Emotional Bank Account

There are six major deposits we can make to the emotional bank account:


1. Understanding the individual. An individual's values determine what actions will result in a deposit or a withdrawal for that individual. To build a relationship, you must learn what is important to the other person and make it as important to you as the other person is to you. Understand others deeply as individuals and then treat them in terms of that understanding.

2. Attend to the little things, which are the big things in relationships.

3. Keep commitments. Breaking a promise is a major withdrawal.

4. Clarify expectations. The cause of almost all relationship difficulties is rooted in ambiguous, conflicting expectations around roles and goals. Making an investment of time and effort up front saves time, effort and a major withdrawal later.

5. Show personal integrity. A lack of integrity can undermine almost any effort to create a high trust reserve. Honesty requires conforming our words to reality. Integrity requires conforming reality to our words, keeping promises and fulfilling expectations.

The key to the many is the one, especially the one that tests the patience and good humor of the many. How you treat the one reveals how you regard the many, because everyone is ultimately a one.

6. Apologize sincerely when you make a withdrawal. Sincere apologies are deposits, but repeated apologies are interpreted as insincere, resulting in withdrawals.

Unlocked Emotions

The human desire to open all thoughts and emotions with abandon to at least one love partner is irrefutable but, rarely experienced. Humans have an innate urge to love and be loved however, their fears from childhood of having ‘love abandoned’ on some level, follows like a shadow through life without the courage to face the fears and move into the mysteries of love with a deep trust. To go through life as an emotional cripple holding on to inner fears is to miss life’s real juice and potential.

The mind lives in fear when the heart hasn’t been nurtured fully. The mind locks itself as well as the heart for what it deems as protection from the unknown. The mind protects the heart often to a fault because of experiences that challenged it’s trust. Size, popularity, intellect, outward confidence, etc,. have little to do with the missing key to open the heart to share love with another who is likely conditional. Loving a child is far easier than loving an adult for, the child is entirely dependent on the adult for it’s survival.

To ‘lock another’ from freedom of expression is to be a jailor of every human right to be free. Man has found ways (some of them necessary) to lock the female from all interaction with the outside world. Today with unparalleled freedoms for millions of people, that behavior is reprehensible. People who are free in the outer world but not free inside from their fears are highly risky in love. People who have inner freedom are fully able to express that with another particularly in the rare case with one who is also with ‘unlocked emotions’ and void of fears.

To be totally vulnerable is to challenge the self in being exposed to trusting the others loving acceptance no matter what. That space is rarely ‘unlocked’ for anyone to come into but, is necessary to open for the full expression of love. Real love needs no commitment. Love thats locked up with fears demands commitment for security. Always it remains conditional. With few exceptions, people that meet in a passion are being real but soon the fears show up to lock out those moments of love that knows no boundaries. The love becomes what I call ‘functional love’ with it’s ups and downs, fears and doubts. It’s a choice to unlock the flood gate and receive what comes flowing while throwing away the key to any return to safety. The irony is, it’s the only safe place to be.

Fear only fear, love only love - be on guard when it’s love mixed with fear!

Confidence and Self-Esteem

Confidence and Self-Esteem were best friends. They went everywhere together. If Confidence bought a new dress, Self-Esteem bought one just like it. They were very close.

One day a new kid came to their school. His name was Peer Pressure. He had a friend called Hateful Words. They decided to give Confidence a hard time.

They constantly teased her. They forced her to do terrible things. It was so terrible that Confidence lost Self-Esteem. When Self-Esteem wanted to start some classes, Confidence said they wouldn't be any good.
Then one day, Peer Pressure introduced Confidence to Doubt. He wanted to ruin Confidence, but Peer Pressure said he couldn't yet. Self Esteem couldn't understand what was wrong with Confidence. Confidence now hung around with Depression, Low Self-Esteem, and Overeating.

These girls were friends of Peer Pressure. Self-Esteem no longer had any friends. She no longer felt good about herself. She went to see her Imaam. Imaam Good Words told her how to talk to Confidence. He introduced her to his daughter, Encouragement.

Encouragement and Self-Esteem went to find Confidence. Self Esteem hoped she wasn't too late. The girls found Confidence in a stupor. She was no longer a vibrant, happy young girl. There were dark circles under her eyes. She had gained so much weight from eating that she couldn't move.

Encouragement gasped and Self-Esteem cried. She begged Encouragement to do something.
Encouragement began to hug Confidence. She kissed her and loved her. She told her that she was a beautiful young lady who had a lot going for her.

Encouragement held Confidence so tightly that Self-Esteem thought she would smother her. Confidence began to cry. As she cried, she seemed to lose weight. Then a bright light suddenly glowed from Confidence and she began to smile.

Peer Pressure and his friends didn't like what Encouragement was doing and tried to attack her. They hit at her and pulled at her, but they couldn't pull her away from Confidence. Then Confidence began to speak.

"Get away from me, Peer Pressure. Take your friends and go. You no longer have any power over me." Confidence was now a glowing light. She and her friends made sure that Peer Pressure and his gang never bothered anyone in their town again.
If you feel that Encouragement is not your friend, then try to find Encouragement in yourself. Self-Esteem and Confidence will follow

Let's Start A War: A War of Kindness!

by Richard MacKenzie, UK

Wow it's a mad world - people killing and hating each other, children dying, communities becoming an alien concept and the new living to work attitude taking over.

What is happening?

And what can we do about it?

Mahatma Gandhi once said - "Be the change you want to see in the world."

