Occasionally, I’ll have a guest blogger share their own wisdom about families and relationship. Today, I’d like to invite you to read and comment on Karen’s blog post.

This post was written by Karen McMahon, Certified Divorce Coach. Karen is the founder of KM Life Coaching and co-author of “Navigating Your Divorce: A guide to the Legal, Financial and Emotional Basics”, a free eBook. Karen’s passion is to work with men and women going through the divorce process; helping them navigate the difficulties while focusing on personal growth and embracing the opportunities that lie ahead.

What is the difference between reacting and responding?

The most important difference is the control you have over your emotions. When we react, it is an emotional knee-jerk snap. It is usually as a result of someone ‘pushing our buttons’. We can go from 0 to 100 in seconds. It is sometimes as if we are being taken over by another force as we feel the uncontrollable need to immediately and vehemently attack or defend. You may be thinking, is there any other way?

The good news is no matter how ‘wrong’ or abusive the other person or situation is, you do not have to react with an emotional explosion. You can choose to respond in a firm but calm manner.Responding can only come when you give yourself the time and space after the comment or situation that upset you. You begin to look at the ‘upset’ as a ‘set up’, an opportunity to look at your triggers, your part in the situation.
When you wait and don’t immediately respond to the upsetting circumstance, you give yourself a gift, the gift of thoughtful introspection. That time and space enables you to consider the situation, what has triggered you and how you want to respond in a more rational way. The gift is grounded in self growth.

First you can ask, ‘what button is he or she pushing?’ Was I aware of the button? How long have I had that button for (I guarantee it pre-dates whomever is pushing your button right now).
Now you have learned something about yourself. How is this button or trigger serving me? Do I always respond the same way (ie. do I always feel like a victim when someone speaks abusively to me and then react in kind?). How might I respond differently? Now you have created a space to learn something about yourself and respond to the other person in perfect control. You have taken a ‘negative’ situation and made a positive out of it for yourself. What is the benefit of responding vs. reacting.

When we react, we dump our emotional load on others. Even if we have something important or wise to say, because we are doing it from a place of upset, it is mired in our angst. What the other person hears is our anger, resentment, pain or frustration, not the thoughts and wishes that might be buried somewhere within our reactive statement. When we respond from a place of calm, we can say what we think and how we feel without dumping our emotional load in such a way to overwhelm the other person.

It gives us an opportunity to be clear and concise, to state our needs or desires separate from our upset. It also gives us an opportunity to own our lesson in each situation.

This is not to say that the other person did not do something ‘wrong’, it is simply to say that every upset that we go through is a lesson for us about ourselves and if we choose to look only at the other person’s wrong doing, we are missing a great opportunity to grow! So what do you do?
1. Don’t Shoot the messenger (do not react to the person causing the upset).
2. Get the message (realize your trigger, the thing you learn about yourself).
3. Spend some time figuring out your triggers and considering the way you respond to such triggers.
4. Finally, RESPOND from a place of calm and clarity.

Choosing to respond instead of react is also a choice to move into a more positive energetic place. You have heard of The Secret: The Law of Attraction. Most people live primarily in victim and conflict energy. These energy levels of destructive and leave us feeling sad, hopeless, frustrated, angry and upset. When this is how we feel, it is also what we attract in others. By learning how to respond, to reframe what has happened and begin to cope in a different way, you increase your energetic vibration to a more healthy and positive energy. As a result, you will feel better about yourself and your circumstances as you begin to learn from even the difficult experiences.

The added benefit is that as you change the dance with the person you are in conflict with, they too will change the way they react. Without trying to control anyone but yourself, you will have a positive impact on your interactions. Moreover, when you begin to live your life from this higher energetic platform, you attract those with a similar healthy energy. You no longer find yourself with the same unhealthy people (partners, bosses, friends) in your life.

To find out more about Karen McMahon, Certified Divorce Coach, go to http://www.facebook.com/kmlifecoaching or to her website at http://www.karenmcmahon.com/

Stress is part of our lives whether we like it or not. But understanding what stress does to us can help us manage it in more healthy ways.

