Emotional Intelligence 101: Taming the Beast Within!

The Secret Movie 30 Day Challenge

Make a commitment NOW to make the next month, March 2007, a month of real, quantifiable change and growth in your life!

Take the 30 day challenge, based on the life-changing movie The Secret, and "manifest" something New and DIFFERENT and Cool in your life, now.

Link: The Secret Movie 30 Day Challenge.  (lead by an amazing life coach, Andy Wibbels.  no charge, just Do it.  I'll be there)
- Matt

need help with setting and keeping personal goals?  here's a simple, effective way to track daily habits and changes.   www.joesgoals.com

The EQ Edge

The appearance in 1995 of Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence: Why it can Matter More than IQ generated a flood of interest in the role that emotional intelligence plays in our lives. Goleman elegantly surveyed years of research into psychological functioning and interpersonal skills, presenting his case to general readers in a coherent and accessible way. The response was seismic. At long last, the so-called soft skills that did so much to determine our success were rescued from the fringe and seriously considered by mainstream educators, business people and the media.

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The EQ Edge:

Emotional Intelligence and Your Success

Reuven Bar-On arrived at a way to capture emotional intelligence by dividing it into five blanket areas or realms, and 15 subsections or scales.

The Intrapersonal Realm concerns your ability to know and manage yourself. It embraces Self-Awareness

- the ability to recognize how you're feeling and why you're feeling that way and the impact your behavior has on others; Assertiveness - the ability to clearly express your thoughts and feelings, stand your ground and defend a position; Independence - the ability to be self-directed and self-controlled, to stand on your own two feet; Self-Regard - the ability to recognize your strengths and weaknesses and to feel good about yourself despite your weaknesses; and Self-Actualization - the ability to realize your potential and feel comfortable with what you achieve at work and in your personal life.

The Interpersonal Realm

concerns your "people skills" - your ability to interact and get along with others. It is composed of three scales: Empathy

is the ability to understand what others might be feeling and thinking. It is the ability to view the world through another person's eyes. Social Responsibility is the ability to be a cooperative and contributing member of your social group. Interpersonal Relationships refers to the ability to forge and maintain relationships that are mutually beneficial and marked by give-and-take and a sense of emotional closeness.

The Adaptability Realm

involves your ability to be flexible and realistic, and to solve a range of problems as they arise. Its three scales are Reality Testing

- the ability to see things as they actually are, rather than the way you wish or fear they might be; Flexibility -the ability to adjust your feelings, thoughts and actions to changing conditions; and Problem-Solving - the ability to define problems, then move to generate and implement effective, appropriate solutions.

Stress Management concerns your ability to tolerate stress and control impulses. Its two scales are Stress Tolerance

- the ability to remain calm and focused, to constructively withstand adverse events and conflicting emotions without caving in; and Impulse Control the ability to resist or delay a temptation to act.

The General Mood Realm

also has two scales. Optimism

is the ability to maintain a realistically positive attitude, particularly in the face of adversity; Happiness is the ability to feel satisfied with life, to enjoy yourself and others, and to experience zest and enthusiasm in a range of activities.

http://www.beingjane.com/bookReview.php?news_id=20&lang=&last=

- Matt

Authors: Steven J. Stein, Ph.D. and Howard E. Book, M.D.

The EQ Edge is one of the few books that not only clearly defines what emotional intelligence is and how it differs from IQ, but also tells readers what practical steps they can take to enhance their emotional intelligence quotient. The authors believe that based on their knowledge and experience, that reading and putting into practice the materials in this book, you can and will gain new insights into yourself and others that will enable you to change for the better and achieve greater success in your life.

Emotional Quotient Defined

Unlike intelligence quotient IQ, which is relatively fixed after seventeen years of age, emotional quotient EQ can be enhanced throughout your life. When you enhance your emotional quotient, you increase your chance of success in the countless roles you play each day. When you develop your emotional quotient, you learn to understand yourself and others better, become more adaptable, learn to cope with stress, and you are able to maintain an appropriately optimistic perspective.

EQ Bookstore
http://www.eiconsortium.org/bookstore/bookstore.htm

Powerful, Informative, FREE ebook!
Emotional Intelligence Training Materials, 128 page .PDF
http://contakt.group.shef.ac.uk/pdfs/CompleteTrainingDocumentFinalVersion.pdf

(as I said in an earlier post, I believe EQ is actually more important than IQ.  I feel safer with someone who ain't got good book smarts, but they know themselves, they have good common sense and they have the wisdom to survive, and to make it in the world, with a smile!)

