Emotional Intelligence for Critical Thinkers
Obsessive thoughts and overanalyzing can lead to terrible (or no) decision-making, causing you to stay in a rut that you can never get out of. Or if you do get out, it’s a very, very slow process.
In this episode, I talk about what it takes to make decisions that are right for you so that you stay out of obsessive thinking and get back to a more efficient, more productive, more fulfilling life.
This is part one of a two-part episode. Part two is here.
Silence is golden until it isn’t. In a relationship, it can be a slow death.
It’s vital to understand just how damaging withdrawing love and attention can be to a relationship. Over time, with continuing neglect, love can dissolve to the point where there’s no going back.
In this episode, I talk about the three main levels of silent treatment:
1. Processing time to figure out what you’re going to do with what you just learned.
2. Cool-own time as a way to regulate what might normally be a heightened response
3. How to make someone you care about feel bad. I’ll give you one guess what that is.
Segment 1: Asking yourself stupid questions may be the path to healing and moving through the hard stuff in your life.
We often have choices when it appears we don’t – stupid questions may lead to more choices (full article here).
Segment one: Our emotions are attached to our memories. Our memories are attached to people and stuff. It’s that stuff that we hold on to that sometimes makes us feel bad, so why do we still have it in our lives? Pictures are a great example of this. Why keep pictures that make you feel bad?
Segment two: In any relationship, the role of masculine is typically played by one person and the role of the feminine is played by the other. The problem occurs when one person likes the role they’re in and the other doesn’t. Knowing your role and what best works for the relationship will create a harmonious get-together as opposed to one of conflict.
Segment three: In this final segment, I talk a bit about detaching from your emotions. Being emotionally detached can make your partner think that you don’t love them which can be one of the worst feelings in the world.
Segment one: Stepping out of the details so that you can see a bigger picture is one of the best ways to end an argument. When you “chunk up” into a broader perspective instead of staying “chunked down” and embroiled in the details, you’re able to step out of all the negative emotional energy about the situation.
Segment two: A listener who just graduated college wrote and asked about honoring his personal boundaries with his parents and how to get along with a particular family member who doesn’t seem to like him.
Segment Three: I talk about what it really means to “create the life you want.” If you’ve had trouble doing that up to now, this is the segment for you.
