Improving Emotional
Intelligence
Aristotle
• There are many ways to demonstrate anger,
and anyone can become angry – that is
easy,
• but to be angry with the right person,
• and to the right degree
• and at the right time,
• and for the right purpose,
• and in the right way
• that is not within everyone’s power and that
is not easy." Aristotle, 384 BC – 322 BC
What is Emotional Intelligence
• Understanding your emotions
• and the emotions of others
• and responding to those emotions in a
healthy way
The Bible and Emotional
Intelligence
Neil Nedley, M.D.
Emotional Intelligence
• Likely contributes
more to successful
and enjoyable
living than I.Q.
• Since emotional
intelligence is
learned, rather
than inherited, it
can be improved.
5 Components of E.Q.
1. Knowing our emotions
– Self awareness
2. Managing our emotions
– Self control
3. Recognizing emotions in others
– Empathy
4. Managing relationships with others
– Social Intelligence
5. Motivating ourselves to achieve our goals
Increasing E.Q. Can Effectively
Prevent or Treat
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Depression.
Phobias.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Post-traumatic stress disorder.
Anorexia.
Bulimia.
Addictions such as alcoholism
Increased E.Q. also helps
“normal people”
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Think clearer
Communicate more effectively
Fosters unity in group settings
Reduces polarizing statements
Promotes happier life
All of this is accomplished without
compromise or sacrificing the truth
Influences on E.Q.
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Genetic Makeup
Childhood Experiences
Current emotional support
Physical Conditions
• Such as lack of sleep, poor nutrition, illness
• For many, these factors are of less significance when
compared to the next slide
The Major Influence on E.Q.
• Our emotions are largely controlled by our
beliefs,
• our evaluations of events,
• the way we think about problems,
• and our silent self-talk.
• Your feelings result from the messages you
give yourself.
• Your thoughts have much more to do with
how you feel, than what is actually
happening in your life.
Three E.Q. Stories for Leaders
The Bible tells of a man who was:
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Tall
Stunningly handsome
Wealthy
Well-liked by the general public
1 Samuel 9:1-2
The Lord anointed him to be the first king
over God’s chosen people, Israel.
• Research has documented that negative
thoughts which cause emotional turmoil
nearly always contain gross distortions.
• The thoughts on the surface appear valid,
but you will learn that they are irrational or
just plain wrong and that twisted thinking is
a major cause of suffering.
Three Causes of Saul’s Mental
Illness
1. Magnification/Minimization
•
When confronted with his own (appropriate)
guilt, minimized it and justified himself.
• A man who has committed a mistake and
doesn't correct it is committing another
mistake. Confucius
• “We can turn setbacks into victories. Find
the lesson, apply it and move on. Then look
back on defeat and smile.” David J.
Schwartz, Ph.D.
Turning Defeat into Victory
“If you have made mistakes,
you certainly gain a victory
if you see these mistakes
and regard them
as beacons of warning.
Thus you turn defeat into
victory, disappointing the
enemy and honoring your
Redeemer.”
E.G.White, Christ’s Object Lessons p. 332
Three Causes of Saul’s Depression
• When confronted with his own (appropriate)
guilt, justifying himself.
• Dwelling on the unfairness of his life.
• A high self esteem (pride) that was
wounded by the people’s and especially the
women’s obvious preference for another
leader.
Magnification of Self
• “Is not this great Babylon which
I have built?”
• “I will exalt myself above the
Most High.”
Symptoms of Pride
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Trying to be noticed
Craving attention
Itching for compliments
Needing to be important
Detesting the idea of being
submissive
• Loathing the idea of
admitting to wrongdoing
• Strongly opinionated
• Being argumentative
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Demanding your way
Wanting control over others
Flaunting your individual rights
Refusing advice
Being critical, yet resenting
criticism
• Being oversensitive
• Thinking you have excellences
you don’t have
Desire of Ages 330
• Christ was never elated by applause,
• nor dejected by censure or disappointment.
• Amid the greatest opposition and the most
cruel treatment, He was still of good
courage.
Nothing gives one person so much advantage
over another as to remain cool and
unruffled under all circumstances.
Thomas Jefferson
Watch Out for I Can’t Stand
It “Itis”
Frustration Tolerance
When trials arise that seem unexplainable, we
should not allow our peace to be spoiled.
However unjustly we may be treated, let not
passion arise.
By indulging a spirit of retaliation we injure
ourselves.
