In Episode 280, we unravel the fascinating interplay between mental health, therapy, and emotional intelligence (EI). What exactly is EI, and can it be learned or is it hardwired into our nature? Can our EI be weakened or lost over time? We’ll break down the key components of EI—self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills—and reveal how therapy can significantly enhance these traits. Discover how mental health conditions like anxiety, depression, and trauma impact EI, and gain practical tips to boost your emotional intelligence through mindfulness, journaling, and more.
Tune in to see Emotional Intelligence Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Think about these three questions as you listen:
- What is emotional intelligence?
- Can we learn emotional intelligence or is it more nature vs nurture?
- Can emotional intelligence be diminished or destroyed?
Links referenced during the show:
https://www.throughatherapistseyes.com/category/podcasts/mentalhealthtips
Intro Music by Reid Ferguson – https://reidtferguson.com/
@reidtferguson – https://www.instagram.com/reidtferguson/
https://www.facebook.com/reidtferguson
https://open.spotify.com/artist/3isWD3wykFcLXPUmBzpJxg
Audio Podcast Version Only
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Episode #280 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is Through a Therapist’s Eyes. John and I were just discussing how this is the mid year, July the 18th. Middle of the summer, we’re almost out. Right, John?
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. I mean, it’ll be, it’ll be 2025.
Chris Gazdik: We got storms firing off here in the summer, summer sun. Lightning. Did you, did you avoid the bullets down coming from the sky?
Yes, I did. It was, they was dropping. So this is through a therapist eyes where you get insights from a parental therapist directly in your home or personal time in your car, but not to delivery of therapy services in any way we are going to be talking about emotional intelligence today. How does mental health therapy effect, emotional intelligence.
So I got the book coming out. It is December 17th. Excited about that. Think that I’m going to do some events at bookstores and stuff. So take a, take a minute to pay attention when that stuff you’ll [00:01:00] have a
John-Nelson Pope: bunch of groupies.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, that would be cool, but there’d be coming to see you because hopefully.
You don’t know this yet, but I’m hoping we can all get together and do some events and things. Oh, I’d love to. Would you like that? Yeah. It’s like bookstores and then we’ll talk podcast stuff and, you know, just do some different things. So tell them what these people are supposed to do. What is their job, John, on, on Apple podcast and Spotify and these types of things.
What are these people supposed to do?
John-Nelson Pope: We earnestly solicit your five star ratings and. It needs to be five stars, not four stars, but five stars. So that we will be like a bullet to the top of the man.
Chris Gazdik: You were just really on point there. That was, that was probably maybe the best you’ve ever done that.
John-Nelson Pope: Thank you.
Chris Gazdik: That was well done. That was well done. Contact it through therapist size.com. It’s way to contact us I believe no new YouTube subscribers this week. Although, Neil, you tell me that the, the numbers have gone up. You don’t need to give an explanation and we’re trying to figure out numbers are [00:02:00] still going up.
We’re at 150 Oh, yeah getting closer. We need more tell your friends and family. Seriously We really do need subscribers on the youtube channel find it on through therapist eyes. We’re subscribers
John-Nelson Pope: And we are yeah, and a lot of times it’s it’s a picture of you or a victoria I haven’t popped up yet the
Chris Gazdik: shorts.
That’s not true You have. I have. I think you have. Oh, good. At least the videos I’ve picked it does. Oh, thank you. I don’t know where they’ve gone.
John-Nelson Pope: I don’t know. Well, I get notifications that I can see this little tiny, tiny head on, on and I see little Chris and a little Victorian.
Chris Gazdik: John, this is the human emotional experience which we do endeavor to figure out together.
So let’s get to it. This is I, I feel like, Well, what do you think about this topic when we’re thinking about emotional intelligence? You’ve been doing therapy even longer than I have.
John-Nelson Pope: Well, I’ve been [00:03:00] doing pastoral care and then therapy, yeah. Yeah, well, a lot of different things. But
Chris Gazdik: I feel like this is an old topic.
Went away. Right. That now I feel like people have awareness about their own emotional intelligence. Like, it’s a term that I hear people use. That’s why I wanted to Well,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m wondering if, if, If COVID and the isolation that happened during that time that people did a lot of reflection and thinking, yeah, it’s actually started around 1965.
You
Chris Gazdik: were, you were busting off some, some facts there. What, what is that all about? Cause I was in grad school or undergrad school at that time. Yeah. 95. That was my graduation. You weren’t born yet.
John-Nelson Pope: Yes. You were born in 65. Brother. I was, let’s not add any years to it. I was born in 73. 73. Right. So you’re a young man, but, but in, in 95, that’s when Daniel Goleman [00:04:00] actually came up with a book called emotional intelligence.
And is
Chris Gazdik: that the genesis
John-Nelson Pope: of the concept? It’s the genesis, but it has its roots from around 65. And the reason why, and that came out of business, that sort of area in terms of leadership and Goldman business leadership. Yeah. And, and Goldman just kind of took it a lot further and, you know, he tied it with a your IQ intelligence.
And so that’s where the EI comes from. Emotional intelligence
Chris Gazdik: as opposed to
John-Nelson Pope: iq. As opposed to iq. And and it’s not IQ you, it’s not really tied to it, but there are, yeah, it’s two totally different. Yeah. So I, I did a very very quick geek out in this and
Chris Gazdik: Oh, that’s not just on the top of your head.
Well, emotional intelligence. So the questions that we have is what is emotional intelligence? Can we learn emotional intelligence or is it more nurture in the nature versus nurture argument and can emotional intelligence be [00:05:00] diminished or even destroyed? And I think that I’m really looking forward to John, your thoughts about this and your extensive knowledge and working with people, because I think those are some pretty provocative questions, to be honest with you.
And so let’s get into what this thing is, is, you know, really the ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions as well as recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others, which is an interesting caveat influencing others in your emotional intelligence. That sounds devious.
Doesn’t it? Manipulative
John-Nelson Pope: little manipulative, but you see there’s, there’s something that keeps a high EI emotional intelligence from becoming manipulative.
Chris Gazdik: Oh,
John-Nelson Pope: explain that. It’s empathy. This isn’t a
Chris Gazdik: devious thing. This is just a high emotional intelligence thing?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. It’s high intelligent emotional intelligence is to, to be able to [00:06:00] actually know what to say.
I think it’s, it’s like the old French word savoir faire you know, to know what to do. Savoir faire. Savoir faire. And, It’s a, it’s an old term. It’s centuries old, obviously French.
