When You Are Consumed By Anger And Chaos, You Have Lost Your Way

Don't Stow Away The Anger

Anger and chaos cannot live in a peaceful mind because they oppose one another.

We believe anger is a toxic emotion because of the destruction it brings to people's lives. To the emotionally intelligent however, anger is just an emotion which does not dominate their mental landscape.

I used anger and chaos together in the title since they can leave you feeling lost in your thoughts and emotions.

Linda Graham MFT explains in Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being: "Our response to feelings of anger, for example, can be positive or negative. We can learn to channel anger into effective action for a good cause, or we can shoot ourselves in the foot when our anger habitually causes us to act abusively toward other people."

If we understand the mechanism behind anger, we can deal with it better so it doesn't flood our bodies with toxic chemicals. The problem is, many people stow their anger because it is considered to be an unhealthy emotion. Therefore, anger is likely to be expressed at an inopportune time if repressed.

Have you noticed how anger makes itself known when you least expect it? You could be in your car driving and suddenly you are cut off in traffic. Soon enough you are trading blows with another motorist over something insignificant such as failing to indicate when changing lanes.

Todd Kashdan and Robert Biswas-Diener write in The Upside of Your Dark Side: "When you're angry, pausing, deep breaths, and moments of reflection more effectively exercise power and control than rapid-fire responses. If you feel less angry when you slow down, that's great, but that's not the goal. This is about giving yourself a wider range of options to choose from in an emotionally charged situation."

Repressed Anger Stored In The Body

My client Susan experienced anger recently while driving to work. An inconsiderate motorist cut her off in traffic and being socially conscious, she beeped her horn to advise him of her presence, so as to avoid an accident. The motorist took offence and gestured to her with a hand signal that was not the international sign of peace.

This took place early morning while she was driving to work. By the time I saw her later that morning she was still ruminating on what transpired, only now the anger had manifested as lower back pain due to the stored emotion.

Emotions are energy in motion and if not expressed, they become stored in the body via organs, cells, muscles and tissues. If the emotion is ignored or stowed away, its presence is known via pain or illness to get your attention.

The late Candace Pert, an American neuroscientist and pharmacologist who discovered the opiate receptor, the cellular binding site for endorphins in the brain, wrote an article titled: Where Do You Store Your Emotions? She outlines how emotions get lodged in the mind body until they are integrated.

She states: "The emotional memory is stored in many places in the body, not just or even primarily, in the brain... The real true emotions that need to be expressed are in the body, trying to move up and be expressed and thereby integrated, made whole, and healed."

Her work into opiate receptors showed how emotions like anger can lead to disease if we are not mindful of them. With Susan, she repressed her anger towards the motorist because he mistook her car horn as a sign of aggression.

She ruminated on the incident, recalling the anger, so it expressed itself in her lower back, a weak spot for her given a car accident decades ago.

After our discussion, I mentioned something that helped her to reframe the experience. I pointed out how she has a way of being righteous, especially as someone who is socially conscious. She let the motorist know he was in the wrong and felt victimized when he gestured to her inappropriately.

I asked her to reconsider the situation, since other motorists can sometimes misjudge our intentions because we cannot communicate with them vocally.

I then asked her to close her eyes and visualise the emotion of anger. Where was it stored in her body? What did it look like? I invited her to let it be there, lean into it and take deep breaths while directing her awareness to the area of the pain.

The good news is, the pain cleared in two days following more contemplative work by Susan. The point is, anger like other emotions will find its way to the weakest point in your body. Sadly, for many this means it gets stored away for years, if not decades until the person goes into therapy and experiences spontaneous healing.

In fact, there's nothing spontaneous about the healing other than the individual has dealt with the emotion after all this time.

Love Is The Only Way

It was the Canadian singer Leonard Cohen who wrote in the song Anthem: "There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

The purpose of anger is to draw your awareness to the light, or in this case the love within you.

In most cases, love and peace of mind is the answer, not anger and chaos.

How can I be sure you ask?

Look to your body since it knows the truth. If you think this is just wishy-washy self-help advice, I urge you to hold onto anger and fear for as long as you can and see if it doesn't manifest itself as pain or disease.

In contrast, The Healing Power Of Love overcomes fear, anger, anxiety and other lower emotional states. Love is a healing agent, but first you must release the anger because the two cannot co-exist, as alluded to earlier.

When you are consumed by anger and chaos, you have lost your way. However, what if the presence of anger was leading you back to love?

What I'm proposing is, anger is a call for love, in most cases self-love. You are no more an angry person than a tree believes itself to be a bird.

