Emotions give our experiences a sort of color, a dimension of experience very different from other senses, different from even thoughts. Yet many of us find our emotions at times more of an enemy than a friend. Our emotions serve a purpose, one that is not entirely obvious.

Most current theories of emotion share the assumption that emotions serve an adaptive function in human life. Emotions play an important role in how we appraise and prepare to act on current circumstances. There are instances when emotions seem to interfere with what we do, what I call Toxic Emotion. The essence of emotional intelligence is to learn how to make all kinds of emotion a constructive, even enhancing aspect of life.

DaveMSW.com was created by me, David Earl Johnson, MSW, LICSW as a part of my vision to spread the news about emotion intelligence and how it might benefit everyone. On this website, I have endeavored to create access to the advanced knowledge of this important concept in an understandable way to the general public. This website represents that effort.

There are many benefits to registering with DaveMSW.com. First of all, you will have access to a number of articles that explains in detail advanced aspects of Full Impact Living. There is a collection of videos on emotion intelligence from experts around the world. I continue to build the collection  including advanced tutorials based on live consultations and video presentations.

You can also arranged for more advanced training in emotional intelligence, working with your current therapist, coach or consultant or by inquiring with me, David Earl Johnson, MSW, LICSW. Or you can schedule personal consultations or online therapy with me.

There is no obligations for registering. You may receive an occasional email from me about new opportunities and features at DaveMSW.com. Registering is entirely secure and your information will be held in strictest confidence. Click here to register.

Full Impact Living℠:

Emotional Intellegence for Personal Growth

I got this quote in one of those anonymous emails that has been forwarded through thousands of inboxes all over the planet:

Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting '..Wow! ...what a ride!' Enjoy the ride. There is no return ticket.

I had heard something like this decades ago and remember that it had a profound effect on me. It was one of those "Aha!" moments we all have from time to time. I had always been a cautious man and taken great pains to avoid unnecessary risks on my way to building a career.

While this new perspective didn't change a lot about what I did, it did change how I thought of myself. I had been holding myself back, reviewing everything I was about to say or do before I considered acting. I'd also review everything I had done over and over again hoping to pull one more insight from each act in my past. It was exhausting! I was focused totally on the past and the future and I was often miserable with self-imposed anxiety. And my life was passing me by. I experienced a shortage of joy. My only fun was in many escapist activities I engaged in, luckily none were particularly self-destructive. My life had become driven by regret, worry and escape. This little saying made me acutely aware that I was living life all wrong. I was totally focused on going somewhere and never stopping to enjoy where I was. It took a number of years to figure out just what I had to do to change things. New understanding of this task still comes to me every day.

Mindfulness is a non-judgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises is acknowledged and accepted as it is. It is a skill that is learned by committed practice. The object is to focus one's attention on thoughts, feelings and events in the present moment while remaining curious, open, and accepting whatever occurs.

The idea is to take on the role of an observer of your own mind. Notice everything that happens without holding onto anything, having a "Teflon Mind". An important part of observing is putting words to the experience. The effect of naming the experience effectively separates you from it. Thoughts are just thoughts, feelings just feelings, all transient experiences that are not necessarily a part of or define who we are.

True mindfulness involves immersing yourself in your experiences so that you actually forget yourself. The idea here is to stop the conversation you have with yourself, or as Eastern traditions put it, letting go of ego. This internal dialogue, while an important skill in the right circumstances, can become a major distraction. Imagine yourself walking through a beautiful park muttering to yourself. Would you remember what you saw in the park? You'd probably remember more about what you were muttering to yourself!

One way to do this is to focus on what is at hand. "See the job, do the job." The idea is NOT to always stay busy,  ut to invest all of yourself in everything you do. "Smell the roses." Another thing to watch while doing things judging if this should have happened or whether it's fair, just, or right or wrong. It IS, the only value in questioning why is avoiding a problem in the future. Anything more than that is a waste time and emotional energy. See what you are doing, but don't evaluate it. Focus on the facts without evaluating it. Count on your intuitive self to react appropriately, changing the harmful situation or changing your harmful reaction to the situation.

Another distraction to your experiences is multi-tasking. Doing more than one thing at a time spreads your skills thin so that your product becomes sub-optimal, perhaps even mediocre. If you multi-task regularly, you actually train yourself to be easily distracted. There is some research that suggests that this subtle distraction training contributes significantly to attention deficits that impair your concentration. Research also suggests that training persons with Attention Deficit Disorder with mindfulness techniques can be an effective treatment!

The idea is to keep your mind's eye on the objectives until the task is done having faith that you will do the best job your can and react appropriately should something go wrong. Think about it, if you are preoccupied with what might go wrong while doing something, will your focus be on the job or the fear of what might happen? If you are distracted by fear, how good a job can you do?

Most of us, when not structured and focused on a task at hand, are thinking about past and future events. We either review previous experiences looking for new learnings we might have missed or planning our reactions to anticipated events. We focus on the moment only when there is something immediately presenting that requires a response. Our focus is often divided between what is happening in the moment and the thoughts on which we are focused.

