The Future of Emotional Intelligence: A New Wave of Understanding 2024

The Future of Emotional Intelligence: A New Wave of Understanding 2024

by Matthew Larsen Morava

In support of Training and Development Program: NextGEN IQ 2024

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Introduction

Can Emotional Intelligence even be taught? It's a question I'm often asked and my response is always something like: you're already an expert.

All humans are born with an innate emotional intelligence, for how else would you attach to your mother? Babies begin to read basic emotions (anger, sadness, surprise, fear, joy) starting at six months. We begin to laugh spontaneously at four months and by six months most emotions are felt.

By the time we turn four years of age we develop empathy and can read other's emotional states and by the time we turn fifteen we can read emotional states, if our eyes are good, up to a half mile away.

We are gifted emotional reading and feeling beings.

So what happens then?

Well socialization plays a big role in determining (nurture versus nature) in how we read emotions. I joke with students that by the time you graduated high school you went to both Fight Club (learned about anger, negotiation, conflict) and a School of Seduction. Seduction being the strategies you deploy to get something you want but can't simply take from another, so navigating power-equivalency issues.

In addition to family, we have a surrounding culture and state that tells us what's okay and not when it comes to emotions so whatever natural emotional intelligence we have it's often overridden through training and development.?

When you live in a community of strangers it's often common you leave people alone regardless of their emotional state; like would you approach a stranger who was in a rage? How about a stranger who was crying or afraid??

In the United States we're taught to mistrust emotions and people feeling emotions and generally proscribe to a point of view that emotions are dangerous and disruptive, which they can be, and that it's best to leave them to the professionals.?

And it's in therapy that most people work to get reacquainted with their emotional life.

Any emotional intelligence program is really a rediscovery, getting in touch with your innate talents, practicing unused muscles, learning to open yourself up to your intuitions, having the courage to feel again.

The challenge comes in that emotions themselves can be confusing, we feel anger but we cry, we're scared so we lash out in anger, we're happy but then suddenly angry or fearful.

One of the reasons why we mistrust emotion is because it often seems irrational, the emotion doesn't match the reality, another is because emotions are often a product of what we think is going on not actual reality.

Our beliefs direct our behaviors and our behaviors our actions and the results of that impact our emotional state and for many their negative beliefs and behaviors drive a continued negative state of emotions.

To the point that many would like to bypass (spiritual bypassing) negative emotional states, as exemplified by rankings like this where peace is seemingly a "better" state (it's higher on the graph) than say guilt even though guilt can be a very productive emotion in terms of human growth and development.

Now to be fair Hawkins' chart is simply showing a range of energetic frequencies but the visual message is clear... better to be at Ultimate Consciousness than down suffering.

Seems to be a big market these days for those hawking the "end of suffering" but the focus should be on deepening our understanding of emotions, building our emotional intelligence, increasing our discernment between emotional states we are manufacturing versus emotions being the wonderful guides they are in helping of us meet the challenges of the day.

The following is a set of charts that demonstrate this phenomena of emotional states caused by avoidance or belief systems of even fear that doesn't allow us to be with and process emotions real time and thus they drop into "Secondary" emotions which are once removed from the actual emotion connected to reality.

See if you can spot yourself in this...

Emotional Intelligence: ANGER and SECONDARY SADNESS

Emotions are like dance partners as sadness is often a dancer partner for anger. It’s not unusual for clients to cry when angry, usually as a sign that the anger has lost its power to make positive change in a person's life.

There are legit reasons to get angry: when someone oversteps a line with you, when you see injustice or unfairness in the world, when you experience insecurity and neediness within… each are a call to action.

To fix the problem. To confront others. To step up within.

What happens when we turn from our anger and avoid finding a solution and/or stuff it down?

Sadness… in the form of Neggy-Sobby behavior (brat behavior), lost in hopelessness and helplessness, self-pity, feelings or irrelevancy, or “trumpeting like a wounded swan” full of complaint and blame.

The path out is to trace that sadness back to anger, back to the root cause and confront it with courage.

As leaders practicing emotional intelligence we’re often called on to confront secondary sadness and help a colleague or direct-report trace that sadness back to anger, then to step into their anger with courage, and last come up with a good plan for confrontation and solution.

Anger is a difficult emotion for many as we are taught to avoid conflict and seek only win-win solutions which can be correct but more often than not anger turns into avoidant and supplicant behaviors for the sake of harmony at the cost of our integrity.

QUESTIONS:

How well do you do with anger?

How well do you do with another’s anger?

Is there a kind of anger you shy from? Like women’s anger, people in authority, men’s anger, children’s anger?

How well do you do in recognizing secondary sadness? Sadness that isn’t driven by loss but anger?

Can you begin to imagine growing your emotional intelligence to the point that you could help someone navigate their secondary sadness back to anger towards confrontation and a solution?

