Emotions. They’re not easy to deal with and even harder to ignore. Have you ever taken a few minutes to stop and understand how you really feel? Is that sinking feeling in your stomach fear or anxiety? Is that weight on your shoulders sadness or a feeling of loneliness?
How you deal with your emotions is also just as important as identifying your emotions. What’s the good in being able to understand that you feel sad without being about to know why you’re sad or how you’ll cope with your sadness.
Emotional intelligence is ‘the capacity to be aware of, control, and express your emotions’. It isn’t something that we all have but it’s something we should all want.
I know what it’s like to not feel anything at all. I know what it’s like to have no control over your emotions. Because I was unable to identify and process my emotions, I would be triggered by anything and everything. I would be walking down the road and just start crying out of nowhere.
If, like me, you’re lacking emotional intelligence have you ever thought why that might be? A lot of your emotional intelligence is developed throughout childhood and early adolescence. In my journey of finding my emotions, I found that I had to go back and try to find the point of which I began to repress my emotions. Everyone’s reasons for repression are different but they are important, no matter what they are. Undoing the emotional damage that had been done over years of repression is, to this day, one of the most difficult journey’s I’ve embarked on (and I study social work at uni😂).
My personal journey consisted of a lot of long walks, on which I would have in-depth and honest conversations with myself, about myself. I would ask myself why I was suppressing how I felt, why I wouldn’t let myself feel anything and then answer the best I could. I would bring up memories that I’ve been pushing aside for years, thinking of how I think they would make me feel. From there I would either try and recreate that emotion by thinking of another memory that is linked to that feeling or save it for the next time I feel that emotion and see if the memory and the emotion do align for me.
During this journey, I would have a lot of low moods that I could be stuck in for days on end with no avail, and at first I used to rely on others to help get me out of the mood. However, I eventually realised that it wasn’t helping me to progress and so I began finding how I would cope with these moods. After weeks on end of trying different methods to cope with my low moods I found what worked for me. All I honestly had to do was identify how I felt and why I was feeling that way. Once I understood why I was in a low mood it was so much easier to get out of it and deal with the issue.
Even though I’ve come so far with my emotional intelligence, there’s still quite a journey left to go. However, here are my tips on how to build your emotional intelligence:
1. Keep a mood diary. Write how you feel in a day and why
2. Understand that some days it’s okay to just feel indifferent. To be emotionally intelligent, you don’t have to be an emotional rollercoaster
3. Find how you best think - mine is when I’m walking, for another is might be whilst running or driving - and let your mind roam freely
4. Never rush the process. It’s hard, long and draining but at the end of it all you’ll be in a much better place.
5. Try different coping mechanisms to find what works best for you. Examples of coping mechanisms that can be used are mindfulness, exercise and therapy.
6. Finally, don’t feel like you have to do it alone. Everyone has they’re own baggage, some more than others and unpacking traumatic experiences is dealt with differently by each individual. If you feel as though you would be better to take your journey with someone else, asking for help will never be a negative thing. Whether it’s a friend or sibling to just be available to answer your calls if you need them or a therapist to help you unpick your experiences.
You should be your top priority.
Get yourself right so you can continue to flourish.