What if you could have…

Tips: for writing that awkward text.

A custom script: for declining an invitation without losing belonging.

A playbook: for navigating some tricky social scene.

?

Introducing…

Monthly Support Program!

Unlock the Power of EQ to Help You Have More Positive Social Connections

• Are you longing for more meaningful social interactions, but feel unsure about how to navigate them?

• Do complicated people in your life leave you feeling overwhelmed and in need of guidance?

• Are you looking to improve your emotional intelligence but struggle with where to begin?

  We understand how challenging these situations can be.
  We’ve been there…

  
  Which is why we feel so pleased to bring you this transformative program designed to help you enhance your social skills, navigate complex relationships, and boost your emotional know-how and well-being. Our approach is rooted in the latest neuroscience and the conviction that you have the power to create positive change in your life.

  
  Through proven techniques and compassionate, expert guidance, we will empower you to:

  
  1. Improve Social Interactions: Discover the secrets to nearly effortless connection that leaves you feeling fulfilled and supported. We will provide you with the tools you need to build genuine and lasting rapport, and mend challenging relationships.

  
  2. Understand Complicated People: Gain a deeper understanding of the complex individuals in your life. We’ll help you decipher their behaviors and motivations, enabling you to respond with empathy and clarity.

  
  3. Enhance Emotional Proficiency: Even if you've struggled with "emotional stuff" in the past, we will equip you with the necessary concepts and support you in developing the right skills to navigate your and others’ emotions with confidence. Learn how to communicate effectively, resolve conflicts, and create stronger bonds.

  
  4. Meet Challenges Gracefully: When facing unexpected difficulties, we'll guide you through finding elegant solutions that preserve your well-being. Say goodbye to being stuck in overwhelm, and hello to deftly dancing with any pickle life presents.

  
  5. Boost Overall Well-being: Reduce depression, anxiety, and emotional overload as you cultivate healthier habits and nurture your neuroemotional health. Enhance your finances, relationships, and overall quality of life by harnessing emotional intelligence for more positive social connections.

  
  If you're tired of repeating the same social or emotional missteps, here’s your off-ramp. A chance to break free from that uncomfortable and isolating cycle and to rediscover the joy of authentic human intimacy and belonging.

  Don't miss out on this opportunity to transform your social interactions, improve your emotional well-being, and create more of a life you truly love.

($13 monthly subscription)

Only in Dear EQ, What Do I Do? can you find:

Trustworthy Strategies – For getting out of tricky situations, while maintaining a sense of connection with your people. We’ll help you come up with immediate, effective, and emotionally-smart actions you can actually take.

Tips and Scripts – Whatever life throws at you, we’ll help you compose the response that works for you and your goals, but also works according to brain function – so that you are more likely to get what you want while staying in right relationship with others.

Ready Results – This program is meant to give you what you need right now, for this particular situation. You can’t wait weeks to learn a whole new method, before putting it into practice. You need to answer that text, email, or phone call today! We’ll set you up for success.

Community Camaraderie – Everyone needs help with this stuff! Come to session with your particular question and get great ideas from a trusted source, but also benefit from the questions other people ask! You never know when you’ll be in a similar situation and need that same solid emotionally intelligent guidance.

Why we call it Dear EQ, What Do I Do?:

EQ means Emotional Intelligence! It’s like IQ for feelings. 

Higher EQ is associated with a healthy ability to recognize, use, understand, and manage our emotions.

It's also associated with a host of beneficial outcomes. Better physical and mental health, better professional and financial success, and better relationship satisfaction and overall life fulfillment.

This program is meant to follow in the tradition of offerings like Dear Abby or Dear Sugar. Folks reach out with a relationship problem or tricky social scenario, hoping to get solid wisdom to consider as they navigate their choices.

But… unlike most advice columns or talkshows, our guidance is rooted in emotional intelligence and the most contemporary neuroscience.

We only offer tips, scripts, and playbooks that work with the flow of neurochemistry.

Why?

1. We want you to be successful in your social navigation.

2. We want to help you grow your EQ, and hands-on practical applications are one of the best ways to do that.

3. We want a more emotionally-safe, -capable, and -vulnerable world.

($13 monthly subscription)

Picture your ideal life for a minute

Now, we’re just guessing, but

likely your vision does not include…

• Regular social anxiety

• Surging cortisol and adrenaline in your body any time conflict arises

• Worrying about how you’re perceived or whether others understand your intentions

• Obsessing so much over others’ discomfort that you never say “No”, or suggest a different idea

• Finding yourself in extremely confusing exchanges where the harder you work to fix it, the worse it gets

• Yearning to be around your people while paradoxically feeling anxious and uncomfortable with the reality of actually spending time with others

• Cutting out huge chunks of your social group due to irreparable conflict or disconnection

• Suffering through parties, dinners, and barbecues where you don’t talk to anyone; or

• Cycling constantly through Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Appease…

And not just on off days, but regularly.

