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… at emotional intelligence at work

Newsletter 16 : 20 may 2009

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Greetings
Welcome to our newsletter, particularly if you’re a new subscriber. Our policy is to offer a change from other newsletters which do demand an awful lot of reading…

Issue of the week

“My husband is one of the world’s nice people. We’ve been married for nearly 20 years and I love him dearly. However, with age he has developed an uncanny resemblance to Jeremy Clarkson. It has reached the point where strangers ask if they are related. I loathe Clarkson and it is beginning to put me off my husband. What should I do?”

Interesting issues of projection here. That is, the questioner is projecting onto her husband those things she judges in Clarkson, and maybe unconsciously judges in herself. Neat that she has found her own husband to do it with.

Musical number of the week

The dance of the sugar plum fairy (Tchaikovsky) as you’ve probably never heard it before (I also liked the Purcell Funeral music for Queen Mary)

Video of the week

Slow down!!! Get in touch with your inner tortoise.
Carl Honore talks about society’s obsession with speed (after speed dating apparently comes speed yoga) – and the benefits of slowing t h i n g s d o w n

Quotations of the week

Better a dry crust with peace than a house full of feasting with strife

Like the man who seizes a passing dog by the ears is he who meddles in a quarrel

Both are from the Book of Proverbs. For the musically inclined these, and other quotations from Proverbs, form the text of a delightful work for chorus and orchestra called, with some lack of poetry, Book of Proverbs (multiple YouTube files) by the American composer Michael Torke.

Book of the week

Creative visualisation
Shakti Gawain

“Late one night in a small Alabama cemetery, Vance Vanders had a run-in with the local witch doctor, who wafted a bottle of unpleasant-smelling liquid in front of his face, and told him he was about to die and that no one could save him. Back home, Vanders took to his bed and began to deteriorate. Some weeks later, emaciated and near death, he was admitted to the local hospital, where doctors were unable to find a cause for his symptoms or slow his decline. …” More on the New Scientist website, here.

This book shows how you can use what you believe to improve your life. If you believe you can’t do something, you will, at best, find it unnecessarily difficult. (“Man is what he believes”, Chekhov.)

Contributions always gratefully received.
If you have been, thank you for reading this

Kay and Jeremy