Describing Emotional Intelligence
October 27, 2020
Emotional Intelligence ( Podcasts Serie )
Episode #1: What is Emotional Intelligence
Hi everyone, This is Ludemia ( aka Mia ) and welcome to Heart-Mind Equation. Today, we are starting a new Podcast series, on Emotional Intelligence.
This first episode is generally based on what is Emotional Intelligence. Especially about the fact that those emotions are used to preserve our physical and psychological survival mode. We can summarize the functions of emotions into several categories. But for me, the major ones are: 1) Promoting survival, 2) signaling potential threats, 3) coordinating adaptive behaviors, and 4) a Source of motivation and inspiration. Simply, they are also tools that our mind uses for personal and social awareness.
Emotional Intelligence is knowing what our emotions are trying to tell us, how they affect us and the people around us. Emotional Intelligence is also the ability to read other people’s states of being. It is the capacity to empathize with someone’s feelings or a group of people, according to the context those feelings are expressed. It is making the effort to understand, before being understood.
Emotional Intelligence is a human skill set that includes: Personal and social awareness, emotional self-regulation, and relationship management. On a personal level, we can even describe it as the balance between the rational and the emotional, where we can manage our feelings, our thoughts, and our behaviors, in response to our environment.
The first thing to identify as part of Emotional Intelligence is personal awareness.
One of the best ways to be self-aware is to practice Mindfulness. This a way to focus on what’s going on inside of us and around us, in the present moment.
It helps us to engage our full attention to, our intentions, our motives, our thoughts, and especially, to our feelings. When we are mindful, it becomes more difficult for our thoughts to be just wandering around, as we are directing them in a place and time. Where our focus goes, energy flows. Indeed, our emotions are energy in motion.
Self-awareness is the capacity to identify our feeling and naming it for what it is, to know what it is trying to tell us. Not labeling it as good or bad. Simply identifying it.
In the same way, many of us have not learned how to properly analyze our own emotions,…much less, understand them.
Practicing mindfulness makes it much easier for us to know what triggers us, and also what comforts us, when experiencing an overwhelming emotion, etc.
To be self-aware, also means to pay to our intuitions, to our gut feelings, and to the whispers coming from our hearts. This is when we know through our feelings and not from our rational reasoning. It’s like knowing something, without knowing how we know.
Neuroscience has recently proven that we have, in our gut and our heart, sensory neurites, similar to the neuro cells present in our brain, that are used as receptors of information. It is to say that reasoning is not exclusive to the brain (IQ).
Every energy center of the body has its own intelligence and also its own physical sensations to express emotions.
When those emotions don’t come from a thought we have, we describe it as intuition. As I previously said in one of my previous podcasts: If prayer is us talking to God, our intuition is God talking to us. Or if you prefer, it is the Universe, Matrix, it is the Vortex, or Devine Consciousness, whispering to us.
Of course, we all know that we should be promoting and encouraging our positive emotions ( such as joy and happiness).
But unfortunately, a lot of our emotions come from a place of fear, related to some conditioning we were submitted to, growing up. Unless I know some of mine are!
This brings us to the second aspect of Emotional Intelligence: The self-regulation of our emotions. If personal awareness is the thermometer, our emotional regulation is the thermostat.
We demonstrate optimal self-regulation when we respond to our emotions effectively, instead of reacting to a negative thought we have.
Generally, by controlling the thought, we can control the emotion. Since both of them, thought and emotion are co-dependent.
When we are experiencing positive feelings, we don’t feel the necessity to regulate those feelings. On the other hand, it’s another story, when we are experiencing negative emotions.
Anger, Anxiety, Fear, and Sadness are the emotions that we need to regulate, for a balanced life. As strong as we are feeling those emotions, as strong, they want to communicate to us a need we have that wasn’t met.
Severe anxiety, rage, and anger are considered the most devastating emotions when they are not channeled properly. One thing we recommend when these emotions are overtaking our self-control is to calm ourselves down by using deep belly breathing.
