Emotional Intelligence 101: Taming the Beast Within!

Wanna be Heard?

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

– Theodore Roosevelt, 1858-1919, 26th President of the United States

It's not the Content, it's the Delivery!

My wife and I have an ongoing struggle about this...

You see, I get my feelings hurt, pretty easily. Because I "hear" the different inflexions in voice, energy and body language, because I believe I the "see" the rest of what is being said, I often get my feelings hurt, or get angry, at her communications.

I say, "It's not the Content, it's the Delivery! It's not WHAT you are saying, it's HOW you're saying it."

My wife says she's just "saying it" and I am reading the other stuff into it myself. Well, I think both are true, but still, the result is that I get my feelings hurt, pretty often.

so let's watch our delivery.
and be aware of the delivery of others.

That's emotional intelligence.

Relationships

I am over 40 years old. I've had a relationship that lasted four years and a marriage that lasted seventeen.  I've been working for over twenty-five years.  It is only in the last year that I have begun learning what it means to have a healthy relationship.  I can honestly say that prior to this last year my relationships have consisted of me changing and hiding parts of who I was to become the person that they were looking for.  I never knew that the most important relationship that I would ever have in my life was the relationship I would have with me.  I had a lousy relationship with myself.  I lied, I bullied, I criticized, I became a person I didn't like, and I wasn't consciously aware that I was doing it to me. 

Then my husband did the best thing he could ever do for me - he left me.  I was alone with me.  I became aware of who I was and what I was doing.  And I didn't like what I saw.  After a great deal of crying and a period of deep depression, I decided to make a change.  I decided to stop lying to myself.  I decided to be honest with myself.  I slowly decided to open up all of the closets and rid myself of all my dark secrets.  While I was making this change in my relationship with me, I was also making the same change in my relationships with others.  I have developed some very close, open, honest relationships.  It hasn't been all smooth and effortless.  Some we've been able to work out the misunderstandings, the hurt feelings, and the differences.  The key has usually been a willingness on both parts to talk about it and find a way that works for both of us to keep the friendship.

Some haven't worked out.  I have been disappointed that we haven't been able to work it out.  I also realize that I had set an expectation.  Since I was doing it different by being just me and being as open and honest as I am capable of being, I was building the strong friendships I wanted with people who are willing to accept me as I am without the lies and pretenses.  I believed that all of my new relationships would be this way.  I was wrong.  I have been hurt and disappointed when a new relationship ends.  Even though I am being open and honest, the relationships end just like when I wasn't.  I'm doing it differently and I'm getting the same results.  I realized today after talking to a friend that the result is different.  In the past I would have believed that the ending was all my fault.  Today I believe that I contributed to the ending and I am taking responsibility for my part.  I have no control over what the other person is going to do. And it really doesn't matter.  The only thing that matters is that I maintain the relationship with myself by remaining open and honest and completely me.

          Suellen Wiseman

Quotes from Famous People

“Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away.”

- Elvis Presley

"I do not seek. I find."

– Pablo Picasso

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

– Sophocles

"The man who has no imagination has no wings."

- Muhammad Ali

The ABC's of Healthy Attitudes

void negative sources, people, places, things and habits.
Believe in yourself.
Consider things from every angle.
Don't give up and don't give in.
Enjoy life to the fullest!
Family and friends are hidden treasures; enjoy their company.
Give more than you are expected to.
Hang on to your dreams.
Ignore those who try to discourage you.
Just do it.
Keep trying no matter how hard it seems, it will get easier.
Love yourself first and most.
Make it happen.
Never give up.
Open your eyes and see yourself as you really are.
Practice relationships.
Quitters never win and winners never quit.
Read, study and learn about your feelings and emotions.
Stop procrastinating, now.
Take control of your own destiny.
Understand yourself, and you will better understand others.
Visualize it. Feel it. Be it. Live it.
Want it more than anything.
EXcellerate your efforts.
You are unique in all God's creations, nothing can replace YOU.
Zero in on your target and go for it!

-

"Let me listen to me and not to them."

- Gertrude Stein

Ten Ways To Do What You Love

1. Do what you love.

2. Provide a service to others who do what you love.

3. Teach others to do what you love.

4. Write about what you love.

5. Speak about what you love.

6. Create a product related to what you love.

7. Sell or broker what you love.

8. Promote what you love.

9. Organize what you love.

10. Set up, repair, restore, fix, or maintain what you love.

Ten Ways To Do What You Love

- by coach Susan Henderson

See Susan's book list, too! There are some great ones here. I'm reading the The War of Art, and it's really powerful stuff about how our own internal Resistance can mess up our lives!
- Matt

Give yourself a Break!

"We have the need to be accepted and to be loved by others, but we cannot accept and love ourselves.

The more self-love we have, the less we will experience self-abuse. Self-abuse comes from self-rejection, and self-rejection comes from having an image of what it means to be perfect and never measuring up to that ideal.

Our image of perfection is the reason we reject ourselves the way we are, and why we don't accept others the way they are."

- Don Miguel Ruiz

I Like My Job

George Carlin sayz, "My job is to think up goofy shit, come back here, and report it to you!"

I say, "My job is feel emotional shit, and come back here, and report it to you!"

Awareness is the First Key to Change

"Insight occurs when, and to the degree that, one knows oneself."

- Andrew Schneider

------------------------------------------------------------- "We are not what we know. We are what we are willing to learn."

- Council on Ideas

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"The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival."

- Aristotle

Failure to Launch

Failure = inability to manage and control your own self, your own body, your own feelings

Failure = losing the battle with your inner demons

Failure = letting your fears and your stress take over your life and beat you down

Failure = allowing the unresolved feelings from your past to ruin your present, and your future

Failure = floating clueless in a sea of knowledge

- mcp