Are You Using All Your Soul’s Resources?Written by Susan Dunn, MA Clinical Psychology, The EQ Coach
“Most people live, whether physically, intellectually or morally, in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul's resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole bodily organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger. Great emergencies and crises show us how much greater our vital resources are than we had supposed." -- William James I read it and want to run screaming, “No more depth, please, no more, I’m deep enough.” Adversities test our resilience and also build it. The good news about resiliency is, you can learn it. The bad news is, there will always be opportunity. Reverse adjectives; either way it works. Through all common adversities in my life, I used my general coping skills, and bounced on forward. But when my son died, everything became a platitude. It is true, you are never same. I coach people who've lost their child. If there's one thing they are, it's not judgmental. My theory is that once you’ve tried to wrap your mind around idea that your child has died before you did, you lose your appetite for idle thinking, which is what “judgmental” is. They also have a deep place that welcomes you, figuratively, when you connect with them; a reservoir carved out by grief. As my coach and friend Jilly Shaul ( http://www.lifematters.co.uk ), said, who's had her share, "I am not afraid of human emotion." She went out of her way to talk with a young friend who’s child had died, whom everyone else was avoiding. Jilly, no; when she hears sound of cannon, she goes toward them. One deeply experienced emotion, deepens them all; one emotion stifled, stifles rest.
| | Refuse to Live Your Life Without Art, Poetry and MusicWritten by Susan Dunn, MA Clinical Psychology
Q: Why should an Internet course in Emotional Intelligence include art, poetry and music? A: Because EQ involves understanding and being able to express your emotions, and art, poetry and music are most suitable vehicles for this.Art expresses emotions without words, and poetry, is, as someone said, "feelings through a crack pipe." While I haven't experienced anything through a crack pipe, I get analogy, which is what poems, with their metaphors and analogies, are all about. It could also be said that good poetry “disturbs.” Music also goes where words can’t. "Music is," said Ludwig van Beethoven, dominant figure between Classical and Romantic eras, who composed his Ninth Symphony when totally deaf, “the mediator between spiritual and sensual life.” "Music should strike fire from heart of man, and bring tears from eyes of woman,” he said. To me, it has done both. I have turned to Beethoven’s “Eroica” for inspiration in hard times, and put on a John Philip Sousa march when I didn’t want to do housework. Yet it was Beethoven who also said, “A great poet is most precious jewel of a nation.” Poetry is unusual in that it's "measured"; it has a rhythm and a form. This somehow both contains intense emotion, and also expresses it. It’s one of those paradoxical things.
|