Chris Gazdik: I’m sorry. I got to interrupt you. The YouTube comment. Hey, Cass, good to see you. It says, she says emotional, emotional intelligence is the jumbo shrimp.
It doesn’t seem probable.
That’s a classic. Well, I,
John-Nelson Pope: I, there are people with low emotional intelligence. So three Stooges would be good examples of, Oh, those guys are brilliant. Don’t be fooled. Oh, they’re brilliant. They are brilliant, but they played Stooges. Yes.
Chris Gazdik: They played the part well, but their emotional intelligence, I think is stupid.
I, anyway, I interrupted you. Sorry for that.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I’m fine. I just,
Chris Gazdik: well, you were saying somewhat more about the origins. Like what, what’s the book, what do you [00:07:00] recall from that? There’s a, the book,
John-Nelson Pope: it was a pop psychology book by David or Daniel Goldman, G O L. M A N, I think, or G O L E, M O N, and he he talked about
the competencies and skills that for people to be successful, and, of course, it, it gained traction.
In the business community for leadership. And, and so,
Chris Gazdik: and I kind of recall that that’s when I was coming on the scene in the late nineties and early two thousands, it was big corporate consultations, you know, probably the same thing that personality inventories took over for all that sort of thing.
Right.
John-Nelson Pope: Right. And, and it gets associated with the big five personality traits is another thing for, for career counseling, that sort of thing. I think it’s, it’s a different, it’s another way of expressing personality [00:08:00] traits that would be winsome or engaging and getting people to for leadership. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
So, okay. I was going to say something after you said it. I’m going to say what, I was going to say, but I want you to really check me on this. Right? And maybe I’ll pose it to you as a question. I think I’ll do that. Is this, is this a, well, simply put, is this a clinical term? You know what I mean by clinical term.
John-Nelson Pope: Do
Chris Gazdik: you think this is a clinical term?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, that’s a criticism. It’s pop psychology. Some people would say that, okay? Do I think there’s, I think there’s some measures now that have come out and assessment tools that would say that it is a legitimate area of study. And so, I think you could use it as a a clinical term.
Chris Gazdik: Interesting.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Cause I would say no. [00:09:00] I would say that this is, it’s not, it’s definitely not pseudoscience but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a concept that with this definition, the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions, like this is, this is an important concept. It’s, it’s something that.
We want to be able to develop. We want to be able to have. We want to be able to execute in the moment when something’s going on, when you get really good at this. Human
John-Nelson Pope: development. Developing as a Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: interesting.
John-Nelson Pope: And a wholeness, but yeah. In terms of like, is this, you were talking like a diagnosis or some Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Right. This is not any of that.
John-Nelson Pope: No, none of that. It’s,
Chris Gazdik: I I can’t diagnose this. I can’t even say,
John-Nelson Pope: An IQ test or anything of that sort. I mean, you, you, you, it, it’s, it’s not something [00:10:00] that you can. Necessarily measure objectively. Okay. I love
Chris Gazdik: that you said that I love that you said that because I was doing, I was thinking about this concept and I began to think like, Oh, can you test for levels of emotional intelligence?
For instance, you see on the show notes, I put, I don’t know. I don’t know. Yeah. I didn’t think so. Yeah. But I found these measures that you were talking about, and I’m skeptical about these things, dude. Probably going to piss off the psychologists and people who do psych testing, but I don’t know. What kind of psychological testing do we have for emotional intelligence?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Well, I knew, knew one of the psychologists that, that developed it. Pissed him off. No, he, he’s, he’s gone to his reward, eternal reward. His name was Darwin Nelson. of all things.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, you mentioned his name. Yeah. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. And he, he came up with, with a measure and actually kind of, I was one of his guinea [00:11:00] pigs.
Chris Gazdik: I am fascinated right now. You must tell this story.
John-Nelson Pope: No. Well, he came in and who is he? First off, Darwin Nelson is a psychologist or was a psychologist. And he taught at Texas A& M in Corpus Christi, Texas. No, no. Texas A& M in Kingsville, Texas, which is down the road from Corpus Christi, Texas.
Chris Gazdik: And he’s a notable person in this area. He
John-Nelson Pope: was a notable person. Okay.
Chris Gazdik: And he developed a psychological testing tool. Tool for it. Yes. All right. And he gave it to you.
John-Nelson Pope: He gave it to me and a whole bunch of other students. And this was a few years ago. And
Chris Gazdik: Just a few years ago?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, yeah, over 20 years ago.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: John brother. Yeah. That’s okay. I, I know when you put it in the pool of all the other years, it may be, you know, just reeling in the year you are brother. Okay. What happened [00:12:00] with this test? Tell us about the
John-Nelson Pope: test. I went, we had to score it and all of that. And so the, And so he had these domains, which I think Goldman has, do you have the goal main domains?
Do you familiar with those?
Chris Gazdik: I
John-Nelson Pope: self awareness, self management, social awareness, and relationship management, say again, self awareness, self management, social awareness. Okay,
Chris Gazdik: I had self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills, which even to me, you know, lends inconsistencies to I have empathy, too.
Yeah, yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: So social awareness, empathy would be under that. And but that would be organizational awareness. So, let’s say somebody is a A high functioning ASD 1, Autism Spectrum Disorder 1, that person would have difficulty with emotional [00:13:00] intelligence. And so Sheldon on the big bang theory probably would not rate very high in this.
Right. We know he wouldn’t. Yeah, we know he wouldn’t. All those guys would probably his roommate too. Yes. Yeah. But so. That would, that would measure and so Nelson’s measure, and I’m not quite sure the name of it because it’s been over 20 years, Nelson and Lowe’s measures probably would show that there’s a way that you can, you can You can test for it.
Chris Gazdik: What’s interesting in, in looking at this, I’ll just interlude, maybe one of these is his, it just came from chat GPT because I really didn’t know there were specific psychological tests for emotional intelligence. By the way, if you’re listening, there’s a reason why I wanted to spend a little bit of time on the testing.
So we’ll, we’ll, we’ll land in a good place with that. But chat GPT had the emotional quotient inventory. [00:14:00] The May Salvo Caruso EI test. I’m sure that wasn’t Nelson. Emotional and Social Competency Inventory. The TRAIT EI Questionnaire. And the Workplace EI Profile. EI stands for Emotional Intelligence.
That’s, that doesn’t sound like any of his.
