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Emotional Intelligence as a Super Power

Imagine a world without emotions? Life will be colourless without the emotional glue necessary to bind humans together.

Emotions are present in every conversation we have and these three words are guaranteed to help you become an emotionally Intelligent professional.

It’s my choice!

All of your responses and reactions starts with choices. Your choice.

It’s your choice to be angry. It’s your choice to be resentful, it’s your choice to have compassion, to have empathy.

The less reactive we are, the more emotionally intelligent we become.

It’s your choice. Own it. Take responsibility.

It’s your choice to think the way you want to think, feel the way you want to feel and act the way you want to act.

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Peer Pressure and Depression in the Age of Social Media in Nigeria

As social vertebrates, interfacing with family and friends across long distance has been a daily reality since the inception of the world.

We have relied on multiple flavours of communication and connection to strengthen our relationships.

One of such creative solution is social media. A neutral innovation with a double-edged sword. A weapon capable of extinguishing sanity and improving your individuality concurrently.

Before I delve into the dynamics of this article, I would love to define these words: peer, pressure and peer pressure.

Peer means an equal in rank or status or what Nigerians call ‘age mate’.

Pressure means suffering, anguish; act or fact of pressing on the mind or heart.

Peer pressure means a feeling that one must do the same things as other people of one’s age and social group in order to be liked or respected by them.

Interestingly, peer pressure is supposed to be a stimulant, not a disempowering vibe. It is a narrative to challenge and arouse us to chase our greatness.

However, majority of us have demonised this inert concept. We have used it as a vice, not a virtue and it has become a savage cause of depression in Nigeria and all over the world. Online peer pressure has influenced a lot of emotional and psychological trauma.

Instagram for example, is competing for the title of the greatest brewer of envy and jealousy where people photoshop their imperfections, pose in cars they do not own, model outfits they borrowed. All in a bid to mask their insecurities and to create false personas behind flawless pictures.

Social media was created to be an interactive computer-mediated technology. It facilitates the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression, via virtual communities and networks. But, this same golden goose has laid eggs of unhealthy competition, comparison, rivalry, self-sabotage and depression.

A new study concludes that there is, in fact, a causal link between the use of social media and negative effects on well-being; primarily depression and loneliness. The study was published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology.

“ If you use less social media, you are actually less depressed and less lonely; meaning that the decreased social media use is what causes that qualitative shift in your well-being,” said Jordyn Young, a co-author of the paper and a senior at the University of Pennsylvania.

The study included 143 students from the University of Pennsylvania. They were randomly assigned to one of two groups: one that would continue their social media habits as usual or one that would significantly limit access to social media. For three weeks, the experimental group had their social media usurer reduced to 30 minutes per day – 10 minutes on three different platforms ( Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat).

In order to keep these experimental conditions, the researchers looked at phone usage data, which documented how much time was spent using each app per day. All of the study participants had to use iPhones.

The question is, why let the experimental group use social media at all?

“We didn’t think was an accurate representation of the landscape of the world that we live in today. Social media is around us in so many capacities,” Young said.

The results were clear; the group that used less social media, even though it wasn’t completely eliminated, had better mental health outcomes.

Baseline readings for participants were taken at the beginning of the trial in several areas of well-being: social support, fear of missing out, loneliness, anxiety, depression, self-esteem, autonomy, and self-acceptance.

At the end of the trial, those in the experimental group saw both loneliness and depressive symptoms decline, with the largest changes happening in those who reported greater levels of depression.

“No matter where they started off if they were told to limit their social media, they had less depression, no matter what their initial levels were,” Young opined.

The fact is, internet addiction is a common phenomenon driving many to depression and suicide.

In the United States, approximately 77 per cent of all Americans have a social media profile of some kind in 2018, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) declared that approximately 103 million Nigerians had access to the Internet.

The question then is, how can systems designed to bring us closer to our friends and family be bad for our mental health?

According to Oscar Ybarra, PhD, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. “People don’t necessarily have to be super aware that this is occurring, but it does. You log on, you’re generally dealing with very curated content on the other side.”

The Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is a mental health effect that’s been strongly linked with the use of social media.

Although a relatively new phrase often attributed to millennial ennui, psychologists say it has real social significance.

