Emotional Balance — Make it More Realistic

In the intelligentwomenonly 9/22/2010 blog about science support for gender stereotypes, women's greater (than men's) emotional expressiveness was mentioned as a research supported fact. In and of itself, emotional expressiveness isn't good or bad, productive or useless, it just is. It can increase our own self-awareness as we speak our inner thoughts out loud — or reduce our sense of emotional balance as we hear ouselves express "all over the place" emotion. Men can flee to safety from our emotional intensity (verbally or physically) or see it as a different and interesting take on us or the situation under discussion.

If you're happy with how you vent, state, express your feelings outwardly to women, men, and children, read this new blog no more. If you're not, start to think about realistic thinking/talking, pulling away from the negative or positive evaluative approach.

 For example, you give an informative speech to a small group. When it is over you realize that it wasn’t as good as usual because you were not well prepared and felt rushed. If you want to maintain or attain emotional balance, you reduce the overly negative and positive self-talk and increase realistic self-talk.

• Realistic — “That speech wasn’t my best, but it was fine.”
• Negative — “I blew it again. I should give up speaking.”
• Positive — “I’ve got a talent for speaking! They loved it.”

Negative self-talk, translated often into external talk,  keeps us down. Positive self-talk can put us in a dicey stance. I'm suggesting women alter the ratio of their thinking styles: more of the realistic, less of the negative or positive. The following poem says it best.

“Success is as dangerous as failure.
 Hope is as hollow as fear.
What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
Whether you go up the ladder or down it,
your position is shaky.
When you stand with your two feet on the ground,
you will always keep your balance.”
(From Poem 13 of The Tao Te Ching)