Can you do that for yourself?

When was the last time you felt hopeless, helpless, self-pity, or wounded?

Can you trace it back to anger? Back to root cause?

What might have been a better way to deal with the situation looking back?

Isn’t anger often wonderful as it speaks to our values?

Can you see the positive side of anger?

Emotional Intelligence: SADNESS and SECONDARY ANGER

It’s okay to feel sad. To cry. I often ask men when was the last time they cried and the answers vary: some within the past week, some months, some years, and a few not since they were boys.

Men are deeply emotional. You ever watch/play a high stakes game (video, sports, gambling) with men and feel the emotional intensity? Anger is permissible, joy, even fear to some extent but sadness is the one emotion that men aren’t allowed to feel. It’s considered weak, soft, “gay,” or some other derogatory term and yet life can be crushingly sad.

You think about the losses we can experience from the loss of a parent or child, to divorce, to losing a job, to physical and mental setbacks to even how you feel when your team loses a big game… it’s all legit. Not to mention the sadness we feel when hit with shame (rejection, abandonment, betrayal, humiliation) which can be overwhelming.

Why do men struggle with sadness and women with anger?

In part because of the genderization of the emotions themselves (anger is masculine, crying is feminine) but also because they’re both so powerful in the body. When you’re in a full rage you can feel possessed, out of control, powerful and that can make women uncomfortable and when you’re in the deepest of sadness it can bring you to your knees, curl up in bed, racked with sadness, vulnerable but even more than that tears come out, they are visible, men live in terror of being shamed at the sight of tears.

Men will swallow sadness to the point that tears forget how to work.

It’s not till they’re older, in their fifties and sixties when the testosterone has mellowed enough that they start crying unexpectedly at the National Anthem or some beer commercial.

When I work with men and sadness I try to normalize sadness, take it away from shame, degenderize it, and let them know that small steps, baby steps, is okay… it’s enough sometimes just to know you’re feeling sad without the proof of tears.

For men and women when they don’t feel sadness they’ll flip into secondary anger and that’s not a good place to be emotionally as it is full of feelings of revenge, cruelty and sadism, craving and addiction, the desire to armor up and be untouchable to feelings of contempt which is shame turned outward.

Secondary anger is an ask to be hurt, hurt so bad you’ll finally give yourself permission to feel sad. The way to disrupt this is to feel the sadness at the start before it drops into shenpa and secondary anger.

I have a client who “practices sadness” by watching sad movies like “The Green Mile” and “Brian’s Song” and “Saving Private Ryan” “Shawshank Redemption” as that helps remind him what sadness looks and feels like.

Women sometimes aren’t allowed to be sad as it scares the men and children around them, scares their coworkers and friends, and so they too learn to stuff it down until in turns into secondary anger.

I’ve met more than a few women armored up and seeking revenge.

For women it seems more about finding a good friend, someone who is willing to really listen and bear sacred witness to their story and hold space for their feelings so they can let it out.

Sometimes you have to work through a lot of secondary anger to get to the sadness.

It’s important to remember for both men and women that you can’t have sadness without love first.

“Grief and praise are one and the same thing. Grief is a praise of life. You will not feel the loss of anything unless you are absolutely in love with it. Grief is not about when you don’t get what you want. Grief is when you lose what you love. And that’s two different things. And so praise is way to give life to things for having been given the love to feel the loss.” Martín Prechtel

First there is love, then there is loss.

QUESTIONS:

How well do you do with sadness?

How well do you do with another’s sadness?

Is there a kind of sadness you shy from? Like a woman's sadness, people who are dependent upon you, men’s sadness, children’s sadness?

How well do you do in recognizing secondary anger? Anger that is driven by the supression of sadness?

Can you begin to imagine growing your emotional intelligence to the point that you could help someone navigate their secondary anger back towards sadness and grief?

Can you do that for yourself?

When was the last time you felt the desire for revenge, sadism, craving, contempt or the desire to protect yourself from getting hurt?

Can you trace it back to sadness? Back to root cause?

What might have been a better way to deal with the situation looking back?

Isn’t sadness often wonderful as it speaks to our deepest love?

Can you see the positive side of sadness?

Emotional Intelligence: FEAR and SECONDARY HAPPINESS

It has been said we are on a little blue ball traveling around the sun at 10,000 miles an hour that itself rests in a universe traveling at an astounding 1.3 million miles per hour out from the center of the Big Bang. Where we are today is far away in time and space from where we were yesterday.

Buddhist teachers will state that any normality or stability you see and feel is an illusion as there is only change and resistance to change; the world is on FIRE and the poet David Whyte talks about how we must tap into our fiery mutable nature to find the courage to face change.

