If someone gave you a billion dollars today and told you to spend it on improving the world, what would you do with it?

(From Peter Diamandis in one of the podcast episodes I listened to this week.)

It’s another form of the question “What would you do if you could do anything?” that pulls you into serving and your purpose.

If I could do anything… my whole being burns to “make people feel”.

And my billion-dollar answer? Make emotions a part of education.

Why?

Because I went through high school with a 95+% average and graduated from university with honours but didn’t know how to not get stuck in emotions, create secure attachments/bonds/relationships, establish boundaries, actually feel worthy slash good enough, who I was or *gasp* what I wanted, etc etc.

Because we’re all adults healing from childhood; emotionally intelligent infants masquerading as adults.

Because therapists are fully booked and not always accessible/affordable.

Because it starts with childhood, so it should start with children.

Because emotions are often the elephant in the room that hold us back from real connection and progress.

Because we need empathy, connection, and emotion in business, politics, healthcare, technology, AI. 

Because our bodies don’t like it when we hold it all in. (Coming from a woman who has had 12 surgeries!)

Because mental health is inextricably connected to emotional health.

Because loneliness is now recognized as one of the most lethal threats to our health. 

Because not feeling our feelings means they flare up in ugly, unhealthy ways and subconsciously rule our lives.

Because suppressing our feelings, especially men, is killing us. Literally — depression, suicide, mass shooting. (as said by my inspiring client this week, and I can’t wait to see/share his now-under-construction-website)

Because we’re scared of feeling “too much” while simultaneously feeling like “not enough”.

Because with such a divisive, separated world we need to learn to sit in the uncomfortable feelings so we can openly talk and see the facts.

Because trying to protect ourselves, others, and our kids from pain or even feelings that aren’t “pleasant” is the very thing that’s hurting us the most.

Because not feeling hinders change, healing, growth, action, innovation, betterment.

Because without feeling anything else is simply a surface level solution; a bandaid with an anaesthetic approach.

Because we’re alive to feel and hardwired for connection as humans, but right now we’ve cut ourselves off from both and are stuck in our heads.

Because we’re not taught how to feel and yet everything we do, or don’t do, is motivated consciously or subconsciously by emotion; to feel a certain way (i.e. better) or to not feel a certain way (i.e. pain).

Because our inability to feel our feelings, let things be grey instead of black and white, and sit in the discomfort (of both “bad” and “good”) has led to atrocities, injustice, and suffering on both an individual and societal level.

Because Nelson Mandela said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Our problem is not a lack of intelligence; it’s a lack of emotion(al intelligence) that is more dangerous than any lack of intelligence.

For example, think manufacturing food without realizing the environmental and/or health impact, pushing back too hard and swinging too far the other way in an attempt to “right the course”, making/using guns without proper legislation/education/respect, etc.

If we’re building and using technology with empathy, that’s the risk. Not the technology itself. An empathetic robot could arguably be better than a human with a lack of empathy.

By increasing our emotional intelligence it means we’ll be able to infuse feeling into all we do — going from a transactional, shallow, bottom line, productivity-focused existence to a transformative, wholesome, creative, and passion-focused life.

For true progress to happen we need integrity and wisdom, not only intelligence.

If we can learn to sit in the discomfort of the outer edges of emotion we can make more aware, wholehearted, and better decisions.

“The most radical approach to resistance is acceptance — and acceptance does not mean accepting the world as it is. It means accepting our pain as it is. If we refuse to accept our pain, then we’re just trying to make ourselves feel better — and when our hidden motive is to make ourselves feel better, there is no limit to the damage we can do in the name of justice.” 

– Melinda Gates in her book “The Moment of Lift” (highly recommend!)

It’s time to accept pain.

It’s time to accept pleasure.

It’s time to accept all our feelings.

It’s time to accept our emotional unintelligence so we can now do something about it.

It’s time to be better humans.

I’ll be the first to admit, I don’t know how to start an Emotional Intelligence Education Revolution (EIER) — 🤣 okay, I’ll work on the name — but I can start with me. You can start with you.

And I want to help you if I can.

This starts one by one and then together. 

So if you’re someone who overthinks and you want help figuring out your feelings — book a Connection Call to dive into whatever you want — no catch, no pressure.

Because I believe in the power of feeling, I believe in you, and I believe in us.

Here’s the link to book one!

We’re on the precipice of a major evolution as a species, we need to be, and we need feeling to be a part of it.

Otherwise it’s our very humanness that will go extinct.

…if someone gave you a billion dollars today and told you to spend it on improving the world, what would you do with it?

Deanne