EMOTIONAL VERSUS EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT The difference between being conscious of emotions, and being at their mercy

by Kieran Flanagan @ThinkKieranF @TheBehaviourRpt #SelfAwareness #Communication #Leadership

I have a friend, who I won’t name, who thinks of themselves as being incredibly emotionally intelligent and often reminds myself and others of just how emotionally intelligent they are. You may have someone similar in your life. However, my experience with this person suggests that, rather than being emotionally intelligent, they are highly emotional, easily triggered and prone to emotional outbursts. In other words, they are deeply emotional, but not necessarily in control of the emotions they are experiencing.

So, I’d like to explore a distinction between being “emotional,” and being “emotionally intelligent.”

For the purpose of this article, I’m going to loosely define emotional intelligence as being emotionally conscious (in other words, having an awareness of you own emotional life and that of the people around you), and having a capacity for emotional regulation. For clarity, in terms of emotional regulation, I don’t mean being numb or impassive to your emotions or those being expressed around you, but rather, choosing your emotional response to the physical and psychological feelings and environment, that have triggered the emotions you feel.

So how do we increase our emotional intelligence, particularly in moments of stress, duress or time pressure?

The power of meaning

One of the most important things we learn from philosophies like Stoicism and therapeutic interventions like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, is that there is a useful distinction to be made between our experiences and the meaning we attach to those experience. For instance, we might worry that a delayed response to a text message means, “They don’t love us,” or “They feel offended.” However, it’s entirely possible that they’re really busy or simply disorganised. The world is divided into two people - those with no unread messages and those with thousands - you know who you are.

So, consider if the thing you, or they, are emotional about, is actually what you or they are emotional about?

In other words, are you filtering the current experience you are having through historic trauma, your own cognitive biases, values that you inherited versus those you chose for yourself, or the expectations set by the people you are with or the context or role you find yourself in?

One of the keys to this clarity, is to watch your language.

The power of language

One of the things that makes emotions so powerful, and often hard to read, is that they can drive us towards extremities of meaning. Much of this can come from the language we use to describe our emotions. For example, are you really furious or “ropable?” Or, are you inconvenienced and annoyed. Now, this may seem like a very simple distinction, but in moments of upset and distress - not so much.

Often times, when we’re working with leaders and teams, people will share that they don’t think they’re very emotional. What they mean is, they’re not into all of the “soft” stuff they’re supposed to deliver as a leader or manager. However, often times their teams will reveal that they actually have a narrow emotional palette, which typically ranges from dismissive or impatient to anger and even rage.

The power of clarity

Some years ago, I saw a meme on instagram of a young child at a party whose emotions shifted rapidly from laughter to tears to confusion to distress, until they ultimately cried out, “I don’t know what I’m feeling!” Now, this was very much framed as something that was funny, or at least entertaining, but I’m sure many of us have had similar feelings or episodes in the past, and it certainly doesn’t feel entertaining or funny!

Emotions and their associated feelings, can be confusing because they actually do bypass our logic and rational senses. They can also feel a lot like the evolutionary responses we have to danger, fear and threat. In other words, we feel visceral physical responses that may, or may not, have anything to do with the situation or issue that we’re currently faced with.

One of the reasons that deep breaths or going for a contemplative walk can be useful when we are feeling emotional distress or stress, is that it creates space, time and distance from what we’re feeling so that we can build clarity around the emotions or environmental factors driving those decisions.

Space allows us to seperate ourselves from the moment and environment of the triggering event or incident, time allows our mind time to process and rationalise what we’re actually feeling and why, and distance gives us the opportunity to view our problems from another perspective.

The power of questions

One of the most critical tools for providing clarity around our emotional regulation is questions. Questions have an interesting affect on the human brain.?

For instance, if I tell you to do something in the form of a statement, you might respond positively, or negatively or simply ignore me. However, if I ask you a question, it’s actually difficult to stop your brain from searching for or generating answers.?

Consider the following:

• ?What’s that smell?
• ?Where did I leave my keys?
• ?Am I cold or not?

Notice what happens in your mind as you ask yourself these questions, then consider what questions might help you regulate your emotional responses:

• ?What is the positive of this event?
• ?How might this serve me in the future?
• ?Is this just proof that I actually care about this?

My suggestion is that you create your own questions (whilst in a non-emotional state), that you think might serve you in your moments of emotional distress.

The power of decision

There’s a famous maxim that states, “All of the pain… is on this side of the decision.”

Now, clearly this is hyperbole, but the sentiment in the statement holds a lot of truth. More importantly, it’s actually rather a useful filter on the world.

Vacillation and overthinking cost us peace of mind, sleep and an ability to enjoy the moment we’re actually experiencing.

Often times, indecision is not motivated by a lack of clarity, but rather as an avoidance of pain - which can be ours, or pain we might cause someone else if we over-index on the empathy scale.

However, diminishing emotions with a rational process of questioning can actually help us move past procrastination and avoidance. When we’re clear and committed, procrastination is rare. Think about something that you love doing and whether you overthink or procrastinate about it, or whether you instead act with clarity and passion.

So what questions might you ask around decisions? Let’s aim for clarity and positivity.

• Why am I avoiding this decision?
• Who am I afraid of hurting?
• How might this decision serve them? If not now, then eventually?
• What is the first step I need to take to make this decision?
• What do I really feel about this decision? In other words, if you were to leave this decision to a coin toss, consider how you would really feel if one or another option turned up? This can be really useful, as we often know the answer to our question, we’re just afraid of the negative consequences?
• What are the negative consequences if I don’t make this decision? What happens if I let this moment pass?

True emotional intelligence isn’t about being emotional or emotive, nor is it about swallowing your emotions or denying them, it about learning to read your emotions and those of the people around you, to understand the feedback they are providing for you and then, to chose your response and make a powerful decision accordingly.

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