Emotional Intelligence - What is It?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive and understand your own personal feelings
as well as those of others.

Having emotional intelligence means not only recognising your emotions but acting on them reflectively and rationally.

It involves self awareness, empathetic understanding, self control and restraint.

It also involves your ability to feel and express a whole range of feelings and to understand your resistances, boundaries and projections while moving toward emotional wholeness.

In regards to others, emotional intelligence refers to your empathetic understanding of other people and your ability to connect and respond, rather than react, to them - to accept their feelings and to encourage the other's acceptance of them.

Is it a tall order to assume that we would all like to see ourselves and be seen by others as mature, thoughtful, responsive, empathetic, loving human beings, in control of ourselves?

As parents we all want to raise healthy, responsible, creative, loving, considerate children who grow into emotionally mature adults.

Often, though, more emphasis appears to be placed on acquiring healthy physical, mental and intellectual capacities while appearing to be less concerned with achieving emotional maturity.

Consider the proliferation of Baby Einstein type products and extra curricular activities available today to extend our youngsters intelligence.

We all know fine, intelligent adults who appear to operate on a really light fuse!For instance, I'm sometimes surprised by the inferior emotional reactions of often well educated adults.

I've found it not uncommon to observe a startling intellectual performance by a confident business person, only to witness him react with the emotional capability of a six year old when confronted or criticised.

And let's face it, a great deal of how we react, and what we observe in others, frequently consists of less than mature emotional reactions to circumstances which appear beyond our control.

Let's look at the main characteristics of emotional intelligence:

• Persistence and perseverance - the ability to show determination to carry a task through - stickability


• Optimism - a confident, buoyant and forward thinking positive attitude


• An internal locus of control - an understanding of being in control of your own life rather than relinquishing that control to forces outside yourself


• A sense of perspective - the ability to see the bigger picture


• Resilience - learning the value of mistakes, being able to bounce back and make the necessary changes


• Positive thinking - being affirmative in most situations


• Supportive social environment - able to seek out and receive help from others


• A sense of humor - the ability to laugh at one's self and the difficulties in life


• Recognise change - the ability to roll with the punches and envelop changes


• Purpose - the ability to find meaning in challenges and obstacles


• Connection - to one's higher purpose and spirituality


• Strength - emotional stamina in adversity and a belief in one's own capabilities

How Do We Build Emotional Intelligence?

So, how did you check out against the list?

We all want to be able to handle stress, anxiety and difficult challenges and to be able to learn and grow from life's hardships. I guess we would all desire to achieve our full emotional potential in terms of intelligence and resilience.

It seems astonishing to me, not to want to consider putting effort and energy into maturing on all levels of our being, and wanting this for our children too.

To a certain extent your emotional intelligence is determined by your genes, however, it is also a learned response, too.

It can be learned, it can be taught, mentored, emulated, and modeled.
Indeed as parents we do all of the above constantly as we raise our children.

It is possible to 'grow up' emotionally, to have a maturing emotional capability.

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I recommend:
Creative-personal-development.com - for motivational articles to improve your health, finances, career and relationships written by personal development writer Laura Interval

Find Out More Here:

Building Emotional Intelligence and Resilience
We need to be able to step back, allow ourselves the time to feel our feelings and to look for the messages they convey to us. We need to understand why we feel in particular ways and what these feelings mean for us. Then we are able to change negative emotions into positive ones.

Working with Emotional Intelligence
Here are some useful steps to take in working with emotional intelligence. If this is new to you, be kind, gentle and patient with yourself as you open to different and more vigorous ways of thinking and being.

Social Competence - developing social intelligence
Social competence is learned by children through observation and participation. Children learn social competence from how their parents treat them, and how their parents treat others. Then they put it into practice on each other.

Happy Child - helping our children to express their feelings
There is a great deal we as parents can do to help our children to acknowledge and express their feelings, to become a happy child.

How to express emotions through talking
Talking about how we feel is really one of the most adequate ways of expressing feelings. It takes courage, timing, opportunity and a good listener. This is important.

Releasing emotions through crying
Crying is a natural way of releasing emotions from our bodies. Those, for whom crying comes easily, often remark about how much better they feel after a good cry. But for many, there is much fear associated with appearing vulnerable and letting go, shame about being seen to cry, or a life time of suppressed tears that just will not come.

Emotional Intelligence - the Book

Here's the book to buy!
Daniel Goleman, according to many, has written a groundbreaking book on Emotional Intelligence

Using superlative language and a convincing writing style, Goleman's best news for us is that "emotional literacy" is not fixed early in life.

"Every parent, every teacher, every business leader, and everyone interested in a more civil society, has a stake in this compelling vision of human possibility."

Goleman tells what Emotional Intelligence matters more that IQ, qouting Antoine de Saint-Exupery,"It is with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye".

This is the one to buy, to read, and to own on this fascinating subject.

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