Quotes on Fear

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it.  Your fears are not walls, but hurdles."

- Dan Millman

"Many of our fears are tissue-paper-thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them."

- Brendan Francis

“It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.” - Alan Cohen

"To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."

– Bertrand Russell

Creatures of Emotion

"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but creatures of emotion."

- Dale Carnegie

Survival

It has been a busy time for me lately with plans being made and steps being taken to make some major changes in the way that I am living my life.  Becoming emotionally aware has probabaly been the biggest change I have made.  That one change is like the little snow ball rolling down the mountain that just keeps picking up snow along the way and getting bigger and bigger.  I have been picking up all sorts of new ideas and concepts.  I have been seeing a whole new spectrum of possibilities that I never knew existed and never imagined that I would have the opportunity to try for myself.  All of the changes I am contemplating and starting to put into action have been accompanied with a great deal of fear.  Fear that I can identify and the unknown fear that grabs me by the throat and forces me up against the wall.  And with every step I take, I keep hearing that little voice in my head say "Even though I am afraid, I will survive." 

Surviving.  I know a great deal about surviving.  About taking what is thrown at you and finding one more reason to keep moving forward.  Surviving is not living but I have found that living is surviving.  It is taking surviving to a new level - where the reason to keep moving forward isn't to prove someone wrong, or waiting for the opportunity to strike back, or to hold on to that glimmer of hope that things will get better while nothing changes.  The reason to keep moving forward is to tap into that overabundance of love, joy, beauty, happiness, and friendship that surrounds us.  To take it all in until we are overflowing with it and can share it with those who come in contact with us.  It is about finding the opportunities to do something you love instead of just bringing home a check, about being with people you enjoy instead of the people you feel you "should" be with, about being the person you are instead of the role you are playing, and about trusting yourself and finding the people you can trust.

I once told my therapist that surviving was easy, living is not.  Surviving was easy because I could blame everything on someone or something else.  I wasn't causing my life to be miserable; everybody else was making my life miserable.  Living meant that I had to accept the fact that I was making my life miserable by allowing others to get away with treating me like dirt.  Living meant that I had to show and to tell people how I wanted to be treated and implement the consequences when others or I crossed the line.  Surviving is easier but living is so much more fun. And when life knocks me for a loop (which it will occassionally), I will survive until I am ready to live again.

     Sue Wiseman

Feelings and Emotion Defined

Research on "Feelings"
View results from: Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | All Reference | the Web

—Synonyms: Feeling, emotion, passion, sentiment refer to pleasurable or painful sensations experienced when one is stirred to sympathy, anger, fear, love, grief, etc.

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Research on "Emotion"
View results from: Dictionary | Thesaurus | Encyclopedia | All Reference | the Web

- an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.

Heal Feelings - Do What it Takes!

You cannot begin your healing journey without the willingness to do so. Without the willingness to do whatever it takes to heal from your wounded self, you will not begin the journey of healing and evolving your soul.

“Doing whatever it takes” means that you are ready and willing to feel, understand and take full responsibility for the whole range of your feelings - from fear, anger, hurt, shame, depression and loneliness to safety, worth, lovability and joy. Willingness also means that you are ready to see how you are responsible for many of your own feelings by becoming aware of creating them with your thoughts, beliefs and actions.

- Margaret Paul’s and Erika Chopich's
Article on the Six Steps of Inner Bonding
Free Course

Asking for Help

The healthy, the strong individual, is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he has an abscess on his knee or in his soul.

- Rona Barrett

Asking for help does not mean that we are weak or incompetent. It usually indicates an advanced level of honesty and intelligence.

- Anne Wilson Schaef

How could you possibly run a cool family, team or organization without asking for help? In fact, how could you run a cool person, YOU, without asking for help?

- Matt

The Secret, a movie - Watch it!

Watch the movie, The Secret. imho, one of the best personal growth movies of all time (in the same arena as 'What the Bleep').

http://www.TheSecret.TV $4.95, 90 minutes
Trailer version, 2 min: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1443364536882886742

"Who you are today is a sum total of what you have ALREADY thought and felt."
- Jack Canfield, "Chicken Soup for the Soul"

"Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions."
- Albert Einstein

What you Visualize will Materialize.

The Creative Process (from The Secret movie)
Step 1: Ask
Step 2: Answer
Step 3: Receive

Watch it. Believe it. Live it!