What is emotional intelligence or EQ? Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.
SELF AWARENESS
As we know that all of us face stress and anxiety in all stages of life. Its very normal phenomenon but the way people differ is how to respond to this stress and anxiety.
Managing stress is just the first step to building emotional intelligence. The science of attachment indicates that your current emotional experience is likely a reflection of your early life experience. Your ability to manage core feelings such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy often depends on the quality and consistency of your early life emotional experiences. If your primary caretaker as an infant understood and valued your emotions, it's likely your emotions have become valuable assets in adult life. But, if your emotional experiences as an infant were confusing, threatening or painful, it's likely you've tried to distance yourself from your emotions.
But being able to connect to your emotions—having a moment-to-moment connection with your changing emotional experience—is the key to understanding how emotion influences your thoughts and actions.
Do you experience feelings that flow, encountering one emotion after another as your experiences change from moment to moment?
Are your emotions accompanied by physical sensations that you experience in places like your stomach, throat, or chest?
Do you experience individual feelings and emotions, such as anger, sadness, fear, and joy, each of which is evident in subtle facial expressions?
Can you experience intense feelings that are strong enough to capture both your attention and that of others?
Do you pay attention to your emotions? Do they factor into your decision making?
If any of these experiences are unfamiliar, you may have “turned down” or “turned off” your emotions. In order to build EQ—and become emotionally healthy—you must reconnect to your core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them. You can achieve this through the practice of mindfulness.
Keyskill # 1: Mindful Breathing Meditation
Mindfulness is the practice of purposely focusing your attention on the present moment—and without judgment. The cultivation of mindfulness has roots in Buddhism, but most religions include some type of similar prayer or meditation technique. Mindfulness helps shift your preoccupation with thought toward an appreciation of the moment, your physical and emotional sensations, and brings a larger perspective on life. Mindfulness calms and focuses you, making you more self-aware in the process.
KeySkill # 2: Developing emotional awareness
It's important that you learn how to manage stress first, so you'll feel more comfortable reconnecting to strong or unpleasant emotions and changing how you experience and respond to your feelings. You can develop your emotional awareness by using HelpGuide's free Emotional Intelligence Toolkit.
KEY SKILL # 3 Social awareness
Social awareness enables you to recognize and interpret the mainly nonverbal cues others are constantly using to communicate with you. These cues let you know how others are really feeling, how their emotional state is changing from moment to moment, and what's truly important to them.
When groups of people send out similar nonverbal cues, you're able to read and understand the power dynamics and shared emotional experiences of the group. In short, you're empathetic and socially comfortable.
KEY SKILL # 3 : Mindfulness is an ally of emotional and social awareness
To build social awareness, you need to recognize the importance of mindfulness in the social process. After all, you can't pick up on subtle nonverbal cues when you're in your own head, thinking about other things, or simply zoning out on your phone. Social awareness requires your presence in the moment. While many of us pride ourselves on an ability to multitask, this means that you'll miss the subtle emotional shifts taking place in other people that help you fully understand them.
You are actually more likely to further your social goals by setting other thoughts aside and focusing on the interaction itself.
Following the flow of another person's emotional responses is a give-and-take process that requires you to also pay attention to the changes in your own emotional experience.
Paying attention to others doesn't diminish your own self-awareness. By investing the time and effort to really pay attention to others, you'll actually gain insight into your own emotional state as well as your values and beliefs. For example, if you feel discomfort hearing others express certain views, you'll have learned something important about yourself.
Working well with others is a process that begins with emotional awareness and your ability to recognize and understand what other people are experiencing. Once emotional awareness is in play, you can effectively develop additional social/emotional skills that will make your relationships more effective, fruitful, and fulfilling.
Become aware of how effectively you use nonverbal communication. It's impossible to avoid sending nonverbal messages to others about what you think and feel. The many muscles in the face, especially those around the eyes, nose, mouth and forehead, help you to wordlessly convey your own emotions as well as read other peoples' emotional intent. The emotional part of your brain is always on—and even if you ignore its messages—others won't. Recognizing the nonverbal messages that you send to others can play a huge part in improving your relationships.
Key skill # 5: Use humor and play to relieve stress.
Humor, laughter and play are natural antidotes to stress. They lessen your burdens and help you keep things in perspective. Laughter brings your nervous system into balance, reducing stress, calming you down, sharpening your mind and making you more empathic.
Learn to see conflict as an opportunity to grow closer to others. Conflict and disagreements are inevitable in human relationships. Two people can't possibly have the same needs, opinions, and expectations at all times. However, that needn't be a bad thing. Resolving conflict in healthy, constructive ways can strengthen trust between people. When conflict isn't perceived as threatening or punishing, it fosters freedom, creativity, and safety in relationships.
HOW TO DEVELOP EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AT EARLY AGE Label Your Child’s Emotions
Kids need to know how to recognize how they’re feeling. You can help your child by putting a name to her emotions—at least the emotion you suspect your child is feeling.
Emotional words such as “angry,” “upset,” “shy” and “painful” can all build a vocabulary to express feelings. Don’t forget to share the words for positive emotions, too, such as “joy,” “excited,” “thrilled” and “hopeful.”
Model Appropriate Ways to Express Feelings
Kids need to know how to express their emotions in a socially appropriate way. So, while saying, “My feelings are hurt,” or drawing a picture of a sad face could be helpful, screaming and throwing things aren’t OK.
The best way to teach your child how to express feelings is by modeling these skills yourself.
Develop Problem-Solving Skills
Part of building emotional intelligence involves learning how to solve problems. After the feelings have been labeled and addressed, it’s time to work through how to fix the problem itself.
Perhaps your child is angry that their sister keeps interrupting them while they're playing a video game. Help them identify at least five ways they might solve this problem. Solutions don’t have to be good ideas. Initially, the goal is to just brainstorm ideas.
Make Emotional Intelligence an Ongoing Goal
No matter how emotionally intelligent your child seems, there is always room for improvement. And there are likely to be some ups and downs throughout childhood and adolescence. As they grow older, they're likely to face obstacles that will challenge their skills. So, make it a goal to incorporate skill-building into your everyday life. When your child is young, talk about feelings every day.
Talk about the emotions characters in books or in movies might be feeling. Discuss better ways problems might have been solved or strategies characters could use to treat others with respect.
As your child grows older, talk about real-life situations—whether it’s things they're encountering in their daily life or it’s a problem you’re reading about in the news. Make it an ongoing conversation.
Show Empathy
When your child is upset—especially when their emotions seem a bit on the dramatic side—it can be tempting to minimize how they're feeling. But dismissive comments will teach your child that the way they're feeling is wrong.
A better approach is to validate their feelings and show empathy—even if you don’t understand why they're so upset. If your child is crying because you told them they can’t go to the park until they clean their room, say something like, “I feel upset when I don’t get to do what I want too. It’s hard sometimes to keep working when I don’t want to.”
When your child sees that you understand how they're feeling on the inside, they’ll feel less compelled to show you how they're feeling through their behavior. So, rather than scream and cry to show you they're angry, they’ll feel better when you’ve made it clear that you already understand they're upset.
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