soul stretch yoga blog

I am a yoga instructor with Dyslexia. This makes things just a little bit more difficult for me.  If you attend my classes regularly, you will notice that I occasionally mix up my right and left cues. Although sometimes annoying, this is something that I and my students have learned to deal with.  Perhaps it may even make them better in someway.  That is because I have learned to rely on my intuition (EQ) rather than brain function (IQ) to teach my students.

So Lovelies, let's delve more deeply into the topic of intuition that I introduced several months ago as we explore EQ…your emotional quotient. My home dictionary defines intuition as, “The ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning or research”.  In other words, intuition describes a person’s ability to make sound and rational decisions WITHOUT proof of evidence or much cognitive thought.  You could say that they just “trusted their gut” because it had proven to work for them in the past.  Yogis also have names for intuition; the inner voice of your soul or that gut feeling that just won’t go away.

Intuitive people tend to have a thoughtful nature and seem to be deeply in touch with their own thoughts and feelings.  They spend a lot of time in their own heads, but not in a bad way.  As a result, they are often more insightful, introspective, and self-aware.  As a person with Dyslexia, I always had to rely upon my intuition to see me through.  Although I was always more intuitive, I really never gave it much thought until two of my friends and fellow yoga teachers described me that way.   This all started back in the fall of 2020 when Dr. Erin Astley (a dentist and fellow yoga instructor) told me how intuitive I was while teaching my classes. Every time she would attend one of my classes, she would remark that she felt as though I was speaking directly to her.  She marveled that I would,“vibe the room” and then say something that she needed to hear in that moment in her life.  At first, I simply brushed off her words as a nice compliment until more and more students began relating to me similar experiences. 

More recently, Dr. Diana Kyrkos (another dentist and my partner at the yoga studio) said that I had one of the highest EQs (emotional quotients) of any person she knew.  Diana gave me this compliment after I shared with her a conversation that I had with my young staff at Root to Rise.  The young women who work at the cafe all ranged from 16-23 years of age.  Each was exceptionally bright and each excelled in academics as well as sports. One day, the girls asked me what kind of grades I received in high school and college.  When I disclosed that my GPA was between a 1.7 and a 1.9 they were completely shocked.  That’s because these young people working in my café had average GPAs of between 3.5 and 4.2.  In addition, they were in many clubs, including the Honor Society.  Each was a self-starter with natural born leadership qualities.  You can understand now why they were so shocked that I, a woman they looked up to, had such a low grade-point average in school.

I explained to the girls that I had a reading disorder called Dyslexia and that tasks that average people could accomplish in a short period of time would take me much longer.  Never the victim or one for excuses, I knew that I simply had to work harder and trust my intuition to get things done.  What I lacked in IQ (intelligence quotient), I apparently made up for in EQ (emotional quotient).  Wanting to learn more about EQ, I asked Dr. Diana to be a guest contributing writer to this blog, hoping she would pass on some additional knowledge to each of you as well…

From Diana…
A while back, I realized that over the years I had unconsciously been doing thousands of things to undermine myself, both personally and professionally.  When placed in situations of stress, my emotions reacted in ways that I found undesirable, weak, and borderline embarrassing. My energy vampires (the voices in my head) would tell me to undermine my intuition and make my life miserable.  These vampires had the ability to suck the energy out of me daily if I gave them the power to do so.  Because of this, I was literally draining my own emotional energy.  I named my energy vampires ,and I will introduce you to some of them now.  They included:
Valerie the Victim – She always blames other people for her problems.
Cindy the Cynic – She distrusts everything and everyone. 
Doomsday Debbie - She believes nothing will work.  Every new idea is a waste of time.
Dorothy the Drama Queen –Everything is a theatrical production. 

During a leadership seminar, someone recommended that I read a book titled Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman.  Also referred to as Emotional Quotient (EQ), I was fascinated by Goleman’s ideas on cognitive control and its ultimate effect on our destiny.   I developed the ability to become more aware of and identify my full range of emotions.  I also soon became more acutely aware of the emotions of those around me.  In many workplaces, automation has become so prevalent that the demand for employees with skills in emotional intelligence is high.  Employers have discovered that people with exceptional communication and interpersonal skills create value in a society that has become somewhat robotic in nature.  Let’s examine some specific situations that one might encounter. 
Emotional Awareness – A mindfulness that surrounds your emotions…why you feel a specific emotion. 
Self-Regulation – This refers to the control you have over your emotions. 
Motivation – This is your ability to fail forward…trying again after failure.  
Empathy – This is the ability to sense what others are feeling or thinking.  Putting yourself in their shoes.  
Social Skills – These enable you to resolve conflict.  It also encourages people to want to be associated with you.

According to Mr. Goleman, “Academic intelligence has very little to do with emotional life.  People with high IQs (IntelligenceQuotient) can be stunningly poor pilots of their private lives”.  It really all begins and ends in your mind. “What you give power to has power over you…if you allow it.”  I learned to ignore my energy vampires and develop a personal cheerleader, encouraging and empowering the positive voices in my head, while diminishing the negative thoughts.  I realized that my vampires were causing me to react to situations rather than respond to them.  I slowly improved my EQ to respond to situations with intention, rather than reacting in an emotional manner.  I concentrated on slowing down my responses, considering the emotions that I was feeling at that moment.  I learned to listen to criticism and handle the situation without excuses, blaming others, or dramatically causing myself anxiety.  I encouraged myself to become more open-minded and to listen to opinions that seemed to contradict mine.  I became a better listener and more self-aware.  I learned to keep my personal energy vampires at a distance.

Energy vampires can be in the workplace, in your social groups, or even family members. No matter the type, one trait that they all have in common is that they feed off your willingness to listen and care about what they are saying.  Additionally, they often criticize, intimate, or bully others because, at their core, they are imbalanced and often insecure.  When I finally learned to anticipate my emotional reactions with self-awareness, I modified my responses, improving my communication skills, eliminating my emotional vampires.  I stopped introducing negative energy into my daily routines.  The leadership conference described EQ as a “superpower that can prevail with practice and self-discipline. 

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Lovelies, you don’t have to be a yoga instructor or have a reading disability to sharpen your SUPERPOWER (your EQ).  Tune in to self-awareness. Getting to know yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.  Start by tuning out day-to-day distractions and energy vampires.  Then tune in to your natural ability that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence…the feeling that guides you to act a certain way without fully understanding why.  Your intuition is a real thing and can be a personal asset that you can control.  Stay open to learning and tap into your intuitive nature.  Once you do this, you will be a master of a high EQ, leaving a lasting impression in your corner of the world.