Reflections After Christmas About Health & Prosperity in the New Year

Written by Susan Dunn, The EQ Coach


Another Christmas come and gone. What a workout forrepparttar emotions!

I’mrepparttar 123689 EQ Coach, it’s true, but that doesn’t mean I know all there is to know about emotional management – it’s a lifelong proposition; and it doesn’t mean my emotions don’t give me a ride for their money – remember, 2 of our 3 brains don’t take orders.

I study emotional intelligence allrepparttar 123690 time, both intellectually and in interaction with my clients who are working on theirs, and throughrepparttar 123691 wonderful people who take my seminars and workshops. We learn together, and I’m oh so glad for what I’ve learned about emotional awareness and management. I reminded myself many times ofrepparttar 123692 tenets of emotional intelligence during Christmas, and it was very helpful.

Resilience

This Christmas was especially joyful for me, and also very heart-rending. I’m preparing my house to sell. No big deal, you say? As we say inrepparttar 123693 field, it isn’t what’s happening, it’s what it means to you. This isrepparttar 123694 home I raised my children in as a busy single parent. It’s alsorepparttar 123695 lifelong home of my son who died, at 21, in 1999. For months I couldn’t touch his room, as happens to many parents who lose their children. My coach, bless her, told me to move up to Dallas to be near my surviving son. How could I? His smell was still in his room. New painting and carpeting have removed this last earthly reminder of him, though I suppose it was long gone, and I packed uprepparttar 123696 things of his I’ve kept, preparing forrepparttar 123697 move. There are lots of memories in this house.

Intentionality

Atrepparttar 123698 same time, my older son and his family are coming from Dallas to spend this Christmas me – our last in this house. I asked myself many times what my intentions were, to remind myself. I had a choice. I could either give intorepparttar 123699 sorrow completely, or I could stuff it down and slap on a happy face. What would an emotionally intelligent person do? She would experience allrepparttar 123700 emotions as they come and go, feelingrepparttar 123701 pain, feelingrepparttar 123702 joy, and celebrating Christmas.

My intention was to enjoyrepparttar 123703 last Christmas in this home, with happiness inrepparttar 123704 way Dr. Seligman,repparttar 123705 guru of Optimism, means it. There is happiness from pleasure, goodness and meaning, he says, and only one of these necessarily involves what we call “positive emotions.” The Life of Pleasure, we’re all familiar with – from sugar cookies, to orgasms, to new toys. The Good Life, he says, is getting in touch with your strengths, knowing them and crafting your work, love, friendship, leisure and parenting to use these for flow in your life. The Meaningful Life, onrepparttar 123706 other hand, involves using these strengths inrepparttar 123707 service of something you believe is larger than you are.

I also intended to establish a budget and stay within it. This is a very emotionally intelligent thing to do if you want to enjoyrepparttar 123708 months after Christmas. If you do, there are no reparations to make!

Meaningful Life

Intentionality also means focusing onrepparttar 123709 task at hand and not being distracted. And Learned Optimism means avoidingrepparttar 123710 downward spiral. The happy, smiley, ebullient cheerful affect, which psychologist’s call “positive affectivity” is inherited he says, and has a normal distribution. This means about half of us have it, andrepparttar 123711 rest of us don’t. It is not, therefore, associated with anything but what you’ve been born with. Interesting.

Further, he adds,repparttar 123712 amount of pleasure in life you have does not add to life satisfaction.

My intention, then, was to experience this last Christmas in this house torepparttar 123713 fullest. This meant I was able to take my granddaughter torepparttar 123714 church Christmas pageant. My son who died used to sing withrepparttar 123715 San Antonio Boys Choir. He hadrepparttar 123716 voice of an angel. One special memory isrepparttar 123717 yearrepparttar 123718 Choir accompaniedrepparttar 123719 SA Symphony and Houston Ballet, singingrepparttar 123720 chorus ofrepparttar 123721 Snowflakes atrepparttar 123722 end of Act I. I drove a carload ofrepparttar 123723 boys down for rehearsals, and amidstrepparttar 123724 usual young-boy activities, one ofrepparttar 123725 other of them would start singingrepparttar 123726 haunting melody. It’s meant for young boy voices. My granddaughter sang it to me inrepparttar 123727 car onrepparttar 123728 way to church. Life is bittersweet; emotions are bittersweet. Later duringrepparttar 123729 church service, her shenanigans kept me distracted and in touch withrepparttar 123730 moment. I was also able to delight inrepparttar 123731 children who sang,repparttar 123732 children who were alive, so very alive. Life goes on and we go with it. And so do our emotions.

Reserves

I lecture on emotional intelligence on cruises, and I scheduled one forrepparttar 123733 first two weeks in December. Cruises are relaxing and rejuvenating to me. It was a good idea. Give this to myself, I said before scheduling it, and I did, and I was glad. I approached Christmas tan and rested. One thing I would do if I had my life to do over, is take a vacation like that every year.

Reserves apply to all areas of life – health, rest, money, friendships. I wrote articles before Christmas about expecting chaos and being surprised if things went right. In past year’s, I’ve written to expect something crucial to malfunction – your dishwasher,repparttar 123734 garbage disposal,repparttar 123735 washing machine,repparttar 123736 oven! For some reason I forgot that this year. After all,repparttar 123737 year my son arrived home with a trunk full of dirty laundry,repparttar 123738 dryer had broken. I knew to count on this sort of thing. So, when I woke uprepparttar 123739 morning before my houseguests arrived and found no heat, I reminded myself this was to be expected and nothing to get upset over. It didn’t quite bust my December budget. Always have reserves!

Perfect Life

Written by Steve Pilkington


Perfect Life

Scott Peck, in his book, "The Road Less Traveled," opens withrepparttar simple sentence "Life is difficult." I think all of us would agree. He goes on to say that once we understand and accept that life is difficult then we can begin to transcend it.

In other words, once we understand and actually acceptrepparttar 123688 difficulty of life then this difficulty no longer matters, because we expect difficult times. The real problem most of us run into is that we expect and even desire that life should be easy.

I'd like to go beyond this notion of difficulty and assert that life is perfect just as it is. This is a concept I've been giving thought to for several weeks. Before you write me off as a lunatic, let me explain some things. Perfect is defined inrepparttar 123689 dictionary as "without blemish."

In order to believe that life is perfect, just as it is, you will need to understand and "buy" into some new paradigm shifts.

These are: 1. All we truly have is right now; this very moment. We cannot live our lives inrepparttar 123690 past (although some do) and we cannot live our lives inrepparttar 123691 future (although some do this also). Attempting to live life inrepparttar 123692 past orrepparttar 123693 future is too rob ourselves ofrepparttar 123694 now, because now is all we have.

There was a time in my life when I continuously lived for some future time, "when I get my college degree," "when I get my masters degree," then I will have arrived and I can finally be happy and enjoy life. Life doesn't work that way. And I must admit that I missed out on a lot of life because I didn't know how to live inrepparttar 123695 now. You've heardrepparttar 123696 expression, "Stop and smellrepparttar 123697 roses." Do it now, you might be dead tomorrow.

2. There are no coincidences in life. This is a biggie. There is a reason for everything that happpens to you in this life (althoughrepparttar 123698 reasons may not be clear atrepparttar 123699 time they happen and may never become clear in this life). I hear some of you screaming, "What aboutrepparttar 123700 bad things?" Those too are included.

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