Forever caught in a loop of shallow, combative, and/or dissatisfying interactions.

Thinking of yourself as too broken to be healthy, or successful, or in relationship.

Feeling confusion, wariness, and discouragement.

But what if you received great guidance, and could enjoy…

• Lower anxiety around texts, messages, emails, interactions, and invites

• The skills to turn awkward conflict into delightful connection

• Confidence about how you’re perceived

• The ability to say No, or make suggestions, or have an opinion

• Knowing just what to do to smooth out confusing exchanges

• Speaking, acting, and communicating in a way that feels good, and that others authentically enjoy

• Gliding effortlessly into social situations and actually enjoying yourself

• Pivoting easily away from Fight, Flight, Freeze, or Appease

?

That’s what we’re offering.

We’re Nathan and Natalie!

You may know us as the founders of the Center for Emotional Education, or those people taking videos of our cats in the garden, or talking about brains on social media. We’ve been helping families, couples, and leaders have more emotionally intelligent and sustainable relationships for nearly seventeen years.

But we didn’t grow up knowing how to interact well with other people.

We spent years fully confounded by countless interactions:

• That crabby partner? Maybe just to work harder to please them.

• That weird text from the co-worker? Maybe just ignore it.

• That party invite that involves 40 strangers? Maybe just lie and say you’re sick, fell asleep, and/or forgot.

• That roommate that sings opera at 4am? Maybe just hate her secretly until you blow up at her and have to move.

• That friend who is suddenly pissed at you for not making more time for them? Maybe get conflicting advice from everyone else you know, make yourself sick for days, and hope for a miracle.

People were confusing at best, annoying at worst.

And like any normal person who wants to have a good time in life, we just kept working hard at trying to fix awkward moments, or run from them, or praying for Hail Marys.

Living life like this wasn’t fun. And it had us wondering if that hermit life, far far away from people and their potential problems just might be the only viable course of action.

After a series of particularly low points of confusion and despair we made a decision to do things differently.

We didn’t know how to do it. We just knew we were going to figure it out.

Now, over 20 years, 20,000 research hours and 1:1 client hours, and many personal lessons learned, later – we have a pretty nuanced perspective on how brains work, how to work with our nervous system and neurochemistry, and how to navigate relationships with high emotional intelligence.

Now, we specialize in how brains are wired and rewired, how we’re affected by and can affect our mental and emotional states, and how to process and co-process emotion for a range of healthy outcomes.

And now we feel such gratitude and reverence that we get to share what we’ve learned to help others, too.

And even though we wouldn’t call it a feeling, per se, we also feel pretty lucky to get to do the work we do. Supporting others to have an easier time than they’ve been having (and an easier time than we had) in relationships of all kinds, in their approaches to themselves and their lives, and in being who they really want to be – that’s what drives us.

That’s also why we’re offering “Dear EQ, What Do I DO?”. We know this stuff isn’t taught in school (even though it really should be) and we know how valuable it can be to have someone you trust helping you see the angles, approaches and possibilities that you don’t yet. Someone who can guide you in building your emotional intelligence, your nervous system regulation know-how, and your relational prowess!

Month in and month out, your membership guarantees you access to both of our minds, all of our research and expertise, and a community-worth of brilliant topics to explore and apply to all our learning. We can’t wait to be there with you!

What about you?

• Are you often stumped about how to handle a situation?

• Does your anxiety get in the way during human interactions?

• Are you exhausted from constantly managing other people’s feelings?

• Have you been labeled as “too sensitive” or “too much”?

• Does it feel like people make no sense at all?

• Do you lie awake at night going back over interactions you’ve had with others?

• Do you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what someone truly meant by the words that they said?

• Have you been too afraid to broach a tricky subject with a co-worker, roommate, friend etc?

• Do you sense that you could be missing some crucial training in the social or emotional spheres of your life?

• Do you ever wish there was someone who could just tell you what to do to make things better?
  

Then this is the program for you.

Dear EQ is right for you if:

• You want hands-on, emotional-intelligence-based guidance for your particular problem.

• You’re interested in how humans work, and want to leverage neuroscience.

• You learn through examples of real-life scenarios.

• You want specific guidance that is easy to follow and easy to put into immediate action.

Critical Details:

Dear EQ, What Do I Do? takes place over Zoom, and each session is up to 90 minutes.

We will start each call with some grounding and connecting, and then answer questions from the group, or questions that have been pre-submitted.

Class participation is welcome but not required. Your camera can be turned on or off.

You will never be made to speak against your wishes.

We value emotional safety above all else.

Monthly Meet-up Dates:

Jan 24 - 4pm Pacific

Feb 29 - 1pm Pacific

Mar 28 - 11am Pacific

Apr 25 - 2pm Pacific

May 23 - 9:30am Pacific

June 26 - 4pm Pacific

July 31 - 11:30am Pacific

Aug 28 - 10am Pacific

Sept 23 - 9:30am Pacific

Oct 23 - 3pm Pacific

Nov 21 - 10:30am Pacific

Dec 19 - 9:30am Pacific

Monthly subscription:

$13/month

Why doesn’t everyone seek EQ guidance?

