In this week’s edition:

• Waking up to emotions. Why it’s important.

• Should we try to change the idiots? Yes or No?

• Emotional Intelligence as a doorway to inner peace

• The “Re-parenting Yourself” free 5-day Course

I’ve been chasing peace since I was a kid. 

But I’ve always tried to stay busy to avoid uncomfortable feelings.

Then I found drugs, alcohol, love, sex, work, gambling, and many more escape mechanisms

They all had the promise of bliss and peace.

Nope.

“Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.”

― Thomas Gray

It didn’t occur to me that emotions were important until I was 35.

By then, I’d stored up so much grief, anger, and fear - I was a volcano.

It exploded all over my relationships and everywhere else until I found the inner work path.

I literally came kicking and screaming. As I tried to stop using all of my “drugs,” I refused help - loudly and aggressively trying to do it on my own. I had one more binge of self-medicating, which almost killed me.

When my divorce was imminent, I finally surrendered and got some support. 

About a month into a men’s group, and with a lot of patience on the part of the other men, I said, “I think I’m angry.” There was a collective sigh of relief followed by “I’m really angry” followed by more relief and a series of loud “I’m really fcking angry!” Then, I was in a fetal position discharging all of that grief and pain for months.

I’m still amazed at how tightly I held onto my emotional ignorance. And how aggressively I defended myself against all the loving support that encouraged me to let go and feel. I needed to almost die in order to wake up. 

Fortunately, we don’t all need that strong a dose of trainwreck to begin the path of self-awareness.

But one thing’s for sure. You can’t make anyone else wake up. 

Trying to Change the Idiots

If you’re frustrated by the state of affairs in politics, corporate leadership, fake news, and other idiocies, “let them crash and burn” may be a useful strategy. Of course, there’s a risk they’ll take us all down with them, but truly, we can’t change them by complaining about them.

There’s an old story about the guy who argues with a fool. From across the street - you can’t tell which of them is the fool!

If we want to change the world, we must find peace within ourselves. We have to approach ignorance with maturity. Otherwise, our actions will be ineffective. It’s old news, it’s obvious, it’s cliche, but it’s true.

Emotional Intelligence

We have to develop Emotional Intelligence (EI).

Even a few corporate leaders have funded research to find out that EI is the biggest factor in employee productivity. Widget makers want to make more widgets, and they’ll do anything—even learn about emotions—to make more money from their widgets.

Who cares where the truth comes from? We can use it for our own well-being.

We should have learned this stuff in kindergarten, but most of us did not.

Here’s the research conclusions:

The Benefits of Emotional Intelligence:

So, why on Earth would we avoid building these skills?

It involves surrendering the holy grail of human existence—intellect—and accepting the most avoided of all conditions: vulnerability.

EI is simple - at first glance. Here are the skills:

1. Knowing what you’re feeling (awareness).

2. Attuning to the feelings of others (empathy).

3. Emotional expression and regulation (balance).

4. Presence (mindfulness).

I learned a lot of this the hard way. It’s not necessary to do it the hard way, however.

We can choose to get support, do the grief work, and find our authentic self-expression.

This week’s Premium Community videos and PDF take this much deeper. 

I’m sharing all of this with you because, after several decades of re-learning how to feel, I’ve found something that resembles peace. It wasn’t the goal, but it’s been the result.

I'm offering a free 5-day awakening course called Re-parenting Yourself soon. Stay tuned for that. You’ll get a couple of extra emails about it.

This week’s premium videos and writings further explore Emotional Intelligence as a doorway to peace. They are part of my online trauma healing program, Recover! Heal! Launch! Join the Premium beta community here for $8/month and be the first to see the program.

With feeling!

Bob

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