Being Aware and Not Worrying

This week in class we talked about stress in the family. It was pretty insightful to hear
about family reactions to stress and difficulties and relating it to my family and what we’ve
gone through. I think it’s interesting that we as a people almost forget sometimes that life
can be hard. Its kind of stupid to say but its actually pretty common. When people are
first getting married and starting their families they seem to think that marriage will solve
their problems… It won’t. They think that once they find the right person everything will
be sunshine and roses. It's a nice thought for sure. But life rarely is all sunshine and roses
. Life is hard, and it always will be. It doesn’t matter who we have in our life, stuff is going
to come up and that stuff won’t be easy.Realizing that trials can bring reimagined
strength to the family dynamic is important. Being aware and prepared for the trials
that can and probably will come up can help us in our marriages and our families. On
that same vein being overly worried about life can create problems in and of itself. You
want to try and be in a nice happy medium spot. Which is obviously hard to find and
maintain.

Life is unpredictable man. Its hard to imagine what will happen to you in the future and trials
sometimes feel like things that happen to “other” people. I know this to be true. My mom was
diagnosed with breast cancer the summer before my junior year. Boy oh boy was it rough.
Cancer was such an abstract idea to my family and I. Cancer always happened to families
and relatives we didn’t know that well. We would just hear it through the grapevine and be
sad for a second and move on with life. Then cancer happened to us. We didn’t really know
how to handle it. We never thought it would happen to us how could we know how to handle
it? As we progressed through this trial our family dynamic shifted. Some things that were off
before shifted into place. It was subtle and I didn’t notice until after it was all over. Before my
mother was diagnosed we had a pretty bad relationship. It was getting to a point where we
both subconsciously knew something needed to change. Then a miracle disguised as a trial
happened. We learned to lean on each other. We learned to love each other and how to show
our love better. Not only my mom and I got stronger. My whole family became a stronger unit
than what it was before. It was hard at first but after we realize the good it actually did for our
family. Trials can make us stronger people. They can help us show more empathy and
understanding towards others. It can also help us relate more to people we come into contact
with. Trials can be good for us.

“Ignorance is bliss” they always say. Incorrect. Not knowing the possibilities of life can be
very damaging. Trials can shake you to your core if you don’t expect them to happen. There
are bad things happening all the time and knowing about them can be very beneficial. You’ll
understand warning signs. You’ll be prepared for the bad times. You’ll understand the
importance of an emergency savings bank account. There is a bunch of things that will benefit
you if you realize life isn’t perfect after marriage. It’s a matter of time and learning.

While being aware of future trials is important so is not over worrying about future trials. Over
worrying creates its own set of problems and can lead to a severe anxiety problem. It's
good to be aware of future trials but its not good to overthink about it. Over worrying prevents
us from experiencing happiness and joy. It prevents us from living life and letting our family
members live their lives. Worrying does us nothing. It doesn’t help any situation it makes it
worse. I get that sometimes it hard to not worry. I understand because I worry about almost
everything. There are some situations where being in the moment has so much more value
than worrying and stressing. We shouldn’t be so preoccupied about preventing life from
happening because you can’t control those things. Life will just keep coming for you. You
might as well embrace it while you can and accept the things you cannot change.

Even though life can be hard and stressful things seem to pop up all the time there is so
much beauty in the simple things. When going through hard times its important to be able to
stop and look around at all the simple and beautiful things you have in your life. Being grateful
for what you have can create such a good outlook that worrying and stressing won’t be such
a big problem. Yah it will probably still be there but at least you know that you still have things
to be grateful for. :)