Summary: What does it mean to be 'Emotionally Intelligent'? How can this help you in motherhood and your life?<br> <br> I'm sharing the basics of Emotional Intelligence (aka EQ) and giving you my take on where each Enneagram Type can develop and round out their EQ<br> <br> <br> The basics of emotional intelligence<br> In a nutshell, EQ is being aware of feelings and managing those feelings in yourself and in your relationships (socially).<br> <br> I'm looking at the info out there on this topic and summing it up into four major themes of what Emotional Intelligence includes:<br> <br> * Emotional Awareness<br> * Emotional Self Control<br> * Motivation<br> * Social Skills<br> <br> <br> 1. Emotional Awareness<br> This is being aware of WHAT you are feeling, WHY you are feeling it, and HOW it affects you and your life. <br> <br> This is foundational in coaching because it brings in a piece of the puzzle to the thought-feel-act cycle (as per the Cognitive Behavioural Therapy model). <br> <br> We aren't often paying attention to the low-level emotions we feel through the day, but there is a lot of leverage and power we can gain from practicing emotional awareness of all our emotions. <br> <br> <br> 2. Emotional Self Control<br> This is how we cope with our emotions, what we do about them. <br> <br> When we feel big emotions we can fight, flight or freeze. This might help us in the short term but they are not ideal ways to cope and move through the emotion. <br> <br> It also keeps the stigma of this emotion being a negative experience and something we 'shouldn't' feel and don't really know how to tame.<br> <br> <br> 3. Motivation<br> This is the main theme in 'how we move forward'. <br> <br> We are often looking for motivation (how to get more of it, how to harness it) from somewhere outside of us. We are looking for the 'thing' that will make us naturally motivated and therefore disciplined and crushing our goals. <br> <br> We don't see that motivation is an inside job. Rather than wait to feel it, we need to learn HOW to generate it in ourselves. <br> <br> Don't use shame as a shortcut to learning the skills of developing internal motivation. <br> <br> <br> 4. Social Skills<br> I am most focused on personal emotional intelligence, but there is a big emphasis on how we relate to others in the field of emotional intelligence. <br> <br> Social skills include <a href="https://simpleonpurpose.ca/empathy-in-parenting-advice/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">empathy</a>, communication, conflict resolution, influence and good leadership. <br> <br> <br> Why does emotional intelligence matter? <br> Which also implies the question, why do emotions matter?<br> <br> EQ matters because our emotions matter because we DO what we FEEL like. <br> <br> As the CBT model outlines, our feelings inform our actions. We act based on how we feel. And how we act is what gives us a correlated outcome in our life. <br> <br> So if we want a different outcome, we need to take different actions. Emotional intelligence allows us to manage our emotions in a way that supports the actions we want to take. <br> <br> The benefits of high emotional intelligence<br> <br> You can tolerate emotions in your kids/partner, you don’t need them to be happy for you to be happy<br> You can grow in conflict resolution than stay in conflict avoidance<br> You have healthy coping skills <br> You have healthier relationships, you can navigate your own emotions and others<br> You can do the inner work of self- motivation and use EQ to move towards the things you want in life<br> <br> <br> Welcome to the No Shame Club<br>