Whilst on the topic, let's not confuse evil and anger for that is another article saved for a later time.

Anger is an emotional state a person can become stuck in if they do not attend to their pain.

Love is the way. Moreover, love is the only way back to your core self.

So, if you believe the narrative anger preaches, it is because you are consumed by the emotion and have lost your way.

Allow love to open your heart again. Otherwise your authentic self becomes muddied by the mirage of shameless emotions not symbolic of your true self.

http://ezinearticles.com/?When-You-Are-Consumed-By-Anger-And-Chaos,-You-Have-Lost-Your-Way&id=9828735

5 Signs You're An Emotionally Intelligent Individual (By Jonar Arpon)

I've been wanting to write this for awhile, finally came around to it. The information I've gathered thus far is through having such a wide array of friends and mentors in numerous different aspects of life.

From the Long Beach gang members who changed their life around to the millionaires who had absolutely nothing and overcame tremendous obstacles to get where they are.

Also, the individuals who are going for it and who aren't quite there yet and the drug addicts who somehow made it out of a life of despair and depression. Take these signs as more of an opinion than fact.

This article isn't about the successful, the wonderful, nor the wealthy. These are the 5 signs I've noticed that make up an emotionally intelligent individual.

Here are the 5 signs that show you are an emotionally intelligent individual.

1. You know your strengths and weaknesses.

Emotionally intelligent people know what they soar at and what they're not so good at.

Let's take this a step further, they usually work on the strengths rather than weaknesses based on the fact that they get more done not worrying what they're weak at.

They focus on what they can do and don't work too much on things that they're not naturally keen on undertaking.

2. You understand others.

This is important because you're emotionally sensitive to what someone is feeling. I was at a bar the other night and I met a girl by the name of Sasha, I was having a beer with my friend and for some reason, she sat down near our table and overheard our conversation. I told her to come pull up a chair and we chatted about different things.

I asked her "what's your favorite color?" she replied "blue." I said "interesting." There's a point I'm making, you can tell a lot about someone's favorite color. Let me give you an example, if you say your favorite color is red it most likely means you have a sharkish attitude.

A go-getter who takes nothing from no one. If your favorite color is black it's most likely you've had a dark past. I could go on and on all day actually but she said blue. Let's start with what blue actually, stands for. It stands for a socialite, the life of the party, a good friend who's doesn't do too well all by him/herself. You see what's crazy she majors in linguistics.

What is linguistics? It's language, it's communication which directly correlates to what her favorite color is because in order to understand others you need to communicate well which she did. Anyhow, I digress, she was very easy on the eyes so she was welcomed to have a nice chat with me.

I told her "No way, linguistics? language? that's beautiful, I'm actually a creative writer and I run a blog online."

She wanted to see what my blog was all about so I showed it to her and she said "OMG I need to read your stuff, I hand her my phone she for some reason adds her phone number in it without me asking for it and reads it.

She said afterward "I love your style of writing and I feel what you're saying is so true!." I said, "who are you reading this for?"

She said, "Well I'm kind of dating a couple guys and I don't know who to pick." I replied "BS who are you reading this for to find out about?" she said, "Okay you caught me there's this guy I can't figure out... "

You see you have to read between the lines of what people say. An emotionally intelligent person will catch on pay attention to what you're not saying more than what's coming out of your mouth.

3. You give and don't expect anything in return.

Emotionally intelligent people give and don't expect anything in return based on the fact if you're intelligent you know this person won't pay you back. Just kidding.

But seriously, you give not for the sake of pleasing other it's almost a narcissistic quality because you're doing it to feel good. It feels good to give, because if you're a believer in karma then you know you'll receive tenfold when you give.

I donate on a monthly basis to St. Jude hospital, to be brutally honest with you, yes I do love helping the children that it helps and I also want to add it's because I always get something more for what I put out. So it's always good to give!

4. You won't allow anyone to ruin your day.

This is big because sometimes you're just going through it and someone says something or does something that could potentially ruin your entire day. Not let me make this crystal clear folks, it's okay to feel bad, but only for a few minutes.

It cannot be something that takes on your whole day. In my personal experience, the most valued trait in the industry of sales is to take the hits and keep rolling. If you're going to get your ass whooped, you might as well get it over with quick right?

This is powerful because you control your state of mind and your state of mind determines your quality of life. This is a strong trait I've seen in emotionally intelligent people as well so keep this in mind if you want to build your emotional intelligence.