For one, a lot of us tell ourselves very unhelpful things, like:

• “I should already know how to do this stuff.”

• “I think I’m just not a people person.”

• “I’ve ignored feelings for too long, it’s too late for me to learn.”

• “Relationships are easy for other people, but hard for me.”

Add to that, the typical thoughts about this kind of work, like:

• “It’s too embarrassing to ask questions in a group.”

• “I don’t like Zoom.”

• “I’m sure my schedule won’t allow it.”

And this is may all be true, to a certain extent…

But the real problem is that people think
what we’re suggesting is just more of the usual stuff that doesn’t even work.

The usual emotional advice is:

• “Look on the bright side.”

Our current culture adores positivity. There are a million ways that society shames and blames us whenever we’re feeling anything less than radiant loving bliss. The idea is that you just have to write a billion gratitudes in your journal and magically find your way to “love and light” instead of ever feeling sadness, anger, worry, and all the rest.

And when that (inevitably) doesn’t work… “It’s your fault for __________________ (picking this husband, having those kids, not working hard enough at that job, etc., etc.).”

• “Exercise better, eat better, sleep better.”

This notion is part of that whole rugged individualism health and wellness thing. The idea is that you just have to be more disciplined and stick to the right regimen and all will be awesome.

Resilience practices are irreplaceable, and certainly one significant part of the equation for a better, more relaxed life. But they are not the whole equation! Yes, everything is better when we have enough exercise, sleep, and food. But those are basic Survival needs. And even when exercising, eating well, and sleeping plenty – we are still going to feel upset sometimes.

There is a whole separate network in the brain for emotions! They are part of who we are.

Nevertheless, according to this bad advice, if you somehow consistently tick the basic self-care boxes and still don’t feel fantastic, you must just be a lost cause.

• “Just let it go.”

There’s a whole Disney montage song based on this “strategy”! The intimation here is that people just want to be upset. That they cling to their uncomfortable feelings out of some kind of stubborn sadism or willful attention-stealing. Otherwise, they would just stop clinging and feel so much better instantaneously.

For many, “letting go” actually means stuffing emotions deep inside where they fester, become pressurized, make us sick, and ruin our relationships.

Still, according to this prototypical advice, if you somehow are not able to simply “let it go”, it means you are twisted or needy, and of course, “doing it wrong”.

• “This too shall pass.”

(Does it really? When??)

For this one you’re supposed to just wait out the upset and then it will magically lift. (Ha!) Through no effort, change, or addressing of anything, your life will be better… Someday… Waaaaaay in the future.

(Wait for it… Wait for it...)

And when time has passed and you still don’t feel better? “Well… you just have to wait longer.”

• “It will only make you stronger.”

Here’s another shaming push toward gratitude, that our hero fixation really loves.

With this tidy myth, the idea is that you should not be upset about your upset – don’t feel anger, or despair, or regret, or fear, or powerlessness – instead be so grateful for this terrible experience because in the eventual it will give you big strong muscles with which to keep weathering this terrible, awful thing, and the next terrible, awful things.

(“You’ve totally got this, Sisyphus!”)

And when this timeless edict fails you, it’s because you are too sensitive and not resilient.

This type of advice is actually a cruel disservice.

With each of these often well-meaning phrases the implication is that:

We won’t help you feel better, but we will blame you for not feeling better faster.

It’s no wonder that no one wants to ask for help. And no mystery why so many of us are suffering from confusion, overwhelm, loneliness, and lack of meaningful connection.

What are we supposed to do if every time we seek support we are told some useless advice that implies it’s all our fault anyway?

And that kind of advice never stops!

This is because most people don’t any better. Everyone means well, but they have no practical, hands-on experience in metabolizing emotion and successfully managing tricky inter-personal situations with resonant emotional intelligence.

The only way out of the trap of bad emotional advice is:

• Smile with love and compassion at those trying to help who don’t know any better.

• Take full responsibility for your own emotional education.

• Learn from those that do know what to do with emotion.

Those of us who are experts in this field don’t have millions of YouTube followers. We’re not on the covers of magazines. We’re not being interviewed on the talk shows. Why? Because fear sells better than ease and emotional fluency. And, we’re too busy chilling out in the shade enjoying life.

We’re living.

You can too.

($13 monthly subscription)

Class Days and Times

2024

April 25 - 2:00 pm Pacific

May 23 - 9:30 am Pacific

June 26 - 4:00 pm Pacific

July 31 - 11:30 am Pacific

August 28th - 10:00 am Pacific

September 23 - 9:30 am Pacific

October 23 - 3:00 pm Pacific

November 21 - 10:30 am Pacific

December 19 - 9:30 am Pacific

FAQs