When we think of emotional intelligence it’s not enough only to think of a person who has the ability to understand the way they feel and understand sympathize with the feelings of others. It’s true, this is part of emotional intelligence. But without the ability to have emotional resilience, the willingness to feel all of our emotions, extract the vital information they provide us, and bring ourselves back to center, we are left with basically holding the negative emotional bag. And the weight of that bag gets heavy.
The problem is, if we are not willing or able to identify and to process our or other’s uncomfortable emotions, we are most likely numbing. Numbing is when we choose things outside of us to “deaden” our ability to feel our emotions because they are too uncomfortable. They end up getting “stuck” in our bodies because we are not processing them. Uncomfortable emotions such as uncertainty, fear, anger, or self-doubt taken in before, during, or after an energetic exchange can hurt…a lot. Especially if we let them sit in our bodies with no reprieve because we don’t know how to process them.
Here\’s the truth: we all have a central nervous system. It gives us the ability to feel all of our emotions. We’ve had the ability to do this for over 200,000 years. It is the very information that has made our survival as human beings possible. When we have the courage to fully feel our uncomfortability, not judge it, duck it, numb it, but to truly listen to it and allow it to flow through us, we do more than just survive, we thrive.
Thriving means we don’t seek to just identify that we don’t feel “good” and do whatever it takes to stop that uncomfortable feeling or numb it. We don\’t look to avoid uncomfortable situations, scenarios, and challenges. We gladly go into the storm knowing that after we brave it we can bring ourselves back to shore. In short, we trust ourselves.
But if you want to have emotional intelligence and you want to be able to use the gift that is naturally within you, you need to build emotional resilience. Emotional resilience is defined as the ability to be able to cope with difficult situations and crisis. That is the definition that you will find if you look in any dictionary. I challenge this as a definition for emotional resilience. If you have a struggle you have to overcome anytime that you want to deal with your anger, with your frustration, with your pain, doubt, or uncertainty, it is automatically an adversarial relationship!
If there\’s something that is able to give you life-changing information, that is on your side, why should you make an adversary of it. Instead, it is possibly one of your best friends. Any one of those emotions that I named are uncomfortable because they\’re trying to tell you something. Those emotions are giving you information that could change the action you\’re going to take, or whatever choice you\’re going to make for yourself. Does that sound like an adversary? Or does that sound like a friend, or coach, or mentor?
How many coaches in your life that have ever made a difference in who you are in any sport that you’ve ever done have only said nice things? How many coaches worth their salt have never put you in an uncomfortable position, have never asked you to do something uncomfortable to better yourself? I\’m not talking about a voice that would put you down, or put you in your place, and stop you from challenging yourself. I\’m talking about a voice that would shoot straight with you about what you need to improve and what you\’re doing well.
Every single uncomfortable emotion that you have has the ability to do this for you. It is your inner critic that turns that uncomfortability into something that is negative, that goes against the coaching, telling you can\’t do something. It is not your emotions. So, stop having an adversarial relationship with your uncomfortable emotions. There is no need for prejudice against emotions that cause discomfort and to favor only those that feel good. Instead, you need to have the ability to take in and to understand the information of all the different emotions that you have in order to build your emotional intelligence.
Once you’re able to build your emotional intelligence, you will have a library of information that you can use to help inform your choices every day, not just when a crisis arises. You don\’t only want half the story on this, you want to be able to feel all of your uncomfortable emotions along with all of your comfortable emotions, fully and honestly experience everything. Your ability to identify your emotions, use the information they provide to guide your choices, and then bring yourself back to center after every high and every low resiliently allows you to thrive!
