Overcoming our Challenges

Over a year ago I heard a story from a young man, that was quite amusing. At the time this young man was dating a young woman. This young woman was at the time of the month were she was having her period, which was quite painful for her. He went to visit her during this time, and tried different ways to cheer her up. She was in a lot of pain and wasn't really happy or in the mood to be cheered up. At least not in the ways he tried. With the pain going up and down like a roller coaster, this young man had no idea what to do or what to say. Young men, please pay attention to the following words that this young man told this young woman. He said, "You know, it's all in your head. Pain is just in the mind. So, take a deep breath, and remember that this pain is just in your head." This young man after looking at this young woman's expression, realized that was not the best thing to say. Young men, do not say that to young women. If you wonder why, just go ask your mother, sister, aunt, or cousin.

Now, even though this story makes an excellent point on what not to say to a young woman, it does bring up an excellent point when it comes to overcoming our challenges. Now the phrases, "its all in your head," "pain is just in the mind," are things to consider with the subject we will briefly go over today. One of my instructor's introduced us to what is called the ABCX model developed by Reuben Hill. My instructor summarized this model, and that is how we are going to approach it today. This model is to describe what happens when something happens to our families, when it comes to stress and crisis.

A means the actual event.
B means both the resources and the responses.
C means our cognition's.
Which when you add all of this up you get,
X, the experience itself.

Now I don't wish to confuse you. All this model wishes to portray is how a family responded to an event that caused stress or a crisis. These experiences vary, from something expected to something unexpected. Something that takes a short amount of time, or affects the long-term. This can be something that is fairly easy to handle, or an experience of how hard it is to lose a loved-one. All our families experience stress and crisis. This is unavoidable, and a part of our lives. It is also very hard to talk about. But we have been given power from a Father in Heaven who loves us, to be able to get through all of these situations.

Let's talk about step B for a second. When something happens we have some resources available to us. These resources are but not limited to:

Church (Church doctrine or our Ward family and leaders.)
Money, family, food, first aid, education. leisure, humor, and medical. (They aren't meant to be in any particular order.) These are the things that we have that depending on how we use them or not use them at all, will affect our experience to an event that occurs in the long run.

This is where step C, makes its debut. C is our cognition, in an essence how we perceive things. We have a brain, another complex and outstanding gift given to us by Heavenly Father. Understanding how the brain works, is only the tip of the iceberg of this gift Heavenly Father has given us. (At a different time we will go over section 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants to get a deeper picture about how God sees things. )

But moving forward, this takes us back to the beginning with the phrase, "it's all in your head," and "pain is in the mind." If I may, I don't use these phrases to define the explanation to step C, but to illustrate it. Depending on how we perceive things, how we perceive the event, how we use our resources, and how we think about the situation we are in, will greatly affect our experience. Entertain this suggestion, when we fill our minds with positive things, we react in such a way that "lights" start to come on, and we have a better attitude when it comes to things. We are happier, and we see more. But when we allow doubt, and negative things to plague these positive and uplifting thoughts, we tend to be more sad, and we sink away from that light we had. I think this model gives us an inside feature of not only how to approach family stress and crisis, but also on how we can handle our personal struggles and wise pursuits in life.

In conclusion my friends remember, we are not alone in this life. Our Father in Heaven does love you, He really is there, and with Him, we can do anything. Life will bring it's up's and downs just like a roller coaster, but when we have Faith in God we can do all things. How we use our resources, and how we respond with our perceptions will also have a great affect on how we overcome stress and crisis. As we consider this model, and have Heavenly Father involved in our lives, we will push through. It all depends on how we approach these events that occur in our lives.