Tag Archives: Sadness

Your Dark Gift

June 11, 2022 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness, and it took me years to understand that this was a gift.”― Mary Oliver.

All experiences in life are an opportunity for growth and learning. The person you are today has been built brick by brick from the things you have gone through, both good and bad. Those things that were not so enjoyable or were extremely painful are often considered darkness, and the darkness that comes into our lives can be challenging to get rid of even many years later. Unfortunately, as we are going through these dark times, there is no natural way to gauge the benefits of coming down the road, but that doesn’t make the value any less tangible. What makes a situation dark? Is it something that another has done to us? Or is it our weakness and inability to say goodbye and move on?

Darkness Teaches Lessons

Love is a challenging game, and most of us start playing at a very young age. As we try to figure out the protocol rules, we are living our lives. Love brings extreme bursts of hormones and emotions that cause us to bond; eventually, those bonds become part of us. W en they are broken or taken away, it can be excruciating. T e dark box is the ending of a relationship and the pain that arrives in your life with it. There is sage advice that time will heal all wounds, and that is true, but the scars will remain and lessons learned last.

These lessons become the legacy of your experience, and in the end, after you have hurt, cried, and healed, there is the experience, and either consciously or subconsciously or both, you are going to use that experience as a guide for future decisions in affairs of the heart. You will make future decisions out of love if the lesson is positive. I you choose to be bitter and feel sorry for yourself and be afraid of being hurt, problems will arise in all the relationships you try to engage in.

How many people suffer this way, unable to establish a relationship today because of the past pain and not wanting to go through it again? To use the darkness as a gift is to open your heart and be aware that it can be broken, but use the past lessons to take more intelligent risks. But take risks, live your life, and love. Let the darkness be a guide to what you want in life.

Darkness Exposes Light

The dark box is a gift because it is easier to see the light when you have dark. I stand out, and you can recognize the difference. F om the darkness in that box, we can learn to experience the light of life with more zeal and enjoyment. W en you are in the moment of love, enjoy it. I may last forever, or it may end tomorrow. There is no guarantee. Be mindful of the moment and make that time the best it can be.

Wisdom isn’t gained by having a perfect life and making sound decisions. It is usually built through the painful teachings of bad decisions and questionable choices. It doesn’t come easy because easy experiences are quickly forgotten. Painful lessons last a lifetime. Evaluating a dark time and coming away with a plus is the beginning of wisdom. Applying that lesson to future endeavors is putting it into action and making that knowledge a part of your life.

Take your box of dark and explore it all. S e it for what it is, a broken heart, a broken promise, a significant loss. T y not to see it as a personal condemnation of you or punishment but as a valuable tool to help transcend your life. T gift is that you may ultimately learn how to live totally in the light led by the dark that you have experienced.

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift. ~Mary Oliver

The Dark gifts I have been given have left me thinking my light will go out forever. But when I look at my life now………..

Learning about Myself

April 24, 2022 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

There are a variety of experiences a person goes through in the course of life. I have been through many different things, being very fortunate to meet and know many people and to visit some places. Most of our experiences are similar, for the most part, and yet we still have a hard time talking about some things which cause us pain and heartbreak. These are the things we have difficulty telling anyone. The emotions are hidden, been too far inside. It is time to recognize each and let them all go.

Sadness

One of our staple emotions is sadness. We feel this all the time, from the loss of something in many phases of our lives. But if you acknowledge your grief and say it out loud to people, you are perceived as weak and undesirable. This fear has caused me to hide my sadness whenever it has arisen. Push it aside, hold it down where nobody can see it, and it will go away. As if by magic. For these reasons, sadness is uncomfortable and makes you feel there is something wrong with handling it.

The emotions we try to bury will always rise back to the surface, like a diver coming back up for air; these emotions will charge again to our consciousness at some point. Often when you would least expect it. They come when any event has any remote to connect with a past sad event. I have had tears rise to the surface saying good night to someone because it reaches into the experience of permanent loss I have felt earlier in life. Sometimes it comes when you look at who you are, and it doesn’t match up with what you perceive others to think of you. Being sad is a part of life. It provides the contrast to joy, which gives power and desirability to that emotion. There would be no joy if there were not any sadness. It seems we should be more willing to talk about that.

