Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Sinthia Rosario | Kimberly A. Crosby, site director for Families Overcoming Under Stress (FOCUS) at...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - As a military spouse, change is constantly knocking at your door. At times it can be challenging and may even affect the way you communicate with your loved ones.
In an effort to help adapt and overcome challenges, spouses can participate in the Super Spouse Workshop to strengthen their communication skills. It provides the spouses the opportunity to learn to effectively cope with stress, build resiliency and manage the challenges of military life.
The Super Spouse Workshop is a resiliency class based on the Master Resiliency Training Program and the Families Overcoming Under Stress Program. It teaches spouses to understand emotional reactions, to set goals and provide problem-solving skills to overcome challenges.
Boosting their energy levels, coping with loss or improving communication skills are just some of the reasons spouses participated in this class.
“Over the past two years, I lost both my adult sons,” said Irene Misiewicz, a military spouse. “I’ve been struggling with that, trying to figure out how to cope and move ahead and get my life back.”
These traumatizing moments had a negative impact in both her relationship and communication with her husband. She said this class was a way for to her rebuild and strengthen that relationship.
“The two of us are on different tracks right now,” Misiewicz said. “We need to have some kind of middle ground, some kind of tools so that we can be on the same page.”
The instructors taught spouses to communicate effectively by clarifying their intent or goals and to be specific in order to improve communication with their loved ones.
Lisa L. Evergin, an instructor and outreach program coordinator for the Armed Forces Community Service here, shared her own personal experiences about the challenges she faced with her son and how she was able to communicate in a positive way with him by implementing and adapting these skills in her day-to-day life.
She had told her son to clean the kitchen after school. When she went home the kitchen was not cleaned. She became angry, yelled at him and said some things she regretted saying. She realized later that she made the assumption that he was being lazy instead of trying to find out why he didn’t do his chores and if she failed to explain to him clearly what was expected.
“I truly believe in this program because I know it works,” Evergin said. “I have used it, and it has made my relationship with my son stronger.”
The instructors want spouses to learn more about themselves to identify areas they need to work on to maintain a healthy and positive lifestyle.
“Part of this program was to find out what personal icebergs the spouses have and the ability to overcome them in order to have clear and constructive communication with their families,” Evergin said. “The icebergs are just your triggers. Some of your deeply held beliefs and core values that fuel what we say in the heat of the moment, your notions about what should be, how people should act and how the world should be.”
She continued to explain that sometimes those personal triggers really affect the way people deal with situations, whether they get overly excited or really angry.
Evergin added, “Learning to understand what your icebergs are can help you move forward with positive relationships and know more about yourself because the only thing you can control in the end is yourself.”
“At times, they feel overwhelmed and struggle with the additional responsibility and change in their life due to the deployment, whether they’re preparing to deploy or currently experiencing a deployment,” said Kimberly A, Crosby, site director for the FOCUS program here. “All of those points in time are times of change and transition for everyone in the family.”
Crosby briefly discussed impacts of change. She said spouses constantly find themselves playing the role of a single parent when their service member are away from home.
Crosby said that a permanent change of duty station, a new baby in the family and changing schools for a child can also affect the whole family.
“We want to make sure they all have the tools to be able to cope with whatever change,” Crosby added. “Everyone deals with change differently so you have to be able to identify what the problem is and find the best solution.”
What is the problem? What caused it? These are just a few questions spouses answered as they worked to solve a problem as part of a practice test.
Evergin said they want the spouses to learn to effectively solve problems, but solve them in a way that really makes sense.
“It’s all in the way we look at all pieces of the puzzle instead of just your view,” she added.
With the new skill sets spouses gained, they have the opportunity to better themselves and strengthen their relationship with their families.
“This class is really straight forward, with real life situations,” Misiewicz said. “It was well prepared and I really enjoyed it. All the things the instructors covered today, in one way or another I know it can help me work through my own personal challenges and most importantly strengthen my relationship with my husband.”
For more information on the FOCUS program, contact them at 253-966-6390 or email at JBLM@focusproject.org. For information on the MRT program, contact them at 253-967-3544 or visit http://jblmmwr.com/acs/army_comm_service.html.
| Date Taken: | 02.18.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 02.18.2015 19:42 |
| Story ID: | 154789 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, US |
| Hometown: | ALBUQUERQUE, NM, US |
| Hometown: | FORT LEWIS, WA, US |
| Hometown: | ORANGEBURG, SC, US |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Spouses power up with resiliency, by SFC Sinthia Rosario, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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