Improvement Of Emotional Intelligence

[Mastermind]

Hey, Guys,
I have a problem finding PRACTICAL tips on development of Emotional Intelligence.

Let's use this four-part definition of Emotional intelligence:

* Self-Awareness (understanding one self)
* Self-Regulation (managing one's emotions)
* Social Awareness (understanding emotions of other people)
* Social Intelligence (managing relationships and emotions of other people)

And here's the most important question:

Is there any specific things I should do to improve every part of my Emotional Intelligence?

If so, what I should do?
(for example: build emotional vocabulary, try to be honest to one self and try to understand, what message brings certain emotions?)

[JeffR1]

@Mastermind Hi and welcome to the forum. The topic of emotional intelligence (EI) is huge and there is a great deal of infomation out there about the topic. Indeed, one area where there seems to be lots of focus on EI is in the business world.

You ask if there are any specific thing you could do to improve your EI; this is a big question, as there are so many techniques and aspects to it. So, I will speak from my perspective. But first, I would say you already heading in a positive direction, as your examples indicate.

I have, for as long as I can remember, been curious of life, people, nature and how it all works. I study people - a people watcher some might say. It also helps in my work to have a good grasp of EI and practice it well. 

The four-part definition you provided is your road map to improving your EI. So, self investigation and self development is needed for part one. Once you have a better understanding of self, this naturally leads to part two. Having investigated yourself, you become aware you are human and what it means to be human. This will lead to developing an understanding of emotions of other people. Bring all of this together allows your growth into part four.

In practical terms, how do I think I have improved my EI. Firstly, I actively worked at forgiveness of myself and of others. I looked the history of my parents and their parents - this helped me to understand better who they are and how I became who I am. I had lots to work through from my upbringing and lots of forgiveness was needed.

Doing this has allowed me to understand empathy a lot more. Interacting with people from an empathetic viewpoint often leads to more positive relationships and outcomes.

I also found I needed to let go of any notions I held about being able to control or change people. When someone feels they can just be themselves with you, they feel more at ease and you can both relate to each other better. This also means letting go of judgements, and statements like 'you should / shouldn't ...', 'you can't ...', 'you must ...', 'you are ...' - these type of statements lead to people feelings judged, controlled and not good enough.

I've had people say to me that I'm easy to talk to and that they've told me things they've never told anyone else. I'd like to think this is in some way that my level of EI makes them feel comfortable and okay about themselves.

Lastly (for the moment) a good dose of active listening, self-awareness, being present and grounded helps so much in improving your EI. Best wishes. 

[Leo Gura]

I found mindfulness meditation, focused specifically on internal phenomena like feelings and thoughts, to be the fastest and most direct way to increased EQ.

But there are many other ways as well.

This vid explains mindfulness meditation: http://www.actualized.org/articles/mindfulness-meditation

[Mastermind]

Thanks.

So, as far as I understood:
Mindfulness is probably the best tool for improvement of Self-Awareness and Self-Regulation. 
(@Leo Gura, can Mindfulness increase other parts of EQ?)

Empathy is the biggest part of Social Awareness. Empathy is needed to forgive people and etc.

And interacting with people from empathetic viewpoint is big part of Social Intelligence.
(Is here some more points, @JeffR1 @Leo Gura ?)

Personally, I struggle very much in Social interactions for many years. Some people (usually, under 30 or 40) perceive me as very empathetic and caring. Other people (usually, my age) perceive me as cold, distant, arrogant, strange, serious etc.
The most common statements about me is "strange", "hard to understand", "creepy", "serious", "not relaxed". In fact, when I'm joking, other people usually think, that I'm serious and I perceive my self as smiling and not serious.

Another point, witch I want to make here is: It is hard for me to understand social situations. It looks like I don't feel really emotionally, what is appropriate and what is not in certain social situations. In these situations I rely only on politeness, tactfulness and empathy.

Usually I feel like being unable to chat and build relationships. All my relationships are like "black and white" - "very deep or no relationship at all". And even if the relationship is very deep - usually I have few deep and quality conversations per month.

Here's another big question:
Is it a lack of EQ (specifically: Social Intelligence) or a lack of something else, which can cause these problems?

Edited February 20, 2016 by Mastermind
little mistake, which can make a big impact on meaning.

[Sleepwalker]

A lack of social awareness? Maybe. At the same point, it could be a lack of self awareness. I'll try to explain

You said that some people don't perceive you the same way you perceive yourself. It could be the case that you're aware of what you're feeling at that moment, but not aware of your facial expressions, the tone of your voice, body language and in general, the message you communicate while talking. To be honest I was struggling with the same problem and I found that those things I just mentioned were the ones I had to work on. 

