Author: Susan Dunn, MA, Personal and Professional Development Coach


“This is Our Finest Hour?” “I Have a Dream?” No, nothing like
that. This is a speech of 2 words I heard the other day.

I was in a hospital getting a chest x-ray, a prerequisite for
surgery on my broken ankle. It’s been two weeks since it
happened, two weeks full of pain, change, and coping. I’ve
described how it happened, learned how to get around the house
on crutches, visited doctors and labs, waited on x-rays, and
asked neighbors to get the mail and groceries.

I’ve also been put through the pre-op battery of tests – blood
tests, EKGs, chest x-rays, and discussions with my doctor, who
felt the best approach was surgery.

In my EQ Alive! program, which trains and certifies EQ coaches,
I’ve participated in the weekly EQ Check In along with the
students. We tell each other how we feel physically,
spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. We begin each teleclass
that way, and listen closely to the answers. EQ competencies
include emotional expression, and also Integrated Self, being in
touch with all aspects of yourself. Most of all it means not
engaging in the meaningless, “How are you?” “Fine.”

In a shutdown and coping mode, I thought I was being realistic
about how I was feeling. I said I was in pain. I said I was
physically slow and the painkillers had dulled me mentally, and
that spiritually things were the same as ever. What more was
there to say? I never gave it a thought.

So there I was in the hospital. I’d been sent to the wrong place
and walked about ½ a mile on the crutches to find that out. I
was accepted, however, thanks to the work of a nurse named Lupe
with very high EQ who just pushed the order on through. And
then, mercifully finally in a wheelchair, I’d been wheeled to
the x-ray waiting area and left in the hall.

As I sat there, a woman on a stretcher was wheeled up. I could
tell she was sick. Her hair hadn’t been washed in a while and
she had a nose tube for oxygen, and a tube in her arm. Her color
didn’t look good and she barely moved. She reminded me of my dad
the last time I saw him in the hospital. She was accompanied by
two women. The first one went over to sign papers, and the other
one walked off down the hall.

A technologist walked out toward the woman on the stretcher when
I heard the speech that touched me so. I think she thought he
was coming to take her into the x-ray room.

“I’m afraid!” she cried out.

“God love her,” I thought. “So am I!”

I tried to get out of my chair and go to her, but the
technologist beat me to her. Speaking to her in her native
tongue, Spanish, he rushed to her side, took her hand and
started soothing her. “Abuelita,” he called her, “little
grandmother,” a term of endearment. A nurse brought out a screen
to give her privacy and she quieted.

She quieted and I thought: Why is it so hard to get to “I’m
afraid”?

Of course I’d been afraid the whole time, from the moment I
heard the bones turn in my ankle. I started repeating, “Please
don’t let it be broken, please don’t let it be broken.” There
was no way to tell, and I was left with pain and fear.

Was it broken? Is this because my bones are getting old and this
is just the beginning? Will this mean arthritis pain for the
rest of my life? Will the insurance cover it? What on earth is
my deductible? How can I ever manage this at home alone? Will it
need surgery? General anesthesia? Will I survive it? Will they
have to rebreak it like one neighbor says, and put in 6 screws
like the other one says? What will happen?

I shut all these things down and used words like “tired” and “in
pain,” but at the core, yes, I was afraid. Fear of the unknown,
and fear of being helpless and dependent.

I was also afraid of the fantasized reactions of others, having
come from a family of shame and blame. I think nothing will ever
“happen” to me that I won’t feel like I caused it and was a ‘bad
girl’ because of that. Words from an overwhelmed,
shame-and-blame mother who saw everything as simply more work
for her. Whatever caused the ankle to break, I should’ve known
better, I shouldn’t have done it, I shouldn’t have been there,
and I should never have let it happen – as if I were omniscient
and omnipotent. That means all-knowing and in control of
everything in the world. It was family that taught intellectual
words, not feelings. Old childhood fears. In line with,
“Whatever it is you fear has already happened.”

And at that particular moment in the hospital corridor, well you
never know what will turn up on any chest x-ray, no matter why
it’s required. Nor had the results of the EKG come in yet. What
if I went in with a broken ankle and came out with a bypass? Or
worse yet, out the back door on a stretcher. It’s been known to
happen.

As J. Powell says in “Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?”
emotions are not moral (good or bad). Feeling frustrated, or
being annoyed, or experiencing fears and anger do not make one a
good or bad person [a weak or strong person.] But this is
theory. In our day-to-day lives most of us blame ourselves for
our feelings.” And if we judge them to be “bad,” or unacceptable
to us in some way, we bury them.

So there I sat in my wheelchair, silent and alone. And there was
Abuelita, expressing her fear and getting comforted. It’s an old
lesson: People care. If we say we’re afraid we can be comforted.
If we don’t, we can’t.

All studies show that people do best who have a strong social
support network, and if you don’t say WHO you are and HOW you
are, you aren’t getting the connection that sustains you. You
remain alone in the presence of others, which is the loneliest
you’ll ever be.

And let me close with the words of the technologist who finally
did my x-ray. Dianna was her name. She read the name of my
company, Emotionally Intelligent Solutions, on the chart.
“What’s that,” she said, “Is that like I’m to the point where I
can’t stand any of my co-workers any more and I think they’re
dumb and ignorant and feel like I’m about to explode,”

Yes, EQ is about that, too!

The woman works two 16-hour days, physical and demanding (how on
earth do you do that?) and has three children at home. I gave
her my card. I hope she’ll call me. It may not be her co-workers
that are the problem.

And that’s the power of Emotional Intelligence. If you are the
problem, you are also the solution, and Emotional Intelligence
is the bridge between the two.