We are told that emotional intelligence is vitally important for success in life. Very few know the 'how' to grow EQ, with most workshops not providing a daily practice to train in EQ. This practice is based on the ancient meditation 'Metta Bhavana' or Loving-Kindness meditation and is one of the most powerful and transformative meditations one can do.
So welcome to your practice on building your EQ and as we know from leading authors and researchers that EQ is trainable which is very very very exciting news because that means that you and I can do something about our EQ and EQ is the number one predictor of success in life and at work so let's do this together it's a it's a beautiful practice it's one of my favorites I'm in a Zen hall a meditation hall I'm on retreat and it's just the perfect place for me to be doing this I'm gonna strike this bowl isn't this beautiful traditional oriental sound of the singing bowl signifies the beginning of our practice let's take in a lovely big deep breath in through the nostrils opening the mouth and gently sigh that breath out good nice and relaxed gently calming breath breathing through the nose if you can and we're going to develop the first two pillars of emotional intelligence which is self-awareness and self-management checking in with yourself how are you doing today if you could give yourself a score 1 or between 1 and 10 1 I'm not feeling great and 10 I'm really high what number would you give yourself and that's just being self-aware now you know how you feel and if you're feeling strong today and you're high then we can reach out and be there for others but if we're feeling pretty low well it might be a good turn for others to jump in and help us maybe we don't have to attend all those meetings and do all the things we have to do today we can take better care of ourselves so we can come back to a place of gentle affirmation and as I recite these words you can repeat them to yourself too may I be happy may I be happy gently say it to yourself and imagine just breathing in what that would look like as if happiness was on the air good let it fill your whole being may I be healthy imagine we could just breathe that in as well it's on the air good health what would that feel like what would that look like may I be healthy may I be safe from any inner or outer dangers taking good care of ourselves we breathe that in into our being the feeling of feeling of being safe and often our body really listens to what we tell it and finally may I live with peace may I live with peace taking a moment just to breathe in a moment of calm and a moment of peace feeling as though this practice is like an oxygen mask that we must place on our face first before we move on to somebody else or help somebody else now bring to mind somebody in your life someone that's top of your mind it may be someone you love deeply it may be someone that's challenging you it may be a stranger but someone in your life bring them to mind choose one person today if you want to do the easy version obviously someone you'd love deeply if you want to challenge yourself somebody that it's pushing your buttons you choose and every day you can choose a different person bring them to mind see them and imagine what they are doing now and think may you be happy and imagine that we can just send out on our breath a gift of happiness to them as we do this we build our empathy muscle which is part of the brain located in the parietal region right at the top of the brain we train in empathy may you be happy and see them being happy imagine them being happy almost as if you could make them happy may you be healthy as if you could send it to them as a little gift on your breath the gift of health imagine them being healthy whatever it is that they need if it's physical mental health see them happy and healed it would be so wonderful may you be safe from inner and outer dangers sharing the gift of safety with them sending it out to them imagining them being safe how nice would that be may you be safe and the last one may you live with peace on the exhalation of our peaceful breath sharing their peace with them may their minds and their beings be filled with peace and calm how nice would that be if we could share that with them see them now happy healthy safe and at peace as we do this exercise we are building our empathy we have just practiced the last two pillars of EQ which is other awareness and other management and as we share with them these good gifts our defenses fall down our ability to manage them increases and we build that awareness within our being as we imagine what they are going through and not just what they're going through but imagining that we can somehow be of compassionate assistance wonderful my favorite practice beautiful let's end this now let's dissolve that image of them and send them well and breathing in again through the nose filling yourself up and slowly exhale it out the mouth and if you have your eyes closed you can open them thank you for practicing with me this is how we build empathy probably the most effective way to build that empathy in your life
