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Autoethnographic Explorations of Intrapersonal Communications (FINAL PAPER)

There and Back Again: A Young Girl’s Tale by Sarah Grundy PROLOGUE: Once upon a time…there was a young girl. She loved her parents, brothers, friends, and though she started out shy she loved nearly everyone she came in contact with. From the moment that pieces of her identity began to form when she met her little brother to the day that her value and self-worth were shaken into place, this is her story. I invite you into a few of the moments that created her basic identities, fears, hopes, and dreams. I hope that you are able to relate to pieces of her story, find hope, and know that whatever you are facing today you are not alone. EPISODE 1: The Little Blue Bunny (1993) I was almost 2 years old, a little blonde girl who loved Barney, football and wild flowers. I adored my parents and they adored me. One day, my aunt and uncle took me to the hospital to meet my new little brother. I remember carrying a little blue bunny to give to the baby. I understood generally what a bro

Journal #10

PROMPT: For your final journal of the semester, you need to write between 100 and 300 words on the top three things you want to carry forward with you that you learned in this class this semester. This journal is shorter than usual - and this is on purpose. The point here is to really boil down three things to carry forward in your life as you move on from this space of weekly self-reflection and journaling. If I don’t intentionally structure this, I know I will go on and on and on. So here we go! 1. Simply being more aware of my Intrapersonal Communication. There are many things in this class that I want to apply to my life, but if I don’t know what’s going on inside I won’t be able to effectively apply them. My hope is to notice in the moment how I’m communicating with myself and others, but also to make intentional time for internal reflection. 2. Continue to push into a growth-mindset. One of the most liberating things I am taking away from this class is the KNOWLEDGE, not ju

Journal #9

PROMPT: Your journal for this week will take some of the material from last week and apply it to the material from Mindset. Guy Winch listed 7 Common Psychological Injuries we sustain in life in his Talk at Google: • Failure • Rejection • Guilt • Loneliness • Brooding and Rumination • Loss and Trauma • Bouts of Low-Self Esteem For this journal, reflect on the following prompt: Which injuries from the list above have you sustained in the last few weeks or months? How did you heal/administer first aid? If you didn’t, in the future, how can you? How might approaching your psychological injuries with a growth mindset help you heal? In the last couple months, I experienced several of these in a situation with someone in my life. I saw tension in the relationship but thought that there was still a team mindset trying to solve problems together even when we disagreed. But I misjudged the relationship and the other person was hurt and angry. Out of that came many harsh words about m

Journal #8

Prompt: For your journal this week, you will be looking at the “Grow your Mindset” prompts at the end of chapter 6. Pick one of the prompts from page 171-172 and answer it providing 2-3 links to the material we’ve been covering from Gardner (Multiple Intelligence's), Winch (Emotional First Aid), and any of our earlier material from class. Growth Mindset Question: After Rejection, do you feel judged, bitter, and vengeful? Or do you feel hurt, but hopeful of forgiving, learning and moving on? Think of the worst rejection you ever had. Get in touch with all the feelings and see of you can view it from a growth mindset. What did you learn from it? Did it teach you something about what you want and what you don’t want in your life? Did it teach you some positive things about your relationships? Can you forgive the person and with them well? Can you let go of the bitterness? (Mindset, 174-175) We all experience rejection at some point in our lives. My earliest moments of rejection are

Journal #7

Prompt:For your journal this week, I’d like you to (AGAIN) look back over your “epiphanies” journal from last week and pick ONE to write an evocative autoethnographic account of. This one must be different than the one you wrote in week 6. Remember to take the reader into the experience of the epiphany, and offer analysis/links to at least 2 concepts from our course in the narrative. This is meant to give you a another chance to attempt writing something using autoethnography that you can use later in your final paper! When I was a little girl, about 7 years old, I desperately wanted a doll house. My friend Joanna had a big beautiful wooden doll house that I tried not to be jealous of every time I went to her house. My family couldn’t afford even a small simple dollhouse, so I was saving up my birthday money. I cherished every penny as it got me closer to a beautiful dollhouse like Joanna had. One day sitting in church dressed up and desperately trying to sit still and pretend to und

Journal #6

Prompt:For your journal this week, I’d like you to look back over your “epiphanies” journal from last week and pick ONE to write an evocative autoethnographic account of. Remember to take the reader into the experience of the epiphany, and offer analysis/links to at least 2 concepts from our course in the narrative. This is meant to give you a chance to attempt writing something using autoethnography that you can use later in your final paper! Growing up as the oldest of four kids, in the homeschool community, and in a low income family, I quickly learned how to help people. I was the Vice Mom, Go To Person if someone needed support, and provider in many ways. There are so many beautiful things about loving people well and knowing how to help them and actually make a difference. However, the older I got the more unhealthy this became. I would give and give until one day I felt like my worth was all wrapped up in what I could do for other people. The line between myself and others was

