The Power of PresenceWritten by Claudette Rowley
You have permission to publish this article in your ezine or on your website, free of charge, as long as resource box is included. Please send a courtesy copy of your publication to claudette@metavoice.org. Word Count: 612 words, 65 characters per line Thanks, Claudette Rowley ============ The Power of Presence This month I would like to share with you a powerful way of being that I've practiced over past few months: being present in each moment. Being present means being aware or conscious of what's going on inside of you, and allowing it without judgment. This level of consciousness gives us full freedom to be who we are. It also brings a tremendous sense of inner peace. How do you know when you're present? You know you are present when you feel at ease with yourself. There's no underlying tension, your mind isn't chattering on in judgment of you or someone else. You are also present when you ALLOW a moment to be as it is. For example, you notice that you have a story in your mind about a situation. And you observe it as a story not as truth. Or you feel a negative emotion and you notice that without judging it. You stay in moment of whatever you are feeling. What stops us from being present? Reviewing past and projecting into future. Many of us spend half of our time ruminating about past and reliving our emotions about it. Then based on what we've experienced in past, we project into future about circumstances that may never occur. Our mind makes up fear-based stories that catapult out of present and into a made-up future. In other words, we end up resisting present moment in fear of what future might bring. Let me clarify: By future projections, I mean imagined scenarios that cause emotional strain, such as "What if this happens or that happens?" versus planning for practical matters of life, such as scheduling your October vacation. Another way of thinking about this is psychological time which always causes fear or strain versus time we keep by clock which we use to organize practical matters of life.
| | Emotional Intelligence: Why It Works So WellWritten by Susan Dunn, MA, Personal and Professional Development Coach
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is study of “the wider range of qualities which enable people to excel – self-awareness, impulse control, persistence, empathy, etc.” (Daniel Goleman). It refers to your ability to understand and manage your own feelings and those of others, and to use information to guide you to relate better, plan more flexibly, think more creatively, prioritize, motivate yourself and others, have better relationships and better health. Emotional Intelligence is based on a number of competencies you can learn. Four of them are CREATIVITY, INTENTIONALITY, RESILIENCE and AUTHENTICITY. Depending upon which system you study, there are 12-24 of these competencies. Why does it work so well? Because it solves problems quickly and effectively. If, for instance, you’re not getting along at work, if you went to therapy, therapist would immediately start looking for causes, and they would multiple. Causes might include chronic pain, anger, depression, passive-aggressive behavior, authority conflict, being first born or youngest, being middle child, you’re codependent, or an alcoholic. The problem with these explanations is we all know people who are in chronic pain who are able to get along, or depressed, or passive-aggressive only in certain circumstances. Emotional Intelligence, on other hand assumes that you aren’t getting along because you don’t know how to. Pretty simple, isn’t it? You aren’t being creative because you don’t know how to be. You aren’t resilient because no one ever taught you. You aren’t intentional because you’ve never seen it modeled by someone.
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