Honouring Your Emotions: Why it Matters by Johanna Vanderpol

The definitive way to master your emotions. A groundbreaking, practical model that teaches you how to process emotions "in the moment that they occur." "Addresses the gap in the emotional intelligence training and literature."

Read what Dr. Candace Pert, neuroscientist and author of Molecules of Emotion has to say about this book:

Honouring Your Emotions is simply written and full of profound wisdom and practical advice on how our emotions, when appropriately managed rather than suppressed, can guide us toward a more joyous, richer life. I heart-ily recommend Johanna’s beautiful little book to everyone.

— Dr. Candace B. Pert, PhD, Author of Molecules of Emotions

Order it now at www.johannavanderpol.com. Questions? 250-483-1877 or info@johannavanderpol.com.

For a peek at the Table of Contents and some excerpts from the book, go to www.johannavanderpol.com.

So, what do you do when you can't afford to hire an emotional intelligence coach? Buy the book! This is a great start to using your emotions to empower your life and live your dreams.

The second offering:

Increase Your Emotional Intelligence: The 21-day Self-Coaching e-mail Program

Now $10 USD. After December 31, 2005: $21 USD.

The 21-day course by e-mail on how to increase your emotional intellience day by day one small step at a time.

Experts say it takes 21 days to change a habit. What would your life be like if you could change one emotional habit that gets in your way? This is the program that lets you take one small action step every day to increase positive emotions and reduce negative emotions in your life. In this 21-day course lies the tools that allow you to take it up a notch. Live your life a little fuller, a little richer, without a lot of hard work. Change doesn't have to be hard. And all for only $10. Order today at www.johannavanderpol.com.

And the third new offering:

The first Emotional Intelligence Group Coaching Program - a 4-week teleclass series on how to Honour Your Emotions! Introductory offer: $47 (regulary priced at $80)

Based on the newly published book: Honouring Your Emotions: Why it Matters

Now you can learn with other people and a qualified coach how to Honour Your Emotions, reduce negative feelings and start living the life you yearn for.

The teleclass series will take place starting the second week in January, 2006 on Mondays starting January 9th or Thursdays starting January 12th.

For those of us in different time zones, you have two time choices: on Thursdays from 7-8 pm, EST. or on Mondays from 7-8 pm, PST.

You will be given a special phone number and password to call in for the program. The only phone cost to you is your regular long-distance charges. You will be able to hear all other participants on the call. If you have never done a teleclass before, try it. It is fun and effective. If you are interested, put your name on the list by sending me an NO-OBLIGATION e-mail to info@johannavanderpol.com and I will send you the registration information.

2. From the Other Side

Well. We did it. My son and I drove across Canada and settled in Cowichan Bay, Vancouver Island, BC, Canada, a 6,000 km plus trip. In the last Newsletter I wrote before we started our journey, I talked about how beliefs can make the difference between being stressed vs. being comfortable. I also discovered that is was relatively easy to observe a belief that caused stress and replace it with a more supportive belief. It made a difference.

The move has been wildly successful. I started meeting wonderful people immediately and obtained a nice two-bedroom apartment at a very reasonable rent with an amazing ocean view with the building itself on the side of a mountain surrounded by fragrant bc cedars, happy, chatty birds, kingfishers, bald eagles and seals slapping their tales on the water. I have neighbours that are a joy to be with. We go walking regularly amidst the lovely views and trails. Someone to borrow an egg from. Someone who can stay with my son when I have to be away at conference. Neighbours who enjoy my company and receive equal benefit from my presence in their life. I co-founded a "Vancouver Island Trainer's Network" and now have wonderful colleagues. And I am making friends all over the island. Joined a wonderful writer's group who support each other and bring in great speakers on getting self-published. This was the impetus for me to get published. And now I am! I have been on the island less than three months and have published my book, created an amazing book launch celebration where the people filled up the Mellowside Cafe (see www.mellowside.com), and published an article in Synergy, a magazine dedicated to body, mind & spirit (see www.synergymag.ca). There are great mountains to climb and the view is stunning no matter where I go. Even when it is raining, I watch the clouds pour down the mountains like a waterfall. Amazing.

