Emotional Intelligence 101: Taming the Beast Within!

Emotional Quotient

The baddest EQ site on the internet:

http://www.6seconds.org/

"Emotional intelligence is critical to leadership, learning, and organizational performance. Learn from the leaders in the field how to raise your and others' emotional intelligence. Gain an in-depth understanding of emotional intelligence as you develop new tools you can put to work immediately."

Confidence

"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face... The danger lies in refusing to face the fear, in not daring to come to grips with it.

You must make yourself succeed every time. You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

EQ for Families

EQ for Families  (EQ = Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence, imho one of THE most important skills you can learn as a parent!)
http://www.6seconds.org/family/

Workshop One: Emotional Literacy -- “The Power of Feelings.” Help your children recognize and use emotions to increase self-awareness and compassion.  (FREE if you're willing to spread the word, and give feedback).

Workshop Two: EQ and Accountability -- “Raising Strong, Caring Kids.” Build skills for children and teens to make more positive and productive decisions.

Workshop Three: Optimism and Resilience -- “Bouncing Ahead.” Create families that help each other build optimism and turn adversity and challenge into resiliency and hope.

Workshop Four: Empathy and Acceptance -- “From the Heart.” Model for your children self-acceptance and inclusion of others through empathy and caring behaviors.

Heal your Past

Hi.  We just did another one of our amazingly powerful ND classes again this weekend.  Been doing them for 20 years now (wow!) and we're getting pretty good at teaching them.

It still floors me how much change we can make in people's lives -- release their pent-up feelings, change their beliefs about themselves and their value of where they fit in the world -- in just one short weekend.

"What you bring forth out of yourself from the inside will save you. What you do not bring forth out of yourself from the inside could destroy you."

- Gospel of Thomas

It also amazes me how lousy we are at marketing.  We had only 11 people in this class -- what a shame that so few people (along with the 2 instructors and the 20 assistants who were there to help out and learn more) -- were able to get the healing, the release, the personal power, the Aliveness and the growth possible during our workshop. 

Oh well, some day I'll get to be a better marketer and more people will get to experience this.  Until then, we will continue to change lives, to heal families, to change pasts, and to give hope, guidance, direction and LOVE for people's futures, a few people at a time.

"Letting go of our suffering is the hardest work we will ever do. It is also the most fruitful. To heal means to meet ourselves in a new way -- in the newness of each moment where all is possible and nothing is limited to the old."

- Stephen Levine

Let Yourself Feel

"And though the tears fall, I am okay."

a quote I read today on our online support group from a young lady who was remembering her Mom as she slipped away. 

... so short, so beautiful... and says so much...

it's about:
Power.
Allowing.
Identification.
Release.
Hope.
Sadness.
Joy.
Self-Esteem.
Faith.
Trust.
Life.

wow.  it says it all.
- Matt

7 Steps to Healing your Feelings

Follow these 7 simple (tho' sometimes not Easy) steps to learn to "Deal with" your feelings & emotions.

1. Notice that you DO feel (many deny the whole concept)
   
2. Identify 'em. Helps to put a name to them, and to understand yourself to a much greater depth.
3. Accept 'em. Yes. They are there, and they are wonderful, and they are YOU!
4. Express 'em. Rock on! Some people say this isn't necessary -- I say "BULL"! We gotta be willing to let 'em rip, if that's what it takes. In fact, I've found that being willing and able to Express your feelings, in safe, sane ways, is the ONLY thing that works in relieving them!
5. Release. Let go. Let God. Relax. Give in. Give up. Allow. Accept. Forgive (but don't forget). Chill. Flow. Breathe.
6. Replace. We get to choose what we feel, so I choose Love! Replace dark with light, gloom with bright, yucky with nice.
7. Rejoice and celebrate life all the wonderful feelings that God has given us!! THIS is what life's all about!! Celebrate your Love, Joy, Fun, Intimacy, and your Fear, Sadness, Pain and Anger -- the whole enchilada -- because that IS the wonder of you!

Want more info on the 7 Steps?  Read my white paper on this subject, including a Feelings chart, a "Difficulty Rating Chart", and in-depth explanation of the different feelings.

Good luck with them all.  Let me know if you need some help with them.
- Matt

Quotes on Success

"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed."

- Napoleon Hill

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

– Winston Churchill

"The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do that counts."

