you have connected with people the more you learn about your self  and understanding others.
If you have good relationship, it increase your :
§    Confidence
§    Self-esteem
§    Comfort
§    Happiness
§    Health
§    Safety
§    Joy

Some relationships caused trauma,it depend with whom you interact, situation and how you deal with it. Trauma can lead someone to feel uncomfort,inconfidence,insecure and fear of commitment in the next relationship,mostly with partner.

Ideal or healthy relationship?

How you define ideal relationship?
How you define healthy relationship?

Healthy relationship based in mutually supportive and encouraging to each other.

Things to remember,
§    Every relationship is unique
§    Everyone is different
§    People’s change
§    There are two (or more) person in the relationship, so it’s not all about YOU!
§    The goals is’nt just YOUR goals!

How to strengthen relationship?
§    Staying involved with each other. Spend quality time together to make sure that both of you staying involved. Quality time doesn’t refer to     something big or important, it can be having a cup of tea in the afternoon, going to movies or walk together around the neighbourhood.

§    Getting through conflict.  Some might think that conflict are bad. Conflict can be a good way to know more the deeper level of your partner.     Not to be fearful of conflict, just make sure that both of you feel safe to express things that bother both of you. and be able to resolve conflict     without humiliation,degradation or insisting on being right.

§    Keeping outside relationship and interest alive. Having sometime with friends, doing activities that you like are good for your relationship     with partner. When we spend most of the time with partner,it possible that we become boring or loosing interest to each other.  In the other     hand, it possible that we expect more from our partner. No one person can meet all of our needs, and expecting too much from someone can     put a lot of unhealthy pressure to the relationship.

§    Communication. Some people seems never had conflict in their relationship. Even it seems stable on the surface  doesn’t mean that they have     good communication skills. Some people choose to be quiet, some others expected their partner understanding their needs,feelings or     desires without them to talk.  Lack of communication increases distance. Make sure that both of you feel comfortable to express the needs,     feelings, fears and desires.

B. Relationship,Emotions,Sex`and Health
Emotion defined as Perceptions, Expression of Feelings and Bodily Changes, or Feeling that is private and subjective.  Basic emotions : Love, Joy, Anger, Surprise, Sadness, Fear
Interaction in relationship creates emotions in many ways. There’s always good times and bad times in every relationship. Good times leads to positive emotions and bad times leads to negative emotions.

Positive emotions
Confident, curious, cheerful, feeling healthy, passion, excitement, grateful, love, comfort, happy, etc..

Negative emotions
Fear, uncomfortable, hurt, anger, frustration, disappointment, guilt, lonely, etc..

Functions of Emotions :

• Arousal, emotions arouse us to move and take action. This is done through activation of the autonomic nervous system, which causes an increased heart rate, etc…

• Adaptive functions - emotional responses provide us with adaptive responses that assist us in coping with particular situations.

• Regulating social interactions - identifying the emotions that others are feeling through their facial expressions and body language and tone of voice enables us to work out the way to respond. In some instances we may be attracted to an individual, in others, we may be warned to move away.

• Etc…

How can my emotions affect my health?
When we feel positive emotions, our body release oxcytoxin that  makes us relaxed and increase our body immune. Oxytocin may be linked to the formation of romantic bonds as well as bonds of mothers to infants in some species.

Women cry 4 times more than men, possibly because of higher levels of prolactin in women. Prolactin is present in tears and contributes to the amount of crying a person does.The difference in levels of crying between men and women could also be the result of cultural expectations.

Your body responds to the way you think, feel and act. This is often called the “mind/body connection.” When you are stressed, anxious or upset, your body tries to tell you that something isn’t right. Poor emotional health can weaken your body's immune system, making you more likely to get colds and other infections during emotionally difficult times. Also, when you are feeling stressed, anxious or upset, you may not take care of your health as well as you should

Can we transform negative emotions to positive?
As we know that emotions defined as perception, expression of feelings and bodily changes. Its gonna be difficult to control your bodily changes, but possible to change your perception and expression of feelings, or manage your emotions by practice..

Example :
Fear is not always bad. Behind the fear there are some new experience. Fear leads us to an adventure of excitement.

Sex and emotions
Sex is not just a physical act to relive sexual tension. Having sex can cause very strong emotions.Sex can lead a person to feel that they are in love, or it can make the feelings of love stronger.
Some people difficult to enjoy sex while they have problem with partner. In some serious case, some women can be frigid when they psychologically stressed.