So take a look at the power of your beliefs. The paragraph below is what I wrote about my beliefs before the move in the last newsletter. Now compare that to what I have just described in the above paragraph. How is that for a good fit. It worked. What you think is what you get.

Beliefs can make the difference between being stressed and being comfortable. These are the new beliefs I have adopted to make my transition less stressful and doable:

- I believe that this is a good move for my son and myself, and my son is ready and willing.

- I believe that my work as a coach, speaker and author in emotional well-being will be warmly received.

- I believe I will make new good friends.

- I believe I will find a place to live that I like and can afford.

- I believe that I have the emotional stamina to tolerate the feelings of missing certain things.

- I believe that I will be creating a life full of new and wonderful experiences.

- I believe that if it doesn't work, I can always come back.

- I believe the universe is supporting us in our move.

Did you know that people who experience a ratio of 3 to 1 of positive emotions to negative emotions live a "flourishing" life? What is a flourishing life? Well, according to the research of Barbara Fredrickson and her associates at the University of Michigan:

"Flourishing is associated with dynamics that are nonrepetitive, innovative, highly flexible, and dynamically stable; that is, they represent the complex order of chaos, not the rigidity of limit cycles and point attractors."

"Appropriate negativity is a critical ingredient within human flourishing that serves to maintain a grounded negentropic system."

"Human flourishing is optimal functioning characterized by four key components: (a) goodness, indexed by happiness, satisfaction, and superior functioning; (b) generativity, indexed by broadened thought-action repertoires and behavioral flexibility; (c) growth, indexed by gain in enduring personal and social resources;and (d) resilience, indexed by survival and growth in the aftermath of adversity."

Now what does all this mean? Well, basically these characteristics describe the traits of emotional intelligence that we build when we do our own personal work in fine-tuning our emotional intelligence skills. And the programs I have outlined above are cost-effective ways of getting started. Let's go for it. Let's make a committment to ourselves to create an emotional life that serves us to live our optimal life instead of limits us.

Did you know that people who put other people first at the expense of their physical and mental needs for rest, relaxation, own calling and hobbies are at high risk for contracting major debilitating life diseases such as heart attack, stroke, cancer, als, ms, diabetes, arthritus, other auto immune disorders, etc. etc. (you get the picture). Dr. Gabor Maté has done us a great service by writing a book called When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress. He shows how "when we have been prevented from learning how to say no, our bodies may end up saying it for us." Did you know that every little physical pain may have an emotional base? Even quantum physics are now coming to that conclusion. When you see a medical doctor, you and the medical profession buy into the belief that the pain or disease has a physical base and can be solved by drugs. This is an oversimplification on my part, but many people operate essentially with this belief and then wonder why they still have chronic physical health problems complicated by side effects of drugs. When will we see that our physical ills are created by not listening to the messages in our emotions? This is where I feel passionate about my work. I want to help people "get" the connection between their emotions and their body. Do we need to be at high risk of cancer or cardiovascular heart disease before we listen?

"Research has suggested for decades that women are more prone to develop breast cancer if their childhoods were characterized by emotional disconnection from their parents or other disturbance in their upbringing; if they tend to repress emotions, particularly anger; if they lack nurturing social relationships in adulthood; and if they are the altruistic, compulsively caregiving types. ..." p. 62

"Why do we have anger? In the animal world, anger is not a "negative emotion." An animal experiences anger when some essential need is either threatened or frustrated." p. 174

"The well-differentiated person can respond from an open acceptance of her own emotions, which are not tailored either to match someone else’s expectations or to resist them. She neither suppresses her emotions nor acts them out impulsively." p. 194