I Hate Loss

As a child, I never liked the idea of loss. When you have a thing, then you no longer have this thing. It is a part of life to learn to deal with the grief associated with a loss, but often, we are instructed as young men to “toughen up,” and as an adult signature on the path of life, I should have a higher handle on the losses. But it still hurts when things and people are removed from my life. It can be a break-up, a job change, the passing of a loved one, or any loss of something once here that is now gone.

We all desire life to be controllable, predictable, and in our control. Life will never be one of these things, and loss comes to us because we forget this hard truth. That is why my goal is to enjoy everything that happens and not to build an attachment to that thing. Events, ideas, and people will come into your life and deposit what you need to learn. Some will stay for the whole story, but most are just there for a chapter or two. Make those chapters the best they can be, and then turn the page and allow the following stages to come to you. Losing things and people happen more and more as you get older; learning to deal with this process in a healthy manner is one of the most significant challenges we all face.

I Don’t Forget

One of my weaknesses hinders me from dealing appropriately with the last two things in my memory. It has a grasp of the times I enjoy that I can’t escape. If my thoughts are left to run on their own, to those happy things, they will run. What is the harm in this? You ask. Our minds are a great tool but inaccurate. They remember things in a way that is not the most accurate—often stressing the good and moving the bad or painful to the background. Soon we are nostalgic for past experiences and places, and those memories are false, and we remember things from our perspective.

There are many things, especially time spent with people, I never want to forget. No matter what happened, positive or negative, the value of that person is something you hold onto because you want to remember the places you went, the things you shared, and even if you got lost on the way, were late. The park closed before you got there, and it was still a valuable, memorable experience. The problem exists because looking to the past brings a natural feeling of regret, which is not going to do you any good. It is impossible, in my experience, to move forward until you put your past clearly and completely behind you. Hold your memories in your heart, but don’t visit them; it is an unhealthy pastime.

There are many other things I cannot talk about, like love, hurting, disappointment, etc. But this is an excellent place to start. The hard truth is that we all have these disturbing things inside us. They are leftovers of our past, as far back as our childhoods. They are essential because our subconscious mind uses this programming to run our lives when we are not paying attention to the events in front of us.

The trick, I think, is to learn to let the energy of the negative emotions pass through us and face our pain from the past. Let the sadness move through us and pass away. The fear of loss can cause many problems, but you can learn to master it by understanding that nothing lasts forever. Nothing. We are just passengers on this planet for a short time, and our ultimate joy and enjoyment of life will come from how we live in every moment—putting the regrets of the past behind us and worries about the future, which will cause anxiety, out of our minds.

The Unknown

December 19, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

All of us have a deep desire to know what will happen next. Where are we going? What is the next step? What should I do now?

Sometimes it seems like it would be much easier if our lives were scripted in a book that we could read beforehand. Follow the script, and you will eventually come to your happy ending, and everything will be alright for all situations. That is just not the way that life works, and I, for one, am understanding of it and most grateful for it. Face the new experiences of life and bravely embrace the unknown. You don’t have any other choice, and you have made your choices, which have put you where you are. Be responsible and own your situation, regardless of the fear and the unknown.

Don’t Fear What You Don’t Know.

I have found the unknown to be very undesirable on a few occasions. First, when things are going just wonderfully. When you look around and think, “Wow, I am so happy right now.”

This attitude is a problem because if I feel on top of the world, I have the built-in fear that there is no place to go but down. Since that is the case, I tried not to get too happy for many years because it could be taken away. I never realized that happiness is not extrinsic from myself; it is inside. I have had experiences that were fun, happy, wonderful, and I never wanted them to end. I also have experienced scary, uncomfortable, painful, and sad things. In the past, I thought that my happiness couldn’t exist in the presence of something terrible. I found that my joy depends not on what happens to me but on how I look at the world from the inside. We are not in control of many things outside of ourselves, but we are in total control over how we handle them.

I know many people who have everything they should need in the world. A healthy relationship, money, family, you name it. Yet they choose to be unhappy, which I can’t understand. I also know people who seem to have very little but are extremely happy. It takes me to a quote I heard, warning you to be careful when you find something that makes you happy because it can be taken away from you. Happiness comes from within you. So if you accept whatever happens as the experience that it is, sad things make you feel sadness for a time, but your happiness is not at the whim of fate. It appears or strays according to your own choices.

