What is emotional intelligence?
There is wisdom that becomes available to us when we recognize that there is an intelligence inside us that empowers us to be able to manage our own emotions and to know that our emotions are our own. This is to say that we are a hundred percent responsible for how we feel and not anyone else.
When we understand that our emotions are simply our own reactions to a given situation and not the doing of some external forces, we essentially stop playing victim and begin to take responsibility for how we feel.
The ability to identify and manage our own emotions and to understand the emotions of people around us is emotional intelligence.
This intelligence follows four stages: Self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. The first two stages have to do with understanding our behavior and ourselves. The last two stages underline the importance of understanding others, and their behavior.
Success does not create happiness and love in life.
The notion that success creates happiness is often followed by statements like ‘When I achieve this, only then will I finally be happy’, for there are many successful people, given that our idea of success is often determined in monitory terms, who lack love and are not happy at all.
So if success does not create happiness and love, then what does? The answer lies within the core emotional intelligence.
At the core of emotional intelligence is self-awareness.
Adam smith once said that, “The first thing you have to know is yourself. A man who knows himself can step outside himself and watch his own reactions like an observer.” At the core of knowing ‘thyself’ is taking responsibility for all that you are and so if success does not create love and happiness in your life, then being responsible for your own love and happiness along emotional intelligence does.
What does it mean to be self-aware?
To be self-aware simply is to be conscious of your thoughts, attitudes, behavior and emotions, to have a clear understanding of all that makes you who you are and to be able to manage and control those feelings.
There is a rather simple way of managing these emotions. In a world system where every individual is over stimulated with thousands of bits of information flooding the mind, a path to gaining control over the mind is simply to come to a space of feeling safe and relaxed.
The concept of meditation, known to man by many adjectives like contemplation, introspection, rumination or reflection, is simply bringing the mind to a relaxed altered state of awareness where things appear to make sense, where the mind is no longer flooded but is calm and observant of the very thoughts and emotions that are otherwise is overwhelming.
To any form of meditation there are three common signals to the brain ; first is to close the eyes, the second to focus on slow deep breaths and the third is to relax all muscle tension in the body. With doing this follows a profound realization that one is responsible and has conscious control over his thoughts and feelings.
If we are responsible for how we feel, then why do we feel hurt?
Blaming others for hurting us is simply like blaming someone for poking you in a place that was already bruised. It is not the poking alone that hurt, but it is simply poking at the bruise that hurts. Similarly, all of us are emotionally bruised as a result of our past circumstances, and when people poke at those places.
We can either continue blaming the person saying they hurt us, or continue to get hurt on the same bruise time and again, or just heal the bruise instead. Healing the bruise instead is taking responsibility for how you feel, dropping the idea that other people are responsible for your love and happiness.
In conclusion, to be emotionally intelligent is to be self-aware, empowering ourselves and owning the responsibility for our own feelings of love and happiness instead of playing constant victim to the world outside us.
Therefore, being emotionally intelligent will reveal to you real peace and happiness, as long as you choose to create it, because how you feel is how you decide to feel.
Beejal Parmar – Founder & Senior Partner, True Aim Solutions
“The better you know yourself, the greater you will succeed, the happier you will be!” We help our clients discover what they need to know about themselves and others to achieve greater success and happiness in their career, business and life by providing various personality assessments and training needs analysis.
