Emotional Intelligence 101: Taming the Beast Within!

Emotional Awareness

"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names. "

– Chinese Proverb

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"Emotional awareness is the first key to change."

- mcp

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"Our lives improve only when we take chances - and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves."

- Walter Anderson

3 Biggest Myths of Self Confidence

• You have to be born with it.

Not true, self confidence is a set of skills that can be learned, just like learning to drive or play a game.

• If you've had your confidence destroyed, it's gone for good.

Wrong.  It may take a greater leap of faith to start building it back up, but once you're there you'll be much hardier than you were before and less likely to have your confidence shaken again.

• I'll know I'm confident when I can be sure I'll succeed at something new.

How can you know you'll succeed when you've never done something before?  Confidence is much more about tolerating uncertainty:  being cool with not knowing what is going to happen.

http://www.more-selfesteem.com/

Building a Healthy Self-Esteem

Building a Healthy Self-Esteem
(article) http://www.happynews.com/news/672007/building-healthy-self-esteem.htm

Here's a good article on being "real" with your kid. Positive, definitely. Over-Positive, no. (but over-positive still beats over-negative!).  Here are some excerpts from this article so you'll get the point…

• "Few things are more important to a child's personal growth than having a healthy self-esteem.
• We help our children have a strong sense of self by confirming their emotions. If we dismiss their feelings, that hurts their sense of self-worth, but if we encourage them to express how they feel, that builds them up.
• but maybe we shouldn't call our children Michelangelo every time they draw a stick man standing by a stick house.
• If we give it too liberally, we make ourselves out to be either liars or fools.
• What we really want, then, is for our children to be balanced, well rounded, and with a healthy self-concept. We don't want them to be spoiled or over-confident to the point no one can stand them. We want them to be appreciative and humble, but with the confidence to storm through life with their heads high.
• They'll know the sting of failure and understand the concept of guilt and shame, but they use that to move forward and become better. "

In other words, be UP, help them be in touch with their feelings & emotions, and above all, BE REAL.  (hey, that attitude works too for friends, family, even yourself!)

- Matt

Hiding Feelings From Yourself

"One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is." - Norman Vincent Peale

The Beauty of Having Choices

A good anger acted upon is beautiful as lightning and swift with power.
A good anger swallowed clots the blood like slime.

-Marge Piercy

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"One thing we can do is make the choice to view the world in a healthy way. We can choose to see the world as safe with only moments of danger rather than seeing the world as dangerous with only moments of safety."

- Deepak Chopra

Courage

Strength and courage are two words that have been coming up quite a bit lately.  Words that others have used to describe myself and those I know and words that I have used to describe others.  What has been interesting to me lately is how people react, including myself, when these words are used to describe them.  The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines strength as "the quality or state of being strong, power to resist force, power of resisting attack" and courage as the "mental or moral strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty." 

I have heard the word courageous used to describe my survival of my life's journey.  It took courage to survive an abusive childhood, an abusive marriage, and abusive work environments.  It took courage to face and expose my demons in order to find and live the happy and fulfilling life I have the right to live.  But I never looked at it as being courageous or strong.  For me it was doing what needed to be done to make it to the next day and the next and the next.  It was doing what needed to be done that no one else wanted to do.  What is called courageous by others I see as pure stubbornness--my refusal to quit surviving, my refusal to let anyone tell me I didn't have the right to exist, my refusal to give up believing there was something better if I just held on a little longer. 

Courage comes in many forms.  It is the soldier leaving his family behind to fight someone else's battle to protect the right of human freedom.  It is a father placing his daughter's safety in another man's hands on her wedding day.  It is a mother cheering her child's first ride down the big hill while her heart is pounding out of her chest.  It is the scared child shouldering responsibilities she is not prepared to handle.

Life is full of many small courageous acts made every day by ordinary people.  It takes courage to love and be loved.  It takes courage to trust and be trusted.  It takes courage to allow those we love and care about to make their own choices and mistakes and be hurt.  It takes courage to admit that you have made a mistake and learn from it.  It takes courage to face your fears one at a time so that you can live the life of your dreams and move beyond mere survival.

     Sue Wiseman 

Compassion

"Compassion is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity.

It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak and deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment."

- Arthur Jersild