Tag: Relationships

Emotional intelligence is the key to having a successful relationship with yourself and others, which in turn is the key to a long and satisfying life. These articles explore the relationship between emotional intelligence and relationships.

Assessing Trust

Want more clarity about how much you trust someone? Try these 3 techniques for assessing trust in a relationship.

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Getting Off the Trouble Train

“Have you ever found yourself in the middle a situation and you know it will to turn into a big mess? You can feel it slipping out of control… and yet you keep going. It’s as if you’re being pushed along this track; you know it’s going to lead to trouble, but it seems like there’s no choice.”

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Smarter About Feelings

When I was a kid, no one taught me about emotions. They’re so powerful! And such a big part of our lives… here are the most important ideas every kid (and adult) needs to know about feelings.

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What Relationship Pattern Holds You Back?

Everyone has their own pattern when it comes to relationships. ‘Attachment Styles’ have been studied in psychology for years, and its wisdom is now starting to find its way into everyday relationships. What’s your attachment style, and how can you best work with it?

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The Life or Death Science of Community

Relationships are the bedrock, the foundation, of a long and satisfying life. And according to a growing body of research, building community is quite literally a matter of life and death. So what helps us build community?

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Feeling Stressed? It’s a Laughing Matter

Stress is on the rise – especially after the recent election. Fortunately, a bit of emotional intelligence will help you dissolve stress the fun way: Humor! Here’s how to use emotional intelligence to fuel laughter to manage stress. When Was the Last Time You Laughed? The terribly stressful events of recent weeks–I write in the […]

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EQ Stories: Coaching a Career Change

EQ Stories are profiles of people whose lives have been helped by emotional intelligence and Six Seconds’ coaching model. This story is from Six Seconds’ Marilynn Jorgensen, Master Coach/ICF Trainer. Why is emotional intelligence coaching so powerful?  “Bill” is a senior leader who needed EQ: ” I was moving up in my career and yet […]

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The Way You Are

Is there a way to be unconditionally loving, and also to hold high expectations? As parents, can we love our kids “as they are” AND help them be better?

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Feel the Power: Flexing EQ

The use of power is central to our interactions as leaders, coaches, parents, and change agents. To be more effective, emotional intelligence will help us understand and tune up our own use of power and the ways people react to that. There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of different forms of power. All of these “work” in some sense. If they generate certain desired there are “benefits.” At the same time, each produces unwanted side effects, called “costs.” What are some of the forms of power that you have, and that you exercise? What happens when you exercise these different forms of power? What price do you pay for each such use?

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Are We Wired for Empathy?

The neuroscience of empathy is fascinating and offers practical lessons for leadership and life. Our brains are wired for social connection through Mirror Neurons, which cause us to experience what we perceive.

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Right Speech by Eknath Easwaran

Karen McCown, Six Seconds’ Founder, handed this article to me several years ago. It’s stuck with me as a powerful set of guidelines for being impeccable with words. The children, Patty and I have discussed the “three gatekeepers” often over the last years; we started when the kids were 4 and 6 years old and […]

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Assent, Dissent, Descent

Recently… I told Emma (8-year-old daughter) she needed to get dressed to go. Instant protest, heel-dragging, power struggle. Yet we were going to do something she wanted!  I observed a new cross-functional team starting up. The person assigned to schedule the first meeting asserted, “Since no one else wants to, I will chair the team.” […]

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Alone in the Parade

The drive to connect, to be accepted, is both glorious and brutal. It drives us to care and connect — and to engage in self-destructive behavior in a desperate bid to fit. The “thinness” of digital connection can’t actually be fixed by quantity — just as one can not get a healthy meal by eating a LOT of junk — but the thinness may drive people to want more.

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White Paper: Emotional Contagion

Emotions serve to focus our attention on aspects of the world that help us thrive. They provide information about our interior world and about our relationships. For this survival function to operate optimally, we are highly sensitive to emotional signals in the environment. One person’s emotions are affected by others’. This effect is called “Emotional […]

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Fight or Flow Part Two: “Water Is Stronger”

This second half of “Fight or Flow” explores the alternative to the kinds of “hitting back first” reactions discussed in part one. To constructively engage with emotions requires reframing the way we think — and feel — about feelings. It’s always amazed me that these heavy stones can move — float — on a cushion […]

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