That breathing technic is to slowly inhale from your nose, while contracting your abdomen and inflating your chest, for 3 to 5 seconds. Hold the breath for 3 to 5 seconds and exhale through your mouth for 3 to 8 seconds. For that technique to be more effective, we should repeat a few cycles… until we actually feel calmer.
There is actually a scientific theory that supports this calming method. That breathing technique influences our parasympathetic nervous system which is used to regulate our emotions, by slowing down the brain’s activity pace, helping us to become calmer. We are going to discuss the deeper details, the physiology of that belly breathing, in another episode of that Emotional Intelligence podcast series.
When we feel negative emotions, there are many coping strategies we can use. They also help us to regulate our emotions.
For example, it helps a lot, to have someone we trust, to comfy into, or share our emotions with. Sometimes, we just need to be listened to… not necessarily receiving advice.
Another suggestion can also be, the use of a journal, to write down our feelings and emotions about a situation, a person or an event, or sometimes, about ourselves. Like we say, writing is the best way to talk without the fear of getting interrupted by someone. It also helps us release the overwhelming or negative emotion, without lashing out at someone, or turning towards destructive behaviors.
When we feel powerless at understanding, changing, or regulating a strong emotion we have, we can always meditate or silence our thoughts to listen to our inner voice and find answers inside our hearts. Sometimes, silence speaks louder than any voice.
If any of our strong negative emotions are threatening our mental health, it is recommended to seek help from a professional. When external help is not enough, we can also request Devine assistance to help us, whether or not we believe that this Higher Power lies inside or outside of us.
The third aspect of Emotional Intelligence is defined by our social skills. It is knowing what to say or do, at the right time, when interacting with somebody, especially in delicate situations.
Those social skills can be improved by practice. As social skills, we can list a few, such as: encouraging people, sharing ( material experience, knowledge, advice ), active listening and paraphrasing the information to validate our understanding of it, communicating clearly, resolving conflicts, etc.
Another skill set that can be used, as per social awareness is the ability to read non-verbal signals through body language (the tone of voice, the posture, the facial expressions, the way someone walks, etc.
Most of the time, those signals give us more information about the way someone is feeling than by what he-she says, We all know that the body doesn’t lie … especially, the eyes (considered as the mirrors of the soul, we say ).
Indeed, Social Awareness ( which is another component of Emotional Intelligence ) is deeply influenced by empathy.
Empathy is the 4th element required to demonstrate Emotional Intelligence. What is empathy? It is the ability to understand and share someone else’s feelings.
It’s not enough to demonstrate a lot of social skills. to define how ‘’ people aware ‘’ we are. Empathy is the core of any good relationship. You know, there is a famous quote that says: ‘’ Noone cares how much you know until they know how much you care ‘’.
Unfortunately, one of the biggest challenges regarding emotional intelligence today is how to be more empathic than judgemental.
Generally, what we are judging, is what seems to be different from our own guidelines. You see, it is difficult to understand, that it is the difference that is the reference from where empathy really begins.
It happens sometimes though, that this other person’s behavior, that we are judging is only a reflection of our own emotional issue.
Nichola L. Stephenson once said,: ‘’Every time you judge someone, you reveal a part of yourself that needs healing.
IN CONCLUSION
Emotional Intelligence is a human skill set that includes a combination of 4 components, such as:
Personal awareness
Self-management via Emotional Regulation
Social awareness
Relationship management via Empathy
In an Online course on Emotional Intelligence, directed by a group of Yael University professors, they have defined Emotional Intelligence by using an acronym. The acronym is the word: R-U-L-E-R.
R = Recognizing emotions in self and others
U = Understanding the causes and consequences of emotions
L = Labeling or naming the emotions accurately
E = Expressing emotions appropriately
R = Regulating emotions effectively.
So, if that episode was helpful for you to understand Emotional Intelligence better, feel free to give me a thumbs-up or leave a comment below.
Stay tuned, and get a notification for part 2 of my series on Emotional Intelligence.
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