Category: Family Resilience

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Mindfulness and Control

mindfulness and control

“He who angers you conquers you.”

-Elizabeth Kenny

Mindful Ecotherapy relies on the 7Cs of family resilience. These resilience factors help you to better weather the storms that come with life.

The second ‘C’ of the 7Cs of family resilience is “control.”

If someone has the ability to anger you, then that person just controlled you.

If you allow others to ‘make’ you feel angry, you have relinquished control over your own emotional well-being.

Similarly, anger is often the result of failed attempts to control others. By analyzing our beliefs about control, we learn to manage our moods so that control is no longer an issue.

Once there was a sculptor who was famous for his carvings of animals. Of all the animals he carved, his elephants were the most lifelike and inspiring. One day an art student came to him and asked him the secret to creating such beautiful elephants.

“The answer,” he said, “Is simple. You just get a block of marble and chip away anything that doesn’t look like an elephant.”

When difficulties arise in a relationship, it’s usually because we’ve set out to carve an elephant, but we suddenly find ourselves carving a bear or a donkey or some other animal instead. When this happens, we’ve gotten caught up in the details of living, and we have lost sight of our original goal, the elephant.

Go over your list of standard arguments with your partner, and decide for yourselves which ones will lead to a happier relationship, and which ones involve side issues (i.e., arguments that are not ‘carving the elephant.’) You may disagree with your partner over which ones are which, and that’s okay too.

Maybe your version of the elephant is slightly different from your partner’s version. Just remember that by sharing your vision of a happier relationship with your partner, you can both come to agreement on what sort of elephant you would like to carve together.

The first step is agreeing that you will focus only on those actions that lead to the end result you both want. Once you’ve agreed on that end result, you can both begin to ‘chip away’ anything that doesn’t look like the relationship you both want to share.

Remember to keep it focused on solutions. You can talk about the problem all day if you wish, but that doesn’t do anything to actually solve the problem.

If your intention is to have a happy, healthy relationship, then anything that doesn’t promote that is irrelevant. It’s just marble to be carved away. If you find yourself constantly discussing problems, and never reaching resolution, ask yourself, “What is my intention?” or perhaps, “Is this the elephant I’m trying to carve, or is it just excess marble?”

If both you and your partner have the same intention, then the rest is just details. You’re working towards a common goal, and all that remains is to resolve how you both approach the common goal.

If, on the other hand, you both have different intentions, then you both have different goals. This is the source of a lot of friction in relationships.

Always remember that you can only control your own intentions, and not your partner’s. Use your mindful communication skills to find common ground and to avoid the temptation to try to control others.

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The 7Cs of Family Resilience

Family Resilience Factors: The 7Cs

All families encounter problems from time to time. When families go through a crisis, some fall apart, while others manage to “ride the storm out” and come through the other side relatively intact. Research has shown that families who manage to handle a crisis effectively all have certain characteristics in common. These characteristics are called resiliency factors.

Family Resilience Factors

Dr. James Coyle, in a 2009 study called An Exploratory Study of the Nature of Family Resilience, identified several of these resiliency factors. The factors Dr. Coyle identified are listed below:

  • Adaptability: The ability to adapt to circumstances and “go with the flow”
  • Cohesion: The ability to stick together, come what may; a sense of identity as a family
  • Communication: The ability to communicate effectively, especially on emotional topics
  • Problem-solving: The ability to solve problems in a way that minimizes conflict
  • Beliefs: The ability to “believe in each other”
  • Involvement: The ability to show active care and concern for each other
  • Positive Parenting: The ability to focus on the person rather than the problem
  • Monitoring: The ability to compassionately correct difficulties
  • Discipline: The ability to correct in a loving, rather than a punitive, fashion
  • Child Self-Esteem: The ability to instill confidence in the children

According to Coyle’s study, these resiliency factors exist on a continuum; that is to say that the more of these factors a family possesses, the more likely they are to have positive outcomes and consistent positive consequences.

The 7Cs of Family Resilience

Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy combines some of these factors into seven characteristics of the resilient family. Each one of these factors has been named with a word beginning with the letter ‘C’ to make them easier to remember. The names for these resiliency factors as used in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy are listed below, along with the original factor names from Coyle’s study:

  1. Compassion = adaptability (by being compassionate with others, we are able to adapt to any given situation by focusing on the relationship rather than the problem),
  2. Communication = communication
  3. Control = involvement (by being involved and expressing compassionate concern for others, we are better able to control our tendencies to act out in emotionally aggressive ways)
  4. Choices = problem-solving (making choices that lead to solutions), beliefs (by consciously choosing to ‘believe in’ others, we build better relationships)
  5. Consequences = positive parenting (by taking a relationship-based approach to consequences instead of a punishment-based approach, we are better able to achieve positive consequences with our loved ones), discipline (by modeling positive behaviors instead of emotionally aggressive behaviors, we are able to link positive consequences with positive choices)
  6. Consistency = cohesion (by consistently choosing to put relationships with our loved ones first, we build family cohesion and a sense of family identity), monitoring (by consistently monitoring the status of our relationships with others, we are better able to achieve consistent positive outcomes)
  7. Confidence = child (and adult) self-esteem (by consistently implementing all of the 7Cs of family resilience in our lives, we instill confidence in ourselves and our family members)

These 7Cs of Family Resilience are a ‘one size fits all’ approach in that the more of each of these factors a family possesses, the more likely that family is to achieve positive consequences. The more of these resiliency factors a family can learn and implement, the better able that family will be to achieve productive and adaptable resolutions to family conflict.

This is true for individuals as well. The more of these 7Cs you can apply in your life, the more likely you are to be able to interact with others without having to resort to emotional aggression. When you can implement all of these factors, you will have successfully learned the art of mindful mood management.

The reason this ‘one size fits all’ approach works is that while you may already have strengths in some areas of resilience, there may be other areas in which you could use a little help. By identifying those areas that might not be personal strengths, you are able to take advantage of the tools and techniques of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy to further develop these weaker areas.

The next seven posts will focus on one of the 7Cs of Family Resilience. In the coming posts you can evaluate your strengths and weaknesses with each of these resiliency factors.

If there are some resiliency factors that are more of a challenge for you, the coming posts will offer tools, tips, and suggestions for strengthening your abilities in those areas. In future posts, you will be asked to identify your strengths and weaknesses in each of the 7Cs of family resilience, and we’ll discuss how to strengthen those areas that may be challenging for you.