WoVeN Series week 5: Connections

Week fives theme centers around connections our main objectives for this week is to reflect on the importance of relationships in one’s life and consider ways to improve or expand those relationships, reflect on specific relationships that have been important, particularly attending what aspects of certain relationships have been valuable, consider relationships that we may wish to develop further and identify what might get in the way of that development and to consider relationships that need some work and identify steps that one could take towards repairing their relationship. To help accomplish these goals I try my best to give the best advice I can from my past experiences, and I also rely on my group members and their
experiences and wisdom in their description of their relationships to provide food for thought.

The connections activity consists of the handout with a picture of a dinner table and at the dinner table there is you, your idol, mentor, future friend and challenging relationship. As a group we talk about and consider the importance of the relationships in our lives. A lot of times our relationships are built on where we are in our life. We also talk about the challenges of developing relationships and how it might be easier or harder based on a number of factors. When we think about the different stages in our life, we began to ask the questions such as:

Do you find developing relationships particularly straightforward?
Was it particularly easy or difficult to connect with people at any stage in your life? [An example may be during basic training versus after separation from the military.]
What factors contribute to making relationships harder or easier?

Using the handout, we imagine that we are having a dinner party and we have invited four people but not just any four people- these people have been the most important in your life. As I stated earlier the four friends are your idol which is someone whom you greatly admire, your mentor someone who has been a great teacher, your future friend someone in life you would want to develop a friendship with and a challenging relationship someone who is important to you with whom you have a strained relationship with. I then have the group to take a minute to think about who they would choose to have at their dinner party, and we then discuss why we choose those four people. There are a few great questions that are provided to help keep the discussion going a few being:

How is your idol similar to you?
In what ways do you strive to be more like your idol?
What is the most important “lesson” your mentor has taught you?
Why was this particular lesson so valuable to you?
What is about this person that makes you want to get to know him/her better?
What is preventing you from developing a deeper relationship?
What do you value about this person? In other words, if the relationship is challenging, then why not just walk away?
If you could change joust one thing or behavior about person who is challenging, what would this one thing be?

The WoVen experience is not only about networking but about connections and bonds. Connections has to be one of my favorite themes because just by talking about our relationships and how they could be amazing, challenging or both we seriously bond because we laugh, talk, cry and uplift one another.

“We form bonds. It’s a very female bonding kind of dance.”
-Aisha Ali

For more information on WoVen visit the WoVen website https://www.wovenwomenvets.org/

Read weeks 1&2 here: http://rly.pt/3vSR8QZ
Read week 3 here: https://rly.pt/3vQfWZL
Read week 4 here: https://rly.pt/2PynCiY
To check out more information and other tools visit: https://www.wovenwomenvets.org/