The Whinypaluza Podcast with Rebecca Greene Episode 126 Developing Emotional Intelligence.

No need to whine, it's Whiny Palooza! Have some wine and join us on the Whiny Palooza podcast with Rebecca Green.

Welcome to the Whiny Palooza podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca Green. I'm a wife, mother of 3, and licensed clinical social worker. I also have 3 fur babies at home too. My passion has always been to help children and their families. I always dreamed of being a wife and a mother. Parents are always learning through their struggles, failures, and successes and joys. I am no stranger to this wild ride of parenting, and I know behind every great parent lies a team of supportive friends and family. I want to be part of your support system. I want you to know that you are not alone. We are in this parenting world together. Join me every week for insightful discussions with experts on parenting and marriage, as well as other parents who have found the secret to successes in parenthood. You'll learn tips and tricks to make life with your family better than ever. I hope you will follow along with me while we dive into what it takes to achieve a happy family.

Hello everyone, this is Rebecca Green for the Whiny Palooza podcast, and I am so very excited to have Nora Santo here with me today. Nora, thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you, I'm very happy to be here.

Tell everyone where you are because you're—

I mean, yeah, I'm a bit far. I'm in Switzerland actually, so a couple of hours ahead of you.

Crazy. So it is noon where I am and it is 6 PM for Nora. So this is pretty cool that we're connecting. I want to tell you a little bit about her because she's a fabulous lady. Um, as a high performance strategist for business leaders and professional athletes, Nora has helped hundreds of clients overcome subconscious blocks and limiting beliefs to reach their full potential. Since the breakout of COVID-19, she has turned her focus towards supporting families. Nora has a master's degree in psychology and is certified EFT, Matrix Reimprinting, and psych— K practitioner. Based on her research, she wrote a fictional adventure for children aged 9 to 14 called The Celestina Code. This merges all the excitement of a thrilling quest with the added advantage of stimulating the brain into a state of learning. It aims to inspire the readers to believe that their dreams are attainable by empowering them with essential high-performing traits to rise from adversity, overcome obstacles, step into their truth, and reach their goals with integrity. We are definitely going to talk about Nora's book that's coming out and where you can find it and buy it and all of that good stuff. I'm so excited for her. Um, but let's jump in to some questions about all this good work that you do. I wanna start with asking you what inspired what inspired you to start helping families?

Well, I think the answer won't surprise you too much, but it's my own children.

Yes.

So I have 2 kids. My son is 12 and my daughter is 10, and they are really, really nice kids. Overall, everything is going well with them, but as everyone else, they are also facing some issues in life. And I do believe that the change has to happen on a grassroots level. If I look back at myself, if I look at my clients and my own children, and that's why after I did that, my master's, and I did all these interesting— I made these interesting discoveries, I was telling to myself that I have to make the change on a grassroots level. And this is why I decided to focus more on families.

Oh, that is, that is so also true. Our kids are going through so much, and I think sometimes we forget, but it's been 2 years. It's been a very long 2 years for our children. Um, I love that you're doing it. You're helping families. Can you tell everyone what EFT is?

EFT is the abbreviation of Emotional Freedom Technique, also known as tapping. And this is a method that combines the ancient technique of acupressure, where we are touching different meridian points on the body, so energy points, and it's combined with modern psychology where we actually talk about the problem. And it's one of the modalities that I use that really makes an impact on the, on the subconscious level. So it's really transformational, it's a fantastic method. Would you like to know why I got into actually tapping? It's quite an interesting story.

I would love that.

