Since the puzzle pieces are life skills, how many are there and just HOW do I learn them? As taught by Thrive, there are 20 primary life skills puzzle pieces along with many smaller skill pieces that are birthed from the primary skills. 0 Relational circuits; 1 Sharing Joy; 2 Calming myself; 3 Forming bonds for two; 4 Being Thankful and Appreciative; 5 Forming family bonds; 6 Identifying heart values from Suffering; 7 Story telling using all my brain; 8 Identifying maturity levels; 9 Time to take a breather and disengage; 10 Telling nonverbal stories; 11 Return to Joy from the 6 big emotions; 12 Acting like myself in the six big emotions; 13 Having Heartsight.. seeing what God sees; 14 Stopping analytical criticism (the Sark); 15 Quiet interactively (recognizing overwhelm); 16 Recognizing high and low energy responses (sympathetic, parasympathetic) ; 17 Identifying attachment styles ; 18 Intervening where the brain is stuck; 19 Recovering from complex emotions;
I learn these life skills by living with and around those who are mature relationally. I watch, see, and feel what they do and imitate their actions and reactions. We as human beings, along with the animals, copy what our parents do and how they act. That is the easiest way to learn life skills. However, I will not be any more mature than those I am closely associating with.
Learning life skills is not knowing about a life skill, it is actually having that skill in daily operation in my life and way of living. This is usually where the breakdown happens. Life skill #4 is BEING THANKFUL and APPRECIATIVE.. I will say, when asked, that I am mostly thankful. I have that puzzle piece in place. However, in my daily living, I find that I am only being thankful and showing appreciation when I get my way or what I want. I am not thankful when things don’t go my way and definitely don’t show any appreciation. As a result, I am not thankful the majority of the time. Most of my days I feel that others (my family, my health, the weather, the government, my boss, my friends, my spouse, my job, my finances, my bad luck….) are controlling my life and that makes me unhappy and therefore, I am not thankful. So, in reality I do not have the skill of being thankful and appreciative as an active living puzzle piece of my life. I obviously have not learned that skill most likely because my parents did not have it. This skill itself is;”In Everything be thankful. For it is God’s will (and for my benefit) that I be thankful IN everything.” I am then able to express that thankfulness in appreciation to God and others.
So, how do I learn this skill? First off, look around, and find someone to identify with who seems to have this skill and operates in it. I will most likely find a parent or elder. Secondly I am able to learn this skill and others by consistent practice and by maturing relationally. Taking classes will be of great benefit. As with most relational skills puzzle pieces, I find that piece is connected to another piece and is not a stand alone piece. If I don’t have the starting skill zero piece (the desire to connect the puzzle pieces) I won’t get anywhere and my life puzzle will lay in disarray…
It has been extremely helpful and life changing for me to be learning these relational maturity skills. It also helps me understand the relational maturity of the one I am talking with and all the craziness I see in our world. My personal puzzle has a lot less missing pieces. ThriveToday.org and Life Model have extensive teaching on this subject of Relational Maturity.