A friend recently shared what has become a tricky issue in her family. As her kids are getting older, they can tell the difference between people's behavior that is appropriate and behavior that is not appropriate. Recently, this discernment was applied to members of their extended family.Upon returning from the home of this relative the daughter announced to her mom that she never wanted to go there again because they are mean and rude and hurtful. After asking her daughter several questions to ensure nothing inappropriate happened, she and her husband realized that their children were beginning to see the lack of emotional intelligence exercised by these family members, a problem that has been an issue in the family for many, many years.
As my friend talked about this situation, I suggested that it was a great sign that her daughter, still pre-teen, could tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy emotional reactions (like when the emotion doesn't match the trigger event). Furthermore, the daughter realized what was her stuff (her not being respectful) and what wasn't her stuff (the person's extreme reaction). Somehow I did not gain that skill when I was young and spent the formative years in my life thinking that unhealthy emotional behavior displayed around me was somehow about me so I internalized it all...
...And I spent the next 15 years in therapy. Many dollars later, now I can tell the difference between what's mine and what's yours (most times...). And you can even fly off the handle and act like a baboon's ass to me and for the most part I can hear what's necessary to hear behind the emotion, have compassion for you displaying your baboon-side to the world, and then walk away all the while chanting to myself, "I'm good enough...I'm smart enough...and gosh darn it, people like me."
Lucky Girl.
3 comments:
Why don't more parents teach these skills to children? I imagine it's because they never learned the skills themselves. Although I also had to spend the time and money for many years of therapy, I'm grateful that I learned these important principles for living a happy life. In that way you can call me a Lucky Girl Too!
Pam
I wonder if being under-emotional is as bad as being over-emotional, for a given 'trigger-event'? I'm usually criticized for lack of emotion -- Spock-like :)
It has been shown that, in general, women are more emotional than men. The one component of the Myers-Briggs personality which has been shown to be gender-biased is the F (feeling)/T (thinking. Majority of women are 'F' and majority of men are 'T' (~ 60%/40% split). F's tend to make decisions based on emotions and Ts tend to make decisions based on logic.
So to be good @ reading emotions, one must take gender into account.
For a fun gender personanlity test, go to:
http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=9417365772332679709
People love you!!!!
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