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Emotions are so close to us that we experience them on a daily basis, at the same time they so far from us that we don’t actually understand what they are, they are so hard to communicate. Language seems helpless and disable to project the depth of emotions. Though the titles of our songs, books, movies, include their names most of the time, while explaining about our emotions somehow we feel something is missing. This sense of incomplete expression makes emotions quite a personal and mysterious experience. In this modern world, on a daily basis, we are holding mostly to massive and heavy negative emotions knowingly or unknowingly, we even suppress them. Then slowly our life starts messing up. We are grabbed by depression, anxiety, and sleep disturbances but moreover, we feel helpless. It strongly affects our personal as well as professional life.
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The problem with us is we are so ignorant about our emotions. We are not conscious of our emotional response to different circumstances. This ignorance leads to darkness resulting in an ugly life. So, it's necessary for us to realize how our emotions function, what actually are they, how can we manage them, that’s emotional intelligence. According to Daniel Goleman, an American Psychologist who wrote the first book on emotional intelligence, EQ is more important than IQ for a successful life. Emotional Intelligence is something we build over a period of time but not something we are born with. In a Ted talk on "The Power of Emotional Intelligence" Dr. Travis Bradberry, coauthor of Emotional Intelligence 2.0 states that we have more than 400 emotional experiences every single day. So if we did not focus on building emotional strength we will live our life as a victim of our emotions.
Daniel Goleman introduced a framework of five elements that define emotional intelligence. Those are self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social skills, and motivation. According to Daniel Goleman" knowing one's internal states, preference, resources, and intuitions." is self-awareness. Self-Awareness is not just about collecting knowledge about ourselves but also having the ability to direct our inner state. We need to acknowledge that the human mind is a wandering mind. So, if we did not live consciously and become aware of our thoughts and emotions, then our life can go on autopilot mode. Mindfulness is one of the effective ways of being more self-aware. How we control and manage ourselves especially our internal state is also an important skill know as self – regulation. Generally, self-regulation includes our emotional and behavioral regulation. Cognitive reappraisal can be a useful strategy for self-regulation, which involves changing the direction of emotional response by reinterpreting the meaning of the emotional stimulus.
Other two elements of emotional intelligence empathy and social skills are the key elements that determine the quality of relationships we experience with other people. In a 75-year-old study on adult development, directed by Robert Waldinger, a psychiatrist, showed a good life is built with good relationships. Finally, the last element motivation is all about staying motivated, charged and optimistic. By working on these five elements of emotional intelligence we can experience emotional fulfillment and stability, hence life becomes more Fresh and colorful.