5. You're not afraid to make mistakes and let go of negativity.

I've crashed and burned my harder and faster than many people out there. Many can vouch for that and I made it out, not completely unscathed but I'm doing better than most and not as good as some. You can't be afraid man, you just got to go for it and hope for the best.

Highly emotionally intelligent individuals aren't afraid to make mistakes because that's part of life. You also have to let go of the negativity, the bad stuff that happens in life.

Jim Rohn says "It's not the wind that determines where you're going it's the set of the sail." Bad people, bad relationships, jobs that aren't doing you any good, sometimes you have to let it go.

I was stuck at a whack call center job in Los Angeles awhile back and I felt as if I was a professional race care driver in a 1988 Toyota Corolla. By no means am I saying Toyotas are bad but the car is 30 years old and no matter how good of a driver I am the vehicle cannot let me drive to my fullest potential.

Lesson learned, I made a mistake and put myself in a vehicle I wasn't going to reach $10K+ months in income and I let go of it and found a vehicle I could make what I wanted.

Highly emotionally intelligent people realize mistakes have to be made, that's why most people who are billionaires are usually 50+ in age because they've made so many mistakes but let go of the negativity and came out on top.

http://ezinearticles.com/?5-Signs-Youre-An-Emotionally-Intelligent-Individual&id=9613875

16 Signs You're An Emotionally Intelligent Person

Many of us grew up in homes where feeling was a bad word. Tears were childish, anger was bad, and vulnerability was not to be shown. But more and more, our culture is beginning to understand there's value in paying attention to our feelings. Emotions used to be considered nuisances — signs of weakness associated with hormones and irrationality.

But now, even CEOs of major companies are recognizing the benefits of paying attention to your heart as well as your head. Emotionally intelligent folks have healthier relationships, manage their stress better, and are happier in their jobs than those of us who are less emotionally intelligent. Not sure where you stand?

Here are 14 signs you have an impressive EQ (Emotional Quotient).

1. You know the difference between a thought and a feeling.

You know thoughts form as phrases or sentences in your mind (e.g. I'm not good enough) and feelings form as sensations in your body (such as heartbreak, infuriation, anxiety). And you know both thoughts and feelings come and go —you don't have to do anything with them but acknowledge them with mindfulness and compassion.

2. You have a strong emotional vocabulary.

You know there's more than one description of your experience of "sad," for example. Perhaps you're disappointed. Or you're despairing. Or you're grieving. You know when you're feeling irritable or low, and you know when you're feeling empty.

3. You're not afraid of your own feelings, even difficult ones.

You make space for them rather than avoid or numb them.

4. You're not afraid of others' feelings, even difficult ones.

You create a safe space for them to be expressed rather than changing the subject or finding an excuse to get the eff outta there.

5. You're non-reactive.

Although you're aware that you're feeling something, you react intentionally rather than instinctively (e.g. You don't swear or smash stuff on the regular).

6. You have empathy for others.

You can imagine and understand the feelings they might be experiencing.

7. You're in touch with the bodily sensations you experience in response to emotion.

You recognize feelings like guilt, anxiety, heartbreak, and grief in your body.

8. You can tell easily when partner, friend, or family member is upset without them telling you.

You can read them.

9. You adjust your behaviour based on who you're with.

You've been called a social chameleon, or told you get along with everyone. You know what's socially desirable and what's not given your environment.

10. You thrive in a leadership role.

You have no problem spearheading projects or captaining teams.

11. You ask people questions about them.

You're genuinely interested in their lives and stories.

12. You know your values.

Underneath it all, you're in touch with what drives you.

13. You know the importance of listening to your heart.

You don't always go for the "logical" choice, whether it's when you're choosing a pair of shoes or choosing a partner.

14. You know how to work a room.

You thrive as a wedding or Christmas party date, even when you know no one.

15. You're able to deal with conflict.

You don't avoid it and you don't become aggressive in response to it.

16. You're not derailed from a goal by a single (or several) setback(s).

You're to dust yourself off and try again, or take a step back and go at a goal from a different angle.

Sound like you? Great.

Doesn't sound like you at all? Fear not (ahem, notice and make space for that fear). Unlike your IQ, which stays relatively stable throughout your life, you can increase your EQ over time.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-14766/16-signs-youre-an-emotionally-intelligent-person.html

5 Habits Of Emotionally Intelligent People

Emotional intelligence is the most powerful tool for success — not only in in romantic relationships, but business, too. In fact, the same rules for achieving your goals in business also apply to love.

