Peace-Centered Model of the Family - Book Report/Review Example

? My Family My family is represented by my mother, my father, and my sister. The nature of my family has always been defined by a perception of a tall boundary between my mother and my father. As a child, I never saw them as being together, even though they were married and living in the same house all of my life. I was closer to my mother as a child, and my first memories have always spatially envisioned her as being the center of my young life. My father is spaced farther away, his life spent at a hard, cruel blue collared labor job, with his life at home spent fixing whatever he needed to fix before he could sit down to the dinner table, then spend the rest of the evening in front of the television, unwinding from the day. He is a good man and has always done what he needed to do to support the family and to keep everything running, but he was emotionally distant. In looking at the first map, it is easy to see this separation between myself and my father, with my mother occupying a larger section of my life. My sister and I have never been on good terms, even though I never had a quarrel with her. She came out of the womb a jealous and spiteful little thing, clinging to our mother as if no one else mattered. She was the child who had a blanket with her always and a thumb in her mouth until she was six years old. She sat on my mother’s foot when she did dishes and tried to slide a wedge between myself and our mother. In fact, she insisted on sitting next to our mother all the time, even squeezing in between my mother and me if we happened to be sitting next to one another. The running joke in the family was that she was an only child, but I just kept getting in the way. The relationship between the two maps shows the rift that occurred down the center of the family. Although it is not represented, somewhere in my teenage years I began to see that my parents did love each other, they were just not connected on a social level, nor were they demonstrative about loving each other. The fence that is between them is a polite boundary, and remained the same throughout the time that I have known them. My sister, however, became something outside of the family, always unhappy and always complaining. She always had more attention than I did, but I never cared because I knew that my mother found her tiresome and it never affected the love that my mother showed to me. My sister’s devotion to my mother turned to hatred. My sister wore bows, constantly wore them in her hair and around her neck for one reason or another and she demanded that my mother tie them. Every morning she would wake my mother, who was already beginning to show that she was becoming ill by this time, and have her tie her bows, but my mother would need to go run her hands under warm water after as she had arthritis that was beginning to become difficult to bear. My sister didn’t seem to care, but only resented the fact that she was ill and as she became older, somewhere around the age of fifteen, she began to resent my mother and believe that she was not adequate. Our mother did everything for us, but it was never enough for my sister. There was always some reason that she failed to meet her expectations, and a rift began to open between my sister, myself and our mother. The family was split down the middle, my mother and I more often in agreement on things, and my father and my sister in agreement on the other side, even though he didn’t meet her expectations either. In her resentment at not being the center of my mother’s universe, however, she tended to try and make herself the center of our father’s universe, but he was not the indulgent kind. My square, I have noticed, on the map seems to create a barrier between my sister and my mother, and although that is how she perceived the situation, this was not the position that I chose to have within the family. There is a definite need to make changes in the way that the map currently sets. However, that is unlikely as my sister has no understanding of how ill my mother has become. Her illness, and the various ways in which it impedes some of the things that she can do, is something that both my father and my sister do not see. I see it, however, and while it is progressing slowly, she is beginning to lose her breath very easily now. My mother has the beginnings of COPD, her one vice, smoking, taking her from us in tiny fragments. What needs to happen is that my sister needs to see beyond her own needs and into those of someone else, but I do not see that happening. For my sister, the world is defined by how it serves her, rather than how she serves the world. Perhaps it is my decisions about her identity that help to keep her in that position. However, her lack of compassion for those around her makes it difficult to find a way to approach her. She can be compared to a fragile glass doll, locked in a solid steel egg. You can try to get closer to her, but the minute she feels any attempt to break through the outer shell, she fractures and becomes the victim of everyone around her, even when someone is trying to approach her for something positive. It might also be helpful if my father could engage his life emotionally. For my father, he chooses to stay emotionally encapsulated in layers of steel, none of which are penetrable. Recently I read some letters from when my father was in the army that he wrote my mother. That changed my perception of my father. He loves her, but he doesn’t know how to be an open and demonstrative individual. He does not have a lack of compassion, but his appearance of one is the cue that my sister has taken in constructing the way in which she engages the world. The model presented by Guisi might work if the family was willing to change, but this is unlikely. It seems as if the individuals in my family are locked into their