Let Go

People do all sorts of things to make it seem like they control life. We create strict schedules for our days and manipulate people and events to control outcomes. These things never seem to work out in the end as we would like.

Often, the things we do to control life shield us from new and exciting experiences, and when it comes to business manipulating others leads to a poor working environment. Letting go of the need to control everything and understanding that it is impossible to do anyway is a step in a positive direction. You are just one person in the world with your thoughts, insights, and needs. Let others have theirs. You can only control your reaction to events as they unfold.

Make your plans to the best of your ability and allow things to unfold. The people you are with may surprise you with much more than you ever thought possible. Or perhaps with much less than you would hope. But either way, there is a lesson in it for you.

Not Knowing Lets You Grow

Being grateful for the things you don’t know is intelligent because it allows you to experience something beyond your scope of reality. Most people would never stretch themselves beyond what they already know if they didn’t have to.

It is very comfortable to sit in your life, where you seem to know everything you need to be safe and feel in control. Yet, there is the world out there that may require you to stretch outside of that comfort zone to contribute what you are meant to give to its well-being. The Unknown Provides this. Once a new experience comes to you, you have to experience growth to deal with it regardless of its nature. If you stop growing, you will be moving in the other direction. Nobody stays the same.

I choose to accept the unknown of each day as a part of life that was sent to teach me what I need to know to grow. So today, I am grateful for the things I don’t know and hope I dare to deal with them as the experience of life unfolds.

Don’t let fear run your life. Be the captain of your destiny.

“The unknown always passes for the marvelous.” Anonymous

“Replace the fear of the unknown with curiosity.” Anonymous

“Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.” Anonymous

“Going into the unknown is how you expand what is known.” Julien Smith

“We do not fear the unknown. We fear what we project onto the unknown.” Teal Swan

“A hero is somebody who voluntarily walks into the unknown.” Tom Hanks

“Awaken your mind to the unknown.” ATGW

Emotional

November 24, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

Through this human experience, we are inundated daily with all sorts of emotions. Emotions are defined as: “a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others.” They are our feelings, and unless you learn how to deal with them, they will deal with you.

These are things we face every moment of every day, but very few people look at what their emotions mean or, more importantly, what they are trying to communicate to us. Emotions control much of what we do and how we relate to others in our lives. Take a moment and investigate how your feelings are affecting your daily existence. Why are they so important? Where do they come from? How can we deal with them more helpfully? These answers will help you function more truly and honestly in your life. You will cease to be at the mercy of the seemingly random appearance of your emotions because you will know where they come from. You are not your emotions of love or anger or fear; how you react to them makes you who you are.

Why Emotions Are Important

Our emotions come from our thoughts, and most often, our thoughts are a reaction to the experience we are having or, more often, to experiences we had in the past. As we experience our daily lives, situations arise which stimulate thoughts. We have a complete memory bank of skills. When something happening now reminds us of something from the past, emotions are triggered, like a warning about suffering or pleasure from history that we might repeat shortly. Anger, for example, is the face of fear. We get angry when thoughts that might not meet our needs are front and center in our minds. Many people get into the habit of using anger as a default to getting what they want, getting mad any time anyone challenges them, or not going exactly the way they want. These emotional responses are not healthy because, over time, anger takes its toll on your body, and more significantly, your relationships. Nobody wants to spend quality time with a ticking time bomb.

Our emotions tell us things that words can’t articulate, and learning to decipher these feelings rather than react mindlessly to them gives us a chance to be better and create healthier relationships. Start to look at your emotions pragmatically, from the perspective of, where did this come from? What is it you are feeling, and why do you feel this way right now? Every thought comes complete with a corresponding emotional response. Emotions are important because they are away. We communicate with the world and ourselves. To ignore or suppress your feelings is a good recipe for poor mental and physical health. What is inside of you and how you feel will eventually come to the surface. You can decide if it is through a gentle investigation of how you think or an explosion of emotional steam after weeks, months, or years of psychological repression. Take care of your emotions, and they will take care of you. Listen to them, and they will provide you with a direction of where you need to go.