John-Nelson Pope: No, it doesn’t. But, I mean, he was, he was in his own, he was more in terms of careers and, and, and that area of counseling psychology. So, okay, but,
Chris Gazdik: so you’re going to tell us your score.
John-Nelson Pope: I scored pretty high. But emotional regulation. I had a little, a little hiccup, so
Chris Gazdik: most of us do brother.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. What, what I’m, I’m thinking there’s, there’s terms in, in counts, in assessments that tests for. Validity and also for reliability. And so [00:15:00] you can make a an assessment or, or some sort of a test that would, could be both valid and reliable and still not being it,
but it may not necessarily mean that what you’re testing for is true. It could be true.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, help me understand that because I’m struggling with that. Okay. Yeah, reliability is a, is a factor in studies, in academia. And validity is,
John-Nelson Pope: does it, does it, is it Does it measure what it’s supposed to be measuring?
Right.
Chris Gazdik: Validity. Right. Reliability is, can it be replicated? Over and over and over again. And then there’s So that’s a standard part of studies.
John-Nelson Pope: But that’s, but that’s a There’s a third part is that actually, is this a thing? Is it something that really is legitimate?
Chris Gazdik: Okay, that’s where I’m probably gonna have my biggest problem.
John-Nelson Pope: And I think that’s probably where you’re stuck. I think so. I’m not advocating for it. I’m, I’m just think it’s just another way of [00:16:00] looking at at things.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. So, so, so you knew that there was testing and such for all of this, you know, can we test for it? I guess the answer is yes. I think the reason why, honestly, I didn’t even know that this was testable and here’s why I spent a little bit of time.
As long as
John-Nelson Pope: it’s not detestable.
Chris Gazdik: True. That’s a joke, right? That’s a joke. Just want to make sure, because I had an excellent I had a partner in the field that did excellent. I think, I feel like he was the creme de la creme when it comes to psych testing. And real quick, psychological testing is objective tests where a, in our state, you have to be a doctor’s level psychologist to be able to deliver them.
Do you do any psych testing? You never did get into that, did you? Well, yes, I did a little bit. John, we need to talk. Okay. We need to talk.
John-Nelson Pope: No, no, I’m allowed. I’m allowed. We need to get you doing this. Okay. All right. That’s my [00:17:00] point. All right, I’m teaching it this you know, I’ve been teaching it
Chris Gazdik: dude. We need to talk We need you need to do some psychological testing because it’s really really cool and I Saw the creme de la creme of somebody who did this.
Yeah, i’m not
John-Nelson Pope: i’m
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I I understand he you start out with a diagnostic interview and then you go to objective Tests, usually the IQ test, which is a real thing. Mm-Hmm. . And it’s a reliable measure. And then you go into objective tests depending upon where the interviewer is thinking diagnostically.
Makes sense? Mm-Hmm. . And there are a plethora of tests like that. Ink. Ink, you know, the rar shot test. You listening May. That’s a projective test,
John-Nelson Pope: huh? That’s a, a projective test, right? There’s, so it’s not, it’s.
Chris Gazdik: We don’t need to get in that much of the weeds. Yeah, there’s objective and projective, I guess, and different.
There are a lot of testing. That’s all I want to go to, to really get at confirming diagnosis. When I used psychological testing, I, [00:18:00] it was an interesting case because I was diagnostically confused, having a hard time trying to figure out what’s going on. And the emotional intelligence was the least factor that we were worried about trying to figure out.
So I think that’s why I really just haven’t come across to that. Yeah. So you’re
John-Nelson Pope: kind of a, so you’re, I think the thing is, is what you’re saying is you want something that’s kind of like a gold standard or something. If there’s a test.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And evaluation. Probably. I think so. Because again, the concept of emotional intelligence is, I don’t really see as a, as a real clinical Term Exactly.
Per s
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Yeah. I’m I’m not big on it either. I like emotional intelligence as a, as a concept, right. That we work with. Yeah. But I, I mean, I work with all folks that you would say would be low ei that sounds like you’re making an an IQ thing if somebody has low ei. Right. I, [00:19:00] I have a problem with that.
Right. Because that’s not taking the client. As a, or your patient as somebody that because the problem is if, if it’s a low IQ, it, you really can’t increase
Chris Gazdik: that. I mean, you can not increase your intelligence quotient. You can not learn very much. You’re intelligent in emotion.
John-Nelson Pope: And this is something that can be learned.
It can be caught. It can be taught. It can be, you know,
Chris Gazdik: the answer to the question is, can we learn emotional intelligence or is it more of the nurture versus nature argument? This is not locked in by nature. This is nurture, your social relationships, your progression through life. You know, your investment in improving yourself, there’s a lot of upward mobility here, which is again, why I’m kind of like, you know, it’s not exactly a clinical thing.
It’s a conglomeration of clinical skills. I [00:20:00] mean, look at when, as we get into understanding these components, right. You had five different pillars. What were they again?
John-Nelson Pope: Self awareness, self regulation, social skill, or social awareness and motivation. Relationship management would be another one.
Chris Gazdik: Okay, the relationship management one is the one that I got kind of messed up with a little bit.
Yeah, that’s a business. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the business application. I, I, I agree. I see that. But I mean, these are, these are things about like, these are the core components of what like you, when you drill down underneath the emotional intelligence label, what you are talking about, am I correct to say, John, are these core components.
Let’s look at them closely for a moment. So when we’re talking about, yeah, we’re saying how self aware are you, right? How many times do you. Ask a client the question, Hey, how do you feel? And get the [00:21:00] response by I,
I don’t know. Good. Right. Yeah. Your face, you gotta look on the YouTube. You’ll see John’s face gives it away.
That happens all the time, right? Does all the time.
John-Nelson Pope: I had a client this, this morning today. Yeah. Well, go ahead. But I shouldn’t be asking the right questions in, in good counseling and, and psychotherapy. Why did you not ask the right question? Well, how you feel? Okay. Yeah. So how do you go deeper? So, but then they describe it.
And so, and he said. Meh. Meh. Meh. That’s what he said. That’s what he said.
Chris Gazdik: I mean, honestly, it’s a tough thing to really be self aware. You have to put concerted effort into who goes around thinking like, Hey, how am I feeling today? How am I feeling now? You know, I told Neil when he got here, my stomach was upset.
So we think of our physical ailment. We think of, [00:22:00] I have a headache or my muscles are sore. I worked out hard yesterday. You know, what have you. We do not think like that, even on that level, on our emotional scale, would you agree with that? I agree with that. We just go around experiencing things. And so self awareness is a core component of this, which is difficult.
