Boosting emotional competency, exploring ADHD, and simplifying fitness

Levelling up emotional competency

When it comes to dealing with our emotions, most of us are out of whack.

We resort to suppressing our feelings or having the occasional outburst and blaming it all on the other.

It’s no surprise that we experience conflict as much as we do when we’re unable to handle ourselves better, let alone other people. 

Confession: With all my work centered around EQ, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t guilty of having an emotional overaction myself. 

But on the rare occasion that I do, I bring myself back to my center through awareness- a skill that is as rare and doesn’t come easy.

We’re quick to hold others responsible for our emotions, which prevents us from understanding their true origins.

It’s easier to claim that someone has wronged us rather than confess to feeling afraid, angry and anxious. 

It’s even easier to get mad at someone for calling you out at a meeting than admit to feeling embarrassed, angry, or sad. 

This avoidance of taking ownership of our feelings and projecting blame onto others perpetuates drama in relationships.

A few ways to avoid this from happening is to start by:

Breathing into awareness and recognizing what’s showing up in the moment. 

If feeling angry or agitated, recognize the story around it and ask if this is true or just an unhealthy interpretation. 

Once some understanding and clarity have been gained it’s ideal to take time away from the situation and reflect on an appropriate way to act. 

Any situation or relationship will only ever be as good as one’s level of emotional competency.

The undiagnosed cause of ADHD

ADHD has been on the rise at a concerning level over the last decade.

Between the casual self-diagnoses as if it’s in vogue and doctors prescribing medicines at the drop of a hat, we’ve missed a fundamental point that’s contributed to the problem in the first place. And a horse’s story from twenty years ago can offer another perspective…

Nicholas Domman, a leading veterinarian was called in to rescue a Horse named Poker, who was obsessively cribbing ( a stress-induced compulsive behavior that involves grasping an object with teeth, contracting the neck muscles, and grunting hard repeatedly)

Nicholas thought it would be a good idea to inject the horse with a drug to calm him down. That calmness lasted about 20 minutes until Poker was back at it again.

This incident led to an important realization that applies to us humans too.

Wild horses don’t suffer from any of these problems. What Poker was experiencing was a direct symptom of domestication and being kept in an unnatural habitat.

As for us humans, there is nothing natural about our modern lifestyles either. We have confined ourselves to indoor spaces and screens. We have information thrown at us at the speed of light and are constantly fidgety as we try to keep up.

Kids now spend their formative years immersed in their virtual games, rather than playing freely out in the open. ADHD has become an inevitable by-product of the environments we’ve created.

In our pursuit of modernization and ‘advancement’ we’ve overlooked a crucial truth: the further we distance ourselves from our natural wiring, the more we’ll set ourselves up for long-term struggles.

Simplifying fitness in 6 steps

As a health and fitness freak, I can be a total nightmare to be around: meaning no one gets to slack around me, or they won’t hear the end of it!

That being said, there’s no denying that establishing a solid routine can feel daunting, especially if being health conscious doesn’t come naturally to you.

If that sounds like you, you’ll find this conversation with Ali Abdaal and high-performance coach, Dan Go incredibly helpful.

Consider this as your roadmap from where you currently are to where you’d like to be.

You’re welcome.

In case you missed me last week…

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