Emotional Intelligence for Critical Thinkers
In the March 5th, 2017 episode of The Overwhelmed Brain, I tackled the ultimate challenge: The General Feeling of Unwell Being. Like a cloud of misery that follows you throughout life.
What inspired that episode was a letter I received from a woman who wrote to me that said she went to her workplace counselor who told her: “You have too many problems, we can’t help you.”
WOW!
Why would anyone want to be disconnected from their emotions?
Because they believe they won’t experience pain. Of course, that also means they won’t experience pleasure (for the most part) either. The resistance of some emotions typically means the prevention of both the good and bad. But then what? What kind of life are you living where you feel very little at all?
When I was in my first long-term relationship, during the last couple of years I found out it was a lot easier to be analytical and calculating than it was to show my anger or fear. That’s because my girlfriend was falling out of love with me and I had thoughts and feelings about her that I chose not to share. If I shared them, I believed she might get mad and leave me. But in reality, she was on the way out anyway.
[Read more…]
One of the hardest life events to get over is a breakup or loss of someone we love.
When my wife left me, I was devastated. I was completely in shock and had no idea what to do. I actually fell to the floor and cried like a baby. That’s embarrassing to admit, but I’m willing to bet you understand what that’s like.
I felt truly loved and cherished by her. She was someone who finally understood me and loved me unconditionally, and I was losing her. I was angry and sad, and felt like I was being abandoned.
I was in a state of complete hopelessness.
I also came to the conclusion that she didn’t believe in marriage like I did. After all, how could she throw it all away? Why wouldn’t she work harder at this? In my head, I asked her, “Isn’t marriage important to you?” [Read more…]
What kind of response do you get when you need to honor yourself with someone by saying “no” to them? I had to do this once with a business partner, and it was one of the hardest things to do.
It wasn’t just a “No, I can’t help you”, it was a, “Hey, I know we’ve been planning a project together for over a month and a half now, and I know we’re going to have a conference call about it on Sunday, but I need to bow out now. I realize I’m fifty percent of the project, and that without me, you really won’t be able to finish it, at least in a short amount of time, but I have to back out.”
I’ll tell you, it was hard to click send on that email. It was an email instead of a phone call because I really wanted to word my message so it conveyed all my thoughts without interruption.
In a live call or conversation, you could say one word and the entire conversation could go into an emotional spiral. Tempers can flare and your message may never get heard. The only thing that might be conveyed is that you are abandoning them. [Read more…]
