Emotional Intelligence

Session Summary

During the last class we covered the following

Feelings and Needs

We reviewed Feelings and Needs. Feeling bad is an indicator of not having something that we need; feeling good is an indicator that I have what I need. We also introduced a metaphor of a Castle. Everybody has a castle inside where each room in a castle represents a need. For example, being in a room of Fun means experiencing fun, being in a room of Safety means experience safety. Finding a room in a castle is experiencing a need being met. When we feel bad it is likely because we are wandering in the corridors of the castle, looking for a room that we need, unable to find it. Once we find a room that we need we start feeling good.

Mean Little Flies

"Mean little flies" is a metaphor when we say something to ourselves that is discouraging.

Some of the discouraging things kids say to themselves:

• Nobody likes me
• I am a weirdo
• I am bad
• What is wrong with me?
• I am stupid
• I am ugly

We considered that these statements are meaningless and not true. It's like there are mean little flies buzzing in our heads and wanting us to believe them.

But we know better than trusting mean little flies. We don't need to listen to them.

We did a cool exercise where one person would control how loud the mean little flies are, making them quieter and quieter until they get silent.

Role playing conflicting situations.

We role played conflicting situations, trying to understand the feelings and needs of each party and use that to reach an acceptable agreement.

Some of the situations:

1. In a cafeteria there are a girl and a boy. A boy eats soup with his hands and a girl, being his friend needs to tell the boy how improper it is, but she doesn't want to hurt his feelings
2. A girl has a firefly in her box and a boy is fascinated by it. He wants to have the firefly and offers his toy truck for it, but the girl doesn't care much about the toy truck.
3. A girl gets a role in a play and starts hanging out with her new playmates. She is not as interested to hang out with her old friend who really wants to spend time with her.

The Uncomfortable game

The Uncomfortable game continues! This weeks challenges are:

1. Apologize to your parent about something you've done
2. Write down what your mean little flies say, practice quieting them down.
3. Tell others how your feel and what you need
4. Ask others how they feel and what they need

On top of that continue recording every time you do something out of your comfort zone, this counts as 1 point.

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