Books and tools for learning emotional intelligence

Here's the thing. There are some times when I might be feeling a bit nervous or uncomfortable, but I am able to let these emotions happen and accept these emotions. And it is fine.

But there are other times when my emotions get too uncomfortable, and I can't seem to manage them, like they are too much to handle. One thesis is that I will be able to control more outlandish emotions as my emotional skills improve. Another thesis though, is that once my emotion get passed a certain threshold, then I will not be able to manage them in an effective way, and I will be controlled by them.

I guess these issues will be solved once I figure out what is causing my emotional distress. But for now, my options are to try to learn emotional management skills. Does anyone relate to this?

Well, I feel I have been in control of my emotional responses to stimuli for quite some time. I can actually CHOOSE my mood at any time...in any situation.

The sad thing is that I feel this may have rendered me incapable of ever finding the one true thing that has eluded me for many years...and that is love...I have placed myself in a position where I will allow nothing to cause me suffering...


because I am able to control all of my responses at such a deep level, I feel I have left no room to ever truly experience love again...the rest of my life is going to be a very lonely journey...so, is it possible to have too much emotional intelligence...

Zuriel wrote:Well, I feel I have been in control of my emotional responses to stimuli for quite some time. I can actually CHOOSE my mood at any time...in any situation.

The sad thing is that I feel this may have rendered me incapable of ever finding the one true thing that has eluded me for many years...and that is love...I have placed myself in a position where I will allow nothing to cause me suffering...


because I am able to control all of my responses at such a deep level, I feel I have left no room to ever truly experience love again...the rest of my life is going to be a very lonely journey...so, is it possible to have too much emotional intelligence...

Sorry for the late reply

Hmmm...that is interesting as well. One knee jerk thing I would say to that is that emotional intelligence is about feeling emotions, and not avoiding them. But I am pretty sure this is too basic for you, and you're probably much more advanced than this.

Maybe you could work on getting in touch with your "love" emotions somehow? That is probably dumb by me though, tbh.

Anyway, I think that is really awesome that you can choose how you feel in any situation. Maybe I will develop my emotional skills to something like that. But right now, my emotions can be more volatile, so they can dictate and control my behavior rather than be helpful.

I don't think your life will be lonely. I think that you're just not addressing a fundamental that needs to be addressed, some kind of inner strength/value fundamental. But hey, that might be off target.

I've been reading goleman's book, a chapter every few days, and I really like it still. The last chapter was on emotional differences of men and women. As a man, since I've started learning more about women, I've never been able to relate or understand why women are so emotional, and especially why they want to feel the full range of emotions. B/c as a man, and one that isn' that in touch with emotions and emotionally intelligent, I'd rather avoid the more extreme emotions b/c I don't know what to do with them or how to handle them and they make me feel really uncomfortable, and at the extreme I can get dizzy, very confused, and almost vertigo.

I'll try to post up in a few days on what I learn b/c obviously this is a VERY important subject for me to learn, if it is even possible for me to learn. I must try!

There's no substitute to living life, when it comes to emotional intelligence.

But before you can live life, you have to learn how to live life, which usually means getting to know yourself, and unlearning potentially decades of programmed behaviour patterns. You see, most people are not living life, they are simply living as they are expected and encouraged to live. Sure there are some choices like what kind of job you'll do, and where, and what colour of car you'll drive, but all in all most people pretty much live like everyone else. Not because that is "their life", but because it is the norm of the environment they were born into.

Now I would go so far as to say that pretty much all of these individuals have desires, goals, ambitions, or just plain urges to do things other than the life they are leading, but almost everyone phases out those random bouts of creativity because they fear the consequences of stepping out of line. While the truth is that there are no consequences... or at least they are not nearly as overwhelming as we are lead to believe. The one thing that is most scary to every person who has power, is fiercely independent individuals... because without dependence, there is no power structure, and without a power structure, there is no power to be exercised over anyone else.

This "fear" of stepping out of line, is a comfort zone, one you have to outgrow in order to live the life you truly want. How? That's the easy part! You just do it!

But maybe I'm jumping the gun here, let's start with something a little easier...

Let's say you want to talk to a stranger, you'll be feeling certain things. Normally you'll never become aware of those feelings, you'll just feel them and based on that you will or wont talk tot he stranger. Maybe you'll feel excited, or anxious, or whatever. These feelings will decide your next step... unless you become aware of them (not as easy as it sounds). You could acknowledge your anxiety, and decide to act contrary to it, thereby stepping outside of your normal routine, or comfort zone. Better yet, you could come to understand that, as a sentient being, your actions could be entirely independent of your feelings. In order to do that you have to understand your own feelings, their nature, how they come to be, and how you can ignore or avoid them... that is emotional intelligence.