Okay. I have never heard of tapping until 2016. What happened is that by then I started having really bad anxiety attacks and, uh, It manifested in a way that every time when my phone rang, I started sweating. Sorry, my phone rang and I did not know who the caller was. I started sweating, my stomach was like this in a cramp, and every single time I was thinking that I'm receiving a call that something terrible happened either to my husband, to my children, or my parents. And what you have to know, and how, you know, kind of the subconscious works— when I was born and I was only 7 days old, my father had a stroke and he went into a coma. My mom, of course, couldn't breastfeed me anymore. She was in and out from hospital, like running back and forth. And me as a baby, I got this limiting belief that I can lose a loved one at any moment in my life. Then my father fortunately got better, but when I was 8 years old, he had a second stroke followed by a third one just a year later. And it was, it was just terrible. And yeah, I have, I have many bad memories, but then, you know, okay, just to— it's a bit of a spoiler alert, a positive spoiler alert. My father is still alive. He's 73 now, so he's, he's doing pretty well. But see how interesting the way the mind works? I, I really was scared my entire life, like being scared of something that never happened. And as I mentioned, 5, 6 years ago, I reached such a bad state that I, I just knew I couldn't go on any longer like this. And back then, I was working with someone, a coach, absolutely phenomenal person. His name is Michael Sandler. And Michael— so I, we were just having a call, and then I think my phone rang, and I went into this state of panic. And, uh, he told me, Nora, there is this method. I'm not an expert, but I can show you like a little bit where these points are. Let's try it, maybe they help you. And what happened is that it was just such a beautiful experience because I actually felt that I'm in a safe bubble. The first time in a long, long time, I just felt at peace. And it was like, okay, this is, this is very interesting. But then, you know, life just went on. But 2 weeks later, my son, who was 6, about 6 years old then, he was a very, very bright kid, very high IQ, but much lower EQ. So the emotional intelligence was not on the same level. And he had one of these massive outbursts, like he was just screaming. And I remembered what Michael showed me, you know, the point— I didn't remember, I was like somewhere touching, touching my son and he calmed down like very, very fast. Within a few minutes he was fine. And another week later we were preparing for his football tournament. Soccer for you, for us it's football. At that time, my son's life was completely revolving around football, and he would get up at 3 in the morning, wear his little uniform, and wake us up like, it's time to go. And we're like, oh, come on, Theo, go back to sleep. But so we went this time, this day, we went to the tournament, and it was perfectly fine. And then he starts the warm-up and then comes to me screaming, "Mama, mama, please take me home! I can't stay here!" It turns out that he had a panic attack because he saw a kid with half an arm missing, with a limb difference. And I don't know what this caused this reaction in him, but he could barely breathe and we really had to leave. And then I told him that, do you remember that a week earlier we did this tapping. Can I just— can we go to the side of the football pitch, give it a try, and if it doesn't help, we go home? I'm not joking. In 3 minutes, the kid was completely calm. He could breathe again, and he said, Mama, I'm ready, I can play. And he went, he played the tournament, and at the end of— at the end of his game, he even could go and congratulate the kid. So that was the moment when I was like, I have to do something with this. It's— it happened to us for a reason, and it's so transformational that I, I really have to learn more about it. And I became a practitioner, and that changed not only our lives, but then other many, many people with whom I work.

As, as a social worker, I have to take continuing education classes, and that is one of the fields, the whole tapping, that I have taken no classes on. And am so intrigued. I mean, I can't believe the people that it's helped. Can you tell everyone, like, what— it's good for anxiety. What else is it good for? How can people benefit?

What is really interesting about tapping, and this is something since I've done my psychology master's that I'm very interested in the science behind the different techniques. And if you go online, you will find actually lots of scientific articles that talk about EFT and how much they really help with anxiety, with stress, with depression. If I remember correctly, it's around like 47%. It's, it's a huge number. So there is, there's, yeah, it works.

Well, this is something we can all definitely benefit from is what it sounds like to me.

We can, we can all do, and it's so simple. So that's why I like to mention this example that also the coach who showed it to me, He was not really an expert. So you don't have to study for years to be able to practice on yourself. There are like so many free resources available online. There are some really good practitioners, and you just go, you follow. Even if you don't do anything else but touch these energy points, you will just feel so good. You can do it anytime. And if you are— because, okay, so the people who watch us on YouTube, they can, they can see me, but there are even points on the side of your fingers. And I work sometimes with people who are very nervous about delivering a public speech, and you can just do it very discreetly. Or for students, under the table, you just touch your hand, your nails, and it just, it just helps to release all the negative energy, the negative emotions, and the stress.

Well, if you're listening to this and you're not watching, go find us on YouTube because Nora's showing us how to do it on her face and her fingers. And I just love this stuff. And I love how you've helped your son. I mean, that's just, those are wonderful stories.

Yes. Thank you.

So you talk about growth mindset. Can you tell us what that means? Because I just love those terms, growth mindset.

