Paradigm Shift

Emotional Styles & Paradigm Shifts

Every day presents countless opportunities to enhance our own and to observe the emotional styles of others in action.  While each of us responds in our own unique way to emotional triggers, understanding how our emotional styles can influence the lens with which we view the world ultimately provides a window to better know thyself.

We are certainly a product of our past in how we respond to events in our lives – which is not to say it has to always be this way.  In “The Emotional Life of Your Brain”, Richard Davidson has captured 6 emotional styles underpinning our emotional intelligence.  They are:

  • Resilience
  • Social intuition
  • Coping mechanisms
  • Attention
  • Sense of well-being
  • Internal emotional and physiological sates

The brain is neuroplastic making it possible to modify emotional styles.   Are you looking to improve or enhance any of the above noted capacities in yourself?  Let’s take a deeper look at some suggestions on how one can change their brain….

Make Your Home And Workspace Optimistic

If you’d like to have a more positive outlook, consider a renewed and spruced up home and workspace. Change things up – re-arrange furniture, add and or alternate photos of happy times with friends and family.  Spring is upon us and what better time of year is this to do some de-cluttering?

Express Gratitude

Expressing gratitude regularly will help you feel more optimistic. Make the effort to say “thank you”.  Keep a daily journal to remind yourself of what’s good in your life.  Consider introducing a Gratitude Jar for yourself and or your family as a yearly reflection.

Do A Mindfulness Meditation

If you’d like to become more self-aware, focused and attentive, look to doing a mindfulness meditation for 5-10 minutes a day.  Choose a time when you’re feeling alert, sit upright, concentrate on your breathing, notice the sensations in your body and if you become distracted, simply bring your focus back to your breath.  Mindfully returning to your breath helps to train your brain in being more attentive and better focused.  Intentionally notice how you are better able to recognize distractions and manage them.

Pay Attention To Body Language

If you’d like to become more socially intuitive and good at dealing with people, make an effort to watch people’s body language while in public and try to guess what emotions they are expressing.  Start to take notice of friends and colleague’s facial cues and body language and how it corresponds to their tone of voice.  Next, reflect on how you might present yourself differently with others?

Compliment Others

If you’d like to feel more connected with others, increase your circle of influence.  By finding and making opportunities to compliment others, you’ll train your brain to see the good in people, in life and in yourself.

Identify Emotional Triggers

If you’d like to be less emotionally reactive and more tuned in to context, become clear on who and what triggers undesired responses in your behavior.  Then spend time thinking about your triggers and look for patterns.  Perhaps check in with a mentor or coach to discuss in more depth and prepare to be more intentional with future events.

Visualize Compassion

If you’d like to be more resilient, consider doing this exercises for five to 10 minutes at a time, four or five times a week: Visualize someone you know who is suffering–a neighbor who is ill or a friend struggling in their marriage–and on each inhalation imagine that you are taking on that suffering. On each exhalation, imagine their suffering being transformed by your compassion.  In time, notice how your own levels of compassion, acceptance and resiliency are strengthened.

We may not forget the pain of old wounds or eliminate our fears of future consequences. However, during the time of a single heartbeat we can crack the certainty that keeps us from being free.  That’s all it takes to recognize how memories and expectations can hold us back.  With this new awareness, we can then create enough psychological space to see ourselves in a new light.

Circle of Life

Let’s connect for a more in depth conversation and discuss designing a lifestyle and leadership development plan that is unique for you and/or your team.

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Live inspired!

Gisele
919-809-6902
Email me

Engage – Empower – Energize

Engage, Empower, Energize

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