Emotional Intelligence: Buzz Word Or Vital Skillset

One thing that has always bothered me about the world of personal development is the bad rap it always seems to attract. I find that it is either branded as a world full of airy-fairy nonsense, or run by people who take concepts way too far, turning them into something that might do more harm than good.

I don’t know about you, but I often hear this word 'emotional intelligence' thrown around as being something that we all 'need' to be learning. We do those mandated trainings and pretend to participate, even though we aren’t really listening, and walk away not having learnt very much. The thing that boggles me is, how do we make something so powerful, so boring? How do we take something that can help us, and turn it into another one of those 'get it done quick' trainings? Is it the content itself or the way we deliver it? Either way, I am hoping this offers a new perspective.

Emotional Intelligence

So, what is emotional intelligence? Great question. Ultimately, it is a person's ability to understand and manage their and others' emotions (1). It’s usually broken down into four areas: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social management, and can be measured similarly to IQ in the form of EQ (1).

Now, if you are reading this, I know you are one of two people. Either you hear the word emotion and really connect with it. You understand the role that emotions play in our lives and want to, or already have, found a way to manage them. Alternatively, maybe you're one of those 'I’m not emotional' kind of people. That's cool. But if you are, I challenge you to really question that belief and ask yourself, 'Have I never shown an emotion?’

What are Emotions?

This takes me to an interesting place. What are emotions? What does it mean to be emotional? Now in reality, we may all have different definitions of what these words mean, so I wanted to share an interesting perspective that I heard from ex-monk Matthew Zoltan. He described emotions as what we feel within our bodies as a result of the release of hormones and chemicals. Pretty dry, right? Feelings, on the other hand, are the result of when we combine those emotions with the thoughts and stories that we tell ourselves when we feel them. You feel an emotion in your body, tell yourself a story about that emotion, and then say something like 'I feel sad or happy or stressed,' whatever it may be. And so yes, we all have emotions, but we can influence what we feel, if we learn to manage our thoughts.

Defense Mechanisms

One thing that I really wanted to touch on are defense mechanisms. It is common for people to develop unhealthy habits around how to manage and deal with emotions. Maybe sometimes doing things that you believe are 'emotionally intelligent', but in reality, may actually be quite the opposite. For example, suppressing emotions is a common one.

Many of us have been raised with an unconscious belief that 'emotions are bad and vulnerability is weak'. I just want to debunk that. We all have emotions and it is incredibly important that we learn to effectively deal with them. The more we explore the mind-body connection, the more we understand how emotions can influence our health and potentially lead to lasting physiological changes. This is why it is so valuable for us to understand defense mechanisms.

What is a defense mechanism? Anna Freud defines it as an unconscious resource used to decrease our internal stress (2). Defense mechanisms are designed to lower our internal conflict and ultimately keep us safe. I am sure you have heard of some of the common ones; avoidance, denial, humor, acting out, regression, all of those sorts of things. Only I wanted to highlight some of the less common ones, that I believe are adopted by a whole lot of people:

Repression - subconsciously blocking ideas or impulses that are undesirable. For example, forgetting a traumatic event from the past.

Compensation - focusing on achievement in one area of life in order to distract attention away from inadequacy or fear of inadequacy in another area of life. For example, investing a lot of time and energy into health and fitness because of underperformance at work.

Displacement - transferring emotional burden or an emotional reaction from one thing to another. For example, lashing out at a loved one after a long and stressful day at work.

Intellectualization - excessive thinking or overanalyzing situations in order to increase the distance from one's emotions. For example, spending significant time and energy researching a disease after diagnosis, rather than sitting in the emotion.

Suppression - consciously choosing to block ideas or impulses that are undesirable. Similar to repression, only it involved a conscious effort. For example, yelling at yourself to stop whenever a negative thought comes to mind.

I have definitely been guilty of all of these, and some of them I didn't even realise I was doing. The incredible thing is, now that I have this awareness, I can begin to change and manage my emotions more effectively. Like I always say, knowledge and self awareness are the first steps to change. So as you read this, you now have the power to take it and decide if change is the next step.

Why Is This Important?

I am sure it is clear already, but if not, I will make it clear now. Yes, there is a lot of hype around emotional intelligence, but there is a reason why. Not only does it allow you to be a more effective communicator, stronger leader, and help you to create more meaningful relationships, but it is also essential for your mental and physical health.

Mind-body connection is a relatively new concept that is being explored and better understood each day. Biochemistry already explains how emotions are tied to your nervous, endocrine, immune, and digestive systems (3). Fear raises cortisol, stress increases blood pressure. It even pops up in the world of psychology, where there is a process called conversion such that a person reduces their psychological stress through converting it into physical suffering (2). So, healthy management of your emotions doesn’t just become an essential part of managing relationships, but also essential part of managing yourself. If you learn to identify defense mechanisms, manage your emotions, and therefore your behaviour, then you can show up as a better version of yourself everyday.

So, What Should We Do?

Reappraisal. I have never used this word in this context before, but it makes sense. Temporarily suppress your feelings, to then process them later on. The important thing to remember is that you must revisit them later, if not, it becomes suppression.

We aren’t always in the most convenient circumstances to express, deal, or address our emotions, and so sometimes it might be best to deal with them later on. Whenever an emotion pops up, I like to say to myself 'thank you for bringing this up, I feel you but now isn’t the time and I promise you, I will come back to you later.' I always keep that promise because the last thing that I want to do is break a promise with myself. And when the time comes to address the emotion, give it space. Just feel it for a bit, and eventually, it will pass. Then, you will have the opportunity to think about where it is coming from and decide what action you want to take. Is it something that you are okay living with? Or is it time to make a change?

(1) Mental Health America (2023).?What is emotional intelligence and how does it apply to the workplace??[online] Mental Health America. Available at: https://mhanational.org/what-emotional-intelligence-and-how-does-it-apply-workplace#:~:text=Emotional%20Intelligence%20(EI)%20is%20the .

(2) Bailey, R. and Pico, J. (2022).?Defense Mechanisms. [online] PubMed. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK559106/#:~:text=Suppression%3A%20Consciously%20choosing%20to%20block .

(3) Elsig, C.M. (2022).?The dangers of suppressing emotions. [online] The CALDA Clinic. Available at: https://caldaclinic.com/dangers-of-suppressing-emotions/ .