- Booker T. Washington

"Happiness does not come from success.  Success comes from happiness."

- ??

"The big shots are only the little shots who keep shooting."

- Christopher Morley

"Forgiveness is the most powerful thing you can do for yourself. If you can’t learn to forgive, you can forget about achieving true success in your life."

*Dr. Wayne Dyer

"Success seems to be connected with action.
Successful people keep moving. They make
mistakes, but they don't quit."

- Conrad Hilton

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."

- Bob Dylan

Learning about your Feelings!

Hi Matt -

I just wanted to say thanks for the information you have been sending me.  I have been struggling through a "growth" period of life, and I have really been having a hard time sorting a lot of stuff out. Learning about my feelings and how to interpret them has really helped. I feel like I have a much clearer picture of who I am and what direction I want and need my life to go in.

So, anyway, thank you for being a light and helping me to recognize and get on the right path. :-)

Sincerely,
- D

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Hi Matt:

Thank you for taking the time and for all the love, caring and humanity.

- G, Madrid, Spain

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Wow!  Quite an undertaking!  Congratulations!  And thank you, thank you, thank you.

- Val, California

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"... I do not carry guilt and shame as I did before and that in it's self is such a gift. I can not thank you, Matt and Paula, Karen, Christine, and Doc Downing enough for your untiring ability to see, care, accept and instruct others how to free themselves from their burdens of life."

- M

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"Thanks for all your guidance and words of wisdom regarding understanding your feelings and taking charge of your emotions. Your forum has been tremendously helpful to me as I learn to finally pay attention to my feelings and not ignore them. For years, I kept my feelings behind a fortress seeing them as weak and debilitating. ...

... Thank you for helping me open up more and learn how vital connecting with feelings is to being a happy, health functioning being who is living life and not hiding from it."

- S, NY

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from Matt to all who've sent their Thanks...

"I very much appreciate your kind words! They help inspire me to keep writing. It continues to amaze me how profound, yet simple, all this Feeling stuff is, and keeps me motivated to share the lessons and tips to those ready to truly Take Control of themselves and their lives.

Keep Feelin' and Healin'!
My best to you, always.
- Matt

Feelings can be damned Uncomfortable

By definition, feelings get REPRESSED because they're too damned Uncomfortable to get Expressed.  Whatever the reason for repressing our feelings like:

• we'd 'get in trouble' for being angry or sad
• we'd be laughed at or humiliated for expressing ourselves
• we were specifically told NOT TO express ourselves
• we were guilted into it, or not shown how

it doesn't really matter WHY or HOW our feelings got repressed... the bottom line is that expressing them now, as adults, is probably going to be VERY uncomfortable.  Sorry.  Get used to it.  It still HAS to be done.  You'll be ok. 

"Life begins at the end of your comfort zone."

- Neale Donald Walsch

You will need to learn to PUSH YOURSELF out of your shut-down, non-feeling, stoic comfort zone to a place where your body wants to go -- to a full-feeling, issue-releasing, pain-reducing place where our body can HEAL.

It ain't always fun, but it's gotta be done.

After awhile, after you've done it a few times, you realize the incredible Relief, and Release you feel AFTER expressing your feelings as strongly as they need to be felt.  There's nothing quite like it and nothing I've seen can Heal you faster or more completely than releasing your old, pent-up feelings from childhood! 

It's just that the first few times can be really uncomfortable -- but you Will get through it.  Trust me.  It helps, it works and it heals... I've personally seen it happen Thousands of times.

You've got to Feel it to Heal it.

go get 'em.  Let me know if you need some help with it all.
- Matt

Don't THINK Away Your Feelings!

“When emotions are managed by the heart, they heighten your awareness of the world around you and add sparkle to life. The result is new intelligence and a new view of life.”

-- Doc Childre and Howard Martin

"Learning to be aware of feelings, how they arise and how to use them creatively so they guide us to happiness, is an essential lifetime skill."

-- Joan Borysenko

"Feelings expressed verbally as intensely as they are felt will take place, reduce in intensity and are free to change."

-- Doc Downing, PhD, LMFT

Need help with your feelings?  Stuck in anger or depression?  Often reduced to tears?   Is Guilt or Shame tearing you apart?  We can help.  Call me for a free coaching session or join us at our life-changing workshop July 21 in Fresno, CA.  I guarentee you will be changed, forever.