Spirituality and Emotional Intelligence: Wisdom from the World’s Spiritual Sources Applied to EQ for Leadership and Professional Development($20.90Value)

Description

This book weaves together spirituality and a systemic version of emotional intelligence that incorporates Kurt Lewin’s social science and other sources. Emotional intelligence calls on us to be fully present “to the moment.” It calls on us to be appreciative of ourselves and our relationships. Likewise, a calm and compassionate presence is almost universally recognized as a spiritual way of being. In other words, the overwhelming majority of the world’s spiritual sources call on us to be emotionally intelligent and that link is explored with unique clarity in this simple yet powerful text. We are all reactive at times. Becoming more objective and less attached allows us to feel our feelings without being a prisoner to acting on them in habitual ways. From a more detached perspective, feelings are neither good nor bad, but simply clues as to how we are perceiving our environment, especially our social environment. This is especially important in terms of our relationships at work. Our perceptions about what people intend trigger our emotional reactions. Think about the difference when you perceive critical feedback as a sincere attempt to help or when you perceive it as an attack of some sort. Perception evokes different emotional responses. Objectivity about our own perception is even more important than objectivity about emotion, because the former usually precedes the later. Paradoxically, being detached allows one to appreciate and experience one’s emotions more fully. Recognizing emotion as part of your inner guidance system instead of as something dangerous that must be controlled or denied is freeing. The less emotion runs you, the more you can accept feeling what you feel. Emotion is a form of physical energy. Fighting your own feelings takes energy. Allowing the ebb and flow of emotion is essential to physical and emotional health and to accepting ourselves as we are. Anyone involved in leadership development―or personal development of any kind―knows that, at bottom, what is being addressed is beyond psychology or behavior. It is that ‘More’ which only spiritual masters have the courage to speak about. In this book, Gil Crosby is building a bridge-between-the-worlds for us all. -- Dr. John J. Scherer, Lutheran Pastor, Founding Director, Scherer Leadership Center, Author of Facing the Tiger: Five Questions that Change Everything I'm delighted with this book! Having published two books of my own on the subject, this book is a great next step! In my latter days I've come to realize that it requires great amounts of EQ to be able to embody religious teachings. Jesus tells us to love our neighbors. You tell me how we might execute such acts of kindness without huge gobs of EQ under our belt. Then Jesus commands us to also love our enemies----which is impossible without multiple skills in EQ. This is why EQ ought to be taught in denominational seminaries. Congregational clergy need to be highly skilled in EQ as they set the tone for the kind of EQ that is practiced within their congregations-plus being able to coach congregational members in how to embody religious principles in their daily lives. The ministry of clergy goes nowhere without their capacity to develop in-depth relationships with congregants-which requires great EQ skills. It is what makes them credible. Gil Crosby and his father practice what they preach. They use T-group methodology to teach EQ as does the Center I founded. I give thanks for these kindred spirits and their important contribution to the much needed marriage of spirituality and EQ . --Roy M. Oswald, Ordained Lutheran Pastor, Founder and first Executive Director, Center for Emotional Intelligence and Human Relations Skill, Author of The Emotional Intelligence of Jesus and Emotional Intelligence for Religious Leaders . I am a proponent of understanding the self and questioning of everything. I do so and I live grounded in a Hindu perspective. My spirituality has carried me through the loss of my wife to cancer, the immediate remarriage to someone whom I did not know before, the creation of a multimillion dollar eco-water park on the north coast of Jamaica from scratch by building it ‘in the night’ while running my process control engineering business on the opposite end of the island in the day, and now a new life in Nova Scotia. Gil and his family have been an inspiration in my journey these past 20 plus years and this book is testament of his work helping to achieve enlightenment. Enjoy reading! -- Gobind Dansinghani, Performance Manager of Honeywell Canada Ltd- Eastern Region. I highly recommend this work for spiritual enthusiasts and those searching for a sense of self. By drawing on the spiritual traditions of the past and present and skillfully weaving the key tenets of emotional intelligence the final product is useful for spiritual practitioners and those in search of a meaningful or purposeful life. -- Reverend Garth Minott, Episcopal/Anglican Church of Jamaica