The respectable addiction: Workaholism

June 21, 2008

My name is Megan Bayliss and I am a workaholic. Once I was proud of this because that is what my world expected of me, and I had developed the disease to please. Now I am ashamed of it and I struggle daily to keep on the straight and narrow. Last night, a kewl little blonde girl, reminded me that life is not all about work and that sometimes “cracking it” is an okay thing to do.

My second marriage failed because of my workaholism (amongst other things). It was common for me to be writing court reports on my lap top, in bed, at 3am. I spent little time with my family and I failed to hear and see the warning signs. I was disconnected from myself, my emotional intelligence and the people closest to me. I was a disaster waiting for a divorce to happen. It did, I crashed and I took two years out to beat my addiction.

I recovered. For years I stood up to the voice of addiction telling me to work harder, work more, work while the sun shines, work while the work is being offered, just work, work, work. One day, in the previous six months, the stronger voice of addiction snuck back in and drowned my ability to stand up to it. My voice of strength gave up and my old addictive patterns of workaholim returned. I have been working ridiculous hours and taking on more that humanly possible for an aging social worker. I have become disconnected from my emotional intelligence and my family.

But….I love work and I love busy. I love it far more than chocolate because I consume work every single minute of my waking day. Chocolate is no good for me, I know that and I have strategies in place to ensure that I do not become an obsessive chocolate eater. Why the hell haven’t I done that with work then if my style of work is more toxic to me than chocolate?! What sort of a dummy am I?

Today is the day that I again face my demons, that I become emotionally intelligent and I stand up to my pre socialised pattern of over working. I want to spend time with my family. I want to play Uno, I want to have time to go to the eco shop and ask about gray water tanks. I want to become the green child protection advocate that I always wanted to be, rather than the over working lefty daughter of a conservative family. My hard work somehow made my left thinking more acceptable. What a load of rubbish, rhetoric and cognitive dissonance to make my addiction appear nice!

I will not work today. It is the weekend! I will play Uno and Switch and maybe even bribe the boys to play Scrabble with me (see, ever the capitalist ). I will face that which I hate more than Tripe: housework. Imaginif is moving home and office and this one has to be packed and cleaned. In an effort to avoid that which I hate, I easily succumbed to the seductive moves of my old lover; workaholism. Go away workaholism, you may be acceptable in the failing eyesight of a capitalist society, but in my eyesight you are a killer, a perpetrator of child abuse and a part of me that I do not wish to have dominant.

I am stronger than the voice of addiction and the voice of a political ideology that rewards respectable addictions and hides child abuse. I am Megan; a mum, a wife and a lover of the natural environment. I am strong and I am emotionally intelligent.

Thank you to the golden child, Miss J, for helping me to re-perspect “cracking it.” I cracked it last night - I made a decision to stand up to myself and take responsibility for my happiness and health. Thank you J. I’ll go for a walk later on and take a photo of something nice in Cairns for you to fall in love with…and when you come to Cairns, I’ll take you to the beautiful spot so that we can all play there together.

Posted by Megan | Filed Under Blog, Motivation, emotional intelligence | 10 Comments

Child Protection Party Game with snake bite

May 26, 2008

Talk doctor Rebekah was unable to hold court at the BITSS children’s party so I had to officiate. Oh oh…I’m too old. I don’t do kids any more.

“Know any games good for teaching emotional intelligence?” I sarcastically asked my own ‘Mister sometimes emotionally constipated’.

Master 12 really is an amazing child and I should not be sarcastic. He doesn’t understand my moods and hormonal reactions. He has Aspergers. Some days are good for him, some days are less than perfect Obviously I caught him on a sharing and caring day because he knew exactly which game I should play with a bunch of preschoolers for helping to teach them about the second BITSS element of intuition (feelings and early warning body signs).

“Have a competition,” he enthused. ”Slowly stretch a lolly (candy) snake as far as it can be stretched without breaking it. Make a sad face to the kids whose snake breaks and then a happy face when they put the pieces in their mouth to eat it. For the kid who wins, clap big time and ask him how he feels. Ask all of them what was happening inside their tummy or chest as they were trying to be the winner by stretching their snake. Ask them what would happen in their tummy or chest if it was a real snake!”

