Knee-jerk, react, physical gasp “oh no”, predictive thinking of the “what ifs” “OMG” and “other shoe dropping”.  Not sure if any of you can relate to this type of thinking, but I was raised by a master of reaction … aka Moms.  Everything was a catastrophe and this idea was flamed and fed by active addiction.  Oh my god I can’t do this … drink … OH MY GOD I got a flat tire … drink …  And yes I DO know that these are excuses (duh) but this behavior followed me into recovery like a bad street rep.

I write a lot of posts under the heading “emotional intelligence”.  I could blather on about the actual studies and models on the study of EI; quoting Gardner, Payne, Petrides, Landy, Locke, and even Darwin.  Transversely I could give you all an EQ-i (Emotion Quotient Inventory) measuring the mental ability to be successful in dealing with environmental pressures and demands. (Bar-On, R. (2006). The Bar-On model of emotional-social intelligence(ESI). Psicothema, 18 , supl., 13-25.) TOTALLY looking over my hot librarian glasses right now. Just sayin.

But …  I won’t. In the effort to KISS (and you’d BETTER know what that means), we’ll just say that EI is the ability to have I over E. And besides only real nerds like me get off on that stuff anyway. Okay I digress. Moving along…

Not letting our pure emotions (better yet emotions based in false evidence), overcome our intellect and therefore our behaviors.  Example I’ve heard used a gazillion times at meetings:  “I walked into a room full of people and I just KNEW they were all talking about me.”  Or the ever popular, “Are you mad at me? Cause you seem like you’re mad at me.” And oh the very best one of all, “If there were a hundred people in the room and 99 liked me, I’d focus on the one that didn’t.”  Yeah. When in reality that one person may simply just have had gas, or cancer, or their OWN life to think about. Ahem … ego. Point being,  learning to discover if my emotion is based in fact or fiction; and YES again with the perception thing (see fourth step of any handy dandy recovery program to address this issue).

I’m a cryer from way back. Always have been. Cry when I’m angry (which pisses me off more), sad, happy, indifferent, bored … yadda yadda yadda. Can’t hide a damn emotion to save my life. Blush like crazy, eyes rollin’ in the back of my head; total transparency.  Alcohol used to mask that for me because I’d not mastered this so called emotional intelligence thingy.  So my emotions ruled me once more upon entering recovery.  Scary part was that I didn’t know the difference between fact and fiction.  Many times my ego driven mind made it all about me … imagine that. Hyper sensitive, raw, and easy to react led me down some pretty dark paths.  The ONLY way I was able to overcome this is to begin to look at the reasons why I acted as I did.

Shock and awe, it was my perception of ME that was the culprit.  Now I know most of you probably already get this, but for me this was an epiphany of epic proportions.  Once I learned the how’s and why’s, I was able to decipher my behavior and begin to be a bit more unflappable. Cool as a cucumber. Duck in water baby. Until that point I was a slave to my emotions and didn’t seem to have much choice in the matter. That is why a DAILY inventory of some sort is vital to me.  What the hell triggered this reaction? Why did I feel this way? Did I react in a way that fit with who I really am? These were added to the daily 10th step and I found remarkable results.

So I take a step back, when I’m feeling all “feely”; and I inventory, inventory, inventory.  After examination and of course bouncing it off others, my transparency has become a valued thing.  Cause those that know me, know that the real is just that. Not some convoluted notion of “poor me” or “i’m not good enough” or “piss me off and you’ll pay”.  Intelligence over emotion … cause I’m one feelin’ broad; just now I’m “smartly sappy”. It works for me.

for more on EI – for geeks like me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_intelligence