CHARACTER: Empowering Yourself with Emotional Intelligence: BECOME YOUR BEST SELF, #1

By Jennifer Freed

Dive into Character and you will determine your strengths and weaknesses through introspective action-oriented exercises and journal opportunities. You will develop a vision for your best self and be provided with a clear path to developing greater integrity, better interpersonal and community relationships, and a tangible sense of personal direction. Book One from the Become Your Best Self series.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jennifer Freed
• Release date: Jun 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781533724243

Book preview

CHARACTER

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Empowering Yourself with Emotional Intelligence

Second Edition

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Book One

From the series

BECOME YOUR BEST SELF

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Jennifer Freed, Ph. D.

Amanda Waldman Lake

Copyright 2016 Jennifer Freed, Ph.D.

All rights reserved under Copyright Conventions. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, electronic or otherwise, for any purpose, without the prior written permission of the authors.

This series was inspired by AHA!

www.ahasb.com

Graphic Design: Virginia Schmidt

Additional Editing: Emily Lord-Kambitsch

Table of Contents

BECOME YOUR BEST SELF

THE JOURNAL INVITATION

Introduction

Exercise 1: PILLAR

Exercise 2: TRUSTWORTHINESS

Exercise 3: RESPECT

Exercise 4: RESPONSIBILITY

Exercise 5: FAIRNESS

Exercise 6: CARING

Exercise 7: CITIZENSHIP

Exercise 8: ATTITUDE

Exercise 9: KNOWING MY EMOTIONS

Exercise 10: THE ATTITUDE FRAME

Exercise 11: STRENGTHS & WEAKNESSES

Exercise 12: MY STYLE OF LEARNING

Exercise 13: MY NEEDS, DESIRES, &RESOURCES

Exercise 14: DELAYING GRATIFICATION

Exercise 15: LEARNING FROM THE PAST

Exercise 16: STALKING FEELINGS: FEAR

Exercise 17: STALKING FEELINGS: ANGER

Exercise 18: STALKING FEELINGS: SADNESS $ GRIEF

Exercise 19: STALKING FEELINGS: EMPATHY

Exercise 20: STALKING FEELINGS: JOY

Exercise 21: REACHING OUT

Exercise 22: YOUR WORD

Exercise 23: MY ACTIONS

Exercise 24: ACCOUNTABILITY

Exercise 25: VALIDATION

Exercise 26: LOOK ME IN THE EYE

Exercise 27: RESENTMENT

Exercise 28: RECEIVING  FEEDBACK

Exercise 29: BROKEN AGREEMENTS

Exercise 30: APPRECIATIONS

Exercise 31: FEELINGS VOCABULARY

Exercise 32: VICTIM

Exercise 33: DECISION-MAKING & CORE VALUES

Exercise 34: FEARLESS SELF-INVENTORY

Exercise 35: CONGRUENCE

Exercise 36: BEYOND BLACK  & WHITE THINKING

Exercise 37: AGAINST ALL ODDS

Exercise 38: SELF CARE

Exercise 39: SEEKING HELP

GLOSSARY FOR CHARACTER

MORE GREAT QUOTES ABOUT CHARACTER

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

BECOME YOUR BEST SELF

About the Series

Become Your Best Self was created to provide you with a chance to increase your curiosity by introducing thought-provoking exercises and also to provide you with ultimate support. We all share the common experience of feeling so much of life’s confusion, hope, joy and pain.

The four workbooks that comprise the Become Your Best Self series offer many opportunities to develop your inner and outer life more fully. Working through the questions and prompts with as much honesty as you can will invite insight and increase your awareness.

Such self-reflection and self-questioning contribute to the richness of all life, and Become Your Best Self provides a profound pathway through it all. These workbooks give you the tools for clarity and compassion, creativity and courage. They will serve many different areas of your life...for your whole life.

The Character workbook supports you in improving your social and emotional skills in order to build better interpersonal and community relationships, as well as your inner or core relationship with your own self.

The Compassion workbook encourages you in understanding diversity and oppression, and assists you in working toward a prejudice-free society. You will discover that both slight and severe injustices can be influenced by some small or large action you might choose to take.

The Creative Expression workbook helps you in freeing up your ability to express yourself in new and spontaneous ways. You will explore some of the limits you have set up in your own mind as well as those you perceive to be influenced by peers, parents and media.

The Relationship Wisdom workbook allows you to explore the terrain of healthy sexuality so that you can be wise, intentional and fulfilled in your sexual life, now or in the future. You will learn to articulate and respect your own and others’ boundaries with integrity and character.

THE JOURNAL INVITATION

The Choice is Yours

These workbooks were designed to be worked on in many ways: privately, in groups, within a family, a classroom, or even with a close friend. You will notice that every other page is left almost completely blank for you to express yourself in relation to the theme presented. The questions or prompts on the back of each workbook page, the Journal Invitation, are there for you to use or not, as you wish. Feel free to write, draw, paint or collage in response, doing your best to disregard your inner critic!

Sharing your answers or journal entries with others and being open to theirs can be a powerful way of increasing your emotional and social vocabulary. This will also help you understand other perspectives, improving your relationships with everyone.

Respecting your own boundaries is always important, so at times it may be your choice to keep your answers confidential. If keeping your answers confidential ensures that your responses are absolutely honest, then do it. Remember too, amazing things can happen when you take the risk of sharing personal truths. You know how it is when someone else shares something personal—it tends to invite others to do the same, and everyone feels a bit more connected.

The choice is yours, always.

CHARACTER

Introduction

Our personalities are sometimes hard to change, but the beauty of life is that we can constantly work to improve ourselves—on our own terms—in our own time.

Character is our distinctive nature. It’s the sum of our mental,