The Top Key for Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence is about how to thrive emotionally. And there is one key that supports us feeling better more of the time.
You have an emotional body. Just like you have a physical body and a mental body (of thoughts) you have an emotional body of feelings. It is designed by creation so you can feel. It is at the heart of being human. It feels all the emotions, from joy to despair, from excitement to depression.
For example, we all want to be happy, and we spend a lot of our time chasing after happiness. We buy things to be happy, we go on vacations to be happy, we get into (and out of) relationships to be happy. And these things do make us happy! But, as we all know, the happiness is only short term. The new car we bought that was so exciting is now just another bill to pay. The new relationships we got into a year ago that was so exhilarating now has its ups and downs. Happiness proves to be elusive.
What, then, can we do to be happier and feel more content? How can we develop emotional intelligence that helps us to feel good when we aren’t chasing after the latest new shiny object?
The key has to do with realizing something profound. You can’t keep happiness. It comes and goes. You can’t hold on to any positive emotion. You’ve felt love, joy, and satisfaction in your life, and they went away, and then came back, and “left” again. We all try to feel just good feelings and it doesn’t work. They come and go. This is how it works for you, for your family, for your parents and their parents. You can’t just have good feelings and not have any “bad” ones.
This leads to a top key of emotional intelligence, which is Emotional Appreciation. Start to embrace all your feelings, not just the good ones. If you feel sad or afraid or angry, allow those feelings. Don’t try to choke them off or suppress them. The more you choke off difficult emotions, the more you choke off your emotional body and so will feel less alive and more numb.
Emotional Appreciation is a simple, counter-intuitive skill that you can use to start to thrive emotionally. To start to come alive in your emotional body again. So instead of trying to only feel happiness or positive feelings, allow yourself to feel your difficult emotions. For just a few minutes, when a difficult comes up because you saw two lovers strolling hand in hand and you felt lonely and sad because you don’t have a lover, explore that feeling.
Where is it located in your body?
You don’t have to wallow in it, but if you can open up to your difficult emotions for a few minutes at a time they start to integrate and heal.