We destroy our own confidence in God, and
grieve the Holy Spirit. COL 172
• When Saul underwent the recommended
therapy for depression, he would feel better
again.
• However, in time, with the three causes still
active, and the third cause (wounded pride)
becoming even more prominent, he would
slip back into anxiety and depression.
Story Number 2
What is it that makes your
mood mad, glad, or sad?
Or calm?
The A-B-C of CBT
A—Activating event
A
C
C—emotional Consequence
Crooked Thinking
• Also called A—C Thinking
• Believing that we have little
or no ability to influence our
feelings and that events and
situations directly cause our
emotions and behavior.
Psalm 66
18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord
will not hear me.
The A-B-C of E.Q.
A—Activating event
A
B
B—Belief
C—emotional Consequence
C
The A-B-C of E.Q.
A—Activating event
A
B
Belief
C—emotional Consequence
C
Emotional Reasoning
Ecclesiastes 2
1 I said in mine heart, Go to now, I will prove thee with
mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure:
10 And whatsoever mine eyes desired I kept not from them,
I withheld not my heart from any joy;
17 Therefore I hated life . . . for all is vanity and vexation of
spirit.
20 Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair . . .
• Many envied the popularity and abundant glory of
Solomon, thinking that of all men he must be the
most happy.
• But amid all that glory of artificial display the man
envied is the one to be most pitied.
• His countenance is dark with despair. All the
splendor about him is but to him mockery of the
distress and anguish of his thoughts as he reviews
his misspent life in seeking for happiness through
indulgence and selfish gratification of every desire.
{CC 194.2}
• By his own bitter experience, Solomon
learned the emptiness of a life that seeks in
earthly things its highest good. Gloomy
and soul-harassing thoughts troubled him
night and day. For him there was no longer
any joy of life or peace of mind, and the
future was dark with despair. {CC 196.2}
False Way of Altering the Way
You Feel
Can never get enough of what you
don’t need,
Because what you don’t need will
never satisfy you!
Pornography Exposure Effects
after Six weeks
• Less interested and less
attracted to their partner
• More self absorbed
• Less empathy for others
around them
• Very self centered world
• Shuts them down emotionally
• As Dr Zillman has said: “The negative effects
of pornography have been more
consistently proven than the links between
smoking and lung cancer.”
• Experimental Psychologist, Indiana
University
James 1
13 No one should say God tempts, because
God doesn’t tempt anyone.
14 Each one is tempted when he is dragged
away and enticed by his own evil feelings.
Feelings can lie!
"Feelings are much like waves. We can't stop
them from coming, but we can choose
which one to surf." -Jonatan Mårtensson
Story Number 3
Depression in the Bible
• But he himself went a day's journey into the
wilderness, and came and sat down under a
juniper tree: and he requested for himself
that he might ________;
die and said, It is
enough; now, O LORD, take away my
_________;
life
• 1 Kings 19:4
When Elijah was depressed and wanted
to die, what did the Lord ask him?
• And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he
wrapped his face in his mantle, and went
out, and stood in the entering in of the
cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto
him, and said, “________ _________ _________
_________, Elijah?”
What Doest Thou
Here?
Overgeneralization
• Holding the hypothesis as a fact, rather
than a hypothesis
• Generalizing from too few instances
• Elijah
• Peter
• Paul
Truth in the heart
1 LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle?
who shall dwell in thy holy hill?
2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh
righteousness, and speaketh the truth in
his heart.
“Even the thoughts must be brought into subjection
to the will of God, and the feelings under the
control of reason and religion.
Our imagination was not given us to be allowed to
run riot and have its own way, without any effort at
restraint and discipline.
If the thoughts are wrong, the feelings will be wrong;
and the thoughts and feelings combined make up
the moral character.”
Testimonies for the Church Volume 5 pg 330
Will Rogers
“It’s not what we
don’t know that
hurts us so
much,
it’s what we know
for sure that just
ain’t so.”
Emotional Intelligence
Reconstruct Your Thinking
“Be transformed by the renewing of your mind”
Romans 12:2
• Self-discipline must be practiced.
• An ordinary mind, well disciplined, will
accomplish more and higher work than will
the most highly educated mind and the
greatest talents without self-control.--COL
335
Psalm 51:6
Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward
parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt
make me to know wisdom.
