emotional intelligence

Advanced Relationship Training

Ok, so this weekend, we’re teaching the 5th in our year-long, 6-weekend series on Advanced Relationship Trainings (ART class).

The subjects are:

Among other things, we’ll all be doing a 15-minute presentation, to be encouraged and critiqued by the group.  We’re striving to become the most amazing people we can, so here goes…

p.s. – I love teaching and I love being a student, too.  We define a good instructor as 70% student/30% teacher.

emotional intelligence

Happiness is up to Me

Giving is all about me.

Loving is all about me.

Being nice is all about me.

Being a good guy is all about me.

it’s all all about me.

I do good things, and I’m nice to people, and I give, and I’m trying to change the world – why? – ‘cause it’s fun.  and it feels good.  and it works, for me.

period.

emotional intelligence

Happiness is about Deciding

know why people have so much fun when they’re at a party or bar and/or drinkin’?
    because they decide to. 

they make a group decision, and personal decisions, to HAVE FUN, so they do.
    period.  yes, the alcohol plays a factor in it, but still,
    they just Decide to have fun… so they do.

they Decide to raise their energy, talk louder, move their body, tell stupid jokes, etc.
    we can do that same thing, and get into that same space, wherever and whenever we Decide to. We can dance, and laugh, and be silly, just ‘cause.

pretty cool, ey?!?

we can control our feelings, and our energy.  (one of the few things we can control, and really, the only thing we really Need to control – ourselves.)

emotional intelligence

Happiness is about Facing ourselves

P2200075

"I’ve finally come to understand that whatever happens, all those stumbling blocks, all these problems, have nothing to do with real happiness. Happiness is facing yourself and learning to love what you see, flaws and all. It’s taking enjoyment just from the process of being human."

      – Kelsey Grammar

I keep saying that “it’s all about us”.  If we cannot be happy with ourselves, it doesn’t really matter what’s happening outside of us.

 

"It’s not easy to find happiness within ourselves and it’s impossible to find it elsewhere."

    – Agnes Rippler

emotional intelligence

Happiness is about Understanding Fears our own and others, too.

Sometimes,

understanding their fears

helps me

understand and accept their actions,

as well as their pain.

 

and Sometimes,

understanding their fears

helps me

to understand, and accept, and conquer, my own.

emotional intelligence

Emotional Intelligence is only a thought away.

"It takes six seconds to manage anger.
It takes six seconds to create compassion.
It takes six seconds to change the world."

Most of all, we want you to know that emotional intelligence is right there inside you — everyone has it, and everyone can learn to use it more effectively. While we deliver powerful in-depth trainings and approaches to EI development, the tools you really need are already inside you — and if you’ll commit just a moment now and then to practice, six seconds at a time, you’ll enhance the quality of your relationships with yourself and others.”

emotional intelligence

What are you feeling?

6seconds

Click the pic above to pick What are you feeling? graphic and make your own banner.

… at the largest Emotional Intelligence network on the planet… 
Josh Freedman’s 6Seconds.org 
- Matt

hint:  wanna bump your friends’ heads?  instead of greeting people with “Hi, how are you?”, ask “Hi, What are you feeling?”… people often pause, and think, and then give a much more interesting reply.  try it.

emotional intelligence

It really is “All About Me” !!

Our generation has been criticized for having an "All About Me" attitude.

Well, I say we’re not Enuf "All About Me". or not in the right ways, at least.

  • All About Me means that I take responsibility for my actions, and my behaviours, and my thots.
  • All About Me shows that someone is home — we are the center of our world — we are in command and in control, of ourselves and our lives.
  • All About Me means you can count on me, you can believe in me, and you can trust me.  why?  because I believe in myself.

The higher my Self-Esteem, the more good I can do, the more honest I can be, the more real. and frankly, the more productive, too.

I know I can kick ass when and I’m feeling really good about me!

High EQ = High Self-Esteem.
High EQ = Caring for others, why? because it feels so good.
High EQ = Being Responsible for our Actions.

everybody wins if we teach people to have higher EQ.

and yes, that’s "All About Me."
- Matt

emotional intelligence

New Blogger in Town!

Hello!  I am Cheryl Montgmery-Nolan.  My adopted spiritual brother Matt invited me to write a Guest Blog – so here I am.

I thought I'd talk about excitement, and how important it is in our lives.  Right now I'm extremely excited because I will be getting on a plane in 2 days and flying from New Zealand to California to visit family and friends I haven't seen in a long while.  And that got me to thinking…

It's funny how just the idea of doing something new, or outside our daily routine, can be a breath of fresh air.  It's just the boost we need to get off our butts and get something accomplished.  My mind is going about a million miles an hour thinking about all the possibilities that lay before me during this trip home.  Now I know it's not possible to do even one-quarter of all the things that I might want to do but it sure is exciting just thinking about it.  I almost feel as if I have awoken from a long sleep.  I feel much more myself than I have in a long time.

