This edition first published 2017
© 2017 Gill Hasson
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It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of head over heart – it is the unique intersection of both. – David Caruso
What’s emotional intelligence about? Emotional intelligence is about using your emotions to inform your thinking and using your thinking to understand and manage your emotions.
For many of us, with so many competing demands, concerns and commitments in our lives, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and stressed, to become unsure and confused, to misunderstand or be misunderstood by others.
With emotional intelligence, by understanding your emotions and how to manage them, you’re better able to express how you feel, what you want and don’t want, while at the same time acknowledging and understanding how others are feeling and behaving.
It’s a dynamic process; the extent to which you can understand and manage your own emotions influences your ability to understand and manage other people’s emotions. And the more you understand other people’s emotions, their intentions, motivations and behaviour, the more appropriately you can respond and the more effectively you can interact with them.
Emotional intelligence can help you to live and work with others more easily; forge stronger relationships, both in your personal life and at work. You’re more able to sense and manage the emotional needs of others. You’re more able to think before responding and know to give yourself and others time to calm down if emotions become overwhelming.
Developing your emotional intelligence can help you to lead a happier life because thinking and behaving rationally and calmly in difficult situations puts you in a better position to handle feelings and situations that you may have found difficult and challenging in the past.
But emotional intelligence is not only about understanding and managing difficult situations and emotions. It’s also about knowing how to engage the ‘feel good’ emotions that can give you and other people positivity, confidence, support, motivation and inspiration.
Life will continue to throw us the same lessons until we learn from them. – Rachel Woods
There are four parts to this book:
Within each part you’ll find particular situations or circumstances and for each situation or circumstance you will find practical ways – ideas, advice, tips and techniques – to help you to understand and apply emotional intelligence.
If you want to understand what emotions are, where they come from and why we have them, read the chapters in Part 1, ‘Understanding emotions’. If you want to develop your emotional intelligence and learn how to manage emotions – yours or other people’s – Parts 2, 3 and 4 of this book will help you. Whether you want to learn how to manage difficult emotions such as anger and disappointment, build your courage and confidence or motivate and inspire others, whatever the issue, simply pick out a few ideas, tips and techniques that appeal to you and give them a try.
Some of the tips and advice will be particularly comfortable and helpful to you in certain situations and with particular people. Use them. The more often you use them, the more you’ll know that events, feelings, other people and yourself can be managed better with emotional intelligence.
If you feel that difficult emotions – stress, sadness, loneliness, guilt, regret, disappointment, anxiety, depression or anger – are overwhelming you and you’re really struggling to cope, do turn to the back of this book where you’ll find a list of organisations that can give you information and advice online or via their helpline.
But for everyday situations, do keep this book in your bag or your pocket whenever or wherever you need emotional intelligence. You’ll find that the tips, techniques, ideas and suggestions in this book really can help provide you with a sense of calm control, perspective and understanding.
Everyone knows what an emotion is until asked to give a definition. Then it seems, nobody knows. – B. Fehr and J. Russell
Emotions play an important role in how we think and behave. Emotions help protect you and keep you physically safe by prompting you to react to the threat of danger. Basic emotions such as fear, anger and disgust don’t wait for you to think, to reason and process what’s going on. In circumstances where rational thinking is too slow, these emotions instantly warn you of danger and get you to react – through fight or flight – immediately.
Other emotions – social emotions – enable people to live and work with each other. Social emotions such as guilt, shame, gratitude and love guide and maintain interactions and bonds that bring people – families, friends, neighbours and communities – together.
Emotions also allow us to create and express ideas and thoughts that wouldn’t necessarily come about through rational thinking. Anger, for example, can inspire a dramatic painting. Despair and sadness can inspire beautiful, moving poetry, songwriting and music. Art, music and literature all provoke and inspire emotions and create an emotional connection between the art, music or writing and the viewer, listener or reader.
Emotions then, all have a positive intent; they help keep you safe, help you establish and maintain connections with others, and inspire creativity. On the one hand, emotions can focus our thoughts and behaviour and on the other hand, can enhance and widen thoughts and experience.
Emotions bridge thought, feeling, and action.– John D. Mayer
Whether you’re aware of it or not, when you experience an emotion, it is made up of three aspects: thoughts, physical feelings and behaviour.
There’s no one specific order in which the aspects of an emotion occur, but any one aspect can affect the others. What you think can affect how you feel physically. It can also alter how you behave. Equally, what you do – how you behave – can affect how you feel and what you think.
Imagine, for example, that you came home to discover that the shower wasn’t working or the heating had broken down. Again. You’re angry. Your angry response could have begun with a physical reaction: tense muscles, increased heart rate and rapid breathing. This triggered a behavioural reaction – you thumped the table – followed by the thought. ‘Oh no! Not again. I’ve had enough of this!’
Or, perhaps you thumped the table first which triggered a physical response: your muscles tensed and your heart rate and breathing increased. Again, your thoughts follow close behind.
Or the angry response could begin with the thought ‘Oh my God! Not again. I’ve had enough of this!’ This thought triggered an increase in your heart rate, rapid breathing and tensed muscles. And then you thumped the table.
When it comes to emotional intelligence, it helps to be more aware of and understand these different aspects or parts of an emotion.
Never apologize for showing your feelings. When you do, you are apologizing for the truth. – José N. Harris
We often think of emotions as being either positive or negative. But the idea that we should aim to only have ‘positive’ emotions such as happiness, hope and compassion is not helpful because it suggests that we should try to avoid or suppress ‘negative’ emotions such as resentment, impatience and jealousy.
The fact is, all emotions have a positive purpose. Emotions such as fear, anger, sadness and regret might not feel good but they do have a beneficial purpose.
Fear is a clear example of an emotion that has a positive purpose: to protect you. Anxiety also has a positive purpose. Anxiety about an exam, for example, can motivate you to focus, to cut out all distractions and revise. Anxiety only becomes negative if it so overwhelms you that you’re unable to think clearly enough to do the revision.
The problem is, when we experience a ‘negative’ emotion, we often have a tendency to enforce it with negative responses. Take regret, for example. The positive intent of regret is to prompt you to learn from and avoid making a similar mistake in future. Regret is only negative if you become stuck in negative thoughts, self-blame and inaction. But it’s not the emotion that is negative; it’s your thinking and lack of action!