While waiting to speak one Sunday morning, I was chatting with one of the people who had completed the Life Skills Foundations course. The person welcoming people alerted us to a man who seemed upset. We went over and said hello.

Very quickly we found out that he was in a bad way. He quickly broke into tears. At first he was almost unintelligible because of his grief. Eventually we found out that he normally went to the gym which was behind the church on Sunday mornings. He didn’t attend church. Yet today he came into the church because his dog was dying. Yes, his dog. We also discovered that he had been a police and prison officer.

I was pleased that I had someone with me who had some emotional intelligence (EQ) training. Some might be tempted to dismiss what this man was feeling, saying something like, “It’s only a dog”. Others might have tried to cheer him up. However, what he needed was someone to understand his heart.

Here was a man who has seen much of the worst of humanity—in prisons and in the community. Often to protect themselves people in similar situations develop fairly hard shells. This man even commented that he’d seen so much worse than his dog dying, yet it didn’t affect him like this. He kept breaking into tears.

What was important was that he had no significant relationships with others. His dog was the only “person” whom he had a significant emotional attachment to. Therefore his dog was inside his protective shell, and it’s illness impacted upon his emotions in a significant way.

What did we do? Nothing especially difficult. We simply Listened, Observed, Validated his feelings and Encouraged him. (LOVE). We provided compassion, understanding as well as much-needed company.

As with many things to do with EQ, it is fairly simple or straightforward. It’s hearing and responding to the other on a heart-to-heart basis.