Melbourne, Australia—The Melbourne chapter of UPF-Australia continued its “Being Self-Aware, Responsible and Loving” webinar series with a virtual seminar on “Attachment Style Influence on Relationships,” held on June 13, 2020 with 25 participants.
Ms. Darlene Haddad, founder of Optimizing Minds and who has a Psychology Masters in Communications, spoke about attachment theory, one of the main frameworks used in the study of intimate relationships, emotional interplay and personality processes. She spoke about how people’s interpersonal relationships start forming from the moment of birth. The type of early childhood attachment patterns we create impacts us into adulthood and affects how we relate with other people and view ourselves.
Dr. John Bellavance, vice president of UPF-Australia, spoke about “Managing Ourselves and Self-Actualisation.” Managing ourselves well is an important pillar of peacebuilding. To manage ourselves we need to be self-aware. Emotional self-awareness allows us to reason about how much our emotions influence our decisions and behaviors. Reason and emotions reciprocally influence each other. Awareness of our emotional desires is a prerequisite to managing our thinking and behaviors. This requires us to recognize which emotions we are feeling and the effects these emotions have on us.