Get out and experience all you can during your time at WMU

Life has never been easy, but luckily Western Michigan University is here to help. As a part of their Wellness Education, the Sindecuse Health Center offers free Wellness Workshops for all WMU students on a wide variety of topics.

The workshops are required for some health and wellness classes, but are open to all and anybody to participate with only a preregistration required. Topics include things such as weight loss strategies, sports nutrition, healthy vegetarian eating, self injury, coping with breakups and how to understand and improve relationships.

The workshops offered are all an hour long and are presented in a very laid back, interactive style. From love to nutrition, a wide spectrum of classes are available and if nothing else, they’re a great cure for the mid-day boredom that many of us experience; and they’re free, which is the most vital requirement for any proper college student.

Having taken a workshop titled “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” I was able to see firsthand the educational benefits of these classes and will offer up a taste of what is involved, though you’d truly have to experience it for yourself.

The class, taught by Jessica Kerby, a graduate student and counselor from the University Counseling and Testing Center, was much more of a discussion than a lecture and introduced us to a variety of methods for being a part of a healthy relationship.

Topics included communication, various elements of relationships, and interaction methods that couples use to varying levels of success.

Communication is an essential element to every relationship in which we enter. Whether we’re involved in a professional relationship with a boss, a casual one with a friend, or an intimate relationship with a significant other, oftentimes how we communicate with the other person can be a significant factor in the success of the relationship.

Having good communication is especially important in our intimate personal relationships. Along with communicating, effective interaction and a realization of the stage of the relationship are all important elements in making your current or next significant other last more than just a couple of weeks or months.

According to psychologists, there are three components of  love. Intimacy is a feeling of closeness and connectedness, passion is the physical connection between two people and commitment is the conscious decision to remain loyal to the other person.

These three elements have been symbolized by placing them on the edges of a triangle as to visualize what a relationship would look like with any combination of two or all three elements involved.
For instance, it is theorized that having intimacy and passion in a relationship is something like a romantic love, often encountered early in a relationship, while the couple is still exploring one another and has yet to fully develop a commitment to one another.

Intimacy and commitment is symbolic of companionship, sort of like the love shared between old couples who have been together for almost a lifetime. A relationship with passion and commitment might be like many that people in Hollywood are involved in. They’re committed, for a time, and for the sake of the camera’s that surround them, to the person they’re with, and they’re undoubtedly passionate, but they don’t have the intimacy, or the “liking” component that is truly necessary to make a relationship last.

Obviously the ideal relationship has all three components, though the levels of these are never quite stagnant, but always dynamic. Studies have shown that intimacy grows over time while passion decreases slowly, undoubtedly due to the couple getting comfortable with one another. Commitment oftentimes increases to a certain peak and remains there for the duration of the relationship.

How two people interact in their relationship is also a significant factor in the success the two have. It would make no sense to be involved in a relationship in which interaction is not fun, or enjoyable, so having happy times together is essential to making the relationship last.

There are three main interaction styles that psychologists have observed. A validating style involves both people compromising often and reaching a mutual satisfaction. Conflict avoiding, is somewhat self explanatory as it simply involves agreeing to disagree and what might seem like a goal of complete conflict avoiding. Lastly, is a volatile style where both people go at it frequently, leading to heated disputes and conflict.

Surprisingly, all three have been observed in long lasting successful relationships, though most people who have studied such things feel that the validating style is by far the one with the highest frequency of success.

One doctor who observed different couples in a natural setting over a significant time period eventually was able to predict the success of relationships with over 90 percent accuracy. The determining factor for the couples was having at least five positive “moments” for every negative one.

Relationships are never easy things to make a success. We’re all getting to the age where dating shouldn’t just be fun and games anymore, but rather a search for someone who we can spend the rest of our lives with.

The most important element in a long lasting relationship is out of our control; it’s the spark, the feeling inside that we really have no say over, it’s either there or it’s not. The other elements however, putting together all three aspects of love, interacting in a validating way, and communicating assertively will help to ensure that the spark doesn’t fizzle out, leaving us to be old maids or old goats.

Kevin Coniglio, a WMU freshman, also participated in the workshop last week to fulfill the requirement for his health and wellness class. He also saw the benefit of taking such a workshop.
“It was helpful for a healthy fulfilling relationship that is long lasting,” he said of the relationship dynamics workshop. “I would definitely recommend this workshop to other students who are looking to better their own personal relationships because it really touches home with what it has to offer and what it teaches.”

It’s amazing what you can learn at WMU outside of class. There is so much more to our time here at WMU than just dragging ourselves to class and drinking on the weekends. Get out and experience it. You’ll be glad you did.

Andrew Mell, a Western Herald opinion columnist, is a senior majoring in aviation, and can be reached via e-mail at melltimejr@hotmail.com.

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=5298

Posted by HeraldAdmin on Mar 30 2009. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

Cody Kimball
Web Manager: I'm a Communication Student at WMU, a SCUBA Diver, Boater, Ordained Minister, Notary Public, Web Designer, Film Maker, DJ, and of course a Journalist. Born and raised in Port Huron, MI and a graduate of SC4. http://www.codykimball.com