Watching Emotions

Rather than let your emotions dictate your words, actions, and life experience, the moment you feel them, take a minute and allow yourself to feel what you are feeling. Our bodies are excellent because they think the stimulus from outside is like hot and cold, but also feel an incentive that comes from inside, like happy or sad. Rather than being controlled by your emotions, take a second and let it be there. The sentiment is a feeling or response, and you can sit back and observe it. What is causing it? What is the stimulus of this thing? It could be a link to some experience from your childhood, which is irrelevant today. When you can observe the emotion, you are no longer part of that response. You are separate from it.

Doing this successfully will allow you to investigate what is going on inside of you at that moment. Watch the thoughts you are thinking, which have the emotion attached. Watch your inner world unfold and ask questions about the genesis of your emotional responses. Doing this will allow you to understand yourself better and relate to the world and those in it. Being effective at this will allow you the chance to become more in charge of your emotional health. Although you will never be able to control your emotions, you can understand how to work with them healthily and use the information they are sending you. Rather than just reacting in a mindless, subconscious way. It takes time and effort to do this, but it will give you a better understanding of yourself and others when you become better at this.

Documenting Your Emotions

To start to practice this, you need to take some simple action. Start by documenting your emotions. Look back at your day and write down when you had an intense emotional response. Notice these feelings and how they affected you. Then follow it to its roots. What was the situation? What was said? Who was there? What were you thinking? Which of your thoughts are tied to which emotional response? All of this information is available to you every day and in all situations. You have to be willing to investigate, document, and get to know yourself in the emotional realm. Each time you put your emotions down on paper, you will build a more reliable connection with yourself, where you came from, and what it is that you need to deal with. Negative emotions are dangerous to your health, and of course, your relationships, and to be at their mercy makes you a reactor to life.

When you know which situations or thoughts lead you to love, fear, sadness, happiness, or any other emotion, then you are in control of things. Isn’t anxiety a response to thoughts that create fear? Look for the ideas that put you in a negative emotional state and shine a light on them. Explore them. Understand them. Like a monster under the bed, a little light will reveal that you are spending your time entertaining unnecessary thoughts of fear. There is a freedom that comes from understanding yourself in all facets because understanding and knowledge are always the keys to power, and in this case, it is your power.

“The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.”-Horace Walpole.

“Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions.”-Elizabeth Gilbert.

“We all live at the mercy of our emotions. Our emotions influence and shape our desires, thoughts, and behaviors and above all our destiny.”-Dr. T.P.Chia

Suffering

October 12, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

It was pointed out to me today there is a slight misconception about my perspective of life. I write about my philosophy, which is one of self-improvement. Some seem to miss life is full of challenges that cause suffering in my experience virtually every day. In the past, I had fewer tools in my toolbox to deal with them, but I have dedicated myself over the past ten years to become better at handling these learning moments and being able to have a more productive and enjoyable life. To be clear, I am not happy all the time. In fact, over the past year, I would suggest there was a lot more “unhappy” in my emotional vault. But the hope is that I am not stuck with the suffering. I can overcome it, learn a lesson, and become a better person because of it. You can make conscious choices, which will allow you to find meaning in life and even enjoy the process if you open your mind to them. These are the processes I am writing about, not a “pie in the sky” ode to unconditional happiness. Here is what I have learned.

I am Responsible

Every person in the world makes a thousand decisions during each day we live. We decide everything from which clothes to wear to treating a rude person we stand in line next to at the bank. My life is no different. I make many decisions and try to make them with honesty and integrity at each moment. I don’t always make the best choices. Sometimes I eat things I shouldn’t. Sometimes I say the wrong something at the wrong time. There are even days I run a red light if nobody is around. But the one thing I always am is responsible for my choices in every way.

If I am not reaching my body weight goals because I choose to eat things not healthy for me, it is because of my poor decision. I can’t blame the food or the time of day I felt weak. Or the fact that I was feeling down because something negative occurred. No, I alone am responsible for the choices and have to accept the consequences. It is my responsibility, even if my favorites don’t bring the most desirable results. Sadness, regret, worry, anger, and other negative emotions are a part of life. But I think many don’t read here that it is your most important choice of how you choose to deal with them. You can allow them to make you bitter and angry, or you can want to learn, develop, and become a better person. I hope that the better person is the result of my suffering.

