Entertain me for a moment.

Indicate how you’re feeling based off of these descriptors:

  • Sunny Skies
  • Partly Sunny
  • Chance of Rain
  • Thunderstorms

There are two benefits to this exercise: you check in with yourself in the present moment and challenge yourself to describe how you’re feeling in another way besides emotion or feeling words. This is all a part of emotional intelligence!

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Simply put, emotional intelligence is the ability to notice, name, and navigate your emotional experiences not only in yourselves but in other people. Emo intel (as I like to call it) helps you digest or move your emotions through your body so you don’t get stuck in any one emotion. If you get stuck in sadness, that could lead to depression. If you get stuck in worry, that could lead to anxiety or panic. If you get stuck in anger that could lead to rage. Emo intel is about navigating and processing our emotions so we can metabolize them in a healthy way.

What are Emotions?

Emotions are energy in motion. They are actually chemical signals that are released in our body that tell us to “pay attention” to something that’s happening around us – whether that’s an internal thought or an external event. We embody our emotions because we experience them throughout our entire being. Emotions are also data that tells you something about your lived experience. You experience them inwardly and throughout your body, but express them outwardly. Emotions can manifest in your conscious or your unconscious mind and are impacted by not only our genetics (i.e. personality) but also your social environment.

One key takeaway of emo intel is that emotions are not inherently good or bad. We classify emotions as positive or negative, yes, but that doesn’t mean that they’re good or bad. Every emotion serves a function and is present for a reason. For example, think of guilt. We experience guilt when we feel we’ve wronged another person, and our action tendency is to make amends. Imagine what the world would be like, and how we would treat one another, if we couldn’t feel guilty? We would do each other wrong and not have any remorse! Negative emotions are essential to our functioning. Every emotion – including negative ones – serve a specific role.

Beware the Story

The lifespan of an emotion is about 90 seconds, but I’m sure you’ve experienced an emotion that lasts for longer than a minute and a half. That’s because we perpetuate that emotion with the thoughts and story we tell ourselves. Picture a cycle here: you’re feeling angry because your boss sent a snippy email. As the chemical cocktail of anger runs through your body, you also have thoughts that perpetuate that anger (“Well, that was so uncalled for! I can’t believe he did that! That was so aggressive! He could have just called me and we could have talked it out in two seconds!”) These thoughts allow the anger to live in your mind, so you’re staying in that angry place, even though that emotion has likely already flushed through your body. Try to be aware of the story you’re telling yourself that goes along with an emotion. If you can manage your thoughts, you’re likely going to navigate that emotion a little bit better.

You are Not Your Emotions

You are not your emotions! You are you, experiencing a whole lot of emotions as a messy, complex, beautiful human being. Our language tends to define us as the emotion we’re feeling by saying things like,

“I am frustrated.”

“I am happy.”

“I am anxious.”

when, in fact, you are only experiencing that emotion. The small shift in language from “I am frustrated.” to “I am feeling frustrated.” can help create a buffer between you and your emotional experience, so you’re not identifying with that emotion.

I use this in the context of depression. Someone who is experiencing depression can easily identify with it and think, “I’m depressed. I’m a depressed person. This is what I do and how I act because I am depressed.” If you shift your language and create that buffer, you’re able to loosen up from the grasp of that really, really strong and painful emotion and realize “I’m me! Sometimes I feel depressed, but at the end of the day I’m a whole human, experiencing a whole hodgepodge of emotions, because that’s what being a human is!”

Feeling All the Feelsgottman anger iceberg

Not only do we feel a whole range of different emotions, but we can also feel more than one emotion at the same time. What’s more is that we can feel conflicting emotions at the same time. (Think of “bittersweet” or “tears of joy.”) Understand that whatever you’re feeling in whatever capacity is normal, human, and okay. Realizing this is the first step to be able to navigate whatever it is you’re experiencing.

The Gottman’s Institute anger iceberg illustrates this idea. If you feel a powerful negative emotion surge very quickly, try to notice what you’re feeling and take a moment to just let it settle into your body. Take a moment to accept and take note of how it feels. Ask yourself if there’s anything else you could be feeling. Emotional experiences are more complex than just feeling really angry, happy, or sad. There’s nuance to it. Being able to recognize that in your body is all part of being emotionally intelligent.

Five Steps to Navigate Emotions

(inspired by the Gottman Institute)

1. Notice what you’re feeling & where you’re feeling it. Try to notice the emotion that’s cropping up and know that whatever it is, it’s not right or wrong, it’s just part of being human. You want to turn towards your emotion and then target where you feel the energy in your body. Your chest might tighten, you may feel lighter, your legs might feel heavy, your hands may tingle.

2. Name it. Identifying the emotion you’re feeling can keep yourself grounded and help move the energy through you. I suggest naming the emotion out loud or writing it down to create that connection between the emotion and how it feels in your body. It’s also helpful to note some of the thoughts you have around the emotion. With practice, you’ll be able to more quickly notice and name your emotions over time.

3. Accept. We all know that if we suppress or deny our emotions they will act like a spring: sooner or later you will implode. (That’s not fun for anyone, especially you!) It’s essential to acknowledge and accept your emotions. Like I mentioned before, emotions are not inherently good or bad. They simply exist. Surrendering to the moment and the emotion can be scary, but it is one of the most efficient ways to move the emotional energy through your body and move on from the experience. People can sometimes get more upset because they’re upset. This is a side effect of resisting an emotion. If you accept the sadness that you’re experiencing and let the tears flow, you’re going to navigate that much more efficiently than you would by getting upset that you’re upset.

4.Realize that emotions are temporary. Every emotional experience is temporary. No matter how painful or pervasive. It will pass. I promise you, it will pass. When I’m feeling something that’s pretty intense and relatively painful, I picture a wave of that emotion washing over me, reminding myself that any emotional experience I have will not last forever.

5. Stay curious. The key to emo intel (and personal mastery) is to approach each emotional experience with a sense of curiosity. If you find that something triggers you, try and catch yourself in the moment. Acknowledge what it is you’re feeling let it move through you by saying something like, “Oh, how interesting! What triggered me to feel this way? I saw that post and then I started feeling really anxious and kind of annoyed. My heart’s beating really fast right now and I can feel my face flushing. I wonder what it was about that that triggered me. I wonder why I feel this way right now.” Having a curious mindset protects us from resisting the emotion and judging ourselves. Curiosity will help us navigate difficult experiences by allowing greater self-awareness and self-compassion. Once we know the reason for our behavior, we can address it in a kind and gentle way.

Emotions are one piece of the messy, complex, and beautiful puzzle of being human. By sharpening our emotional intelligence and our ability to notice, name, and navigate emotional experiences we can better connect to ourselves and others.