WARNING: Do Not Read if You're a Droid

In these high-tech days replete with myriad ways to connect with others, we can become strangely disconnected from our own and others' feelings.  It is easy to misread tonality in a text message and emoticons can only express so much.

Then you have folks who are out of touch with their feelings or would prefer to avoid any discussion of feelings at all.

Emotional intelligence is a term used to describe how adept people are at understanding, intuiting, and dealing with their own and others' feelings.  As with any skill, there are those who seem naturally gifted and those would would have to practice more to develop proficiency.  All of us are constantly presented with new opportunities for growth in this area of human intelligence and would be well-served to take them.

By doing so, we come to understand the "language of life," if you will, for every person on the planet feels the same emotions to some degree.  As we have heard the saying, "Everyone smiles in the same language," we also cry, love, and fear the same everywhere.  Understanding your own and others' feelings leads to true heartfelt connection, which is what I believe our world needs now, more than ever.

While my children were very young, my husband underwent three open-heart surgeries (two were on the same day while I was pregnant with my first child and the last was the day before my second child turned one).  It was a very stressful period of time that included my mother-in-law's slow and heart-wrenching decline into the depths of Huntington's Disease and her resulting death, a personal injury that led to four years of chronic pain, and moving to a third-world country with my family also being among the top stressors.

Wow, how love and instincts kick in when you become a mom, making the ability to "put the mask on yourself before helping others" seem impossible.  In my efforts to care for my children the way I saw fit, I became the martyr-style mom I swore I'd never be.  I had inadvertently allowed myself to become so compromised that bitterness resulted.  I complained, but I learned that it didn't accomplish anything productive.  My words weren't getting through to my husband because I wasn't expressing my feelings effectively.

When the stress finally got to be more than I could handle, I found a wonderful therapist who gave me  two great tools to help me understand and process my feelings, communicate them effectively, and help others discover what they are feeling by active listening, expressing empathy, and generally getting ego out of the equation.  Yes, this was a challenging journey!

I have always been a natural empath.  My mom had her master's in psychology and bought us kids books about understanding our emotions, yet I still had to admit I needed outside support.  Funny how we will go to dentists, doctors, trainers, and financial advisors, but be reluctant to seek emotional support from a professional who has skills that can so easily change our lives for the better.  Disclaimer:  you have to actually USE the tools to see results.  I was ready to feel good again.  I used them.  They work and my life has been consistently improving.

What has changed is my increased understanding of, compassion for, and ability to effectively express and process my feelings.  Of course, I have been sharing these skills with my family and the result has been so beautiful!  Everyone is communicating better, empathizing with themselves and others more, and generally growing in emotional health and intelligence.

I will always remember the first time, since we began practicing these skills, that my husband expressed how he was feeling without my trying to pull it out of him.  Instead of feeling angry AT him, I quite suddenly felt a connection WITH him.  He was speaking a common language and we were on the same team, just trying to make sense of it all.  You really can't do it wrong, but the work certainly is easier when you have good tools.

Next post I'm going to share them!  Thanks for reading.  Love to all.



Please feel free to share your thoughts/stories or start up a conversation in the comment box below.