We are Not Supposed to Be Anything

The idea we are supposed to be happy all the time is unrealistic for anyone. Some may think we are supposed to feel joy and wonder about our situations, but that isn’t realistic. I have written many times that happiness is a choice, and I believe it is, but that doesn’t mean you walk around with blinders to the weak treatment others send your way or the poor feelings about yourself and the job you lost, or the disappointment you feel. I know there is no “right” way to feel at any moment.

We are not supposed to be happy, joyous, intelligent, winning, sad, disappointed, or angry. All people will, at some point, have to deal with all of these emotions, and they will do to you what you allow them to do. The thing is that how you choose to deal with them is your personal choice, and I have had to do this continually throughout my life. Do I get bitter because someone was dishonest with me? Do I carry a hatred inside for someone who has harmed me? It would be easy to do sometimes, but it wouldn’t represent the kind of person I strive to be. That is why I write about things like the power of forgiveness, how fear affects us, guilt, and dealing with our emotions. Not to discount the negative things we all deal with but to provide a path for hope for something better. It is a choice we all make for ourselves every day. There is nothing you have to be to be healthy. Just be yourself.

Darkness Walks with Light

I have thought of the events the past year has brought over and over again. It amazes me to see the balance of dark and light in my life. If you look at the people who have entered my life, left my life, and just influenced me, there is a positive balance between light, which was enjoyable, and darkness, which, of course, was not. Moments of joy, wonder, understanding, caring, and love found a check from equal moments of pain, disappointment, fear, anger, and disillusionment. It makes you wonder if the light is worth it that maybe we should live in a shady area in between where there are no great things but no horrible things either.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t work without contrast. Darkness provides a method of accomplishment; light never could. My experience with night has driven me to seek harder for the light and accomplish what before would have been impossible. The sun makes you get comfortable, like a beautiful warm blanket. It envelopes you and makes you never change. Change is inevitable and constant, so those things don’t go together. I had to learn to lift the blanket, forget the warmth, and dive into the cold of the darkness. This challenge is not something I write about often because the real lesson isn’t to embrace the difficult but to keep moving forward and maintain a sense of hope for the future. Find dignity in life despite things not being comfortable. The desire is there is more light in your future, and positive choices at this moment might help bring that about.

Being My Best

In the final analysis, I look at the idea that writing about being at peace and understanding that there is happiness in life available all the time is not a weakness or, worse unrealistic. A person can choose to look at their circumstances and see the problems. They can also look at the general state of chaos in the world and feel a sense of despair. But what will all that negativity in the costume of reality bring you? I am not powerful enough a person to solve all of the world’s problems, or even to make anyone else’s life better if they choose not to want that but………. I can make some other choices.

There are small things I can do every day to make my little part of the world better. Make simple choices to treat people with respect, kindness, and caring in day-to-day interactions. To try not to put any difficulty on people that have value to you. I strive to become the best person and succeed in life, equal to my talent and ability. To raise and fall in life and on the journey to my destiny to experience happiness. Joy is a choice I am making, proudly and thoroughly, and I hope that the great people I know have the strength to feel pleasure.

“Suffering is part of our training program for becoming wise.” ~Ram Dass

“Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.” Arthur Schopenhauer

“Suffering is but another name for the teaching of experience, which is the parent of instruction and the schoolmaster of life. “Horace

“Suffering is the substance of life and the root of personality, for it is only suffering that makes us persons.” Miguel de Unamuno

“Suffering is a corrective to point out a lesson which by other means we have failed to grasp, and never can it be eradicated until that lesson is learnt.” Edward Bach

“It is by suffering that human beings become angels.” Victor Hugo

“Suffering is the positive element in this world. Indeed it is the only link between this world and the positive.” Franz Kafka

“It’s at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys.” Emil Zatopek

“When suffering comes, we yearn for some sign from God, forgetting we have just had one. “Mignon McLaughlin

Emotional

September 17, 2021 Jonathan Hilton Leave a comment

How does an event or situation make you feel?

Research indicates when people are feeling physical pain, general malaise, and chronic weariness, the cause can be linked to unexpressed emotion. As a society, and primarily as men, we don’t learn how to adequately express our feelings or even notice the message they are trying to send us.

Uncomfortable or painful experiences are often pushed to the back burner of our minds because it is more comfortable at the moment to ignore rather than deal with the feelings they cause. Unfortunately, these feelings still exist in our lives, even if we ignore them. Learning to process our emotions healthily will increase our physical health and well-being, spiritually and mentally. A person can express themselves by learning how to use appropriate words and actions in reaction to their emotions.

