Broadening our skills helps us live a fuller life. We can laugh wholeheartedly, control our impulses, limit self-pity and focus on creating a positive impact. When it comes to social skills, we all have basic abilities that are glued to our identity. We show love and care instinctively. We also express anger and disappointment. This might be beneficial when we first ‘learn’ the feelings, but isolating them as unfriendly companions is key.
How do we treat an unfriendly companion? We try tempering them down and take away their power in different ways – by not responding on a tone that matches their own, limiting the time we spend with them and spinning their attention to the underlying cause of the issue or to the solution. Having spent too much time ranting, being angry and aggressive, here are some practice that helped:
- reading books that focus on understanding human behaviors and our own actions
- meditation
- exercise
- spend time being intentionally happy
Nothing new here, but change doesn’t happen overnight. It takes understanding the tools, making them our own and learning when to apply them through lived experience. What tools do you need to succeed?
Andreea's Blog 
Published by