We know from the somatic therapists that we have a complex nervous system that regulates our emotions, especially fear, from the sympathetic to the parasympathetic and that in our most extreme state of fear we will freeze.

Fear can lock our body and shake our very foundation. Extreme fear is a very uncomfortable feeling and yet some seek fear out in healthy ways like rollercoasters, haunted houses, and extreme sports and in unhealthy ways like crime, drugs, and dangerous sex.

Fear is unique… what scares you doesn’t bother another and vice versa. I dated a nurse a few years back and she said that everyone who works in the medical field has something they’re afraid of and for her it was eyeballs. Eyeballs creeped her out. I joked with her that visual and tactile I can deal with most things but smells oh I hate certain smells. I will leave a concert to poo at home versus dealing with a port-a-potty.

There are core fears we all share: being abandoned, being rejected and alone, the threat of physical and emotional harm, poverty, and many of us have a fear of success.

When you don’t process your fear, turn your back on it or run from it, it tends to slide into the secondary emotion of “Pretend Happiness” which can look like people pleasing, chasing luxury, obsessed with appearances, being fake and phony, and deeper still a lack of real purpose or vision.

Having a purpose and vision in life creates hardship and complications but it does seem to tap into real happiness.

Fear bottomline is a call for information.

QUESTIONS:

How well do you do with fear?

How well do you do with another’s fear?

Is there a kind of fear from others that you shy from? Like a woman's fear, people who are dependent upon you, men’s fear, children’s fear?

How well do you do in recognizing secondary pretend happiness? Happiness that is driven by the suppression of fear?

Can you begin to imagine growing your emotional intelligence to the point that you could help someone navigate their secondary happiness back towards fear?

Can you do that for yourself?

When was the last time you felt you were people pleasing, or chasing luxury, or being fake?

Can you trace it back to fear? Back to root cause?

What might have been a better way to deal with the situation looking back?

Isn’t fear often wonderful as it speaks to our desire for wellbeing?

Can you see the positive side of fear?

Emotional Intelligence: HAPPINESS and SECONDARY FEAR

Dr. Martin Seligman gave the world a gift with his study of happiness; what had been kept in the dark with psychologists focused mostly on abnormal psychology was now illuminated in his brilliant work. What makes us happy was no longer a secret and although somewhat self explanatory it was good to have the data to back it up.

What makes us happy?

Flow — long stretches of focus on a task that requires our excellence to the point where time, minor aches and pains, the concerns of the day disappear. This isn’t meditation. This isn’t presence. This is being in the flow, in the zone, in the groove.

Building towards a future… in your relationships, in your community, a sense of wellbeing from contribution and sacrifice to a greater good. However that is defined for you.

Pleasure — the ability to soak in pleasure, the sensual eros of life… to be in your body and feel its delights.

His work of course has been corporatized into the PERMA model, safe now for consumer consumption, but the soul of his work is still there if you look closely.

Happiness is the clearest sign we have that we’re on the right track. When we feel good in our body and mind, when we are full of positive emotions, positive relationships, authenticity and integrity with our core being, when we have meaning in our life and accomplishment we know we're successful.

When we’re not okay with happiness (and that might seem counterintuitive but many people are uncomfortable with being happy) we tend to drop down into Secondary Fear… a fear that feels totally out of control.

We’re sold out or are burnt out. In unhealthy codependent relationships and we’re in an unhealthy practice of suppressing our deepest of desires, edgy, taking things personally and have lost touch with our values, vision and mission…

The way out of that kind of fear is to start back at the beginning with the lowest levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy and focus on personal safety and work your way up.

QUESTIONS:

How well do you do with happiness?

How well do you do with other people’s joy and happiness? Do you experience competition and envy?

Is there a kind of joy you shy from?

How well do you do in recognizing secondary fear? A fear that is driven by the potential loss of happiness?

Can you begin to imagine growing your emotional intelligence to the point that you could help someone navigate their secondary fear back to happiness and joy?

Can you do that for yourself?

When was the last time you felt burnt out, like a sell out, taking things personally, or unsure of what you’re doing and why you’re even here on earth?

Can you trace it back to happiness? Back to root cause?

What might have been a better way to deal with the situation looking back?

Isn’t happiness often wonderful as it speaks to the pleasures of being alive.

Can you see the positive side of happiness?

Emotional Intelligence: SURPRISE

It seems to me that the postmodern guru is concerned with power and control. It’s like they want all the powers of a Jedi and none of the vulnerability. To be perfect. The best life, the best food, the best partner, the best… driven I think by both fear and greed.

What I notice is a defense against the unexpected.

A guardedness against the vagaries of life.

Or a world weariness and jadedness that nothing in life can surprise them as they’ve seen it and done it all.

Personally they seem a bit emotionally dead to me, lost to the larger patterns of the world, the warp and weft that shapes our days and creates our destiny and fate.