That’s not easy.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s sort of like a depth psychology thing, the self awareness, in other words, the idea we’re going to go undergo years of psychoanalysis to be able to find out. What we’re doing, you know,
Chris Gazdik: behavior and behavior and my
John-Nelson Pope: existential background, that’s a big component, but I thought about this and I’ve undergone therapy myself and read and.
And discussed, worked on it,
Chris Gazdik: worked
John-Nelson Pope: on it, it takes work,
Chris Gazdik: developed it, developed it and practice. Yeah. When you get better, self [00:23:00] regulation is another one of these. I mean, you know, the
components of emotional intelligence it’s a fancy way of saying deal with your crap, right? Identify what your emotion is, self awareness, and then how a, how much able are you to regulate your mood, your feelings, regulate meanings, manage.
Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Interestingly enough, that same client talked about how he had, he grew up and he had an explosive temper. And over the years, he’s kind of learned how to get along and regulate and not explode. Perfect. Not, not be Katie Kaboom.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Motivation you had relation, no, you had motivation in there. Yeah, I did.
You know, motivation, that’s a little bit of a different thing. I mean, you, you work on this, you manage this, you, you know, do goal setting. You can kind of influence your own [00:24:00] motivation, but we’re going to be talking about mental health here impacts on this. And that’s probably a big central area where you gotta be like, yeah, I can really take a hit but empathy.
Can you learn empathy? I mean, when we’re talking about the core components. Emotional intelligence, do you practice and learn how to empathize with other people?
John-Nelson Pope: Good example is the environment that JD Vance, who’s the new and we’re not
Chris Gazdik: elect as of last night’s candidate vice president for the United States. Yes.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. He came up from a Southern app. Well, actually it was Ohio Appalachia. I’m mad at him though, by the way. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Very angry.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: he mentioned, Pennsylvania.
He mentioned Wisconsin. He mentioned, Ohio He did not. You’re right. Say it. West by God, Virginia. He didn’t mention us, man. No, we rule Appalachia Are you kidding me? How you gonna leave? You’re [00:25:00] all
John-Nelson Pope: Appalachian.
Chris Gazdik: Right? How you gonna keep Kentucky and West Virginia out of an Appalachian Yeah, culture conversation.
But anyway,
John-Nelson Pope: but by point was is that he grew up in an environment where there was drug abuse. There was, and then he wrote this hillbilly elegy and you get the mindset and all of that. And then his grandmother took him and kind of gave him some skills and then he joined by gosh, the, the wonderful branch called the Marines, Naval Services, Maritime Services.
And he had a gunnery sergeant that told him how to. Spit polish his shoes and not do something stupid learned a lot. He learned a lot.
Chris Gazdik: So motivation empathy Social skills. Yeah, you know, thank you. Can you learn that
John-Nelson Pope: he learned that in the Marines?
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely It’s it’s an excellent example. I love that you brought that up because you know, you you really You have a chance at any given point throughout your life.
[00:26:00] Listen If you’re listening to this and you’re wondering about emotional intelligence, please know that at any point throughout your life, you absolutely, you, the listener listening to this, have the opportunity to improve your emotional intelligence if you put a little effort into these five core components.
John, would you, would you agree with that?
John-Nelson Pope: I definitely would be. And I think, so in a way, it’s, there’s kind of values that are involved in this or not. Are you asking me? Absolutely. Yeah, I’m asking you values. Okay. Yeah. In other words, you wouldn’t you say self regulation is a value
Chris Gazdik: value. I’m thinking kind of not in the front end.
Huh. I guess we value these skills. It’s a valuable thing to have, but morals and the moral code, a moral compass, your values. I wouldn’t have thought, but you’re obviously going to [00:27:00] tell me why I’m wrong.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I’m not going to tell you that you’re wrong. Because I live in a my E. I. has taught me that I need to value other people’s thoughts.
Well,
Chris Gazdik: tell me, I’m curious, do you feel like it’s a part of your value system?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, I think, I think emotional. I think it’s part of my tradition. Of the Judeo Christian tradition that was not rigid. And we were open. Boy, that stumps
Chris Gazdik: me a little bit, man. Because, I mean, you know, when you look at clinical terms.
That’s learned. You learn. It is learned. I mean, I guess my point is, is, I can see where it might be a part of your moral compass and your, and your value system. But that is not like much any other clinical characteristic or symptomology or a lot of the stuff we deal with in the mental health realm.
Would you agree to that?
Like what do you [00:28:00] mean depression or diagnostics or characteristics of, but I was working
John-Nelson Pope: under the impression that this really isn’t a Diagnostic thing, EI, it’s something that it’s not something you can, it’s not in the realm of, it can affect your mental health, but, and it can help your mental health, but I don’t think it’s something that would, that you could classify alongside with depression.
I think if you have good EI, Let’s say emotional intelligence that you’re going to less likely develop deep depression or Okay, now that’s
Chris Gazdik: a bold
John-Nelson Pope: state because well, yeah, they’re guardrails, right? Right. So in other words, you don’t you don’t fall off The, the, of, of the, of the road, of the cliff or into the shoulder.
So you’re able to be able to, to, even
Chris Gazdik: with conditions,
John-Nelson Pope: yeah, even with conditions. So this is, you know, Abraham Lincoln’s good example [00:29:00] of someone was tremendous or Winston Churchill, tremendous depression.
Chris Gazdik: You’re going through hell, then keep going. Yeah. Favorite quote. Yeah. Winston Churchill. Exactly. Stumped me with the values thing, but that’s cool.
Let’s let’s, let’s move on. It’s a good transition, John, to, to a segment on really how does mental health affect this concept of, you know, Emotional intelligence, different and specific sort of symptom sets or diagnostic sets, you know, the things that we work with day in and day out. How, how does mental health.
How does your anxiety and your mental health affect your level of emotional intelligence? Let’s just say anxiety, for instance. Huh. Alright, let’s start there. You know, I think anxiety is going to affect your experience of day to day life, which dramatically, if you have an anxiety condition, is going to affect your EI.
Well, here,
John-Nelson Pope: I’m, I’m gonna agree with you because, or on [00:30:00] this, because I think your anxiety can derail you. Right. Quite a bit. And immobilize you. Yeah. But let’s say someone with with tools that are EI. So as opposed to a diagnostic criteria or domain, it would actually be something that would be a tool that would help you deal and work through your anxiety.