The protective play party was a success. The kids LOVED the stretch the snake game and really got into exaggerating facial expressions to match emotions and body language to display early warning signs. What an excellent and quick party game and teachable moment for intuition.

My child is brilliant and emotionally intelligent, so, I will not be packing him off to the snake pit of boarding school this week.

Posted by Megan | Filed Under BITSS protective Play, Blog, emotional intelligence | 4 Comments

Five ways to empathic children this Easter

March 10, 2008

Imaginif you knew how important empathic intelligence is! Empathy helps stop our kids from doing the wrong thing, teaches them about cause and consequence, leads to better relationships with people and even helps concentration at school.

Empathy means having the ability to objectively put yourself into another person’s situation and more fully understand that person - particularly what the other person may be feeling. An empathic child considers how their own actions can hurt other people and are therefore unlikely to harm another person. A child without empathy is a warning sign of future problems that I watch for in my work with kids!

While we are busy teaching our kids to be the best person they can be, we also need to ensure they become the most intelligent person they can be. But, did you know that the two go together? Academic intelligence (Logical-Mathematical intelligence) is only one type of nine intelligences?

Interpersonal Intelligence (emotional and empathic intelligence) is just as important as academic intelligence. Interpersonal Intelligence is about children becoming leaders among their peers, being good communicators and understanding others’ feelings. Children who possess these qualities are less likely to be bullied, to be a bully or to get into trouble. Children with interpersonal intelligence are empathic.

It can be difficult to all of a sudden start teaching children about their inner emotional world and that of other people. Most parents struggle with their own emotional and empathic intelligence so encouraging it to develop in their kids is a hard thing to do. But….good parents will do almost anything to help their kids become good people so I’m sure you will want to start teaching empathy today.

Using Easter as an empathy teaching tool, start talking about what it might be like for others (empathy):

Fair trade chocolate: Do you know that many children are slaves, forced to collect the beans that make the chocolate we enjoy. The kids get appalling wages for working appalling hours in appalling conditions. Buying ethical or fair trade chocolate though, ensures sending a message to the slave traders and lets them know we do not support using child labour. When shopping, check out whether there’s fair trade chocolate available - buy it and talk about how you are not eating a treat at the cost of children’s lives. If you do not do chocolate, buy an ethically made Easter gift from The Body Shop. The Body Shop is an activist organisation committed to social and environmental justice on a local and global level. They rock.
Christ was murdered and we do not want to be like a murderer: The symbolism of an egg has been used all through out history and mostly represented the rebirth of nature. When Christianity became popular, the symbolism of the egg changed to represent, not nature’s rebirth (the changing season), but the rebirth of man. Christians embraced the egg symbol and likened it to the tomb from which Christ rose (taken from History of the Easter Egg). How dreadful that Christ was murdered. How cool to give Easter Eggs that remind people not to murder but to rise above the bad stuff and do good to others, a bit like Christ.
Easter holiday emotion moments with other kids: Teachable moments always present when kids are with other kids. Over the Easter holiday use moments with other children to teach about emotions. That way your child can practice empathizing - Tim looks sad today, I wonder what is the matter?
Giving to others: Many children will go without Easter Eggs because their parents have no extra money. Encouraging children to give to others less fortunate helps kids to think about what other children may be going through emotionally. This is empathy in action. Let your child pick an egg or two and take it to a shelter or a food agency that provides for children.
Art and stories: Make cards of egg heads - each egg character has a different emotion on their face. Rather than the usual verse inside the card, have your child write a little story about why the egg has that emotional expression. Story telling is a great way to teach empathy because we remember stories before a Mum or Dad boring lecture.

Further reading for raising super intelligent kids:

Save the children: the difference between sympathy and empathy
The Nine Types of Intelligence By Howard Gardner
Teaching empathy to our children
Ways to Teach Empathy Skills
Slave to coffee and chocolate
How to teach empathy
Indian Child Labour

Credit: One very cool pic of a wee Hispanic girl dressed and ready for an Easter Egg hunt compliments of iofoto of stock.xchng. Check their incredibly helpful iofoto blog.