Like i said, there's no substitute for living life. I did not know ANYTHING about emotional intelligence when I started learning it, in fact i didn't even know I was learning about emotional intelligence! I know I felt something, I knew it was holding me back, and I knew it was illogical to allow irrational feelings to dictate my actions. So I declared war on my own emotions... afraid of spiders are we? Ok, that's a trip to the zoo and we're going to get COVERED in tarantulas!! No bs, no excuses, if things get too much, I always have the option to faint! Afraid of the water? No problem, it just means we're going to be taking a diving course.

Now maybe my approach wasn't the best, and I'm sure it's not the only approach, but it works for me... plus it's great for kicks, which I also like. The end result for me has been that I've learned to face adversity, and learned to love the excitement of doing something that scares the crap out of you.

Prerequisite is I suppose that you have to be a little crazy... but a lot of crazy people weren't born crazy! Besides, most of the time crazy is synonymous with freedom. Notice how people often comment on someone being "crazy" just because that someone succeeds where they let their apprehension get the better of them.

Understanding your emotions is not about avoiding fear or pain, it's about getting properly acquainted with fear and pain, so that you'll understand that often times it's fear and pain that point the way to your dreams... however unintuitive that may sound. Few great thing have ever been done without great adversity.

I've spent a good deal of my time trying to understand the feeling of "love", and I have finally concluded that what I am really feeling, is a mix of many different feelings such as respect, admiration, compassion, lust, and attachment... and when all these things are felt about a specific person, we simply call it "love". And when people have the blues over lost love, it's always the attachment bit that's causing the hurt. A simple deduction might conclude that avoiding attachment is the wiser choice, and it would be correct! But it's not the most exciting choice, not the most visceral choice, and life is about experiencing, it's a ride, and anything you choose not to experience in life is lost to you forever. So take the risk and take the pain, and as long as you remain true to your values and who you are, no risk or pain can ever hurt you. The only risk any of us ever truly face is the risk of losing ourselves, and the risk of giving up on ourselves. All else is relative, all else is temporary.

Anyway, not sure if this is what you're looking for, it's just a flow of ideas really.

Thanks thefool, that was awesome. Though that sounds difficult to learn, like it will take a lot of energy, which I'm willing to put forth I think, but the issue is that I can't guarantee anything in terms of me actually learning some emotional intelligence, because sometimes my emotions totally f*ck me over, so it's like a big hurdle. And during those times, I'm just like what the H should I do here and now, this is crazy. But like you said, I have a choice of either giving up on myself or staying true to myself. So it really is a situation of figure it out or die trying, otherwise my life would totally suck.

Awesome idea you said about emotions being the motivations and guiding factors. Whenever I see people on stage giving an awesome speech I am ALWAYS focused on what they are doing and trying to figure out how they do it, I am just awed by it, and by their skills. Last night I was at a big event with lots of journalists (i'm not a journalist I was just there with my aunt) and there were lots of speeches etc etc. So you see in this way, I am having those motivating/guiding fear-pain-interest emotions.

But seriously, there needs to be books about emotions in the way that you talk about them, because from what I've read so far this is seriously lacking a serious discussion. Daniel Goleman's book basically says that if a person experiences emotions that are really unpleasant, then they should take medication; which is so retarded, funny how an "authority" figure on this subject can be so inadequate regarding the most fundamental issue of emotional intelligence, but then there is thefool who is like 10 times better, so I'm like wtf is going on here? Where is the real help for people, not some phony/shallow/almost pointless jargon.

There seems to be very few people and resources that actually help people in a real significant way. Ok, I need to study a bit rt now, g2g.

this is a good thread, wish i'd read through it before. i'm gonna order the goleman book and start there. controlling my emotions has long been one of my biggest issues

thefool, the bit where you talk about facing your fears is good. Geoff Thompson covers it in both layman and spiritual terms, i'd recommend his books for sure.

studentofthegame wrote:this is a good thread, wish i'd read through it before. i'm gonna order the goleman book and start there. controlling my emotions has long been one of my biggest issues

thefool, the bit where you talk about facing your fears is good. Geoff Thompson covers it in both layman and spiritual terms, i'd recommend his books for sure.

Awesome, glad you stopped by the thread. Didn't know you'd be interested in this subject.