Mikala
• Intelligent, energetic, beautiful young girl
• Sexually abused at the age of 13 by a friend of the
family
• Depression and anxiety began to take over
• Her fix was trying to find satisfaction in relationships
with men, which quickly accelerated to sexual
relationships
• Would go from one break-up to another
• One relationship to another
• Now needs antidepressants
Mikala
• Depression would get very severe
• Between periods of more normal energy for her, which
would be rated as high energy by the psychiatrist
• Was soon diagnosed with bipolar disorder
• One drug was not enough, two drugs were not enough,
three drugs were not enough
• Finally four drugs, two for bipolar, one for anxiety, one for
mood.
• Still intelligent and with enough energy to get a job as a
pharmacy technician.
• With her intelligence, energy and beauty, she caught the
eye of the head of her local CVS pharmacy who was 10
years older than her
Mikala
• Now on a flight to Cancun with her
boyfriend who has the capability to fully
support her in her future plans
• He is fun, energetic, and good looking.
• Besides, he, unlike most of the others she
has been with, has a great career and
makes good money.
• She believes she is on top of the world.
Mikala
• Her first morning in Cancun
• Her “loving” boyfriend goes down to the
pool.
• Notices his mobile phone still in the room.
• Goes through his pictures
• Finds girls that she knows, one of which
also works as a pharmacy tech, in a
provocative pose with him, just two days
earlier
• She now knows she is not the only one
Mikala
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“This is my lot in life”
I can’t take this any more.
There is no hope.
Klonopin overdose
Night in hospital
Sent back to hotel in his care
This time she did it again, now with a potent
blood pressure medicine, that was being used
in low doses to stabilize her mood.
Proverbs 13
12 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick:
but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.
Mikala at Weimar
• Angry, depressed, still wants to die,
although she says she won’t do it this time.
• First, had to buy her some clothes.
• Did not have to buy her a bathing suit for
hydrotherapy.
• Good nutrition, exercise, light, circadian
rhythm
Counseling
• Have to be BP—Boy Proof.
• Hey BP Mikala
• Calling things that aren’t as though they
are
• Happiness cannot be linked to a man
relationship.
• To be happily married you must first be
happily single.
• Correct distorted thoughts.
Last year
• Mikala came to Dallas to attend the E.Q. Summit
• She is back to her consistently happy, and energetic
self.
• Off all meds except for one that is not a psychiatric
medication.
• No boyfriends, dresses non-provocatively
• Future is far brighter that the average 21 year old
• Follows the program
• Now a Seventh-day Adventist
• Is mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy
Signs of Emotional Intelligence
• Curious about people you don’t know
• Knowledge (accurate) with own strengths and
weaknesses
• Able to focus without easily getting distracted
• When you are upset, you know exactly why
• Can get along with most people
• Care deeply about being a good, moral
person
• Take time to slow down and help others
Signs of Emotional Intelligence
• Good at reading other people’s emotions in their
facial expressions
• Good judge of character
• Truth (accuracy in thought) is very important to you
• Self motivated
• Know when to say no
• After a fall or lapse, you take responsibility and get
right back up
• Great leader (when combined with talent and a
strong work ethic)
The Comforter
"When He, the Spirit of truth, is come," said Jesus,
"He will guide you into all truth.“
The Comforter is called "the Spirit of truth."
His work is to define and maintain the truth.
He first dwells in the heart as the Spirit of truth, and
thus He becomes the Comforter.
There is comfort and peace in the truth, but no real
peace or comfort can be found in falsehood.
Desire of Ages 671
The Effects of Falsehood
It is through false theories and traditions that Satan
gains his power over the mind.
By directing men to false standards, he misshapes the
character.
Through the Scriptures the Holy Spirit speaks to the
mind, and impresses truth upon the heart. Thus He
exposes error, and expels it from the soul.
It is by the Spirit of truth, working through the word
of God, that Christ subdues His chosen people to
Himself. DA 671
• Army researchers found that when they subjected a
group of volunteers to two sleepless nights, the lack of
shut-eye seemed to hinder participants' ability to make
decisions in the face of emotionally charged, moral
dilemmas.
• Some volunteers changed their views of what was morally
acceptable after they'd been awake for two days.
• This was not universally true, however; volunteers who, at
the beginning of the study, scored high on a measure
known as "emotional intelligence" did not waver on what
they found morally appropriate.
•Dr. William D. S. Killgore Sleep, March 1, 2007
“The power of right thought is
more precious than the golden
wedge of Ophir. . .”
Heavenly Places 164
Emotional Intelligence—It
Can Be Improved
"Ye shall know the truth,
and the truth shall make you free."
John 8:32