Summer trip to Yosemite. Glacier Point
Photo: Courtesy of Big Data Technologies ❤
I recently attended an emotional intelligence mini-seminar. It’s the latest catch-phrase in business and in psychology. When you need to be prepared in your personal relationships or professionally, you will want to draw on your own emotional intelligence. By doing so, you’ll need to be more aware of your emotions to be able to control them in any situation. And when you can handle these interpersonal relationships with empathy, you can temper heated scenarios.
“Know Thyself” is a Greek aphorism which means the more we know ourselves, the more likely we can guess how others will behave. But better yet, we will know how we will behave when someone pushes our trigger buttons, our emotional weaknesses that make us defensive, feel hurt, and the like. Self awareness helps us identify our own reactions to situations, and thus sensibly respond rather than react to them. Socrates suggests that we may jump too quickly to external cues with a full evaluation. Sometimes we need to access the situation, make inferences or determine what other situations you’re associating this moment with, provide introspection first, and then respond differently for a better outcome.
Sometimes, we resort to our own natural tendencies and behave in similar ways from our past. This is normal. But to improve, we need to go through the process of self discovery. Ask yourself why you are feeling the way you do. Discover what connection you make to some past event. Then understand how you would normally react before you can shift gears and respond DIFFERENTLY.
Occasionally, in situations, I notice the back of my neck getting really hot before I become the dark-self I don’t like. Responding differently is the ability to differentiate the new situation to the past ones. At this point you can consider other people’s feeling and acknowledge them either by stating that you recognize the intense moment and emotional impact or offering your help. Continue to utilize your new skills; they are certain to come in handy.
When we can change our own behaviors, we are likely to find ourselves happier in our healthier relationships.
To ‘Know Thyself’ is the beginning of wisdom.
Joy,
Cheryl
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