They miss the tiny miracles of everyday life that surrounds them.

Simple things like how cool are dogs.

Sudden windfalls are taken as IOUs, when a stranger pays them a complement they look for ulterior motives, when the feel positive joy for no reason they count the minutes until its departure.

It’s tough to live in a world without unexpected adventure and novelty, to believe you have it all figured out.

Disgust is the twin flame of delight.

That unexpected revulsion we experience when we encounter something we detest like dog poo on the bottom of our shoe or a spider crawling across the bathroom floor or an inappropriate sexual joke or someone, say a politician running for POTUS with a seriously flawed moral compass, that continues to make disgusting statements.

Surprise keeps us on our toes.

Engaged with the world in both its forms of delight and disgust.

Questions:

How well do you do with delight?

How well do you do with disgust?

Do you find more delight in the world or more disgust?

Can you see the shadow of delight? A pollyannaish take on life…

Can you see the shadow of disgust? Unwilling to take risk and try new things…

When was the last time you felt delight? When was the last time you felt disgust

Emotional Intelligence: SHAME

Shame is a powerful emotion.

On many scales of emotion it is described as the lowest vibration we can feel. To feel shame is a kind of soul suicide as there is nothing that can be done to fix it.

Shame isn’t the same as guilt, it isn’t words or deeds that can be repaired or apologized for, no shame is you. You are the problem and there’s not much that can be done about that unless you choose to remove yourself from life.

And that is the feeling of shame, that desire to crawl so far deep into a hole nobody can find you.

Shame turned inward is Self Loathing which produces a whole slew of Secondary Emotions and Behaviors like… a lack of self confidence, comparative constructs, a focus on the negative, being overly self critical, and the quest for perfectionism.

Shame turned outwards is Contempt.

Which also has bevy of interesting Secondary Emotions and Behaviors like eye rolling and sneering, being dismissive or belittling, the “I’m only joking” kind of defensive action when someone is called out on their contempt, to endless blame, ridicule, and criticism… to stonewalling.

Stonewalling is maybe the most contempt driven behavior you can display towards another as you literally wipe them off the face of the earth by ignoring them, denying them, avoiding them.

Stonewalling is making someone disappear and when you compare it to David Richo’s “The Five A’s” you can literally see they are the 180o and the antidote to Contempt.

Attention — refers to be being aware of others, being aware of ourselves, and being the focus of someone’s loving attention.

Acceptance — means being seen with mercy, love, respect, and understanding. In order to be intimate, we have to feel safe, accepted, relaxed, and worthy.

Appreciation — is essential to our feeling loved and accepted. Too often we don’t give others the appreciation that would make the relationship fulfilling. Acknowledging our gratitude and validating the efforts of others on our behalf cements good relationships.

Affection — comes from the word “affect” or feeling. As humans, we need emotional, spiritual and physical affection.

Allowing — means letting yourself and the other person be who you are. Too many rules, requirements, and expectations push us into becoming who others need us to be rather than being ourselves.

You can also see how the Five A’s allow for the path of forgiveness and are an antidote to self-loathing as well.

Questions:

Is there anybody in your life right now that you have contempt for?

Can you trace it back to shame? A feeling of rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal?

On a scale of 0-10 with zero being thriving in self love and ten being full on self loathing where are you right now?

Can you trace it back to shame? A feeling of rejection, abandonment, humiliation, betrayal?

How well do you do with the Five A’s towards yourself and others?

Can you see how by introducing a practice of the Five A’s you can begin to change shame?

CONCLUSION

So that's a lot to process I know but as you start to pick up on this model you'll find yourself more able to deal with your own emotions and those of others and really get back to good vibrations.

Emotions are temporary states design to help us navigate a complex world.

They help us make better decisions and bring joy to life, given it meaning, provide context and release.

Everyone feels better when they're allowed to release their emotions and be present in the moment to real time reality.

The better we get at feeling emotions in real time the more present we will be to the moment and more available to remain curious and engaged.

I know some who nurse emotions like fine wines, they have an entire "basement" filled with bottled emotions they've been saving for years... time to let that go and do the emotional work to bring you back to the present moment.

When we can stop our dropping into secondary emotions but stay with the uncomfortable original emotion it allows us more freedom to take the proper and correct action we want to engage and create the outcomes we want for our lives.

As a client recently said after years of work on emotions,

"If we don't feel ALL of the emotions with any activity we're doing, then why are we doing them?

If there's no sadness, there's no desire for growth.

If there's no anger, there's no passion for what you're doing.

If there's no fear, you're probably not risking enough for true change and growth.

If there's no joy, it's probably not an activity for you..

If there's no surprise, you're probably not exploring the potential of what you're engaged in."

Well said and so true.

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