Amy Summerville, PhD, a professor of psychology at Miami University in Ohio, is an expert on issues of regret and the psychology of “what might have been.”
She explains that FOMO is an extension of larger issues of inclusion and social standing. Once our basic needs are met, like food, shelter, and water, the need for inclusion and social interaction ranks right up there, she says.

“The FOMO experience specifically is this feeling that I personally could have been there and I wasn’t. I do think that part of the reason that’s really powerful is this cue that maybe we’re not being included by people we have important social relationships with,” she told Healthline.

The now-ubiquitous use of social media and technology has created a world in which we can gaze into our own crystal ball to see what our friends are doing at almost any time of day. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

This freedom has impacted and adversely affected nations.

According to the World Health Organisation, Nigeria is Africa’s most depressed country and the 85th happiest country on global happiness report in 2019.

The World Health Organisation also posits that there are 322 million people living with depression in the world. In the WHO suicide ranking, Nigeria leads with 15.1 suicides per 100,000 population per year and is ranked the 30th most suicide-prone out of 183 nations in the world.

As a matter of fact, World Bank states that not only do, 22% of Nigerians suffer from chronic depression, Nigeria rates 10th in Africa after countries with higher rates of suicide such as Togo (ranked 26th in the world), Burkina Faso (22nd), Cameroun (19th) Zimbabwe (16th), Central African Republic (13th), Sierra Leone (11th), Angola (9th), Equatorial Guinea (7th), and Cote D’Ívoire (5th).

Mental health disorders (particularly depression and substance abuse) are associated with more than 90% of all cases of suicide in Nigeria.

In truth, Daily Trust newspapers rendered that seventy-nine people committed suicide in Nigeria between April 8, 2017, and May 12, 2018

The question therefore is will we disengage our hearts from these unpleasant realities?

If we won’t, how can we help Nigerians develop the capacity to alter their state and move from a state of unhappiness to happiness effortlessly?

The formula for happiness as defined by Anthony Robbins is when your life’s conditions (LC) match or equal your blueprint, your story, about what it should be.

Happiness simply means one word, PROGRESS. PROGRESS equals HAPPINESS.

But when your life’s conditions do not match your blueprint, your story, or how your life is supposed to be, you are going to have disappointments and may end up depressed.

Mild Depression is an outcome of wrong thinking or cognitive dissonance. A mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty in thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness, and sometimes suicidal tendencies.

Every time we experience insecurity, unhappiness and suicidal ideation, we have three choices.

The first choice is to blame something/blame someone / or blame yourself.

The second is to change it.

The third is to change your blueprint if you don’t desire to keep having intercourse with depression or being overwhelmed by life.

Changing your STRATEGY, STORY and STATE furnishes you with the capacity to move from a state of unhappiness to happiness.

So the next time you show up online, remember that

– There will always be someone richer than you and someone you are richer than.

-Pressure only reveals content and social media only has the capacity to amplify your intrinsic state of mind.

-Decide to Nurture and sustain your self-awareness skills.

-You can fumigate your timeline by unfollowing everyone whose handle tensions you.

– You can observe regular social media detox and reduce the time spent online.

– You can connect with the offline world more.

– You can develop a habit of contentment and gratitude.

Written by

Oyinkansola Alabi,
Founder, Emotions City.
Lagos, Nigeria. Texas USA.
Email – oyinkan@emotionscity.com

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Big Brother Naija – Part 3

I woke up to a series of tags on the scuffle between ERICA and LAYCON

They wanted my professional view on the conversation.

The Academic in me has not watched DSTV for a while so I had to watch a series of videos to establish the cause and effect of the scenario.

Erica is a beautiful and intelligent young lady

A soul who longs for attention, affection, validation and a family.

She showed up in the house for money

Before her reality overtook her.

Her desire for acceptance and unconditional love kept sneaking up on her.

When it placed a demand on it from KIDD and he didn’t’ supply the desired quantity, her soul got upset.

She also tried being friends with some housemates but it didn’t go as smooth as she envisaged.

Thus, the depletion in the emotional bank balance she showed up in the house with.

On a few occasion, she stated categorically that

“ She doesn’t deal with stress very well “.

