By: Jeanne Segal
LISTEN
READ
Emotional intelligence abilities have been proven to surpass high cognitive intelligence in predicting success in all areas of life - including at home and at work.
Over the years, we've learned quite a bit about how emotional intelligence works.
We know that one person's stress can block the communication process until both people feel safe and can focus on one another. That primal emotions like anger, sadness and joy are critical to strong relationships. That playfulness allows us to thrive in the face of tough circumstances. And that conflict, if handled well, can turn into a trust building experience.
Join us for the next 10 minutes while we explore the 5 essential skills that define, empower and guide your emotional intelligence in communication, giving you the means to create and sustain secure, successful, long-lasting relationships.
Regulating stress is the skill that provides us the ability to be emotionally available and engaged. When we are stressed, we get trapped inside our own heads and have a hard time seeing what's right in front of us.
The first step in regulating stress levels is recognizing when your stress levels are out of control. That requires you to understand what your stress triggers are. Maybe it's certain situations, or certain people. Pay attention to what's going on around you when feel stressed, and you'll start to see some patterns.
Once we become stressed, there are two basic types of measures we can use to return to a balanced state - social interactions or private actions.
If you are a person who likes to interact with others, you can find balance by seeking out someone who is calm, focused and makes you feel safe. Let that person know what you are dealing with, and ask them to help you get back on track.
If you are a more private person, there are things you can do to get back in balance on your own. One of the easiest and most powerful methods is to focus on taking deep breaths. This not only slows you down, but also gets more oxygen flow to your brain, allowing you to think more clearly.
As we deal with a culture that is always-on, and dare we say always-stressed, being present needs to be your starting point for emotional intelligence. You can only do that if you are calm and focused.
It shouldn't be a surprise that our emotions are at the center of emotional intelligence. They are the glue that holds the communication process together, and are necessary to engage others in an emotional exchange.
Segal tells us that we need to reclaim and restore our primal emotions - including anger, sadness, fear, joy, and disgust - if we are going to create that connection. Somewhere along the way from childhood most people lose touch with these emotions. This stems from our inclination towards thought over emotion, which, although has been happening for centuries, wasn't always the case.
When we find ourselves in situations that seem overwhelming, painful, or undesirable, we develop coping mechanisms like distracting ourselves with obsessive thoughts and behaviors, which, in the extreme, turn to addiction. Or, some people shut down completely.
The problem with this approach is that you can't eliminate the bad primal emotions without also eliminating the good primal emotions like joy.
As the author point out, reclaiming these primal emotions in our lives will take some work. There are 4 parts to the exercise that they recommend doing in order to get there.
First, find a private spot that you enjoy being in. Make sure you feel safe and comfortable. Maybe play some music that evokes the primal emotion you want to explore.
Second, we'll look to reconnect with a strong emotion - moderately. Start by tensing and then releasing all the parts of your body. Clear your mind of all extraneous thoughts. Then, find an emotional trigger of something that had an emotional effect on you - a small hurt or something mildly irritating. Then, scan your body and see if you feel different. Then, once you find where you feel different, direct your breath to that spot.
Third, once you are comfortable with the second part, repeat the process but with much more intense emotions.
Finally, when the time you allotted for the exercise is over, get up, and refocus your energies back into your normal daily activities.
The goal of this step is for you to get back in tune with your emotions. Rinse, wash, repeat as needed.
Nonverbal communication is the pulley of emotionally intelligent language that attracts the attention of others and keeps relationships on track.
It includes eye contact, facial expressions, your tone of voice, posture and gestures, touch, intensity, timing and the pace of your communication.
Nonverbal communication is made up of two parts - the nonverbal cues you are giving off, and reading the nonverbal cues that other people are giving off.
In order to do both of those well, you need to clear your mind of all distractions. You can't focus on what you are going to say next and focus on nonverbal communication at the same time. Instead, you should be focussing on what you hear, feel, sense, see, smell and taste, as well as the reactions of the other person.
Here are some examples of nonverbal cues to start looking for once you clear your mind:
If you see somebody tilting their head to one side, and see subtle changes in the expressive lines around their eyes, they are likely telling you "I don't understand," even though most people would never come out and tell you that directly.
If you see somebody with their shoulders hunched up, and hear a raised pitch in their voice, they are likely saying "what you are communicating is upsetting me."
When you see somebody leaning forward, a smile on their lips and an expression in their eyes, they are likely saying "I love being here with you."
Reading nonverbal cues takes practice, and so you'll need to carve out time in your schedule to simply be present, and read the nonverbal cues happening around you on a regular basis.
But it will be time well-spent. Being emotionally savvy essentially gives you relationship superpowers that very few people possess. You'll be able to accurately read the emotional cues of others, respond with nonverbal cues of your own that indicate you notice and care what the other person feels, and avoid confusing others with words that contradict your true feelings.
Sometimes you'll find yourself in an awkward situation that will require all of your emotional intelligence to navigate. One of the best tools you have at your disposal is playfulness and humor - if you do it correctly.
As the author points out, conflict and stress can undermine even the best verbal skills, but playful communication strengthens, repairs and restores relationships.
Play, in the relationship setting, should always be a shared experience. It's a tool we can use to practice spontaneity, let go of our defensiveness, release inhibitions, calm and energize yourself, and become emotionally authentic.
Some concrete examples include joking about our frustrations, making a game out of pretending we like things that we actually dislike, spoofing and playfully exaggerating problems, and making up playful games that help us get our points across.
Play has the ability to find paths to resolving awkward and embarrassing issues. However, be sure that whenever you utilize this tool, you tread lightly. To ensure that you don't make a bad situation worse, make sure you can answer yes to the following questions:
If the answer to all of those is yes, fire away!
For the emotionally intelligent, conflict is an opportunity to build trust. Of course, in the hands of the less skilled, conflict remains what it has always been - an opportunity to create hostility or irreparable riffs in relationships.
By using the skills we've already covered up until this point, you'll be able to resolve conflict in a number of different ways.
When you do these things, you ultimately work out your issues quickly and painlessly, and trust grows. Why? Because the other person now knows that when other sticky situations invariably come up, you'll be a calm and willing partner in looking for a solution. We like and trust people like that.
So there you have it. Five skills you can use to become more emotionally intelligent, and get more of what you want out of life.
Before you leave this summary and move on with whatever it was you were doing, here are some questions to answer to make sure that what you learned will stick.
Answer those four questions, and you'll be well on your way to becoming an emotional intelligence powerhouse.