Posted by Megan Bayliss | Filed Under Blog, emotional intelligence | 1 Comment

Manage your emotion

March 2, 2008

Today I feel bewildered. A little more than down and a little less than depressed. I have a scratchy feeling inside my chest, sitting centre on between my breasts. I know that feeling. It is my grief feeling. Is it anniversary of a particular grief time? No. I am missing somebody dreadfully and my homesickness for them has sparked my dormant grief.

In my past days of grief I used to liken my grief feeling to the Kiama blow hole (pictured) receiving the salty spray and ocean wash on its raw edges. I could hear my grief - I was so empty that the rush of grief as it sprayed salt water on my raw heart and soul was loud, cruel and screamingly demanding.

Today my grief is back. Why? As I lay in bed pondering the use of even getting out of it, I allowed my sensible adult self to manage my emotions rather than my emotions managing my sensible self. I got out of bed, told myself that it was okay to be down today and that I didn’t have to do anything more than I really wanted to. I certainly didn’t want to stay in bed because there was a snoring monster still in my bed of grief and vulnerability. I didn’t want to stay with his noise going on!!!!! I wanted my own noise, my grief noise so that I could manage it.

Everybody feels a range of human emotion: some they consider negative, some they consider positive and some they consider normal. All emotion is normal and natural. It is the way that emotion is managed that sometimes becomes problematic. In my grief this morning I could have feigned anger and yelled at Paul to be quiet because I wanted to be sad? How stupid would that have been! Very bad management to say the least.

My life has been difficult at times. There is residual fall out from that. But….I am not the sum of my experiences, I am willing to manage my experiences, the resultant emotion and the forward movement of life. I make choices to challenge those days where the dark room and I want to be best friends. A dark, quite room is not a friend. It gives me nothing I can give myself. I manage my emotions and my thoughts and step out of the dark, quiet room (well, it’s quiet when the snoring is in hiatus!).

I’m up, I still feel bewildered and I am processing why bewilderment has today visited me, but, I am managing my emotion. I manage because I am an adult, an adult who has managed programs, budgets, children, international terminal changeovers and threats against myself. I analyse my strategies for successful management in those situations and I draw them into managing my emotions. I do this because I am adult and capable to managing myself.

Do you manage your emotion or are you a reactive and child like emotion bouncer? Behind this link are some short emotional intelligence articles to help you grow up to become a great manager. The sooner you teach yourself how to be a grown up, the sooner you can model and teach emotional intelligence to your children. Emotional intelligence keeps kids safe. Are you willing to be a protective parent?

Posted by Megan Bayliss | Filed Under Blog, emotional intelligence | 3 Comments

Five ways to emotionally smart kids

February 19, 2008

Imaginif…you knew how important emotional intelligence is! Mum and Dad, how do you feel right now? Are you sure it is a feeling and not a thought? Do you even know the difference?

There are over 3000 feeling words but we mostly ever only teach our kids six! Six words for our kids to use throughout their life time?? Appalling. I sure want to teach my kids all there is to know - if there’s over 3000 feeling words I had better study up to ensure I am a responsible and loving parent who looks after my children’s entire development - not just their academic and physical development.

Emotional intelligence can keep kids safe. Contact the talk doctors at Imaginif to find out how, or, try these five ways to make your kids smarter:

Learn a new feeling word a week. Here’s a list of feeling words to get you started. Here’s, Parent Sense for some more ideas.
Use the formula for clear communication: I feel…when you…because…
Ask your child how they feel about going to school.
Ask your child what they think about going to school. Teacher’s note: Are you smart enough to know the difference between feel and think, Mum and Dad? If not, come see the talk doctors at Imaginif or read all our Emotional Intelligence articles.
Get to know your early warning feeling signs. Draw a body outline. Use red to shade where you feel anger, blue where you feel calm, maybe green where you feel content, etc. Imagine spreading the blue all over your body - especially when some bully has picked on you!