Furthermore, you're probably not behaving in front of older people the same way you behave in front of your friends  I assume that you're more polite and that you sometimes filter out some jokes you don't find appropriate for them. This is normal and it's not surprising that they perceive you as a nice, caring guy/girl.

Regarding people your age who perceive you as cold and distant, try to work on eye contact and kindness, make them feel comfortable and relaxed around you, ask them questions, I mean, everybody likes to talk about themselves. Be a good listener, show some interest in their life and feelings. Btw, if people find you hard to understand, serious, then you should consider explaining your attitude, beliefs and mindsets, why you think and feel that way towards certain situations etc. 

You can increase your EQ by observing your thoughts and feelings and consiously changing your behaviour when thinking or feeling those. This will take some time, though. Put your attention on them especially while having some difficult interactions, like arguing or debating someone.

I hope that this was helpful. Good luck!  

[Mastermind]

@MelanieWalker there was a little mistake I made in my last sentence - it's "Social Intelligence", not "Social Awareness".

But your reply is still good.  Thanks for your help.  

P.S.: I want to highlight your one statement for other people, who will be reading this  :

"You can increase your EQ by observing your thoughts and feelings and consciously changing your behavior when thinking or feeling those."

Edited February 20, 2016 by Mastermind
Post Scriptum

[Sleepwalker]

Hahah anyways I got what you meant  Glad that I could help. 

[Leo Gura]

@Mastermind Mindfulness is helpful with relationships and empathy, but don't use it as an escape from being in relationships. You need lots of relationship experience if you want to be good at relationships. So do both at the same time and you'll see big gains.

Sounds like you may have a bit (or a lot) of an autistic. The autistic mind is so logical it lacks empathy. I have a great book about this issue on my book list in the Relationships category.

[Mastermind]

On 2016-02-20 at 9:43 AM, Leo Gura said:

Sounds like you may have a bit (or a lot) of an autistic. The autistic mind is so logical it lacks empathy. I have a great book about this issue on my book list in the Relationships category.

Thanks for your recommendation and advice, Leo.

Actually, I express no typical autistic tendencies, but I always score just a little bit higher, than Average, on Asperger's Syndrome test.

One important point here. Because of emotional suffering I had some Schyzotypal personality traits, self-motivation problems and a lot of neurotic traits. But I almost worked some of them out and still working on some of them. You may say, that I need some help from specialists. In fact, specialists helped me in short run (or didn't helped at all), but not in long run. Now I'm working on myself by myself, and that seems to help in long run.  

Speaking about Empathy, I'm capable of understanding other people's emotions by intuition, but usually I don't really "feel", how to respond to those emotions. (Older people say, that I'm caring and warm, probably because they are much more observant)
Inside I'm deeply emotional and even somewhat artistic person  (As a child and teenager, I received comments, that I'm very musically (and not only musically) talented).
But I need a lot of effort just to "fit in the society".

That's why I'm concerned specifically about Social Intelligence. I want to learn to "feel intuitively", how to respond to other people.

Edited February 24, 2016 by Mastermind
little mistake

[Anna Skywords]

Mastermind a quick excercise might help. I hope you don't think it's crazy. Get a pen and some paper and write down some emotions. Start with the simple and most obvious ones like....happy, sad , angry, then move on to suprized, anixous , not pacient , confused,  thinking. Then go to the mirror.  Make your face in the mirror for each emotion. Be sure to remember how the muscles in your face move and what your face looks like for each emotion. Make sure you have the right facial expressions to go with each emotion. Ask for help from a friend to be sure you got this down then learn to remember how each emotion is expressed with your face. Once you really get this you can work on body languages next.

[nima]

Nobody have thought deeply about some of the feelings or maybe they have kept it as a secret .I will reveal some of my thought about emotions.I have inspidered by noah elkrif and quran, though.

First step is knowing all the emotions.do you realy know them and their ranges?

There are four basic emotion:

1- sadness 2-fear 3-happiness and joy 4-love

Actually there are some thouths behind theme.

-sadless is when you think you have lost something

-fear is when you think you will lose something

- happiness is when you gain something 

-joy is when you think you have a beutiful experince

- love is when you think you have found something extraordinary that can fulfill all your needs.

There are some none basic feelings or emotion which are created on top of some mislearned beliefs and thouthts.for example 

Anger is when something or someone hits or interferes your dogma based expectations

I know my classification needs to be optimized.what is your opinion

@Leo Gura

Edited February 24, 2016 by nima
additions