Emotional Intelligence

-Emotional Intelligence-

A survey taken by 7,000 people over five years found that on average people can identify only three emotions as they are actually feeling them: happiness, sadness and anger.….

Imagine you had a bad pain in your body that was so excruciating that when it radiated through your body it took your breath away. This pain started small but you then found that it started defining your life. You finally got an appointment with the doctor but when you got there and the doctor asked what was wrong you felt as if you had duct tape over your mouth and like your hands had been tied behind your back. The doctor asked again for you to show them where the pain was…

Human nature says you will respond in one of three ways;

- start thrashing around in rage

- start crying and slump down on the floor

- continue carrying the pain around and refuse to go into the doctors office at all

(All these responses have a positive intention but may not be helping you in the long term)

These reactions are because you have a pain that can’t be shared, articulated and you can’t ask for what you need. When the human experience of emotion gets shoved into happy, sad or angry we become one of the three above responses.

The Wheel of Emotion shown in the picture is a map to help guide you through your emotions. The emotions in the centre tend to be the core emotions, start here and then follow the colour wedges out to the middle and outer sections that may better reflect how you are feeling. Naming your emotion tends to reduce the emotional intensity of it.