Dharius Daniels - Emotional Health is Wealth

What’s up? Dharius Daniels here, and I am back like I never left with the second video in this series of videos on the things I would tell my sons about women. In this video, I’m getting ready to share number two. Let’s go!

All right, so let’s get right to it. Here is the second thing that I believe is important to share with my sons regarding women: Look for a woman who sees emotional health as wealth. Now, I want you to catch this because when I say «emotional health,» I’m talking about more than emotional intelligence. I don’t want to get into a deep conversation about the distinctions between the two, but there is a distinction.

I think emotional intelligence is where you start; it shouldn’t be where you end. At its core, emotional intelligence is about awareness and management. It’s about being self-aware to enable self-management and being socially aware to facilitate relational management. That’s important—essential, in fact. There’s nothing wrong with that at all.

However, when it comes to a healthy, intimate, and fulfilling relationship, you need someone who is more than just aware. Is awareness important? Yes. But you need someone who is more than merely aware and attempting to manage themselves; you need someone who is pursuing more than intelligence. You need someone who is pursuing emotional health.

The difference between the two is significant. It’s one thing for me to be aware of something; it’s another thing for me to take the steps to address that thing. It’s one thing to develop strategies to manage certain emotions; it’s entirely different to achieve healing and wholeness so that there’s less for me to manage.

For example, if someone has a relational issue with their father and finds themselves triggered, it’s one thing to recognize that I’m triggered. It’s one thing to have a strategy to manage those triggers—that’s emotional intelligence. Emotional health, however, involves doing the work so that I am not triggered as often. It means I do the work so my triggers aren’t as intense and thus easier to manage.

Now, I think it’s really important in the context of a relationship for me to tell my sons, «Listen, man, is she pursuing emotional health?» The truth is, I’m raising my sons not to need a woman for wealth. That doesn’t mean she can’t bring wealth to the table or that finances aren’t important, but it means I’m raising my sons to be the kind of men who don’t base their relationship decisions on what a woman can do for them economically.

If a woman can add economic value, that’s a bonus—a blessing, praise God. But I want them to make relationship decisions based on what a woman does for them emotionally and her ability to meet her emotional needs, which will not exceed her capacity to meet her own.

We live in an era where people are pursuing various things: money, cars, cribs, whatever. I’m not judging that, but I would tell my sons that the quality of your life relationally is not just based on her wealth; it’s based on her emotional health. The health will determine how effectively you communicate. Communication is to a relationship what blood is to a body.

Think about that. Just as blood carries oxygen, it’s more than merely blood; it’s almost like a transportation system. People often think the veins serve as transportation systems, but they’re more like railroad tracks. Blood functions like the train transporting various elements, and that’s what communication does in a relationship.

There are things that cannot be conveyed from your heart to her heart, or from her heart to your heart, without communication. You can’t have healthy communication with someone who isn’t emotionally healthy because their emotional health creates a filter that impacts how they comprehend everything you say. When that filter is present, you might say things like, «I don’t like that,» but what that person will hear is, «You don’t like me.»

When that filter is in place, you can’t improve communication; good communication doesn’t fix an ineffective filter. Does how you say things matter? A hundred percent! Of course, the Bible says to speak truth in love. It also mentions that when you communicate, let your words be sprinkled with grace—similar to how people put salt on food, apply grace to your discussions. Yet at the same time, when that filter is flawed, it doesn’t matter how good the communication is; you can say the right things, and it will still come off the wrong way when there’s a lack of emotional health.

So, I would tell my sons to look for a woman who sees emotional health as wealth. What happens when someone thinks they’re emotionally healthy but is essentially weaponizing their therapy? I thought you were about to say something else. I thought you were going to ask what to do when someone swears they’re emotionally healthy and they’re not.