Six Questions To Boost Your Emotional Intelligence

There’s a common theme when clients first come to see me — they have lost connection to their emotional (over) reaction. They report feeling trapped within their subsequent survival behaviours.

With a little reflection, clients can quickly gain insight into the intensity of their avoided emotional reactions. Through gentle exploration of what pushes you in the feelings department, an individual can grow their emotional intelligence to improve the way they live their life.

According to PositivePsychology.com, “We all have days when emotions get the better of us. Passion can cloud our judgment, fear can tyrannize our decisions, and resentment can lead us to do things we regret.” 

Someone who has Emotional Intelligence (EI) can therefore be defined as having an ability to discern what they are feeling and expressing, and appropriately regulate that emotional response to effectively navigate themselves through life experiences.

Who wants to deep dive into the feels bucket?

The reality is, that when the going gets tough, it’s human nature to avoid uncomfortable thoughts and feelings. Yet gaining an understanding of your emotions is how you begin to heal and make changes to live your best life.

Here are six questions that you can explore to gain an understanding of your Emotional Intelligence and make the desired improvements to calmly make decisions, and manage your stress and wellbeing.

1. What’s The Actual Emotion?

 There’s so much power in gaining an understanding of what are you feeling. So very often, people come to me with stress-based symptoms. However, due to the discomfort of what those emotions generate, people shut themselves off from those feelings.

The reality is people actively avoid these big feelings. Once you disconnect from the emotional discomfort, you store that emotional energy within your body, until you’re ready to ‘sit with it’.

This infers you need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable.

When those big feelings arrive, I recommend this simple tip – sit quietly and perform some breath work — even if only breathing in slowly and sighing on the outward breath. There’s so much scientific research that demonstrates that just ‘sighing’ can deflate that heavy and uncomfortable emotional balloon.

2. What’s the story?

So, you’ve decided to become serious about taking responsibility for improving your emotional intelligence, and you’ve been identifying what those big feelings are. You’ve been taking some deep breaths.

The next step is to sit with those feelings and record them in your journal. When we first begin to explore the emotions, people report to me they are not sure where to start. You may commence with a word, or write a story about the felt emotion. You may even choose to write a ‘fuck you’ letter.

It might be a word, or perhaps a statement, or even a story. Sit with the emotion for as long as possible to gain an awareness of what it is you are feeling.

Be sure to ask yourself “What, not why”. “What?” supports you to become curious and look for solutions. A “Why?” question has you looking in the rear view mirror of the past.

3. How strongly does the body react in response to the emotion?

Ok, so you’ve named the big feeling and started to become aware of what it’s all about. Now it’s time to ascertain where you feel it in your body.

This can be tricky when you find yourself sometimes stuck in your head with too many thoughts — it’s so easy to become disconnected from the feelings within your body when your head is busy.

This step is especially important as you continue to acknowledge what feelings and where they reside — because then you will understand if some are on a repeat loop for you to re-experience.

If this is the case ask yourself how often you are feeling that big feeling, say for example anger. 

Take a good look at its intensity and frequency, because big feelings that visit all the time get in the way of your relationships.

4. How long does the emotion visit?

When you begin to explore what is stored in the feels bucket, you should also begin to gauge how long it takes for that emotion to start to be felt or become most noticeable. Remaining present and simply allowing yourself to become curious enables you to not react or activate your subconscious survival program. 

When you can observe what you feel, and how long it lasts, you can then recognise the true impact of not attending to the emotional visitor.

I recommend documenting the duration and frequency of how often a triggering emotion surfaces. This will gift you the understanding that a feeling might be activated every now, or you may become aware that when you are triggered, you are smacked around the back side of the head daily. 

Understanding the frequency of your triggering emotion, and how long it lasts, will actively contribute to the mental energy you will require to become motivated to let it go.

5. What do you believe?

Did you know that what is contained in our belief system is housed in our subconscious? You can make changes, but this needs to be done consciously.

You have to work for it by acknowledging the feelings as they arise and then reflecting on how they affect your behaviour. It’s only then you can understand whether the stress story is real or relevant for your life today, versus appropriate for when you first experienced that feeling.

When it comes to your emotional response towards things, certain people and/ or yourself, you need to ask yourself to what extent your beliefs about those feelings and subsequent behaviours influence your opinion and actions. 

Do these beliefs promote your ability to do something or stop you in your tracks? To what extent do your emotions and the events change your long-term behaviour?

6. How does my reaction affect others

Once you get the hang of reflecting on your big feelings and where they are stored and reflecting on your beliefs, you may like to observe how your reactions affect those people around you.

As you begin to comprehend how your subconscious reaction might impact others, you become more motivated to pause your response and make behavioural changes that are positive and reaffirming for your relationships.

Conclusion

The reality is that we all have big feelings. My wish for you is that you can utilise these six questions to begin gently undertaking an exploration of your emotions that arise.

Learning about your subconscious emotional programs can motivate you to make big changes and therefore increase your Emotional Intelligence.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

• Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here
• 8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here
• Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

Prefer to listen to a podcast?

Karen has a free public podcast channel entitled “I Am Changeing” that stores resources for clients.

Click here for this episode.