Renowned Emotional Intelligence (EI) practitioner and theorist Daniel Goleman categorizes EI in four main themes which are further divided in several emotional intelligence competencies. These themes are; Self-awareness, Self-management, Social awareness and Relationship management. This categorization is a good one to remember because it makes clear that the whole concept is built around recognizing and managing one’s own emotions as well as recognizing and managing emotions of people around us. An important realization here is that one has to identify and recognize an emotion in order to manage it. Just like in order to solve any given issue, we first have to make a realization that there is an issue.
Emotional self-awareness is the very first competency that we are going to talk about and it is the first step towards creating an awareness around our own self. As the name suggests, it is our ability to connect to our emotions in a given moment, to know where an emotion is coming from and after creating this awareness, deciding how to react in that situation. It’s our ability to take our internal temperature. Imagine a father coming home after a long day, frustrated by an argument that he had with his boss. As soon as he enters the house, he begins to shout at his teenager kid, who is sitting and watching tv, telling him to do something purposeful with his life rather than wasting time uselessly. When the wife tries to calm him down, he would shun her as well. Now, imagine another person in the same situation who have developed a strong Emotional self-awareness. This person will come home having the same experiences at work and he would be aware that he is not in best of his mood. He would share this feeling openly at home saying; Kindly, switch off the tv, it is just too noisy for me right now, as I had a rough day. I am in a bad mood but none of this has anything to do with you. So, in a difficult situation, an emotionally self-aware person will be able to recognize his/her emotions and decide accordingly about how to act pro-actively rather than re-actively/impulsively.
An impulsive reaction due to a lack of Emotional self-awareness results in feelings of guilt or regret. After establishing a solid Emotional self-awareness, we are able to recognize which behaviours and thoughts we do not need to engage in because they eventually bring a negative emotion to us. Which emotions, thoughts and behaviours are emotionally draining to us and which are emotionally energizing? Once we are able to get rid of emotionally draining attitudes and thoughts, we create space within our selves for more emotionally energizing experiences. This is how Emotional self-awareness helps us become expansive and flexible, by always being in touch with our internal selves.
Whenever I introduce people to Emotional self-awareness the first reaction is “surprise”. The main reason for this surprise is that in emotionally over-whelming situations we are prone to look outwards, so that we can find out “whose fault was this negative experience that I had?” So, the first surprise is “What?? I need to look inside to find something that is not working well??” And this is where I experience most resistance as a change facilitator in the process of building emotional intelligence. In this part of the process I am mostly focused on helping people accept that we have to start from ourselves in order to improve our own life quality. Our life and our happiness is our own responsibility. And once people get used to engaging in this expansive behaviour, they can never stop!
Emotional self-awareness is the first and most important building block of emotional intelligence along with self-regard that we will learn about in the next blog. Just like any other systemic process, practice is the key to building a strong Emotional self-awareness. In my workshops and coaching sessions, I provide both, tools to practice & enhance Emotional self-awareness AND also a safe & secure environment to experiment with new behaviors. I will leave you with the question: “Where do I find my- self in the process of building a strong Emotional self-awareness? Am I well on my way or do I need to start the process now?”. You are welcome to contact me if there are any questions and you feel that you (or your team) need help to build a strong Emotional self-awareness.