And so in other words there’s a part of it is that you would say tenaciousness. Right. For example, that despite your anxiety, you, you go ahead and you act, you’re not frozen.
Chris Gazdik: I know we’re jumping around here, but I think I just figured out my stumbling a little bit with the testing. Most psychological testing, would you agree is, and, and, and when we do testing, it’s really to figure out what’s going on.
Okay. That’s, that’s my understanding of the main purpose of psychological testing, what’s going on with your. IQ. What’s going on with your diagnostics? What’s going on with your symptoms? Well, when you [00:31:00] test for EI, I don’t know that you’re really finding out what’s going on with you. You’re getting a status check.
So it’d be kind of cool to take an EI psychological test at the beginning of therapy. And then at the end, do you want me to develop one? I’d like to
John-Nelson Pope: develop a tool for that.
Chris Gazdik: I’m wondering if those tools that we mentioned is that basically that’s a best use for those tools. Because I don’t think that you’re going to explore your level of current EI and find much from it other than, Hey, I need to kind of, you know, improve my, you know, Abilities on these core uhhuh components.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think that’s where I’m stumbling with. Yeah. Can you really test for this? Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s kind of amorphous thing. It’s like growth edges. When I say guardrails, for example, it’s not anything that. You, like with back anxiety inventory, or the, or, or depression inventory, or, depression inventory, yeah, there’s so many, [00:32:00] or, MDQ or something, which,
Chris Gazdik: those are all psych test tools,
John-Nelson Pope: psych test tools, I’m sorry, but, but, The, with the EI, it’s sort of like kind of amorphous, you know, it’s, they’re not rigid.
Chris Gazdik: It’s wide open.
John-Nelson Pope: Wide open. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I think, I think so too. So anxiety. Yeah. I mean, think about it. If you have OCD, you know, you have a very driven compulsion to do a behavior, touching behavior, rubbing behavior, cleaning behavior, clicking, clicking, right. Like, or an obsession on. A thought you can’t get out of your mind.
Obsessing thoughts. It comes and comes and comes and comes. That’s going to influence your ability to self regulate, to be motivated, to empathize with other people. A lot of anxiety conditions have vast arrays of irritability. So let me ask you this.
John-Nelson Pope: Do you think if you had [00:33:00] a standard and you had this EI and you said, well, I’m not, I must not be very emotionally intelligent because I have OCD and I can’t, I, I,
Chris Gazdik: you know, I see where you’re going.
John-Nelson Pope: Do you see where I’m going? Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: the answer to that is no, you can, you can improve. You can still learn how to manage OCD. You still, is that what you’re asking about? Yeah, that’s what I’m asking. Like, absolutely. That’s our whole field, John. Yeah, I know. That’s our whole deal. I was setting you up for. I know, I know.
For a whole lot. Yeah, I mean, I understand that these conditions that you might have are a whole deal in, in And we’ll talk about, you know, what happens in therapy, you know, with emotional health and emotional intelligence. Well, hopefully it’s improving if we’re doing our freaking job, right? But let’s move on and looking a little closely.
Depression. I mentioned that with motivation. Well, one of the direct symptomology sets of depression is your motivation goes in the tank. You don’t. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: You don’t have the energy. You [00:34:00] can’t even get, can’t even get out of bed and interesting things are
Chris Gazdik: not interesting. You. You’re stuck, you’re hopeless, helpless, your dark cloud is just overwhelming you.
You think that’s going to affect EI?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. A lot. It’s going to bottom out. It’s going to bottom out if you’re not careful. How about just regular stress, John? Do people handle their emotions well or identify how they’re feeling when they’re stressed the hell out? No. No. No. So your emotional intelligence, you begin to get a sight with this, a, a, a, a, a understanding that it’s kind of a moving target.
This, can we say that emotional intelligence varies from day to day greatly? I’m going to make that statement. From day to day, even moment to moment, when something happens, that was a terrible click. Boom. When something happens. No, that’s a wonderful click. That was much better. Thank you. Your emotional [00:35:00] intelligence can take a dive.
You can bottom out. Think about your conversation with your spouse. You know, you get into a fight, you get into a disagreement, you get your emotions
all into your feels as the kids say nowadays. How, how is your emotional intelligence while you’re battling out over a ten dollar bill at the grocery store?
John-Nelson Pope: I’m wondering if part of it is a, is sort of a a rough measure to kind of get you your ballast set back and you can write the ship. Oh, absolutely. And so maybe that’s part of, of having a goal, a goal for equate that with a good thing or a bad thing. Just this awareness, awareness.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, absolutely. I think we’re after awareness going down through this a little bit more.
I mean, what do you think trauma? And, or substance abuse affects emotional intelligence.
John-Nelson Pope: Oh, yeah, definitely on that. How? Well, Trauma, for example, is let’s say somebody, they’ll get stuck [00:36:00] emotionally. They can’t when I work with people with PTSD, for example, they can’t, they can’t get past the, the, they can’t, they can’t process the trauma that they’ve had.
They just stuck in the trauma. They keep stuck in it. They keep re experiencing it. Trauma brain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: It’s terrible. Yeah. It does lock people, lock people up. And substance abuse, to answer my own question, well that’s, I don’t know, this thought just come, came to me as I’m talking about it. Is it, what do you think, John?
Is substance abuse issues the biggest hit on emotional intelligence than most other things in mental health? That’s, I don’t know if I can say that. I’d have to think about that. What do you, what do you think? I don’t know. Can we quantify it? Yeah. I mean, substance abuse hits a person pretty hard. Well, substance
John-Nelson Pope: abuse, you get frozen emotionally.
You, you’re, you’re basically, when you develop that addiction, at [00:37:00] least in my mind is that you, that’s the younger you are, the harder it is to, to grow out. Let’s
Chris Gazdik: talk about destroying emotional intelligence. I need to think about it, so don’t write into me and whatever, but I think, I think I feel somewhat comfortable without thinking about it, just being impulsive in the moment that substance abuse.
That’s emotional regulation there. More than anything in mental health probably destroys emotional intelligence. Right. I think that, I think I can make a case for that. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Just think about in terms of your, your, everything that you value sometimes in terms of is gone. You would steal. You would from your grandmother, your grandmother,
Chris Gazdik: and that’s not you, that’s the effect of active addiction.
