Emotional Intelligence and feeling my emotions is hard for me.

Hard as it is, I've been trying to improve.

I have my "Permission to Feel" log on the corner of my desk. For the first few days I was pretty good about noting my feelings and logging my reactions.

Yesterday I found it under a pile of papers and realized I have not even thought about it in more than 10 days. Ooops!

Last night I decided I would make a concerted effort to pay attention to how I was feeling.

I applied the RULER approach recommended by Marc Brackett, PhD and author of the book Permission to Feel: The power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Well-Being and Success.

Here’s what I did.

Recognize—I tried to focus on what I was feeling. Marc says our feelings are like a continuous river flowing through us. I knew I must be feeling something.

Understand—I was tired from the day and was watching TV.

Label—I knew I was feeling low energy and slightly uncomfortable. I landed on bored in the Mood Meter.

Express—Didn’t quite know how to do this, unless sitting slouched in my recliner counts.

Regulate­—I ended up in the kitchen eating chips. I’m pretty sure this would qualify as an ineffective way to regulate my emotions.

Realizing I was feeling bored was helpful.

My next step is to figure out an effective way to regulate boredom, especially at the end of the day.

We live in a society that worships our logical, rational, thinking minds with very little awareness or training on managing our emotions.

Without the emotional awareness skills, our rational thinking gets hi-jacked pretty quickly. I know eating chips at night is not a good idea. But that emotion of boredom took over. In that moment, my rational thinking was nowhere to be found.

That's why I can’t wait for the start of our Emotional Intelligence "practice group" (no cost)! As you can see, I have skills that need building.

If you have experiences like this, come join us.

The Emotional Intelligence practice group kicks off on Friday, October 2
from 3-4 pm CST.

Men and women at all levels of emotional intelligence are welcome. You don’t need to read the book, although it is insightful. All you need is a willingness to learn and practice.

Reach out to me for the zoom link if you are interested in practicing with us. Rita@wiseleader.net
Until next time,
Dr. Rita
612-598-6614 
Rita@wiseleader.net 
www.WiseLeader.net

For most of my life, emotions have been a mystery to me.

Actually more like a nuisance, if I’m completely honest.

I grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin where work was what we did best.

If an emotion other than happy showed up, we weren’t quite sure what to do next. What we mostly did was try to ignore it and press on anyway.

Recently I discovered Marc Brackett’s book Permission to Feel: The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Well-Being and Success.

The subtitle caught my eye. Emotions to help achieve both well-being and success?
He had my attention.

Dr. Brackett developed an approach he calls RULER to give us a step by step process to understand and regulate our emotions. All of them!

During the August Roundtable of Executive Women Leading Change, we worked with his model.
The impact was palpable. And we are continuing to work with it throughout the month of September.

I’m even using it with my 2 ½ year old granddaughter and experiencing lovely results.

We all have the same emotions. They flow like a river through us all the time. What we do with these emotions determines if we live in a state of stress or well-being; success or failure.

When it comes to dealing with our emotions, too many of us resort to various addictive behaviors and other strategies such as avoidance, procrastination, poor health habits, withdrawal and denial, among others to wrestle with both pleasant and unpleasant feelings.

Dr. Brackett’s RULER process gives us a better way.

He has five clear steps to use our emotions as they were intended; to give us information and uniquely guide us. The steps are:

1. Recognizing and using cues to understand what we are feeling and what others are feeling.
2. Understanding the causes and consequences of an emotion.
3. Labeling and giving our emotions a name. Very important.
4. Expressing and showing our emotions in socially appropriate ways.
5. Regulating so we can feel more or less of a particular emotion or keep feeling the same amount of an emotion.

He says we can actually decide to feel more or less of a particular emotion. That was welcomed news to me!

Dr. Brackett has specific strategies to help us practice a life of success AND well-being.

I know I can use all the well-being practice I can get these days!

That's why I'm forming an Emotional Intelligence practice group.

We'll meet for one hour once a week via zoom. Come as often as you can to get support, share successes, ask questions and enhance your well-being.

These are vital skills, especially when it comes to how you emotionally interact with those you love.
There's no cost to participate. But you do need to reach out to me to get the zoom link and the rules for confidentiality.

Men and women at all levels of emotional intelligence are welcome.

All you need is a desire to expand your awareness, apply the Permission to Feel strategies and show up as often as you can.

My goal is to kick off in late September or early October.

Reading Permission to Feel will be helpful, but not required to participate.
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Text of email me if you'd like to join us. 612-598-6614  Rita@wiseleader.net
Until next time,
Dr. Rita
612-598-6614 
Rita@wiseleader.net 
www.WiseLeader.net

Now is a good time to think about your next level of leadership.

Especially, if you are a woman leader with a significant amount of experience.

Why I would say that during a pandemic?

Here’s three reasons:

1. We need more women leaders at higher level roles.
2. Diversity is top of mind for many organizations now. They are actively looking for top notch women leaders.
3. Knowing what you want next, puts you in the drivers seat when opportunities present themselves.

When you take the time to be clear about what you want, your chances of getting what you want goes way up.

If you are like many women that I coach, you are more qualified and capable than you think you are.

And you are underestimating the unique value of your contributions.

The women I speak with often struggle to articulate the value they bring.

They don’t know what words and phrases to use that can quickly get someone’s attention and help that person have an immediate positive impression.

Most next level roles are found through networking.

People want to help. They are also busy. You do them and yourself a favor when you can quickly communicate what you’re looking for and how you contribute to an organization.

You also demonstrate a level of confidence and clarity which leaves a memorable impression.

The best time to get a next level role is when you are still in your current role.

Doing your homework now, can pay big dividends when that next level role you want comes along.

When you are clear beyond a shadow of a doubt, can articulate succinctly and in an interesting way who you are as a leader and how you contribute, you’ll land that next level role.

Don’t put this off!

It is not only vital to your career, but vital to the future success of our organizations.

Reach out to me, if you want more clarity about what you want next.

I can help you figure out what would be a good next level move, and help you be confident in communicating your value and desire to the network who can help you most.

I look forward to hearing from you!
​
Until next time,
Dr. Rita
612-598-6614 
Rita@wiseleader.net 
www.WiseLeader.net