Ticker Tape & the Connection to Emotional Intelligence
As I was engaged in household chores one Saturday afternoon, the word ticker tape randomly popped into my head. An uncommon word in this day and age, I pondered why that word materialized in my thoughts and what it could possibly have to do with modern-day practices or principles. As I sat in contemplation about how this antiquated system worked, I was able to make the analogous leap of the various ways in which we ascribe meaning in our lives based on the continuous stimuli we receive from the world and all the people in it, and how the story we tell ourselves affects our worldview and emotions.
Ticker tape was the earliest electrical medium dedicated to financial communications by transmitting stock price information over telegraph lines from around 1870 through the late 1960s. It consisted of a paper strip that ran through a machine called a stock ticker, which printed abbreviated company names as alphabetic symbols followed by numeric stock transaction price and volume information. The term "ticker" came from the sound made by the machine as it printed.
The ticker tape revolutionized financial markets, as it relayed information from trading floors continuously and simultaneously across geographical distances. It also made great confetti after its purpose had been fulfilled. New York City was often pictured using this in various outdoor celebratory events. Paper ticker tape would later become obsolete, as television and computers were increasingly used to transmit financial information.
Our brains function much like ticker tape, continuously receiving data, manifesting thoughts and ideas and sifting through stimuli, even at rest, as part of our REM, or dream state. How we ascribe meaning to this stimulus is what drives our emotions and elicits action or inaction. Your power lies within your ability to choose what you will give your attention to.
Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve or avoid stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict. EQ helps you build stronger relationships, succeed at school and/or work, and achieve your personal goals. It can also help you to connect with your feelings, turn intention into action, or assist in making informed decisions about what matters most to you.
Emotional intelligence is commonly defined by four attributes:
Self-management – garnering control over impulsive feelings and behaviors, managing your emotions in healthy ways, taking initiative, following through on commitments and adapting to changing circumstances.
Self-awareness – the ability to recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses and level of self-confidence.
Social awareness – having empathy through the ability to understand the emotions, needs and concerns of other people. Having the ability to pick up on emotional cues and feel comfortable socially.
Relationship management – the understanding of how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team and manage conflict.
The ticker tape metaphor offers us the perfect example of how our psychology works and what we can do, or rather what we can choose to do in order to return to a place of psychological and emotional balance. All it takes is a belief in the content of our thinking to send us down a road of anxiety and panic versus an emotional state of calm.
We can’t abolish our thoughts once they manifest in our consciousness anymore than we can change the information on the ticker tape after it’s printed, but we can choose to ameliorate or ignore what shows up by keeping it neutral and dismissing it just as quickly as it arrives. Remember, whatever we give our attention and energy to will continue to grow and flourish. Thoughts go where energy flows!
If you plant a seed, you must nurture it by providing adequate water and sunlight in order for it to grow into whatever it is destined to be (my blog titled: “When Approval Trumps Authenticity” has more on this topic). When we tend to our thoughts with focus and importance, they will grow stronger and become more predominant in our experience.
Keep in mind, pun intended, thoughts only become problematic when we interpret them in a way that makes us emotionally vulnerable. The longer we ruminate on the thought that is creating resistance, the more we create self-imposed suffering.
With much sugar & a lot of soul!
Rhonda
