Week 2 - Lesson 5

Emotional Intelligence refers to the emotional control and understanding one has. People with high Emotional Intelligence, often referred to as EI or EQ, usually earn more in their careers, have a happier home life, and a more active social life. EI skills are an essential part of the marriage foundation.

The good news is that there are skills you can easily learn to develop a high EI. Learn these skills and you can improve many aspects of your life.

EI skills, like any skill, must be practiced regularly.

It’s cliché, but just like you don’t go the gym once and expect to be fit, you don’t practice these skills once and expect a lifetime of results. It takes constant practice to be good at anything.

As an avid tennis player, I am always working on elements of my game. My serve, forehand, backhand, volleys, footwork, and court positioning always need attention and adjustments. Every time I play, I do my best to work on these elements.

Work on your EI skills and you can improve the quality of your life in many ways.

EI at Home

Consider the following situations.

First, a husband forgets it is Valentine’s Day. On his way home from work he stops by several florists to get some roses. To his surprise, they are sold out. While visiting the fourth store, they have some, but charge a pretty high amount for each one. He picks up three roses and gets a box of chocolates. The price he had to pay and having to visit multiple stores makes him mad. He pulls up in the driveway, goes into the house, slams the door behind him, and walks into the kitchen where his wife is preparing a special meal for them. He throws the roses and chocolates down on the counter and exclaims angrily “Here’s your damn roses. Do you know how much roses cost these days?” He walks out of the kitchen in a huff.

THAT is an example of LOW EI.

He did not control his emotions. He did not notice the emotions or actions of his wife. His behavior turned what could have been a tender moment into a rough evening.

Second, a wife has a difficult day at home taking care of 2 children, trying to work remotely, and escort the plumber when he visits to fix a water leak. The children were particularly rambunctious that day, the plumber showed up later than promised, and some meetings were delayed, causing conflicts with everything going on. Around 7:30 pm, her husband comes home from work and catching up with some friends at the golf course. He walks in, hugs his wife, kissing her gently, and asks his wife how her day went. She goes off on him telling him in great detail all the problems of the day. Agitated, she hands the kids to her husband telling him he should have been home to help her out. She tells him he is on his own for dinner, goes into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

THAT is another example of LOW EI.

Both are examples of someone not having control over their own emotions, not understanding the emotions of another person, and unleashing an emotional avalanche onto another person.

In both cases, the relationship of the husband and wife was damaged because of a lack of EI skills. With the right skills, both situations could have been avoided, and a better outcome realized.

In the next section, you’ll discover that there are three categories of skills we all should learn and master.

3 Categories of Skills

1 - Recognizing and understanding your own emotions

I know. Talk about emotions to a man and his eyes glaze over. We all have them. In today’s society it is more important than ever to recognize and understand our emotions. This is about you. You need to know everything there is about you.

But… today we stay so busy that we don’t take the necessary time to pause for a few minutes, think about the day, and evaluate what happened.

Those who take time to pray or meditate are making excellent use of that time. It is important to take a few minutes every day to reflect on the day and not just what you did, but also how you did it.

There are 3 skills you need to develop.

To help you with this skill, I am offering for download an emotional scale. Print it out. It shows pleasant to unpleasant emotions and a scale of intensity. Use this download. It will help.

2 - Recognizing and understanding the emotions in others

When you recognize how important it is to understand your own emotions, imagine how important it is to really understand the emotions of others! When you can pick up on the emotions of others, like your partner, you can control how the interaction plays out.
Imagine having a talk with your partner. Perhaps they have not gone well in the past. You each start talking, but this time you pick up on the physical and tonal signs that your partner is getting upset. Rather than letting it play out to the usual conclusion, this time you step in and break the pattern. The discussion may be paused, maybe you injected some humor, or maybe you reached out to your partner and suggested that you didn’t do well in explaining yourself and ask if it’s OK to try again, lowering the tension.

When you can pick up on the physical and tonal patterns of who you are interacting with, you can direct the interaction. It’s a win-win.

There are two skills to learn.

3 - Effectively Regulating Your Emotions

The third set of skills to master is that of regulating your own emotions. Take the two situations I wrote about earlier. Imagine if the husband left his frustration in the car and walked into the house, looking for his love, and wished her a happy Valentine’s Day while giving her the roses and chocolates. The interaction would have a totally different outcome.

The same goes with the wife when her husband comes home.
I’ve written about my struggle with road rage. Emotional control eliminates road rage. Emotional control eliminates many emotional outbursts. When I take responsibility for my actions and look at what is really happening, I can’t get mad at other drivers. It serves no purpose.

High EI people use the regulation of their emotions to achieve goals.

At any time during the day you may want to get revved up or calmed down. Learn the skills and watch how you take control over your life.

Here are two skills to develop.

Emotional Intensity and Duration

Emotions are not static. Earlier I wrote about emotional vocabulary. Part of the vocabulary is defining the intensity and the duration of the emotion. Someone having a long duration of an emotion is likely to have bodily changes. That is something to recognize. If the emotion is extremely intense, that too will have changes in body behavior.

Consider:

Duration - How long does the emotion last and how long does it take for the emotion to start and become most noticeable?

Bodily Changes - How strongly does the body react in response to the emotion?

Re-experience - How often does the emotional episode come to mind? If this happens, do you re-experience the emotion and if so, how strongly?

Action Tendency - How drastic are the action tendencies? (e.g., killing someone is more drastic than calling names; embracing someone is more drastic than holding someone’s hand.)

Belief Changes and Long-Term Behavior - To what extent did the emotion and the events change your opinion about or feelings towards things, certain people and/or yourself? To what extent did the emotion and the events change your long-term behavior?

Taking Control

There are many ways one can take control of their emotions. Below is a sample of choices you can make to take control of your emotions. These examples tie-in with the material covered so far.

There are many more ways to take control of your emotions. This lesson is an introduction. I don’t want to overwhelm you. Read this lesson as often as you have to. Continue to the next lessons when you are ready. It is not a race.