How to Stay Positive as a Family during a Crisis

A crisis can make or break relationships. This is a moment when people’s characters are put to the test.

Can you handle the stress related to the crisis? How do you deal with family members with SUD during these challenging times? What do you do to preserve your family relationships when another part of your world is in turmoil?

Related Read: What Tomorrow May Bring – Facing Addiction AND Coronavirus as a BALM Community

Every day can be scary if we let fear occupy most of our thoughts. Fear is brought about by many things, but what is important is that you learn how to deal with the negative thoughts that can be aggravated more with the crisis that your family is dealing with.

You may feel alone in trying to create positivity within your family, but every positive action you take towards changing the dynamics in your family matters. Your loved ones will catch on to the vibe that you are trying to create within your family circle sooner or later.

Here are ways on how you can stay positive as a family during a crisis:

Show gratitude and appreciation for your family.

As with any regular day, starting your day with gratitude can set the mood for the day. You can never be mad and be grateful at the same time. Be grateful for your family. You may not be the epitome of a perfect family but the fact that you still have family members or loved ones around you is something to be grateful for.

Appreciate one another. This is most crucial when family relationships are tense. When you appreciate a loved one, even with their SUD, you focus more on their good qualities and less on the bad. The mark of a healthy family is the ability to express love, empathy, respect and appreciation for one another, even during a crisis.

Acknowledge how you feel and encourage other family members too.

To stay positive in a crisis, you need to acknowledge the feelings or emotions that you have. Considering the circumstances you and your family are in. How do you feel about it? Do you feel angry? Sad? Hurt? All your feelings are valid.

This may sound counter-intuitive but you need to express your feelings towards the situation. Bottling up emotions is not healthy and it would make the resentments grow. It can also manifest negatively in your body. Encourage your loved ones to also express how they feel about the crisis that your family is in.

If you need to confront loved ones, don’t do it in front of other people, talk to them in private. There are effective ways to communicate your feelings without sounding like you are putting the blame on them.

Spend quality time together.

When you are in a crisis, it is important that you spend quality time together as a family as much as you can. Push the darkness away by creating positive memories. These good memories will help your family sustain through your crisis.

So start planning small activities that will help create happy memories like having dinner together. It can be as simple as ordering pizza and watching movies or playing board games. The key is to spend time together doing things that you all enjoy.

Be a support system for one another during a crisis.

Every family member would need a support system, especially those suffering with SUD. You can be that person providing them the support they need. Learn what would be the best things to do and how you can provide the support that your loved one needs.

Need to speak to a family recovery life coach? Schedule your appointment here.

There are many available resources online, but one of the best ways you can enhance your ability to cope and even thrive with famiy SUD is to enroll in a family recovery program. You may not want to make a career out of it, but the information and tools that you will learn from the training would provide more than the support that your loved ones need.

The BALM® Family Recovery Education Program

This is a one year program using the Be A Loving Mirror (BALM®) Method of Family Recovery. This powerful program includes tools and instructions and practice in the Be A Loving Mirror method which helps in escalating family member’s inner peace and allows better communication that most of the time leads a loved one to choose recovery.

This program is delivered through one full year of full online access to the Family Recovery Academy community with a variety of options that are delivered through information, transformation and support.

The BALM® method teaches families how to engage their loved ones in evidence-based brief interventions that can encourage loved ones to enter and commit to recovery more quickly.  Long-term changed family behavior can also help a loved one avert or shorten slips and relapses.

Check out the BALM Family Recovery Program.

Call 1-888-998-BALM (2256) for more information.