Noticing Your Feelings

It is essential to take a moment and see the emotions you are feeling. Just because you are feeling a certain way doesn’t mean you have to act on it. It means that you need to start noticing these emotions are there. This recognition is the first step in not being overwhelmed. We have become so adept in our society at glossing over things with distraction (gaming, computers, media entertainment) That rarely is there a moment of silence to recognize what your emotions are telling you. Take that moment and notice how you feel. Learn to express them appropriately through words and actions.

Reflecting on Emotions

Ask some simple questions. From where is this feeling coming? Why am I feeling it now? What is this emotion trying to tell me? Seeking honest answers will give you a clue about any underlying emotional issues hiding in the background. The more you understand your feelings, the better you can deal with life. Instinctually we don’t want to show the world that something is bothering us or we are affected by things. Inside we view it as a weakness, but the real gap comes from not understanding the message of our emotions.

Strength in Acceptance

Many situations in life do not occur from a conscious choice. If you are dealing with death, loss of job, accident, illness, aging, or betrayal, these are complicated situations that lead us to fight back in unhealthy ways. Denial, escaping into fantasy, substance abuse, manic activity, or overstimulation can be standard ways to deal with the flood of emotions hitting you. Until you accept a circumstance as accurate, it is impossible to deal with it in an emotionally healthy way. Taking something doesn’t mean you give up. It only means that you understand where you are and why. This action will give you power over your emotions and how to deal with them.

Using Your Power

Becoming emotionally and intellectually self-aware will allow you to create insights into situations that will make the decision-making process easier to process. This infrastructure will work in all aspects of your life because you are working from a platform of honesty. Our feelings are there to help guide us, and when they get attention, you are proactive. You are starting to write your own story.

Here are some emotions and what they might be trying to tell you.

Bitterness- Showing you where you need to heal, where you’re still holding judgments on others, and, most importantly, yourself.

Resentment- Letting you know you live in the past and not allow the present to be as it is.

Discomfort- There is an opportunity for change right now. Pay attention to what is happening and try to do something different than you typically do.

Anger- Warning sign, which displays your passions lie. It will also show up when boundaries are crossed or when you see things in your world that you feel need to change — anger is an excellent guide to your inner workings but a poor creator of your behavior.

Disappointment- It can be hard to deal with situations that don’t work out. It shows you are above apathy and still care about people and things. Disappointments in our past not dealt with and accepted will lead to apathy and lack of expectation.

Guilt- If you are still living in the shadow of other people’s expectations of you. Mistakes happen, things get broken, other people are not always going to like what you do. That is their emotional baggage, not yours. Accept responsibility for your actions, put them behind you, and move forward.

Shame- It happens when we internalize the expectations of others on how we should be or live or who we have been or have lived in the past. Time to reconnect with yourself and understand who you are and what makes you happy.

Anxiety- This is a feeling that stems from fear — usually fear of the past or fear of the future. You need to come into the present moment and let the past be the past and the coming fall where it will. Anxiety is a clear guidepost to get into the present moment. Identify the thought that is leading to a feeling of dread.

Sadness- There is a depth of feeling that brings on sadness. Sadness will display when we look at the world and care deeply about others their circumstances and situations. Ask what is making you sad?

Whatever your emotions are today, seeking to understand how they affect you is a move toward empowerment. No matter what you do, your feelings will exist and continue to touch you. Either you can allow them to control your life, or you can use them to determine what they are guiding you toward.

“If your emotional abilities aren’t in hand if you don’t have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions if you can’t have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.” -Daniel Goleman.

“75 percent of careers are derailed for reasons related to emotional competencies, including the inability to handle interpersonal problems, unsatisfactory team leadership during times of difficulty or conflict, or inability to adapt to change or elicit trust.” -Center for Creative Leadership.

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion.” -Dale Carnegie.

“When our emotional health is in a bad state, so is our level of self-esteem. We have to slow down and deal with what is troubling us so that we can enjoy the simple joy of being happy and at peace with ourselves.” -Jess C. Scott.

“The only way to change someone’s mind is to connect with them from the heart.”
-Rasheed Ogunlaru

“No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“Unleash in the right time and place before you explode at the wrong time and place.” -Oli Anderson.