So it would be good to remember to do something out of the ordinary, or possibly something we haven't tried before, every now and then.  Because, after all, we have nothing to lose but a little free time, yet we could gain so much from it.

Cheryl
2GetHelp

emotional intelligence

I Despise Judgmental People!

It takes no strength to be judgmental.
    it takes no courage, either.
it takes no class.
    it takes no style.
it takes no brains.
    it takes no muscle.

the only positive purpose I can see for Judging, is to educate yourself — to know how you do NOT want to be / do / have.  It doesn’t make us any more equal, in fact, it can often make us quite small.

You want a challenge, something to be proud of yourself for??
    try being Non-Judgmental!

try just saying “Isn’t that interesting how different we are?”, instead.

try NOT judging others and their behaviours.
    try Accepting.
        try Allowing.
            try Understanding.
                try Empathizing.

Rise above the judgment, where there is goodness, and light, and wisdom, and freedom.

yours.
- Matt

emotional intelligence

Our fears are not walls, only warnings!

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

    – Dan Millman

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

    – Brendan Francis

emotional intelligence

Processing Feelings

Here’s how they say to do therapy:

1. Listen attentively and nonjudgmentally
2. Reassure about doubts and misgivings
3. Restructure any associated negative thoughts
4. Help to normalize reactions through acknowledgement and validation

but, imho, there are a few steps missing here, namely the FEELING part. here’s how we “process” our feelings:

1. We make it safe and keep it real. We build a nonjudgmental/trusting environment/space, especially within ourselves. compassion, empathy, and self-love are a wonderful start here.

2. We believe that a power greater than ourselves can restore us to sanity. technically, this step is optional, but it is very highly recommended.

3. We get into a state of feeling, drop into our feelings. accept our feelings and our heart. (I’m not sure how to word this)

4. We ask our body what is the biggest feeling. We’ve found that it helps to describe it out-loud, to a trusted friend or group, or on paper/screen.

5. Then we ask our subconscious, “when, in the past, did I feel this way before?”. we’ll likely find events.

6. We let ourselves to ‘go there’. we relive the event, emotionally. We allow the feelings to be released. We say now, even in our minds, what we needed to say back then. We let our bodies feel as intensely as it was felt then.

7. Then, we let it go. This sounds easy but can be most difficult. We are holding on to this feeling/event/problem in our body/life for a reason… if nothing else, as a reminder. Letting go of that protection also means vulnerability and the need to find other ways to bolster/strengthen/remind us about bad stuff that can happen. We express our anger, and our hurt, and our sadness and we take back our power… the power we never had as a child. We can even change the picture and the outcome and the meaning.

8. We fill up with good stuff, something soothing like a simple Color or nice energy… like Love, and peace, and safety, or a simple Color, like a solid dark blue, or a bright, sunshine yellow, whatever we want.

9. We try to stay in a state of feeling, whenever and wherever we can, as THAT, we’ve found, is real life. We love, cry, laugh, often and much.

10. We commit to something bigger than us. We reach out to others, in any/every way we can. We help make the world a better place to live in — why? — ’cause it feels better than anything else on the planet! We’ve found that giving and connecting with others is the only real, lasting satisfaction in life. We all want Love in our lives, and that’s easily created, as long as we are willing to give love, first.

Rock on.
- Matt

 

emotional intelligence

Asking for Help

Ever have trouble asking others to help you out?

“Asking for help doesn’t mean that we are weak or incompetent. It usually indicates an advanced level of honesty and intelligence.”

    – Anne Wilson Schaef

“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

emotional intelligence

Happy or Rich?

“Would you like to be happy, or rich?”

Happiness and monetary wealth seem to be polar opposites to a lot of people, particularly those of fundamentalist religious backgrounds who believe that you “cannot serve God and mammon both” or eastern philosophies that urge “detachment to material things”.

I’ve looked at both ideas from inside out and outside in. What I’ve ultimately come up with is: you can have happiness and not money, money and not happiness, both or neither. Money does not affect my ability to feel happiness any more than happiness affects my ability to create wealth. I think the two terms are apples and oranges. LJ does not agree with me on this, because she has seen me react to our lack of funds and how that lack triggers my feelings of insecurity. Still, in essence, I can have fun with the kids, enjoy my relationship with LJ and my friends, enjoy movies, books, walks in the park, etc while having no money. I still FEEL happiness; I just ALSO wish I had more money.

- AJ