Emotional intelligence is so important when it comes to navigating your own emotions as well as the emotions of others. Through being emotionally intelligent, we are able to not only perceive emotions but also interpret and control them too.
In doing so, we are able to evaluate the emotions in question and respond appropriately. Perception of emotions may involve focusing on non-verbal cues from yourself or others. However, perception of emotions can only be as useful as your understanding of them. Someone may be expressing elements that could be associated with multiple emotions.
For example, is the increased heart rate related to anxiety or excitement? And finally, managing our own and the emotions of others is crucial. Responding appropriately and in a controlled manner is emotional intelligence at the highest level.
Understanding the Components of Emotions
To develop emotional intelligence, it’s important that we first learn about a crucial part to that term: the actual emotions. As one of the most distinguishing features of humans, our emotions can (surprisingly) have 3 different components: Thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
The Brain Behind Emotions: The Amygdala
Our emotional responses originate in the area of the brain called the amygdala. And let me tell ya, the way it responds to things: SIMPLE AND BASIC. It’s essentially there to enable you to quickly respond to situations with instinct and, therefore, without much time to truly evaluate the situation using logic. After all, it is designed to protect us and quite frankly, rational thinking and evaluation takes way too much time when we’re handling potentially dangerous situations!
Recognizing Thoughts, Feelings, and Behaviors
You can start understanding your emotions by becoming aware of your thoughts and behaviors during them.
What are you thinking about and what are you doing as a result?
Remember: there is no order to how these may occur. A behavior (going to an interview) may trigger a feeling (anxiousness), which triggers a thought (“Am I really good enough for this job?”). OR a thought (I wonder what my ex is doing…) could trigger a feeling (anger, resentment) that then causes you to behave (badmouth them to your friends) in a certain way.
A superb tool for starting to understand your emotions is to disentangle the moments in which they occur. Meaning: Identifying the specific situations in which you notice certain emotions and behaviors and practice more appropriate responses. Cue “emotional management”!
The more you learn to pause, reflect, and respond (instead of react), the more in control you’ll feel. Not just of your emotions, but of your choices too. Emotional intelligence isn’t about suppressing how you feel, it’s actually about learning how to use those feelings as information, not instruction.
