Emotional Intelligence? Do you Have it?

Let’s talk about your emotions for a few minutes. In fact, how are you feeling right now as you read this post? Are you experiencing fear, anger, disgust, sadness, happiness, or surprise? Why did I mention only a few options? Because according to experts, these are the most often used words to describe how we feel. We use words like happy as an umbrella term for any kind of positive feeling and sad or angry for literally anything negative. But what about more descriptive terms like courageous, hopeful, or inspired? Or empty, abandoned, and inferior?

Think about how children express their emotions. They either express their emotions in the most simplistic forms of happiness, sadness, anger, etc., or, when the emotion becomes more complicated, they may intuitively understand that the emotion runs deeper than they can describe and will consequently struggle to put the right words to it.

At first thought, this might not seem like that big of a deal. However, how we express our emotions greatly impacts our mental health than we might realize. Much of our mental health depends on the way we express and process the myriad of emotions we experience on any given day. Misplacing those emotions can damage relationships, our families, the workplace, school, and ultimately our own mental well-being.

So naturally, a hallmark of many of our programs and services at RemedyLIVE is to help you name and process emotions in a healthy and successful way. But that can be difficult when we limit our vocabulary to describe how we feel, making it even more challenging to navigate and process emotion to move to the next step. So, where do we start?

Name It And Claim It.

First, emotional intelligence begins with naming and embracing the emotion by using a larger and more descriptive vocabulary. Ask yourself and determine the sensation you are experiencing and do it without judgment or minimizing it, explaining it away, giving excuses, or taking your emotions out on anyone. Just simply notice what it is that you’re experiencing.

Now try to figure out what emotion is connected to that sensation. See the Feeling Wheel below if you need help expanding your vocabulary and options. When you look at the wheel, you’ll probably notice what I did—there are so many more options than I thought there would be.

By identifying and naming our emotions, we can more quickly regulate our emotions and get to a more stable emotional state. These emotional moments are just like a wave. You are ignoring the emotion but allow them to wash over you without knocking you off your feet. They might come fast and furious and be overwhelming at the moment. But the moment will pass, and things will return to calm. Emotions can rise with intensity and then fall, and simply recognizing what is happening will provide a much easier path to managing those emotions.

Click Here to Learn More About Managing Emotions

Study Your Emotions

Second, be curious about your emotions. When we are curious, we can connect the part of our brain that is more reactive with the part that is more critical and rational—the part we use to problem-solve. When those two unite, we get to a higher level of thinking. If you’re angry or anxious, take a minute to be curious about why you feel that way. What is it connected to? What happening around me that could be causing these feelings? When we do this, we can find points of grounding.

Click Here to Learn Grounding Techniques for Stress and Anxiety

Maybe those emotions make sense, given your current situation. Perhaps those feelings are misplaced, and gathering more information can change your perspective. Maybe the circumstance is prompting you to put some appropriate boundaries.

Now you are set up to process those emotions successfully.