Yeah. It’s crazy. Personality issues. I thought it was an interesting one. We don’t understand personality disorders quite so much. I have the theory that I believe that is an effect of a poorly functioning endocrine [00:38:00] system. Huh. Hormones and neurology, body chemistry. I feel like that probably pretty close to substance abuse really affects your ability to exercise and grow emotional intelligence.
Sound,
John-Nelson Pope: sound fair? Sounds fair. I’m also thinking in terms of something that really, there’s a lack of study in that, in this area. And I think you’re kind of, and, and yet we have talked so much about so psychological and motivations and that sort of thing. We, we don’t, but we’ve very rarely have dealt with the interconcern system as a, as
Chris Gazdik: And we know because of the thyroid, it dramatically affects mental health, right?
So and last, if we take a quick immediate or a quick specific look at bipolar issues, you know, we just did a show on bipolar not too long ago. It was a couple of months ago, wasn’t it? I think it was a few weeks ago. A few [00:39:00] weeks ago. Okay. I mean,
John-Nelson Pope: But it’s going so fast.
Chris Gazdik: That’s July the 18th. When you’re manic, you’re manic.
And or your mood. Oh, that was a few weeks
John-Nelson Pope: ago. Yeah, it
Chris Gazdik: was thought so. I mean, it’s hard to be empathetic. It’s hard to socia
to listen. It’s hard to listen. Yeah. When you’re manic. Yeah. Right. So the impact of these specific things, we just went through a few of our field’s, you know, mental health conditions, dramatically impacts.
But again, we’ll highlight. Even in those conditions, you develop those guardrails. John’s talking about to increase and to learn your emotional intelligence, your ability to be self aware, your ability to self regulate your ability to motivate yourself and have empathy and social skills and relate to others.
Those can improve [00:40:00] in the context of what it is that you’re trying to manage. Exactly. I
John-Nelson Pope: think that’s true. So that might be the EI or the emotional ability to be able to, to improve gradually and substantially. So, for example, what happened to, to former president Trump? You were saying earlier that, hoping that that would be a real, am I doing the wrong thing?
Chris Gazdik: No, no, you’re fine. I actually, I actually, I’m looking at my notes to see. I pointed that out. I wanted to use that as an example. So I guess we’ll do, he hasn’t given a
John-Nelson Pope: speech yet. So we don’t know if he’s grown, but yeah, go ahead. Post traumatic growth. And go ahead with what you were saying is that.
Chris Gazdik: And of course the listening audience, I’m sure knows, you know, the assassination attempt were about five days post.
Very thankful. And that’s still in the news and it’s so, so much, it’s going to be in our [00:41:00] nation and world’s history forever. Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: And, and so that’s a great opportunity for for him, I think, to develop some emotional, further emotional intelligence. I’d say, same for President Biden because of his the pressure for him having to deal with the infirmities of old age.
And so that’s going to be a strong point of growth. And, and this is not meant to be a political thing at all. No, it’s,
Chris Gazdik: it’s just, it’s, it’s a, it’s an emotional mental health thing. fact, and I have no problem talking about it. I just found it in my notes. You know, we want to end up here at a, at a little segment of, of looking at practical tips, like how do you really develop emotional intelligence?
Well, one of my brainstorms with that is dramatic life events, you know, dramatic and traumatic life events tend to. Be when you grow the most. This is why I really enjoyed doing crisis work early on in my career. [00:42:00] John, we connected on that a while ago, you were like part of the initial group to, to start crisis units, mobile crisis team, right?
And I thought that was fantastic. I was in
John-Nelson Pope: West Virginia, my first church. Is
Chris Gazdik: that right? That’s
John-Nelson Pope: that’s exactly right. I love that
Chris Gazdik: because we had a whole grant program and I was able to work on the mobile crisis team. And I loved that because I was able to meet with people right In the moments when they were in a dramatic or traumatic life event, and I could really make an impact because there’s an indelible ability to imprint, can we say emotional intelligence core components in, I like that.
John-Nelson Pope: I like that because what during the time in which there is a person is. Maybe off balance the most way gets the person able open and to be able to say, okay, I’ve making a significant life change.
Chris Gazdik: So I made a note to myself to talk about the Trump [00:43:00] assassination and the speech to be delivered exactly today here in a couple few hours, I’m going to race home.
Cause I want to check out his delivery, his, his presentation, his, his contrition, his humility. We can look at the five core things, you know, what has happened? Might we observe with his self awareness, his self regulation, the motivation we know is high for Trump for sure, his empathy skills, his social skills, you know, those are, those are things that in a traumatic event, you develop the ability to have them sort of almost imprinted because you’re wide open.
And I’ve heard that he has said, like, I’m just. I’m just happy. I’m glad I’m alive. Right? Like that’s your quarter inch from A deadly event of a bullet flying through your head. I mean, that is, I don’t know if you can get more traumatic than that.
John-Nelson Pope: I think St. Paul is a good example of somebody his [00:44:00] name was Saul of Tarsus and he was in, this is in Acts in the, in the New Testament, but he was one of the, Persecutors of the early Christians.
And he was a good guy. Yeah, he was turned into a good guy. He turned into a good guy, but he was I mean, he was ruthless and he changed Chuck Carl Colson. Another one was one of Nixon’s henchmen. And he’s, he made the statement, did, did I say this earlier? No, you did not. Okay. He said that he would run over his own grandmother to, to get Nixon elected in 1972.
Geez. Yeah, re elected. All right. Yeah. And he was involved with Watergate and he was stonewalling and all that. He ended up going to prison and he, he entered a man that was seeing his end basically of life as he knew it. And he was tough as nails and he, [00:45:00] he absolutely did a 180. I think that’s emotional intelligence.
That’s growth. I think it’s right at the freaking core. Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. And, and so if you think it can’t be developed, I’m just going to say you’re wrong now, will it be, people can also be in crisis and not have much development. That’s also, unfortunately, true, too. Probably true that you could have it wrecked a little bit, too.
That’s, I don’t know, that’s probably true, too. So, let’s not get away from let’s not get too far into what do we do to develop emotional intelligence helpful tips there, but what do we do in therapy? I literally have people saying, I want to improve my emotional intelligence, Chris, how do we do that?
And I’m like, okay, that’s, that’s Let’s roll. That’s, that’s, that’s the goal. So, how do you work with this in therapy? What do you do? What do you think the impact? Like, what is our, what is therapy’s influence off the cuff, John, on person’s emotional intelligence?
John-Nelson Pope: Do you [00:46:00] think motivational interviewing would be a good approach for this?
