Arugula (cute name!)

I think change is great, but I think maybe what the comments you're getting are reflecting is that no one ever really shames or whips herself into genuine personal change, and no one wants to see you down on yourself. Slowly but surely I have been learning not to trust that voice that says "try harder try harder," because for me that is not the voice of self-care or self-improvement, but the voice of shame from the past, telling me I'll never be good enough.

I think that "I'm screwing up feeling" is often the source of my "bad parenting behavior" -- for example, I yell or turn off because I am already feeling incompetent because the house is messy or my child is doing something that I should have taught them not to do (or vice versa), and so my disappointment in myself feeds the kind of response to my kids that I really would rather not do!

I think working on emotional intelligence is important for everyone and I applaud you for doing it. I just want to add one other thing on behalf of the introverts of the world -- like my and my family! I think this is such an extroverted world that we have come to associate typically extroverted expressions of emotion with openness and emotional health while calling introverted expressions of emotion (processing privately, sharing feelings selectively) withdrawn or closed. I am thinking of one man I know who constantly felt overwhelmed by his extroverted mother's desire to "share feelings," when thinking out loud and processing with another person was just not his way of dealing with feelings.

Excessive sharing can be unhealthy, just as excessive secretiveness or "stuffing" can be unhealthy. I guess I'm saying that as I've worked on emotional intelligence myself I've tried to honor my personal need for privacy as well as that of my family members, my need for quiet time to process, and the reality that the visible expressions of emotion don't have to match the intensity of the emotion inside.

So honor the ways you are unique and your own needs, whatever they are, as you seek to change!

Shaun
www.homeschoolblogger.com/shaunms