My personal experience with a tricky emotion

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

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