“ She was happy when she saw she could see a shrink”.

“ She has been feeling bad for a while because she doesn’t have access to her source of support”.

“ She has accumulated and bottled up negative emotions”.

“There was a time she was ringing the bell to ask for a psychologist. Nobody answered her”.

“ She didn’t ask to be here, her mother and father made a mistake and she is here”.

Life is tough.

And tougher for someone who didn’t receive a considerable amount of affirmation and love.

Her outburst is deeper than her issues with KIDD, LAYCON and everyone else.

Her pain is an overflow of her emotional hunger.

There is an ERICA in all of us.

Where our soul longs for what we were denied but we deserve.

So we owe her nothing but love.

We have also malfunctioned before so he who expects grace will not offer disgrace.

I hope a part of the raised funds will be channelled towards her mental health.

Because her sweet soul deserves emotional stability.

#BigBrotherNaija
#Season5

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Emotional Intelligence Training

I have spent two days with these hight network professionals and will be spending the next three days with them at our prestigious Emotional Intelligence Certified Specialist course/Emotional intelligence training.

We are discussing the value of emotional intelligence and how emotions drive people, people drive the bottom line.

Here are some learning nuggets.

– Our triggers are here to teach us. They allow us to deepen our self – awareness.

– It’s poor self-esteem that places us in an adversarial relationship to our well -being.

– Our connection is the most valuable thing in the world and the depth of our connection is directly proportional to the depth of our COMMUNICATION, not our conversations.

– You can only show up fully in the world when you have done an inner work.

– When an experience is not in tune with your core values, you will most likely freeze. take to flight and fight.
– Trauma is any scenario that created tension or caused a split in your personality.
– Your MAP is the sum total of your experience and your learning.
– Emotions drive buying decisions.
– The human brain is a pattern monster.
– People act on emotion and justify with logic.

– The top five regrets of the dying, an excerpt from a book by Bronnie Ware are
1. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
2. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
3. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
4. I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
5. I wish I had the courage to live an authentic life, not the life others expected of me. – There are four phases of Forgiveness

a) The Uncovering Phase – you will improve your understanding of the injustice and how it has impacted your life.

b) The Decision Phase – You will gain a deeper understanding of what forgiveness is and make the decision to choose or reject forgiveness as an option.

c) The Work Phase – You will understand the offender in a new way, which will allow positive feelings towards the offender and yourself.

d) The Deepening Phase – You will further decrease the negative emotions associated with the injustice. You may find meaning in the new experiences and recognise ways in which you have grown as a result.

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What is Emotional Intelligence?

Ever wondered why you can’t say what you feel the way you feel it?

Well, it’s the same way you will not eat a live chicken when you feel like eating chicken,

Or bite a live goat when you feel like eating goat meat.

Words are not meant to be uttered without been refined.

Words are meant to be processed through your cognitive centre.

Uttering words without mental edit exposes your emotional deficiency.

It makes discerning minds know that you are mentally lazy.

You prefer not to think.

You love short cuts.

As you think it, you say it.

That is why you say it as it is or give a piece of your mind.

Lack of filter will make you lose money, clients, prospects and relationships.

Your mouth will affect your credit alerts.

No one appreciates rudeness or anyhowness.

Not even you.

So stop boasting about your spirit of dramatic rudeness.

Embrace mental edit.

Sieve your thoughts into kind words.

Your style of delivery is as important as the content of delivery.

I come in peace!

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Big Brother Nigeria – Congrats Laycon

Emotions drive people,

People drive votes.

The first day I heard the name LAYCON was their first night at the big brother house.

He looked different from others.

Some people even insulted and wondered how he was chosen.

But ironically, he looked relatable.

LAYCON looked like what/who an average Nigerian has been and still is.

A story of Grass to Grace.

This relatability seeded kindness and warmth towards him.

Days turned into weeks and we discovered his vocal talent, intellectual depth and character.

We vouched to increase his greatness.

But we almost lost him when he moved from the intellectual zone to the lover boy zone.

Our winner was whining.

Thank God for a brain modification program by Vee.

He was also competing against an ex-beauty queen, Ex-Mr Nigeria, a billionaires son and other precious souls.

