Suoma the Life Coach

The traditional definition of courtship entails “to pursue someone (a girl, naturally)” with the intentions of marrying them. The idea is for a guy to call the girl’s house and ask her out several times until she agrees to get into a relationship with him. After the girl says yes, the two young ones get engaged for marriage. Klaar . The neo-courtship , as I’ve been taught, is just the replacement of what we call “dating”. This is despite the fact that the traditional definition of “dating” is quite similar to the original “courting”: going out on several dates (hence the term ‘date’) , until you decide to get into a committed relationship (leading to engagement for marriage).  Fast-forward, a couple of 100 years later: Dating means: boyfriend & girlfriend , two people in a monogamous relationship and are committed to each-other. All marital benefits may or may not be part of the package – exclusivity, sex etc. Whether or not they intend on getting married is no...

I remember the day she came to us. She was so fluffy, shy and as cute as only a puppy can be ; white paws on a shiny black/brown coat, white chest and a glossy hearty button for a nose . Her eyes were round, shiny with a hintof vulnerability that comes from being torn from a mother’s breast and a huddle of brothers and sisters. Wanting to cuddle and hug her was a mission, because all she wanted to do was hide herself in any fold she could find, keep to herself and pretend she was still under the warmth of her mother’s coat... When I first told a friend that her name is Hunter, she asked; “Why? What is she going to hunt?” I’m still not sure whether she meant it as a serious question. Then there was the occasional “Hunter is not a girl's name though.” Her name was kinda picked as unromantically as you can imagine; by Google-searching “Nice name for a dog” and we thought she was gonna be a boy. But she came, and she wasn’t a boy and we hadn’t the heart to change “ Hunter...

This blog was originally titled “Emotional Intelligence” which I decided was a bit boring. Stupidity is way more common and relatable, no? A lot of people are quite injudicious (big word ha? *wink*). There’s more stupid adults than there are intelligent ones; the statistics are quite overwhelming. Yes, there’s lots of book-smart pants, but very few social-emotional smarties.  There are some things that people do to reveal that they have diddle-squat emotional intelligence (EQ). I have an extensive list of friends that can’t seem to make emotionally wise choices and I try not to ignore or downplay their propensity to make such emotionally senseless moves. I like to define EQ as the smart ability to recognize, understand and manage your own emotions and those of others. Managing the emotions of other people, however, is not the same as “controlling” their emotions.  EQ entails the ability to use emotional information to guide your thinking and behavi...