Journal #5

Prompt: Begin to think about epiphanies you’ve had in your life that you might want to examine and analyze further as we move forward in this class. You might want to look back at the “experiences” journal from week 3 to get the ball rolling. For this journal, come up with a list of possible epiphanies to examine, and offer a blurb/description for each one. As I have processed my life and the moments of illumination and change, they didn’t fall from the sky and change life in a moment, they were born out of much personal reflection and intentional growth. Each of these moments required action on my part in a moment, or over a long period of time. Maybe that’s all an epiphany really is. There are moments in life that we forever look back on realizing that they changed our view point, beliefs, or how we see ourselves and the world. What really matters is how our lives change after these moments happen. On either side of this realization there is an action: how we got there and what w

Journal #4

Prompt: Week 4 Journal Entry: Exploring Retroactive Imagined Interactions For your only journal this week, you need to examine one of your Imagined Interactions from this week, a recurring Imagined Interaction that you have, or an Imagined Interaction that you mull/ruminate/brood on and answer the following questions for this journal: " Which II did you choose? Is it a one-time II, or is it a recurring II? Describe the imagined interaction. " How does/did the II play out? It is overall a positive II or a negative II? " How do you portray yourself in this II? For example: Are you bolder in the II than in real life? Why do you portray yourself this way in the II? " How is the II different than you in real life? How is it the same? " Do you see evidence of your mindset in this imagined interaction? One of my recurring Imagined Interactions is of the next time I get to see my friends in Afghanistan. I have been trying to learn Dari so that I can more easil

The Whirlwind of Life (written in 2017)

Hope and bitterness, Strength and fear, Wisdom and pain, Trust and hurt. Why can't emotions be logical? Can't the story emotions tell be true? Why is it one or the other? Can't it just be what it is? Spinning and clarity, Hopelessness and peace, Anger and joy, Control and abandon. Where is the grace in this truth? Will I ever truly be safe? Where will the tornado drop me? Will I ever truly find hope in love? Warm and numb, Rooted and lost, Souring and crashing, Living and disappearing. When will it all make sense? How will the pieces fit together? When will I feel strong again? How will I continue to trust? War and adventure, Empty and fulfilled, Afraid and safe, Confused and solid. None of this is logical. None of this is approved. None of this is easy. None of this is loveable. I need warmth. I need acceptance. I need support. I need love. I'm left out here on my own. No one cares to understand. I just need to figure it

Journal #3

Which mindset do you have? Answer these questions about intelligence. Read each statement and decide whether you mostly agree with it or disagree with it: 1. Your intelligence is something very basic about you that you can't change very much. Mostly Disagree 2. You can learn new things, but you can't really change how intelligent you are. Mostly Disagree 3. No matter how much intelligence you have, you can always change it quite a lot. Mostly Agree 4. You can always substantially change how intelligent you are. Mostly agree Also answer these questions about personality using the same "mostly agree" or "mostly disagree" answers: 1. You are a certain kind of person, and there is not much that can be done to really change that. Mostly Disagree 2. No matter what kind of person you are, you can always change substantially. Mostly Agree 3. You can do things differently, but the important parts of who you are can't really be changed. Mostly Disagree 4.

Journal #2

Prompt: While we will have ups and downs over the course of time, think about whether or not your self-talk has been predominantly negative or positive over the course of your life. Really reflect on what you can recall of your self talk in the past, and think about the self talk you have with yourself on a daily basis now to answer this question. Once you've got an idea of if you're more positive or negative in your self-talk, think about why it's that way. Can you identify any influences or contributing factors that make you more positive/negative? What are they and how did they specifically impact your self talk? Identify two or three significant life experiences that you think may have impacted your self-talk and made it what it is today. MAKE SURE TO LINK TO AT LEAST 3 CONCEPTS FROM THE MATERIAL ON SELF-TALK IN THE SCREEN-CASTS & POWERPOINT FOR THIS WEEK! Consider what voices in your past and present have impacted your inner voice. Use this journal to capture a sna

Journal #1

PROMPT: Reflect on the ways that your communication produces, maintains, transforms and repairs your reality. How does thinking about communication in this way change the way you view your everyday communicative interactions with yourself and with others? Does this introduce an ethical component into our understanding of communication, since yours and others reality is at stake? Most of the time when we communicate we do it without a whole lot of thought. When we see a friend we ask them how they are, when we are eating dinner we comment on how good the food is, or when there is snow on the ground we tell our friends to drive safe. These are things that we naturally do without thinking much about it because they are what our culture has thought us to do, and there is nothing wrong with that! As much as I hate small talk I have learned that nearly every relationship starts with small talk. From the moment we begin interacting with someone we are communicating something and therefore a

IntrApersonal Communication

I've been doing a lot of work on myself lately. I've been in counseling for over 2 years, through a weekend that was designed to shift my individual reality, have started taking medication for anxiety and am now a part of a Soul Group with other women trying to figure themselves out. Now one of the required classes for my degree is an IntrApersonal Communications class... a class on how we communicate with ourselves. It's been a long time since I have blogged consistently, but this class requires a journal entry type of refection every week and I thought that this would be a good opportunity to allow you (whoever you are reading this) back into the inner-workings of my life. So for the next 10 weeks I plan to post my processing and ramblings here each week. I'm also in the process of moving...again (but this time we bought our house!) so you might also get some random poems or notes I find through the moving process. My hope is that I walk this journey someone out th