The Importance of Emotional Intelligence
Why Emotional Intelligence is Important + How to Develop It
Forget about how high your IQ is – What’s your EQ?
For a long time, we were told that IQ determined how successful we would be in life, but we’re starting to realize that EQ, or Emotional Intelligence, is a better measure of success and happiness.
What is Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, understand, manage, and regulate emotions. An emotionally intelligent person is aware of how their emotions influence their behaviour and decisions and impact others. Though we may not always be conscious of it, our emotions have a powerful grip over us. Humans are beings that feel first and think second. And so, learning how to befriend our emotions, and stay on top of them instead of letting them quietly creeping up on us, can help us have more positive experiences and results in all areas of life – personally, professionally, and socially.
Why is Emotional Intelligence important?
A lot of our suffering comes from not having control over our emotions. When we feel out of touch with our own emotions, we’re not only disconnected from ourselves, but from the rest of the world as well. With emotional intelligence comes a greater capacity for self awareness and social awareness. We become better at recognizing, understanding, and communicating our wants and needs, and as a result, better at doing the same for others. Emotional intelligence helps us tune into life’s nuances and face life’s challenging moments with more resilience, patience, love, and grace. Developing your emotional intelligence can improve your personal health and well-being and help you build more meaningful relationships with yourself and the world around you.
How to develop Emotional Intelligence:
Get better at listening
Brushing how we’re feeling aside and pushing our emotions under the surface have become common in our busy, fast-paced lives. We’re always told to ‘use our brains’ to solve problems and make decisions, but to live fully in alignment with all parts of our being, we also need to listen to our hearts. Get quiet and listen to your inner feelings without judgement. This may mean taking time to sit in silence or to journal your thoughts. Yoga, meditation, and breathwork are practices that can help you get better at listening because they invite us to be contemplative and sit with the self. If being alone with your thoughts and feelings brings you discomfort, sitting in community and learning to receive and absorb through the collective may help. These spiritual experiences can open windows into the soul, helping you dive deeper into yourself. And once we get better at listening to ourselves with patience and compassion, we also get better at listening to others while holding the same respect and space.
Recognize and acknowledge how you’re feeling
Don’t just listen to your emotions and brush them off. Recognize and acknowledge them so you can understand them. Learning to both observe and identify how you’re feeling will help you understand where those feelings are coming from and why. It’s crazy how many of us struggle with admitting how we’re feeling not just to others, but to ourselves. We walk around with physical manifestations of those emotions, such as a nauseous stomach or rapid heartbeat, but are unable to name the emotion behind the physical sensation. Giving voice to your emotions will allow you to gain control of them. Through acknowledging how you’re feeling in every moment, you will also come to see that your feelings are temporary, which will allow you to release the hold they have on you.
Allow yourself to feel both the good AND the bad
We’ve mentioned why you shouldn’t stop a feeling in its tracks, and that goes for all feelings. Instead of perceiving an emotion as good or bad, just look at it as is. It’s not just our emotions alone that get in the way of what we say and how we act, it's also how we perceive them – or think we should perceive them – that influences our behaviour. An emotion, no matter where it falls on the spectrum, will give you valuable information about yourself and what you need. An emotion that goes unfelt or unexpressed also goes unserved, meaning it becomes trapped. If we’re angry and don’t allow ourselves to feel that anger or address it, that anger will get stuck inside us and will fester, making us more likely to blow up later on. Allowing yourself to feel your emotions in a safe and healthy way will prevent you from becoming a prisoner to them.
Respond instead of react
Before acting on a feeling, give yourself time to pause so you can think and process. When we’re overwhelmed by our feelings, it’s hard to stay present or think rationally. Responding rather than reacting to a feeling means making informed decisions and actions instead of being led by impulse. When you give yourself time to self-regulate, you can better manage your emotions and control your nervous system’s response to a situation. This can also help us identify when we’re just projecting how we’re feeling onto someone else or when another person is projecting onto us.
Practice self awareness
The practices you use to listen and reconnect with yourself will also help you cultivate self awareness. Continuously reflect on your behaviours, thoughts, beliefs, and values and assess if you’re living in alignment with your highest self. Reflecting requires you to recognize your strengths and weaknesses so you can live with more clarity and continue to work on yourself. Being self aware means having an understanding of your needs and triggers, so that you can learn how to navigate tough situations with maturity and adaptability. As you get better at communicating your needs to yourself and others, you will also gain greater acceptance and love for yourself and others.
Empathize
Have empathy, first with yourself, then with others. Be open to being vulnerable and sharing, and always do so from the heart. When we give ourselves and others the safety to feel, we create more intentional conversations and spaces for emotional regulation to happen. In social situations, you can practice empathy by imagining yourself in someone else’s shoes. Learning to pick up on emotional cues is an important skill, especially for those who hold space for others, like yoga teachers and guides.