Golden Age for Emotional Intelligence
Golden Age for Emotional Intelligence (by Bob Spensley)
“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” – Robin Williams
We have amazing potential to positively impact people around us. What we’re seeing is increasing evidence of the value of mindfulness in all corners of the world, it’s worth encouraging: the time for increasing our emotional intelligence has most definitively arrived.
Partly because brain science research has been confirming that too much stress is not good for us, and likely because the collective trauma of the COVID-19 Pandemic has primed us into recognizing the value of mental health – this is the era when emotional intelligence is rightly getting its due.
What is EI? Emotional Intelligence is about tuning into, understanding, and harnessing our own and others’ emotions in ways that support well-being. It is about understanding emotions as information about needs and wants, safety and threats - there is no right/wrong or good/bad in our emotions – and emotional intelligence skills support us in responding rather than reacting to emotions.
Understanding EI is empowering. One of my favourite thinkers is Victor Frankl, a man who survived horrific ordeals to deeply seek meaning from suffering and then find it. Closely related to what Hilary LeRoy-Gauthier calls the “Power of the Pause”, Frankl shared, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” If we could be aware that we’re choosing our attitudes and the ways in which we’re impacting people around us, wouldn’t we want to tweak these skills in ourselves to be making more of a positive impact?
Further to the remarkable insights into interpersonal neurobiology and learnings from the pandemic (eg. what it means to experience trauma, isolation, depression), recent “about fricken time” movements have brought to the forefront how socially conscious it’s our responsibility to be. “Anti-Bullying”, “Me Too”, “Black Lives Matter”, “Indigenous Justice”, “LGBTQIA2S+”, “Every Child Matters”, and the fact that childhood anxiety is a global epidemic - all of these eye-openers right now are contributing to what Kim Barthel has been saying for ages - “We’re all doing what we know, until we know something different”. It’s good news we’re getting exposed to these shadows of our society, because we’re learning we’re influencing others for better and for worse just by doing what we’ve been doing. When Kim reminds people in workshops that “It’s not WHAT you do but HOW you do it that matters”, I believe this is her invitation for us to access our emotional intelligence for the greater good.
People are sensitive - we always were - and it’s finally getting through that we can make things easier on others by being more mindful. “Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones But Words Can Really Hurt Me” is a thoughtful blog I came across by Kimberley Diamond. This line of thinking is catching on in a big and positively meaningful way. The momentum of trying to be truly decent to others is building. But how?
Victor Frankl said “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Kim Barthel adds, “The only person we can change is our self”. As evidenced by the deep reflections around and within the movements noted above, the seeds from these thoughts are actually taking root. If we care to be a part of positive change, who else but ourselves can we directly and truly influence?
Not that it’s by any stretch easy to be our best selves, or that we have to be perfect. Thank goodness Lobsang Phuntsok says “Sometimes being naughty is OK” - but when we’re not doing that, let’s keep trying to be a bit more self-aware and compassionate, eh.
It is time for our emotional intelligence to share centre stage with whatever else we have going on.