EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE & CHANGE

RESILIENCE has been called the stress-buster for this decade. It's a "meta" term meaning our ability to handle stress - to ridde out the highs and lows of life.

Positive events can be stressful as well as negative events, as the article on winning the lottery confirmed; also marriage, having a baby, moving to a new house, getting a new job... They can't compare to the stress of losing a job, losing a baby, finding out you're sterile, getting a divorce, or losing your house, but they are stressful in their own way. They cause big physiological changes in our bodies, and our bodies cannot interpret the "cause," just the "event."

A good way to study RESILIENCE is to look at RESILIENT SENIORS. People who remain resilient over a span of 60, 70, 80 years or more have certain traits in common.

Some of the things that have been found to contribute to resilience are:

Having a sense of humor

Avoiding major debilitating health concerns of middle-age, such as strokes, cancer and heart attacks, by doing your part to take care of yourself.

Being able to manage your emotions so anger and depression don't take a toll

Staying connected. Nothing is worse on your health than isolation, and this means being able to connect with others. You can be all alone in a room full of people if there's no connection.

Being positive and optimistic.

For more on resilience, see my my ebook on resilience or take the optimsism course (email).

It pays to increase your emotional intelligence skills NOW, because it's for sure you'll need them later!

As Socrates said, many, many years ago:

"REMEMBER THAT THERE IS NOTHING STABLE IN HUMAN AFFAIRS; THEREFORE AVOID UNDUE ELATION IN PROSPERITY, OR UNDUE DEPRESSION IN ADVERSITY."

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