Listening to Belief Systems Other than Your Own
One of the hopeful aspects of Emotional Intelligence is the notion that it can be improved. Unlike IQ which is relatively static, our EQ can improve, including
our ability to self-regulate.
In order to practice improving your capacity for self-regulation, and thus your ability to behave neutrally during a conflict resolution process, I would like you
to listen to belief systems other than your own and practice the skills of self-regulation.
Directions:
1) Listen to belief systems other than your own. There are many ways to do this. The easiest is probably to listen to the news. If you are a fan of FOX news,
listen to MSNBC. If you are an avid listener of MSMBC, listen to FOX. You can choose something else too, don’t feel restricted by the assignment. You could
listen to a church service, watch footage of a political rally, or listen to a lecture on you tube. I have found this exercise is most effective if you choose
something to listen to that is not illegal or morally reprehensible. For example listening to the perspective of someone who believes in violence, or is a sexual
abuser, or justifies their hate crime is not recommended. Instead choose something on the opposite side of a political, ideological, religious, or policy aisle.
2) While you are listening practice self-regulation and interest identification. A) Practice awareness of you breathing by watching or counting your breaths to
deliberately enter a state of trained calm. B) Write down interest words. You are not limited by these two activities (counting breaths and recording interest
word), try others, but do these two at the very least. Do not multi-task or listen while you are in the car, or making dinner or doing any other activity. Just listen
and practice self-regulation.
3) Listen for at least 20 minutes. At the end of the exercise, write a one to two page reflection paper about the experience. In that paper, write about what
moved you. The following prompts may be helpful: What surprised you? What was easy? What was hard? What did you learn? How do you relate this to
conflict resolution?
listen to article on Republican as I am a democrat and use that for discussion. link to article https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/democratsare-feeling-too-confident-ahead-midterm-elections-n1298848
Sample Solution