For those of us that have more than our share of regrets and/or worries, being focused on the past or the future becomes a nearly full time job! This is not good. Without your full participation in the moment you are in, you are distracted, your reactions are primed with the emotions of the worry or regret. That means your judgment and decision making ability is impaired by emotionally distorted judgments! Have you ever been startled by someone while preoccupied with regrets or worries? Did you react with an emotion not meant for the other person? Most people have had that experience. It is likely we have all experienced spilling our internal emotion on an unintended other. And if that person was paying attention, he or she probably noticed your emotion and wondered if you were upset with them!

Few of us have the ability to be focused on the moment at will. It is a skill that takes a lot practice and a commitment to follow through. The eventual reward is an incredible feeling of peacefulness, acceptance, and centeredness combined with heightened concentration. You see, a mind uncluttered by regrets or worries has only the moment to focus on. Self-consciousness dissolves into the experience of the moment. Instead our focus is on our senses, our perceptions, punctuated by the thoughts and feelings flowing through our minds. The ultimate state of mindfulness is what is called flow.

Flow is the state in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing with a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and an expectation of success. Flow could be conceived of as being completely focused and motivated in a single-minded immersion. Emotions and thoughts are synchronized in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. While in flow, we feel a clear sense of direction, confidence, intense concentration, and personal control. We feel a natural and continuous intrinsic reward. Time seems altered, slowed or moving quickly. Feedback for one's actions and focused redirection come easily and painlessly so that action and awareness seem to merge.

One does not have to reach the ultimate form of mindfulness to benefit. With each strengthening of the skill comes with incredible benefits in quality of life. There are many tools available to us that will help us learn. Check out the resources to the right.

Self-knowledge is something we all strive towards. But how many of us have done a complete review of our emotions and how they influence our thoughts and behavior? Most people find that pretty hard to do, especially since they struggle to put their feelings into words. We talk about "will power" as the ultimate motivation. It might surprise you to find out that motivation is really emotion.

Emotion in it's simplest form is motivation, "...each emotion offers a distinctive readiness to act; each points us in a direction that has worked well to handle the recurrent challenges of human life." (Goleman, 1995, p4) Entering a state of mindfulness or flow a person reaches "perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performance and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive; energized; and aligned with the task at hand." (Goleman, 1995, p90)

The skill of reading another's feelings is built on self-awareness and flow. People who have good empathy skills are better adjusted emotionally, more popular, more outgoing, and more sensitive. Childhood neglect dulls empathy. Abuse makes people hypervigilent to emotional cues. Empathy predicts intervention to prevent injury to another, certainly an important action in primitive communities.

Expressions of emotions have been found to be a cross-cultural repertoire of non-verbal emotion communication and serve essential functions in cooperative society. "...emotional communication functions to bond social groups. ...language evolved as a more efficient form of grooming and facilitates group cohesion. ...the use of clear signals to communicate intentions and motivations aids the regulation of group processes." (Waller et al 2008)

Human attributes, as important motivation, self-awareness, empathy, non-verbal communication, get little attention in education in our society. The very complexity of our current circumstances makes it our mutual interest to ensure that our community has learned as much as possible about how to understand emotions.

Self-awareness is one of the most important benefits we get from spending time in a mindful state. The longer we are able to stay mindful, the more we learn about our selves. We come to recognize the ebb and flow of our thoughts, moods, emotions and impulses. We begin to see relationships between our thoughts and feelings and external events.

One thing we notice is that our thoughts and feelings often contradict each other. Our emotional selves and our rational selves often have conflicting memories, perspectives, and motivations.

I've found it useful to conceive of the mind as having two main parts. One part is largely made up by the cortex, or the evolutionary most recently developed brain structure. It's this part of the brain that is largely responsible for manipulating symbols, interpreting and remembering patterns of perceptions, and self-awareness and self-monitoring.

The cortex overlies a phylogenetically older part of the brain that largely makes up the autonomic nervous system. [Its sometimes referred to as the "Lizard Brain" because even reptiles have equivalient brain structures.] In this part of the brain, the body functions largely "automatically" with little interaction with the cortex. Here the heart is stimulated to beat, breath is maintained, pain sensors are monitored and automatic behaviors like walking and steering a car is monitored, largely without conscious awareness. Here is also the roots of our emotions, the biochemical and hormonal precursors to the thoughts whose symbolic representations we create to understand our emotions.

Experience is the greatest of all teachers. We have many opportunities to learn every day of our lives.  Everything we experience we learn from, especially those things that are particularly hard and/or emotional. Find things you can do to enhance your learning. Success can feel very rewarding, but what teaches us the most is the mistakes we make. What teaches us the most from mistakes is the loss we experience.

Loss is a natural part of life, a challenge to learn and understand life from a new perspective. It’s a time to redefine the value of your own life and re-evaluate what is most important.

Grief is the natural process we use to recover from loss. It is one of the most important experiences in life. I believe much what we call wisdom emerges from the painful depths of loss and grief. Grief is a personal experience that is largely unique from one person to another. It has no order or clearly identified steps that follow one after another. There are commonalities to the experience that are inherent to the healing process. Understanding the process can help us get back on track if life, your family’s culture or relationships get you off track. Grief unfolds in a purposive and meaningful way from the first awareness of loss. The grief process guides us through the painful reassessment and renegotiation of our needs and goals.