Can we really start to make a change to this world by doing our bit?

Sure we can.

And this is exactly what I want to cover today in this article.

Imagine your head hitting the pillow tonight and that last thought going through your mind being one of fulfillment as you drifted off to sleep!

Want to know how you can make this a reality?

Then read on...

I want to get on to Random Acts of Kindness - something that I have mentioned before in other articles.

A Random Act of Kindness is exactly what it says it is.

What could you do today that would make someone else's day?

What could you change in yourself that would ultimately enrich the world around you?

Remember the greatest gift that you could give anyone is your time.

As I have said before - gifts can be brought, money can be earned, but your time can never be replaced.

Here are a few Random Acts of Kindness that you could achieve in order make someone else's day.

1. Share your smile with people! Sounds simple, but makes all the difference.

2. Tell a friend or colleague just how appreciated they are. Write and email or call and do it in person.

3. Buy a shopping basket of food and donate it to a homeless shelter or old persons home.

4. If someone has given you good service make sure that you commend them.

5. Plant a tree. I especially like this one as it makes sense, what with climate change.

6. Save your magazines and take them to the local Doctors office, homeless shelter, etc.

There are so many little things that you can do to help out others and to make yourself feel good on the inside.

So why don't you take today as an opportunity to make a change to yours and someone else's world?

Remember that a few seconds of your time, could mean the world to someone less fortunate than yourself.

Emotional Wheel

Life is like an unsolved puzzle. No one can define what life is because it is a very complex thing. Life is something that makes you happy and proud at times and makes you feel so low at times that you say to yourself, ”Why was I born?"

But whatever it is, it is real fun. In Life, in every moment, something new happens; something that you never expected, something that you were waiting from a long while to happen and something you were expecting to happen. It is a combination of happiness, sorrow, joy, love, anger, enjoyment, loneliness, fear, excitement and many other emotions. The definition of the word life can't be completed without using the word emotions. Some people work in emotions whereas others work with emotions.

So it's very important to understand how people are using their emotions. If they are letting emotions get control over them, then they'll be dragged by others and situations all the time. But, if he is controlling his emotions in a proper way, then no one will ever have control over him.

The way a person uses his emotions is what we call attitude. Someone has correctly said, "Your attitude determines your altitude in life". Attitude, as I already defined, is the way an individual uses his emotions and directly related to the psyche of a person.

Some people use their emotions in a positive way and some people do it in a negative sense. When people use emotions in a positive way we call it positive attitude and when they use it in a negative way we call it negative attitude. It's up to an individual to decide how he uses his emotions. Which way will you decide?

yeremiah@aol.com

Yeremiah Hardt

Panic

People may panic when they are scared. By being faced with the unknown you grow immensely though. When panicking, people may become irrational though, thus they may be driven to harm themselves as well as others.

In the face of danger why do we fear communication? If communication can do anything it will help reduce panic.

Panic can be somewhat alleviated by full communication throughout it.

One

If we take away love our world would become a tomb. The world is and always will be all of our homes, however it is not in the same time and space as it was from a moment ago till know. Even as you are reading, this the world is changing. Not that much, because the only moment that exist presently is now. However the world is constantly in motion.

We are both the future and the past, and in essence there is really no present. It is so relevant, however until we believe that our problems will be the same. It is the belief in the unknown that is going to save us. Our ideas, which our so powerful that some of them, even become law.

That, above anything else is what we are all striving for. To be taken seriously. We are all confused individuals. The main problem is that we are all running around like a chicken with its head cut off. It is like being in a dream all your life and not being able to wake up. The further you go, the deeper you get.
That is until we see we are in a dream. Only then we are able to wake ourselves up. That is only one of the issues that we all have in common with each other. Hopefully we can all wake up as the real world is much more wondrous then our dream like trance.

However knowledge of this dream like state is not enough. It is like we all our sleeping but not knowing that you are, however many times we try to wake.

It is impossible to do so. The longer we are in this trance the more complex it will become. Look at human history or media, and how much good can you see. It is almost as if we are in an experiment that went terribly astray.

It is becoming so horrific, simple or complex, that it is difficult to understand unless you are deeply involved as well as interested in it.

So life is so abundantly joyous. Someone has to be braver than anyone else has been in a while. It is as you can lead a fish to water but you can’t make it swim to stay alive. Something like that has to occur by waking us all.

Hopefully this recognition will not take to much longer. We all need so much sleep it is ridiculous. However, we have to have abundant respect for life. As we all have to celebrate life, however temporally it is difficult to realize why.

Worry

Don't worry yourself to death. If you worry too much you can never be to sure. Worrying can really hurt yourself as well as others.

Life is too short to worry all the time. We should all have more fun in it, because if you really think about it that is what makes life worth living. We cannot take our obstacles as seriously as we do.
We will make it through all our obstacles. Some keys that would help us are to stay as calm and as friendly as possible.

When we are relaxed, we are able to work easier, then when tension is increasing. In emergent situations, as well as others, if we are calm there is a greater possibility we could overcome whatever obstacles we have found ourselves in.

The obstacles we find ourselves in portray the obstacles that are within ourselves. We always want to change our reality to better fit our needs. No matter if we are aware of it or not, our reality cannot and will not be in true alignment with ourselves.

This alignment is an extremely fragile way of thinking. Our realities do not always intersect causing conflicts, emotionally, physically, mentally and even spiritually.

Most of these conflicts are so easy to solve that we are not even aware of their existence. However there are some that cause so much discomfort that the price is insurmountably unthinkable.