Well,
Chris Gazdik: you’re gonna have to explain that. We can’t geek out on core strategies again. We’ve done that. We can’t revisit that one, man. Are you listening or are you going to have to listen back to the last show where John and I geeked out on, on, on strategy. Okay. All right.
John-Nelson Pope: So how do you do it? You connect it with persons.
Maybe just why is the person having emotional turmoil? Why is the person having hurt? What’s causing that hurt? It continues on. They keep doing it to themselves. And so that would show their stuckness. Okay. So you would explore those, explore those areas and say, okay, maybe you could do some exercises.
You could do, I think you have down here, journaling, for example, mindfulness, right? I just gave somebody a mindfulness app. Nice. Yeah. Guy had PTSD, has PTSD and as a, from childhood [00:47:00] and he’s, he’s wanting to say, I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t have these nightmares. I need to, to go on. I need to, and he’s not been able to develop relationships.
He wants to be able to date. He wants to be able to, to, in his words, be normal again.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Am I, am I, I think you’re
Chris Gazdik: absolutely on point. I mean that this is something that we work with all lot all throughout our therapy relationship. I, you know, I was thinking about this, John, myself on, you know, what do we do in therapy?
You know, I, I really like, like I should, Do some writings and whatever and create like a new model of therapy because I really enjoy the insight orientation, right? Any model that has like, you mentioned motivational interviewing. I mean, there’s, there’s levels of insight that are valued in particular models of therapy.
And I, and I generally find myself, you know, drifted to [00:48:00] those and oftentimes not even know it because when you come in a therapy experience with me, I want you to know and understand what’s going on. with your emotions, your feelings, your process.
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. That’s, this is a core counseling aspect and that is your genuineness and your openness that you are a model as a therapist to be able for that person to remodel themselves.
You’re not, you’re not saying you’re better than they are or anything of that sort. But at the same time, it’s that sense of unconditional. regard or acceptedness,
right? Of the person. Absolutely. So in other words, that person, let’s say is hit life has damaged them life. I mean, they’ve been traumatized, got hit.
They’ve lost everything. And they, they want somebody that will accept them as they are without shame or guilt, right?
Chris Gazdik: And that’s a hard [00:49:00] thing to receive.
John-Nelson Pope: And I think, yeah, it’s a hard, and it’s hard for some therapists, I think that have some rigid notions and true. Yeah. So they, they get in the way of, of, of that growth process, the radical growth that could happen was with a client,
Chris Gazdik: right?
I, I feel your energy there. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I, I think another, another thing that, that, that occurred to me, you know, in so far as what happens in therapy is, I mean, isn’t the self regulation, I mean, that’s a core component of EI we just established. Well, that’s a core component of what we’re trying to accomplish in, in a therapy experience.
Yeah, exactly. How can you regulate what you’re feeling?
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: you know, and we walk through that, you know, in couples counseling, how can you regulate what you’re feeling as an individual while you’re interacting with each other? Right? Like, you know, it’s that’s a core piece of what we’re aiming to accomplish.
So I’m going to say that in [00:50:00] those two ways alone, therapy is crucial for the development of emotional intelligence.
John-Nelson Pope: I was just thinking in terms of emotional intelligence in couples counseling in the couples themselves. Yeah, sometimes it’s pretty
Chris Gazdik: low, John.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, sometimes it’s pretty low, but but you could actually build on strengths of of emotional intelligence that let’s say one couple One person in the couple might have a higher emotional intelligence and let’s say motivation and another one might have more self control or self awareness or Adaptability.
Adaptability. Yeah. Yeah, so so there might be able to, they can learn from each other and resonate and build their Oh, you learn the most when you struggle the most, John, you know this.
Chris Gazdik: Couples counseling, I love doing couples counseling because honestly you learn so much. It is hard, you have to have a knack for it, but my point is, is [00:51:00] People struggle in these intense emotions when you’re engaged in these intense discussions with the person that’s most close to you, which in Vern invariantly has the most ability because you have the most skin in the game to hurt you.
That’s ironic, but you learn so much through that process and struggle. I mean, it’s a dynamic learning environment, if you ask me.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: And that’s directly what we do in, In therapy support, you were kind of talking on another thought that I had, john, about what happens in therapy for E I support validation and direct confronted feedback.
I don’t know how confronted you are in therapy. Do you confront people? I
John-Nelson Pope: tell him I confront him. So I, I think that’s how I do it is, in other words, I’m going to confront you on this. Right. So, but I, I, it’s always in a general way. Right. So
Chris Gazdik: general touches, general pushes, you know, information, feedback.
John-Nelson Pope: Because as, as soon as you are. Let’s say real forceful [00:52:00] that person is is gonna get their back up.
Chris Gazdik: You know, it’s always driven me nuts I’m gonna reveal this to the world. I probably should do this, but I’m gonna do it anyway Traditional substance abuse therapy models, you know where I’m going. Yeah. Oh, man I’ve had some experiences in the field It’s just like oh there was there was one experience to have the other clinician was just I mean I was bulging out standing up Over a person and confronting in a hardcore substance abuse, you know, jam through the denial method and it worked with the kid.
I mean, the kid really got it. I’m not, it was the DI, the
John-Nelson Pope: drill instructor. It was the D that’s not my jam though. It’s not my jam. That is not my jam either.
Chris Gazdik: You got to have a special ability in that. to, to, to get away with doing that for that function.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah, it’s, it’s Oh, what was the guy’s name? Officer and a gentleman, the DI in that one.
He has very good actor. [00:53:00] I think he was even nominated for an Academy Award.
Chris Gazdik: Talking about you can’t stand, you can’t, you want us on that wall. What’s his name? Nick, what’s his name? Is that the way you’re talking about a few good men?
John-Nelson Pope: No, no. That’s the officer and a gentleman was a, was a different one, but that was Jack Nicholson, Jack Nicholson.
Yeah, no, no. That was kind of. That was pernicious, but
Chris Gazdik: well, let’s, before we run out of time, as always happens to us, which is why the review shows are good. Cause on the review show, I’ll spend more time on these things. Practical tips, man. I mean, how do we accomplish the development? Hopefully we’ve convinced you a little bit that you can develop emotional intelligence.
How do we really do this? You know, I was brainstorming it and looking at lists and thinking through it. mindfulness practices, tracking even emotional reality, simply journaling building through hard trials, empathy and social skills, marriage counseling and dealing with your Children and parenting.