Laycon’s superpower was intrinsic and not extrinsic.

His ability to tap into our emotions.

The dexterity to make people love him for who he is.

He dabbed into this by choosing his battles and preferring peace to justice.

Even when he was insulted and body-shamed on national TV (he had his excesses too), he didn’t take his eyes off the goal.

He engaged in self and people preservation.

Laycon sold his emotional stability to us.

Silver and gold he didn’t have but he has the strength of character.

Emotions drove us to vote.

It drove us to invest our hard-earned funds in a pandemic on a total stranger.

Emotions made us distribute recharge cards. Food, rally and canvass for votes for a soul we have never met but met his soul.

Emotions made us his breakthrough.

The next time you attempt to discard how emotions influence bottom line.

Please think again.

Think of how an AKOKA boy with probably less than a million naira in his account became over 85 million naira richer in just 71 days.

A dude who couldn’t vote for himself or solicit for votes on the streets.

A dude who got Nigerians to forget their sorrow and love him like they own him.

Emotions truly drive people. People drive performance and bottom line.

Congratulations OLAMILEKAN AGBELESEBIOBA.

You are a case study.

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Emotional Intelligence in Nigeria

Every terrorist was once a child.

Every rapist was once a child.

Every icon was once a child.

If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.

If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.

If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.

If children live with jealousy, they learn what envy is.

If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.

If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.

If children live with encouragement, they learn to be confident.

If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.

If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.

If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous.

If children live with serenity, they learn to have peace of mind.

– Dorothy L. Noite

WITH WHAT ARE YOUR CHILDREN LIVING?

We will be dedicating the month of February 2021 to CHILDREN at Emotions City.

To reserve a slot right away for EQ for children, please reach out to +2348125116740

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Big Brother Nigeria

I gained over a hundred followers on Instagram yesterday morning (@emotionsdoctor). Upon review, I found out that a celebrity had tagged me on his piece on Tacha.

The arresting part of his article were the feedback humans of the world posted. Most of them were disempowering and evil. One of the trollers even made a song out of her delinquency.

I had to watch the fight video on Instagram to understand the genesis of the online banter. The video revealed two ladies who seem to be dealing with some flavour of deep-rooted issues before the show. The show only amplified their content as pressure only reveals content.

When you are under pressure and you choose anger and rage, it’s not because that’s the only option, it’s because it’s in your programming. In your template. Anger is in you. It’s not the action that makes the man, it’s the man that makes the action. For example, you are not a thief because you stole, you stole because you are a thief. You are not also a slapper because you slapped, you slapped because you are a slapper.

Every time I preach the gospel of emotional intelligence in Nigeria, I preach it with tears in my eyes because Emotional Intelligence changed my life. I don’t just train on what I learnt from the Founder of Emotional Intelligence in the world at YALE University, or CORNELL University or at Six Seconds Network. I train from my experience. I am evidence of a changed life. I will change it for you if I so desire, but I CHOOSE not to. I choose peace to justice. I stoop to conquer. I am now assertive and not aggressive.

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is not a hard skill or soft skill, it’s not even a life skill. It is life. Lack of EI will expose you. It will humiliate you. It will disturb your peace. It will make you lose money, friends, relationships and flavour. If you lack emotional intelligence on a national scale, it will be a national disgrace. If you lack it and you are on an international platform, your fall will be ‘LOUD’.

Emotional Intelligence is not an option. It’s the oxygen of human interaction. It’s a self-preservation, people preservation and earth preservation model. Emotional Intelligence will preserve you. It will promote you. It will take you before kings. It will deepen your peace, increase your performance and profitability. This is my testimony now and this is what I have helped our 128 alumni members achieve.

Yes, Tacha should have controlled herself but how would she when she didn’t even know any better? People do the best with what they know and they do it with good intentions. If she knew better she would have done better. I hope this action has cleared her eyes and our eyes to know that life will no longer reward anyhowness.

No matter what we choose to believe Character (POSTERITY) will always be superior to prosperity.

Tacha isn’t the issue here cos there is a Tacha in every one of us. Deal with your own TACHA. May you not malfunction where you are expected to walk in grace.

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