own resentments with the slightest suggestion of change being considered an insult or an affront. Change comes with a willingness to allow it to change, but my father and my sister are the types of people who take everything as a personal insult, thus the suggestion of change becomes a reason to lash out, even if I am the one making the change, and suggest that it is the world, other people, or a lack of strength by others that is the problem, rather than something that they have control over doing. Sometimes I feel like my life is nothing but change, shifting to their moods or having to make one more shift in the way I secretly handle my mother’s care, as my sister and my father refuse to see her illness and she refuses to make a case for it. We are locked in a dynamic because of the refusal to see what is the truth of our lives. The Peace Centered Relationship Model appears to be a valuable tool in creating a more peaceful existence within the family. While it is centered on the self, I am not sure that I can find the space in which to focus on self appreciation. The situation is such that I feel if I were to let go of the structure that we currently have and try to be at peace, then my mother is the one who would suffer. If the facade that has been created is breached, if a more honest expression of her health is made, then my sister and father would fall apart. They choose to not recognize the truth, therefore they are kept safe in the delusion that they can lay blame, rather than accept the hard truth that she is suffering and not able to do some things, despite her desire to do them. It may be fear that suggests that such changes are beyond my ability to implement, and as is evident from the way I have written this, I focus on what others can do rather than what I can do. Perhaps I am locked in my own steel cage, unable to contemplate the ideas that are presented because it is too frightening. Guisi has said “Every time a family is thrust into survival mode precious links in normal human development are delayed in maturing” (Guisi). It is unfortunate, but the dynamics that have developed within my family structure are defined by the survival mode in which we languish, praying that it doesn’t get any worse. It is the fear of how it could be worse that keeps us all locked into the positions in which we have grown accustomed. I wish I had a notion of how I can change so that I can help the family to be in a better position. I think we are all trapped until the truth comes out. I do not ignore my mother’s condition, I care for it, but it is not talked about nor mentioned, and the future is not a part of our dialogue where the reality of the potential of the outcome is concerned. If I were to make a change in my own perspective, it would shake up the family dynamic. In shaking up that dynamic, larger rifts could occur that would take precious time away from my sister and father in regard to my mother. If they were to have to accept that she is ill, they would have to go through grieving for what she has lost, and part of that process would more than likely anger which my mother does not need to experience. Guisi states that a healthy relationship will have five common elements “the ability to 1) share space peacefully with another, 2) to respect others' feelings, thoughts and ideas, 3) to see all others as equals, 4) to respect others' right to personal space and freedom, 5) to stay centered in balance and harmony in the space you share so everyone within it can thrive”. Our family accomplishes all of that. We do not have volatility in the house, we speak respectfully, and we do not have any large emotional scenes. Our way of respecting each other’s feelings is in not expressing them. Our equality is not a relevant way of seeing the dynamic, as we all have roles to play. We respect each other’s personal space to the point that we rarely, if ever, enter each other’s rooms. Our physical space is balanced, but is not healthy because of the distance that we have from one another emotionally. Guisi has stated that “Unless and until we are brought to our knees scared and in pain, we resist changing”. We have yet to have reached a full on crisis. The illness that my mother has is experienced quietly, her needs fulfilled as they come, and so far without having to undergo any extreme measures. She coughs. She has moments when she struggles to breath. However, she has yet to suffer enough to need stronger medical care. Maybe when she moves into a medically crisis state the walls will come down and the idea of change can be approached. Guisi suggests that others resist the changes we will make in ourselves. Our own resistance can be just as powerful. She states “we’re not going to give up feeling vulnerable until we feel safe enough or desperate enough to find our voice”. Neither of these states have appeared, and the dynamic is so critical at this point, that to change could have a damaging ripple effect. Change is needed, but it is not feasible to take that risk right now. Life is not as simple as deciding to change when the emotional safety of others is at risk. My father and sister feel safe, even if they do not feel happy and at this time, safe trumps happy. They would rather reject the possible future and lay blame about the inadequacy of their lives than to accept the truth. As a theory, what Guisi suggests is practical under the circumstances when the family is available to the changes that one member may make. In some instances, however, the dynamic is too critical to afford even positive changes that one member might make as it will threaten the security of the others. I come from a good family, but one that is in a state of quiet crisis as we contemplate the future through eyes that would rather not recognize how bad it might become. Works Cited Guisi, Nadya. The Peace Centered Relationship. 2010. Web. 9 July 2011. Read More