You [00:54:00] know, you have lots of ability to develop empathy. There, the dramatic life events we talked about actually learning something that you’ve probably heard active listening skills, learning conflict resolution. It’s actually classes that are taught. Yeah, good.
John-Nelson Pope: I was just thinking about learning active listening skills because that is also a way to develop empathy.
Oh yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah.
John-Nelson Pope: I agree. So, and to be able to do that without, and, and learning conflict resolution skills. Another one.
Chris Gazdik: I’m curious about more of that. Can you tell me more about that? Well, I see that active listening skill ability.
John-Nelson Pope: Yeah. Thank you very much. Well, I think, I think modeling role playing. Yeah.
Yeah. I don’t do
Chris Gazdik: a lot of that in therapy
John-Nelson Pope: actually. I did. I did the empty chair. Did you? Yeah. Congratulations.
Chris Gazdik: I want to give you a dab.
John-Nelson Pope: I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I, you know, I’m still learning. I’m still learning. We all are. So and it worked with this kid. A kid, no less. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he [00:55:00] was.
He’s a young adult. Oh, yeah. What a kid to you. Everybody’s a kid to me now. I know. So, you, you and he was, he went through a process of confronting his father who was very abusive and possibly even sexually abusive. Wow. Yeah. And it helped him. Unlocked.
Chris Gazdik: And for those listening, empty chairs, when you take a figure or a theme, or even an item, and you kind of create some visualization, it’s a, it’s a technique in therapy and you take a literal chair and you can move the chair in front of this person, that person will have a conversation with their item or their, their person, or,
John-Nelson Pope: and his father had committed suicide.
Yeah. And so that basically, he couldn’t tell him. The way,
Chris Gazdik: the only way he could do it. The only
John-Nelson Pope: way he could do it was to go through this process and it unlocked him emotionally.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, I love that. So that’s awesome. See, you can, you really can’t. It’s exciting that you can [00:56:00] learn these things and setting goals for yourself and practicing them, actually writing them down.
Anxiety. We talked about influences your emotional intelligence. I love the specific skill of breaking things down into small pieces. I’ve spent entire sessions on helping people to actively break stuff down so that you don’t have the. Big overwhelming picture. I’ll say
John-Nelson Pope: this, my dissertation, I was, I just, it was such a big thing.
I could not, I had this worst anxiety about how I’m going to do that. Yeah. And so something worked, broke it down, broke it down. And so I geeked out on the research, which is my strong point. That’s where I started
Chris Gazdik: with,
John-Nelson Pope: with the, the, the article review. And the books and, and, and journals and doing that, and then being able to start at that point.
And once I was able to do that, I did the second book.
Chris Gazdik: I never did a [00:57:00] dissertation, but I did write a book same process. It’s a very similar process, isn’t it? And I’ll tell you, if, if you’ve ever done that and you start getting to completion of this thing, or you start considering, wait a minute, this is just not me and my little dimly lit book.
Room with my computer tapping on this thing. Like somebody in the world is going to read this stuff. Yeah. That’s intimidating.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s overwhelming. Got to say this is that when I had people read my dissertation and. It was in other people’s dissertations, and I’m going, Oh, that freaked me out. How cool though.
Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: that’s awesome, John. That’s a, that’s a, that’s a hell of an account. But
John-Nelson Pope: I mean, that’s what you
Chris Gazdik: you’ve experienced. Well, I’ve never seen anybody quote my book. That would be pretty crazy. Yeah. It would be weird. You know, it’s sad. I’ve never even seen my book as the authors say in the wild. I haven’t seen my book in a, in an actual bookstore.
My stuff came out in COVID and it just I don’t know [00:58:00] that that was a but so hopefully in December, we’re going to get that done. All right, moving on depression, specifically improving your emotional intelligence by avoiding isolation is the enemy number one to depression. So the E
John-Nelson Pope: I would be, um, strategies that would help you get And it may be to be able to not just that one person, but purposely put yourself out there
Chris Gazdik: on a, even though you don’t feel like it, knowing that you need that, right.
Exactly. Bipolar personality disorders. I was struggling a little bit. I had to think about this in specific specificity to that. Really, that’s where regulation skills I landed on come into mind. Like how and what do you do to really regulate your emotions? There’s a learning. Also in therapy, there’s a teaching modality.
I feel like we need to go into, I could spend an hour on that, but I’ve want to honorably mention that. [00:59:00] And then you know, I did actually said, learn the four sections of my book. You know, I nailed down all of these chapters. They were therapy thoughts about the self book number one. And I think that, you know, if you’re really going to want to develop emotional intelligence, the four areas that I came to is You know valuing yourself meaning you you appreciate you build yourself up be positive about yourself Secondly look at specifically the focus points what you focus on I talk a lot about in different chapters You feel what you focus on the most thirdly Action points.
Taking action, being willing to developing the ability to take action, I think is going to improve your emotional intelligence. And finally, reflecting, stopping and reflecting, allowing your emotions to be present rather than suppressing them, compressing them, that sort of thing
John-Nelson Pope: seems very similar to ei.
And you did this before ba. Yeah. You did this several years [01:00:00] before. This topic. What do you mean? Well, you, you can, you basically, you could go down
Chris Gazdik: four pieces of my book? Yeah. Value, self, focus points, action points, stop and reflect. That relates to Self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy, sales, social skills.
There’s
John-Nelson Pope: social
Chris Gazdik: skills,
John-Nelson Pope: too. I mean, motivation. Alright,
Chris Gazdik: on point, then. And I didn’t know it. That’s cool, John. I did not, yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t realize that. So Chris Gastick in his third book, Through Therapist Eyes. Volume three is going to be parenting and friendship. And then we’ll go to these other things.
Okay.
John-Nelson Pope: Emotion.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, good stuff. Well, thank you for being along this journey with us to figure out together, you know, what emotional intelligence is, how it operates, and most importantly, a little bit on how do we build it? How do [01:01:00] we grow it? How do we develop it? How do we nurture it? Because there really is capability for you listening to this show.
To hang up with us and go research and learn and put some motivated energy towards how do I improve my emotional intelligence because you can closing thoughts, john. No, I
John-Nelson Pope: just say absolutely. That’s that’s the truth. I think the self compassion is so important and to be able to, to, and You may feel like you don’t have emotional intelligence, but again, it’s something that could be learned.
It can be, it can be something that can, that you can learn from others and you can share it.
Chris Gazdik: Love that. So guys take care, stay well. We will see you next week.