Emotional Intelligence

This phrase is used a lot in today's vernacular. It is commonly used to describe as expressing ones feelings. I think this is a bad definition, as a baby/infant/toddler/kid can express an emotion, but that doesn't mean that they are emotionally intelligent. I think there is a lot more to it that needs to be unpacked and understood.

Steps:

• Express emotion, or feel the need to

• Realize you are having the emotion

• This is either you recognizing the feeling, you realize in the moment of expressing it, or after the fact when reflecting. Ie…. Why am I feeling angry; body posture changes along with facial expression, voice raises and take on aggressive tone, yelling.

• Scrutinize what/why. What caused you to get angry? What was the trigger? - specifically identify the cause

• Self investigate through a logical lens of "if" the reason/trigger was worth getting angry over. IS what you are angry about worth getting angry at? To what purpose does getting angry help you? Does it serve you well?

• If not, stop being angry (dismiss, breath, take a walk, refuse to engage, etc…)

• If it was worth getting angry, then decide "to what degree". Ie… worth pointing out, having a difficult discussion, stop the interaction.

• Condense all of this down into as close to real time as you can. It isn’t easy, and takes a lot of work with tremendous amount of mental discipline to not allow your emotions to get in the way of making good decision.