This is just the beginning…

Towards the end of the movie Never Been Kissed, the main character is narrating an article she writes in the local paper.  She begins with this statement: “Someone once told me to write what you know. This is what I know.”

So what do I know?

I know that the world is round, not flat, that there are 365 days in a year, and we all have the same 24 hours each day to make the most of what are given.

I know that love and appreciation and respect are important factors to your ability to grow as a person, but you cannot put it on someone else to make you feel loved, appreciated or respected.  You have to be able to do that for yourself first, because if you don’t love yourself or appreciate your gifts and talents, and you don’t respect yourself in the decisions you make, the actions you take, and the words you say, why would anyone else want to?

I know that success is not measured by a yardstick.  You only really have yourself to answer to at the end of the day, and if you can look at yourself in the mirror at the end of every day and know that you did everything you could to provide for your family, to be a productive member of society, to help others, to be good and genuine and just and honest and ethical, then you are successful.  If not, it’s time to re-evaluate.

I know from experience that the theory of doing the same thing over and over again only works in sports.  In practicing sports, you do the same thing over and over again and you improve.  In life, if you do the same thing over and over again, you will usually yield the same results, both good and bad.  It’s the bad that requires attention and change.

I know that Emotional Intelligence makes up 80-85% of everything we do and every relationship that exists.  There is value behind learning what makes us tick, what makes us smile, what motivates us. That is why I am passionate about it.

I know people.  I know relationships.  I know emotional intelligence.

It took a long time to work through my own emotional state and really get down to knowing myself.  I started the process at 23 when I faced myself in the mirror after getting married and realized I didn’t like the person I was becoming.  I did that through a lot of soul searching and gut wrenching nights of tears and loneliness.  It took a divorce and starting over.  It took me back through my childhood and into my first real relationships in high school, and why I clung so hard and so long.  It took a lot of decisions on what was really important in my life and what mattered.  It was a lot of comparisons and figuring out triggers.  It took a lot of time for me to forgive the people who were supposed to be there for me but weren’t.  It took dating a few frogs, and even a snake, before learning enough about myself to change what I was doing in order to find my prince.  It took a lot of time for me to admit to being angry, and even more to let it go.  I’m 36 this year, and I’m still not great at managing my emotions all the time, but I think I do better than most.

Over time and through a lot of research and experience, I learned that there is a direct connection between knowing yourself and the quality of the relationships you are able to cultivate.  There is value in knowing yourself well enough to explain it to your significant other.  There is value in knowing how to use your emotions to become a better version of yourself.  There is value in knowing yourself so well, that when you are mad, you are still able to take a breath and know that this is not the end.  There is value in being able to use this knowledge of emotions in the relationships you pursue, whether personal or professional.

That is where my passion lies.  That is why I became Dr. Trisha Ziemba.  That is why I started this blog.  And this is just the beginning of what I know….