Today, I talked with Sue Ann Gleason of Conscious Bites Nutrition where she shared some great tips. [Read more →]

“Mom! Why does everyone need to be celebrating Christmas on the same day? Can’t we just spread it out somehow?”

My 28 year old son is living the Christmas nightmare that many “modern” family experience today.  “Where do you go for dinner, lunch? If I don’t see my parents, will they be upset? But what about my kids? I want to be there for them too.  And my partner’s family wants us there too, but we can’t be at both places at the same time.” URGGGG!!!!! [Read more →]

I enjoy gardening. I love to see my flowers bloom and give off their beautiful aroma. That is what I love about gardening. And plus, it gives me time to nurture and tend to my needs of with nature. One of my issues with gardening is that the weeds creep up when I’m not watching. How can they just pop up so fast? I realize that if I don’t look after my garden on a regular basis, these pesky little weeds just come in and invade my garden. It’s a constant struggle to keep up with getting rid of the weeds. It takes time and energy to create a beautiful garden. [Read more →]

In today’s world maintaining a satisfied relationship requires planning and commitment. With everyone’s lives so busy, it is not automatic anymore to have time to nurture and enjoy our spouses/partners.

Just like a project, you need to set aside time to plan activities that you do as a couple. This creates shared memories that build and strengthen a relationship-the more you have the better the relationship withstands hard times. [Read more →]

Did you ever say something out of anger and thought that well, it’s just words. It can’t hurt that much. They will have forgotten all about this. This is a video that shows just how much it can hurt….

This is a group that went to high schools in order to stop bullying and discrimination. It is a very powerful exercise to show just how much words hurt. I see this in homes too, between couples, parent and child and siblings. Words have a lasting effect and sometimes we don’t know the extent of the damage it has created. [Read more →]

This post was written by Cory Gundrum Sr. There are some very interesting points, especially coming from a man that I felt were worth sharing.

I’d love to hear what you think about this. Share you comments below.

Stepmothers establish relationships with the child and biological mother while serving as a wife and overcoming villainous stereotypes so stepmothers deserve enormous respect. A stepmother starts out disadvantaged because the biological mother already has established bonds with the child, the child’s friends and his or her parents. A stepmother has to set bounds with the biological mother while establishing the rules and expected conduct at her house for the child. These obstacles are difficult because of the villainous stereotypes the entertainment industry projects on stepmothers. The fact that often goes unnoticed is that stepmothers and biological mothers are more alike than they care to admit. [Read more →]

We tend to think that we’re alone when it comes to dealing with issues, especially around the Holidays and Christmas.

Today, I shared the platform with my co-hosts of the Stepmom’s Tool Box Radio show: Paula Bisacre of Remarriage Works, Mary Kelly-Williams of Married with Baggage, Barb Goldberg of The Evil Stepmother Speaks and myself, Claudette Chenevert, The Stepmom Coach, where we each shared our Holiday stories. Amazing to hear the similarities of what we struggled with and the insights we discovered because of our experiences.

As stepfamily-helping professionals, we all share a passion and a vision to make stepfamily living a bit easier. One of the main themes throughout our sharing is to not expect the impossible. Here is the link to our show “Our Most Touching and Horrendous Holiday Stories!”: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thestepmomstoolbox/2011/12/01/our-most-touching-and-horrendous-holiday-stories [Read more →]

I hear this often.  The kids don’t love me, heck, they don’t even like me. Their mom hates the idea of having me around and I can’t seem to be doing anything right.  I get so upset that all I want to do is hide or give up.

This is a common theme among many stepmoms, believing the children don’t want them around.  Although there is some truth in the conviction, it’s not accurate either.

Realize, kids daydream of having a more simple life, one where they’re not moving from one bedroom to another, house rules are the same from one home to the next, and never worry about forgetting their school work at one place, not be able to retrieve it before the next visit.  Children dream of having consistency and stability in their lives.  It’s not the case for youngsters of divorced parents. [Read more →]