Okay. Uh, maybe again, I'll give you a little bit of background information. Yes, this was when I, when I did my research for my psychology studies. I interviewed extremely successful people who have achieved extraordinary results in their lives, and I wanted to see what connects them, what makes them different from the average population. And I was very fortunate because I had the opportunity to interview people who are running, like CEOs, presidents, founders of multi-billion dollar companies. And it's not only that they were successful in the business, but they were also happy in life. So I wanted to see what, what is the connecting pattern. And one of them was having a growth mindset. Growth mindset is basically understanding that you can— everything can grow, right? Like you can change. 'Your— there's nothing fixed. Your intelligence can change.' The expert is, 'Everything can change, but you have to make the effort.' And also, there are no such things as making mistakes— well, actually there are, but the question is what you do with that. Someone with a growth mindset would look at it as an opportunity to learn, while someone with a fixed mindset would believe Oh, you know, I'm born in a certain way with a certain talent, with a certain level of intelligence, and I cannot change anything. Everything just happens as it has to be. And because of that, they are extremely scared of making any mistakes because it shows that they are not good enough. But I think there's a great saying is— I don't know exactly how it is, but it's basically fail fast, fail forward. So learn, learn from all your mini failures because this is what will just give you growth opportunity in life and bring you forward.

That makes so much sense. And how amazing that you got to interview all of those people. That is so cool.

Yeah, it was, it was really fascinating. Really, really exciting process.

Just like it's super exciting for me to be able to interview you. So I hope, you know, thank you. Well, let's, let's move on to emotional intelligence. Um, you, you talk about so many great things. How can we encourage our children to develop their emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence has many different levels, but the very first thing that is really crucial, and that's something that I, I found in my research, is self-awareness. Okay, so you really need to understand where you You need to understand your emotions. We did a really great exercise. When I say we, I mean my husband and I. When the kids were very young, maybe my daughter was 2 and a half and my son 4 and a half. And what we did, we asked them to show different emotions and we took a picture of that. And we took a picture when they were angry, when they were happy, when they were sad, when they were disgusted, like some of the, the basic emotions. And then, so we, you know, created, we printed out these photos, and every time after they had any kind of strong emotion coming up, we went to a little corner in their room. They had this box. In the box, we had these cards and like other little tools, and we asked them, okay, look at, look at yourself. Let's say that they had a major tantrum 'Can you identify?' And there were like 8 pictures next to each other or 10. 'Can you identify how you feel now?' And then they pointed. And then they learned to name the emotion. And it was so good. And we did it also in case of positive emotions. So don't think that us parents, we always have to focus on the negative things because that's what many of us— and I say I'm just as guilty as the others— we're always like, 'Don't do this, don't do that,' focusing on the negatives. But it's really important for them also to see when they are really happy or positively surprised, and anything positive is just good for them also to, to understand. And once they have that in difficult situations, the second step is to be able to control themselves. And there is such a fantastic little exercise for that. So if these are the two things that you teach your children, I think you are already really, really ahead of, of the my kind of average parents who are a bit lost in this area, whenever they have a very strong negative emotion coming up, instead of reacting, count to 6 seconds. And the 6 seconds is basically the time that the brain is processing the different chemicals that are kind of spreading in your body. And if you do that, then it's just— then, you know, the heat of the moment is kind of gone. And I know how easy it is to say, and I know how difficult it is actually to do. But you know what, if you start teaching this to children at a younger age, for them it will be just much easier than if you started as a 40-year-old parent. And maybe just one more thing, when we talk about emotional intelligence, I think it's really important to mention empathy. Whenever something happens to other kids or adults or even animals, just tell your kids to try to put themselves in the shoes of the other person and how this must feel. You say, okay, you said this to your sister. What, what, what do you think? How does that make her feel? And at the beginning, most of the time, times they just won't necessarily understand it, but after a while it will reach them. So with that, I think you will be in a really, really good place to help them with their emotional intelligence.

Such good advice. We focus so much on their academic success. And I— right? And I think even I'm guilty of sometimes getting too focused on their grades. And their emotional intelligence is, I think, what's going to make them the most successful in life.

Yeah, exactly. And, and this is, this is what I also found, that it's about more, more the character traits. And so all these that I found— emotional intelligence, the growth mindset, having grit and resilience— extremely important. And trust me, the grades will come, or the academic results will come, and maybe they won't be ever the, like, the top in their class. But I, I saw very interesting examples in my life. I remember that at, um, I don't want to tell you at which school it was because I don't want the person to be identified, but we had one student who was just the best student ever. Like, he stood out completely, like, so much above because he was always studying. He would be studying 6 6 to 8 hours a day. He did not have a life, but he really got the best grades. But then when it actually— we became adults and it came to the career, he disappeared. He— and he doesn't find his place in life. So for me, it was a really interesting experience. And I don't say that— I don't want anybody to misunderstand me and think that learning is not important, because it is important, but it's not everything.

Totally agree. And you brought up resilience. Oh my gosh. It's like the best word for parenting is raising resilient kids. How— give us a tip. How can we raise more resilient children?

