It stands for Sudden Onset Low EQ and comes from a colleague of mine. I found it humorous and true because all of us suffer from it at times. Symptoms include: the sharp remark, the biting email, the throw away comment that hurts, unnecessary irritation with others, inappropriate anger and each of us can fill in the personal list for ourselves.
It is worth thinking about since good relationships are all about good EQ - knowing and controlling our impulses which emanate from our emotions. SOLEQ can cause us to lose relational coinage and therefore influence.
In addition, instances of SOLEQ are indications that we have unfinished business with ourselves. We ought to ask, "Why did that situation push a button in me?" When buttons are pushed that cause emotional responses it is more about us than those who pushed the button.
Someone asked me recently how long it takes to develop really good EQ. I said "a lifetime." It is an ongoing process of learning ourselves and controlling our emotions, impulses and responses in appropriate ways. The issue is to be aware of when we respond in less than an appropriate way, keep short accounts and ask ourselves how we can handle it differently in the future.
And, thanks to a candid colleague, I have a new acronym.
1 comment:
Right, because we want to be like Jesus. And Jesus did at times express his anger. But we also owe to others a long suffering attitude which wraps all of this up in the idea of realizing we are all on a journey of sanctification and the last battle to be completely won is these very attitudes you just mentioned.
When we look at how the Pharisees dealt with Jesus he must have been tempted to anger , even rage frequently. Yet He responded with whit and wisdom, and love, and only in the seven woes made a direct frontal assault. In that instance he offered a much needed harsh rebuke and possibly finally unleashed (in public) the culmination of his effort to intervene with words for their souls.
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