Lack of Emotional Intelligence results in broken relationships at home, lack of inner peace, decreased physical and mental health that also reduces productivity at the workplace. So, boosting one’s emotional intelligence should be the number one priority.
Emotional intelligence is about recognizing emotions in oneself and others. It is also about empathising with others and connecting with them on an emotional level. More benefits of emotional intelligence include improvement in physical and mental health.
Enhance Self-Awareness to Increase the Impact of Emotional Intelligence
Self-awareness and emotional intelligence go hand in hand. We know that self-awareness is about knowing about oneself such as strengths, weaknesses, and many more aspects. Coming towards emotional intelligence that is about being aware of one’s emotional life. It means both pleasant and unpleasant emotions.
When one develops the power of emotional intelligence, they stop reacting to their circumstances and focus on improving their response to people and different situations. If they notice any lack of skill in them, they do not sit idle and look for ways to improve skills online or offline (regular physical classes). Within the context of relationships, being self-aware increases the impact of emotional intelligence skills.
For example, a teenager had a fight with mother, so school time becomes painful for the teenager. The mother used her emotional intelligence and calmed down her anger so that when the son comes back home, the situation can be tackled. The mother uses her emotional intelligence skill again while interacting with the teenager but the teenager reacts angrily. The mother does not react in this situation and lets the boy cool down.
In this scenario, the boy can benefit from a self-development course like an anger management course to strengthen the bond with oneself and others.
Meditation Strategies can Boost the Impact of Emotional Intelligence
We know that meditation is about developing one’s awareness through different exercises that can include physical movement and even mental exercises. It has different benefits like enhancing one’s concentration and focus, physical and mental health for the long term. Likewise, emotional intelligence is about emotional awareness and emotional regulation. Meditation techniques also help in increasing emotional intelligence as during them one gets to pay attention to their emotions. For example, one can notice their suppressed anger rising during a meditation session. So, one can talk about it with the professional.
How can Communication Strategies Promote the Impact of Emotional Intelligence?
Ineffective communication strategies lead to several conflicts in a relationship and also reduce the impact of Emotional intelligence. Other disadvantages include low self-esteem, damaged relationships, lack of inner peace, high levels of mistrust, and increased blaming from both partners. According to the research done by Dr. John Gottman, there are four destructive patterns of communication that can significantly ruin a relationship. He called those behaviours “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”. They are criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling.
Criticism is about attacking the character of the other partner, contempt means feeling superior to the other person and treating them with disrespect. For example, name-calling, hostile humour, sarcasm, and constant mockery. A typical body language that shows contempt is eye-rolling.
Defensiveness is observed when a partner in a relationship does not take responsibility for their behaviour and behaves indifferent to the concerns of their partner.
Stonewalling means that the partners do not want to talk about the issues at hand due to emotional overwhelm so they turn away or pretend to be busy.
The Antidote to The Four Horsemen of Apocalypse
- Criticism can be countered by assertiveness which means talking about one’s feelings using “I” statements. It also means interacting with others in a way that does not violate the rights of oneself and others. For example, I feel neglected when you do not appreciate me.
- Contempt can be tackled by treating others with respect and appreciation. For example, I really liked it when you made my favorite dishes for the dinner.
- The solution to defensiveness is taking responsibility for one’s actions and not blaming. For example, I am sorry that I did not pick kids from the school in the afternoon.
- The antidote to stonewalling is taking a break and engaging in self-soothing behaviours. It is important to reduce the high emotional arousal or else one can behave in a hurtful manner. Self-soothing behaviours can be anything like a brisk walk, music, and cooking. The break time should be at least 20 to 30 minutes.
Key Takeaways
All in all, anybody who wants to upgrade their impact of emotional intelligence in their relationships should work on enhancing their self-awareness, boosting their meditation strategies, and improving their communication strategies. This also includes working on unpleasant emotions like anger. For this purpose, a person can enroll in self-development course like anger management classes, or an online meditation course. Enrolling in these courses for improving skills online has many benefits; one of the benefits is the increase in inner peace.