Since 1995, EQ or emotional intelligence, has been popularized by Daniel Goleman’s book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (intelligence quotient.) As a magna cum laude graduate, I was forty-six (1989) before I understood emotional immaturity as a cause of certain suffering I had experienced since a girl.
In January 1999, at fifty-six, when I opened an Intuitive Counseling practice at interfaith Seraphim Center, my special interest was emotional health. Realizing clients wanted a change, but in “the other person” that each saw as the cause for his or her unhappiness, I listened for fifteen minutes then gently differed, saying change comes only from within.
My approach was playful and ranged from an office full of objects to experience (such as a hula hoop) to metaphors—the Queen Elizabeth 2 that replaced the original liner in 1969 was the right time frame.
Imagine that you are the captain of the Queen Elizabeth 2
moving at full speed, and a voice from above tells you
to turn around and go full speed in the opposite direction.
You have to throttle back the power, turn by degrees, then
throttle up the power to full speed in the right direction.
Change takes place first in our thoughts and requires intent plus practice. I wanted clients to now think of them being the one who would make a change.
My realization is, “It may be easier to alter a situation by a metaphor that detours around a painful experience to a new direction.”
My realization is, “It may be easier to alter a situation by a metaphor that detours around a painful experience to a new direction.”