I very much like the advice of Dr. Angela Duckworth, who actually is— so she's a professor and her field of expertise is grit. So grit and resilience are really closely connected. And this is an advice that she gave— this is something that she does at home, and she gave it to other parents as well. That what they do is that at the beginning of each school year, the kids have to choose two kinds of activities. One is something that they absolutely love, but the second is something that really pushes them out of their comfort zone. They sign up and they have to finish. I don't know if it was like a semester, usually because it's in semesters, but they really have to finish that whatever happens, and they cannot give up. And I think this is such a great tip, and this is something that we are trying to do at home with smaller, bigger success.

That is such good advice. My son is 15. He's been playing soccer since he was 3 or 4. I honestly don't remember. And he said to me, it's, you know, it's been a long time. Like, I feel like I need a new challenge.

Yeah, right.

So it's interesting that that's what you bring up because all he's ever done is soccer.

Yeah, but doesn't mean he would want to stop and add another— sorry, and replace it with another challenge.

I don't think he's sure. I think he's figuring himself out. He's going through a 15-year-old crisis, I call it, and he's been so steady until now. And, um, new school, new— I, I don't know what's going on with him, but it's interesting that he's telling me he needs something new in his life.

But I like it that he's looking for a challenge because I think it's so important both for kids and adults to push themselves out of their comfort zone. But then also, I think if he's been doing it for such a long time, he should not just give up. So if I were him, I would try to do it kind of parallel and just to check something else, test it. And if it really, you know, really works, then the focus can shift towards. So he should not give up this new challenge that he's doing, but I wouldn't do that. Okay, from one day to another, quit soccer and then just do the other thing.

Totally agree. It's really good advice. Um, you talk about limiting beliefs, and we all have limiting beliefs. Can you give us a tip to get rid of our limiting beliefs? What can we do? I know this is a complicated question.

It's a complicated one, but I can also give you a very easy answer. But, um, what you have to know about limiting beliefs is that they are linked to the subconscious. And can I talk a little bit about the role of the subconscious?

Of course you can.

So the way our subconscious is mainly shaped happens before the age of 7. In that age, we have— we live in a special state where our brain waves are very different. They are more in the theta level. So just maybe for people who don't know it that well, when you are completely alert, that's the beta level. Then under it, it's alpha. And when just before you fall asleep, when you're in this complete meditative state, this is the theta level. And then under that, you have delta. And the kids are basically like sponges, like dry sponges who just download all the information and take it. They take it as it is. So you hear something and yeah, this is, this is it. You don't question anything, you don't challenge anything, you don't doubt anything. So the majority of the limiting beliefs actually happen in that age. So in my case, you know, the limiting belief was that anybody can die at any moment. I know someone who as a child felt that his— she— sorry, it was a her— she was really ignored by the father. And there were like tiny examples that are, are really not, you know, it's not like a hugely traumatic experience, but the girl drew something for the father, but the father was working on the computer. And the little girl, age 5 or 6, goes to the father and says, Daddy, Daddy, look, I drew this nice drawing. I made this nice drawing for you. Yeah, yeah, sure, darling, give me, give me 2 more minutes. I'll just finish something. And then 2 minutes later, Daddy, Daddy, here, my drawing. You know, the father doesn't even hear. And then the third time, the girl is like pulling the shirt. Daddy, my drawing! You promised that you are going to have a look. And then father just bursts out and like, "I told you I am busy at the moment, just get out of my office." And this girl, 10, 12 years later, she always wants to be the center of the attention at every meeting, all the time. And but of course she had no idea. But when they did some of these subconscious exercises then it all came to the surface. And, you know, I've been, I've been working with people for many years now, and it's so fascinating to see the connection between what, what happened. Of course, you know, you can have events happening later in life when you have real traumatic experiences that form your subconscious, but all these limiting beliefs happen on that level. The good news is that there are lots of techniques that can just get rid of it. My other favorite is the method called PSYCH-K®. It's a really, really powerful modality that also helps with all limiting beliefs and subconscious issues. I have a really bad fear of heights. I am, I'm really scared of it. And about 2-3 months ago, we went to a theme park. Do you call it America theme park or amusement park? Anyways, and there's this crazy ride, this crazy roller coaster, and my kids go on it and I can't even look because it's so high and I'm so scared of it. And they come down and they start begging, please, Mom, Mom, can you come up on it? We want you, it's fantastic. I'm like, no way. And I'm like really shaking and everything. And then I said, okay, just let me, let me test myself because I always talk about these things, but let's see, let me put my— what is it, how do you say— put my mouth where— yeah, you know what I mean.

