Searching inside myself - Chapter 1

Learnings from Chapter 1

I had read this chapter a few weeks back, but re-read it today to get a clean start back into the book.

I enjoyed seeing emotional intelligence viewed from the 5 domains:

1. Self awareness - i.e. of my internal state
2. Self regulation - say, of my impulses
3. Motivation - my emotional tendencies that make me do stuff
4. Empathy - awereness of others' needs
5. Social Skills - bringing the most out of others

The benefits of improved emotional intelligence include:

• Stellar work performance
• Outstanding leadership
• Creating the conditions for happines

It was nice to see the focus on the emotional skills as the most powerful way to to address and improve behaviours and responses. And the fact that science now shows the plasticity of the brain allows us to rewire and create new connections gives us all hope :-)

The focus on training our attention resonates with me, as someone whose mind is always racing and switching between things, and may have once or twice before responded a tad too quickly and inappropriately

I particularly enjoyed the quote by Viktor Frankl

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”

The discussion on emotional intelligence, our physiology, and intuition made a lot of sense, especially when the author said

That may be why intuition is experienced in the body and the gut, but it cannot be easily verbalized.

Thoughts on Mindfulness

I have meditated on and off for many years, as I learned Transidental Meditation in the '90s. I know when I do it I feel better about myself, though I've never been sure if that's a result of the meditation or the fact that I'm proud I have done it.

But reading about Mindfullness here as more about just being, and not doing, it makes me think that I may have been focused too much on the doing meditation rather than just being. It's just a thought, and I know that during TM my thoughts wander and that when I realise that I just accept it, let the thoughts go without judgement, and come back to being centred.

When I did my 2 minutes of mindfulness, I first started focusing on doing the breathing technique, but then decided to let that go, or at least be the focus, and to try just being present. It felt good to not have to do anything (mantra or breathing) but instead just accept and be present.

I think the breathing, and my TM are still good techniques however, but I'll now try approach them as just that, techniques to help being present and not judge, rather than being things I have to get right.