Here are five practices that people with high EQs use to achieve success at both work and in their personal lives:

1. Follow actions, not words. 

When I hire someone, I don’t pay much attention to lip service about accountability or hard work. Instead, I screen for a solid track record — do they meet deadlines? Make calls? Close deals? What are they doing (not saying)?

In business and personal matters, talk is cheap.

2. Check yourself. 

We’re all emotional people, and sometimes little things can turn into unnecessarily big deals. emotionally intelligent people know how to push pause before making a perceived slight into a colossal deal. Did someone interrupt you in a meeting? Instead of stewing about it or plotting revenge, consider that the person is possibly distracted by personal issues at home. Maybe they felt scrutinized by their boss that day and was over-compensating with their boisterous presentation. Rise above it and give them the benefit of the doubt. It’s not always about you.  

The same rules apply to your romantic and business relationships. Everyone has bad days and everyone has their quirks. Just because your date doesn’t feel like dancing doesn’t mean she is embarrassed to be seen with you, or that you should never go out with her again. Take the incident for what it is and move on.

3. Keep the end goal in mind. 

Those who succeed in life and business keep an eye on the big picture. This means letting go of petty perceived slights and road bumps that present themselves each and every day. When you keep the end goal at the top of your mind, it is easier to negotiate with a difficult client, create successful, win-win partnerships, and focus your energy on what is most important — not getting sidetracked by petty annoyances and putting out little fires.

That goes for relationships, too. If a long-term committed partnership with your spouse is your top priority, then you are less likely to focus on the proverbial toothpaste cap conundrums that trip up so many couples. Even bigger issues such as differences in money management or raising kids are more easily negotiated when you are both focused on lifelong collaboration.

4. Cleanse out the toxins. 

Good business feeds off good energy — and negative people can destroy an organization. Entrepreneurs with high EQs know there are enough positive people in the world that there is no need to waste valuable energy managing the toxic ones. Sometimes even high performers are not a good fit if they are manipulative, combative or otherwise a negative force in the office.  

Ditto for your love life and business relationships. If someone zaps your energy or otherwise makes you feel bad about yourself, have the strength to move on. Emotionally intelligent people have little tolerance for others who are insincere (or downright lie), critical, needy or have addictive habits. There are some people who are better out of your life — or on the other side of the courtroom.

5. Stay connected. 

Just because a relationship ends doesn’t mean that you have to obliterate the bridge. Even if a deal falls apart on a sour note, emotionally intelligent people make all efforts to take the high road and keep the connection alive and positive. You never know when you may cross paths again — or need that person in the future.

Just because a relationship doesn’t last a lifetime doesn’t mean that you must part ways as enemies. More often than not relationships end because of differences or circumstances — not personal slights. When a bridge is still available, there is far more opportunity for you to enjoy richer experiences on nearly every level.

http://www.businessinsider.com/habits-of-emotionally-intelligent-people-2014-4

People Make More Money If They're Emotionally Intelligent

You've always been told that you should never let emotions get in the way of your job. Reserve your sensitive side for home. Being a hard-ass will get you the furthest. Maybe you've never questioned this advice.

But maybe it's time you started. A new study suggests quite the opposite is true: If you have a good eye for your colleagues' emotions, you'll earn more money.

"Although managing employees and dealing with people often involves reading their emotions and determining their moods, not everyone is good at it. It's the same as foreign languages or athletics: some people are good at it, while others aren't," said lead author Dr. Gerhard Blickle, in a press release.

The researchers, from the University of Bonn in Germany, showed the participants a series of voice recordings and images and asked them to identify the emotions being expressed in them. On average, the participants succeeding in identifying the correct emotion in 77% of the cases. Those who scored 80% and above were considered "good," and those who scored 90% and above were considered "really good."

Once the emotion recognition task was completed, the researchers asked the participants' colleagues and supervisors to assess the participant's performance at work. They found that those who scored higher on the task were considered "more socially and politically skilled" than those with low scores by both their supervisors and their colleagues, according to the press release. And, perhaps most strikingly, their income was significantly higher.

How accurate are these results, though? Dr. Blickle said that, because they were able to exclude alternative explanations for the results (i.e. sex, age, training, position), the data is very strong. Even after controlling for all these variants, the effect of emotion recognition ability on income still persisted.

It honestly makes sense: Those who can read other people well always know the right thing to say. This skill makes them more likable and therefore more likely to get a promotion over, say, that other guy who just has the worst timing.

So when you're at work, don't just focus all your attention on the task at hand; also pay careful attention to the nuances of your boss' and colleagues' characters — it'll literally pay off.

http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-16290/people-make-more-money-if-theyre-emotionally-intelligent.html?