Yes, I know what you mean.

So I sit down on a bench in the middle of, you know, everyone, and I put myself in this posture that connects the brain, the two hemispheres. And I do this exercise for myself. And 5 minutes later, I, I mean, I couldn't have believed it if I didn't happen to me. I'm sitting on the ride, and I'm not only sitting on the ride, but I went on it 3 times in a row. So it's— that's it. There are like lots of methods that can really help with that. And I'm— I have the feeling that within 5 to 10 years, the subconscious will be like— working with the subconscious will be like going to a psychologist, or it will be just a real mainstream thing. For the moment, it's still a bit woo-woo, it's a little bit out there, but trust me, maybe not even 10 years, but in 5 years, there will be huge change, changes in this, in this field.

I totally agree with you. Wow. I love that you're practicing what you preach. I love that you're walking the walk, right?

Yeah. Yeah. I try.

I know because it's so much easier for us to give advice than to take it, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Speaking of advice, what's the best advice that you've ever gotten?

Hmm. That's a good question. I often doubted myself and, um, that I am not good enough, always imposter syndrome. And I was just told that you're enough, you are enough the way you are. And, and I think some, like, it took me a while But I think I got there. So that was, that was very, very good.

Very good advice. We all need that advice for sure. Tell everybody about your awesome book.

Yes, my book. I'm so excited about this. So as mentioned, when I was doing my master's and I was doing my research, I found these really interesting patterns. But what was even more interesting was the reaction of my own children who wanted to find out about the secret of these high performers. And every time they were like, oh, what did he say? And what did she say? And when I want to make a point to the kids, instead of having just giving them advice and saying, you need to have a growth mindset, you need to have emotional intelligence, I tell them stories. And I was telling them that once upon a time there was a little girl who was born somewhere in the South in the US in the '70s, and because of that she had to stay in the kitchen, she had to serve others, she just could not leave, and she had bigger plans, but she was struggling. Then she had the choice: she could have accepted as it is or she could have just taken control of her own life. And so kids, which one do you think she chose? Yes, she went for the latter. And she became this ultra successful woman. And she is now the president of XY company because she developed this growth mindset. And they were like, ah, more, more. But this was a qualitative study. And because of that, I didn't have that many participants. So I was like, okay, no problem. I'm going to try to go to a bookstore and find a book that has some kind of adventure in it and self-development, so learning elements. But I could not find, uh, I could not find any book like that. And I was like, okay, then I'm just going to write one. And this is how my book, The Celestina Code, was born.

Wow. Well, it sounds like an amazing amazing book that my children all need to read. Tell everyone where to find your book.

The Celestina Code will be available to pre-order. There will be a big crowdfunding launch, and I'm very excited about it, on the 1st of March, so in a very short time. For the moment, you can find the information on my website, and there is a pre-order page. And the website is called thecelestinacode.com.

We will have all of this information attached to this podcast. Is there anything else that you would like to share?

Just maybe as like an advice for your— for you, uh, parents in general, that try to spend some quality time with your kids And don't think that I'm talking about hours. If you can spend 10 to 15 minutes a day, or even just 3 times a week, and you let the kids do whatever they want to do, which involves you. So I, ideally it wouldn't be just them alone on their computer or on Xbox, but a joint activity and start having conversations. It will do wonders because the children, they really need to have attention. They need to feel loved. And if you do this, then there will be lots of problems solved and there will be much less tension. That, that is an advice that I'm giving to every single parent. Try to spend some quality time together, maybe just walking and talking, and maybe it's reading something together. Maybe it's, I don't know, like playing some kind of a board game. Just make it as interactive as possible.

I love that. I'm in Buffalo, New York, and it's so cold. There's so much snow, and I walk my dog every day, and I'm, I'm gonna go do that when we end. And almost every day when the kids are home, I say, who wants to walk the dog with me? And they're like, not it! I can't get any quality time with you people walking the dog because it's too cold out.

Exactly like my kids. Vains, veins, it's not me, not it.

Anyways, it has been such a pleasure talking to you today.

Thank you, it was really my pleasure to, to be here with you, Rebecca. Thank you. Thank you.

This is Rebecca Green reminding everyone to spend every day laughing, learning, and loving.

Thank you for tuning in to the Winey Palooza podcast. If you like what you heard, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. While you are there, leave a review. I love to hear your feedback. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time.

This show has been produced by Market Domination LLC. To discover how you can have your own show completely done for you and turn it into a real published book and become the authority in your marketplace, go to www.marketdominationllc.com/podcastoffer.