EI: Developing emotional intelligence: What happens?

Developing emotional intelligence at home - what happens? Many of us learn about emotions and emotional intelligence within our families and while at school. However, our parents or teachers may not have felt comfortable with a full range of emotions nor been able to express or manage their own emotions well, nor read or managed others' emotions with high levels of skill. For example, some of us have been brought up in families that: Repressed or ignored emotions. Left emotions unspoken, e.g. they sulked, said nothing or manipulated instead. Dumped their emotions on others. Turned anger against others. "Rationalised" all their decisions. Discouraged the expression of any emotions or specific emotions. In this kind of environment it may be difficult to realise our full emotional intelligence potential.

What did you learn about emotions at home? Self-awareness is a key to developing emotional intelligence. Here are a series of questions for you to reflect on about your own development. What did you learn about emotions when you were a child? What unspoken rules about emotions did you pick up or get taught? How was affection expressed in your family? How was anger expressed in your family? What emotional vocabulary did you hear? In what ways, if any, were you encouraged to express your emotions? Which emotions were you encouraged to suppress? In what ways, if any, were you encouraged to factor how you felt into your decisions? How much attention did your family pay to the emotions of others? What methods did your family use in trying to manage the emotions of others, whether children, aunts, neighbours, friends, colleagues or salesmen? Many of us were not consistently exposed to high levels of emotional intelligence in our families, which makes developing emotional intelligence in ourselves quite hard. When you were developing your emotional intelligence what did you see and hear about emotions? What have you internalised from your family about your and others' emotions? How has this impacted on the development of your emotional intelligence? I am not laying blame at families. All our families have been subjected to conditioning from their families and the times in which they grew up. Times have changed and we now know a lot more about emotions, their management and importance.

Developing emotional intelligence at home - an example. In my family I learnt the following: It was okay to express affection non-verbally. My parents would walk down the street hand-in-hand and would often be seen to hold hands. We also held Dad's hand or locked our arms through his when we walked down the street together. Expressions of love and appreciation were not verbalised. I have never heard either of my parents say they love me, nor ever heard them tell each other of their love. They may have done this in private but certainly there was no public acknowledgment. Even when I congratulated my father, as an adult, on his reaching his 40th wedding anniversary he simply said, "It's expected", rather than "Yes I love your mum" (which I am sure he did). Praise was not verbalised. For example, much of what we did was expected of us and we were not praised. Words such as "We are proud of you", "I admire you for winning that race", or "We appreciate how hard you have worked" were not heard. We may not even have got a "Well done!" We were punished if we did something wrong and were brought up to be "responsible". I learnt to fear owning up to mistakes. Pleasant emotions, such as joy and delight, were encouraged (as long as they were not too exhuberant). What a gift to gain! For example, my father would sit us on his knee when we were small children and play all sorts of fun games, such as singing "This is the way the ladies ride ..." while he was pretending to be a horse. I loved it! We dressed up at Halloween as ghosts, and hid in wigwams at Christmas so we wouldn't see when Father Christmas came. My mother made us incredible costumes so we could enter the fancy dress competitions in our village each year. I still have the photos of my sister as "Stevenson's rocket" and me as "Miss buttons and bows"! As for anger and other "unpleasant" emotions they were not verbally named or allowed. I learnt very little in the way of emotional vocabulary or literacy around unpleasant emotions. My father, for example, always expressed his displeasure, frustration or anger with us kids in hushed tones. I dreaded that voice! I came to think there must be something very wrong with being angry. My father's main emotional self-management technique appeared to be one of emotional control and repression. My mother didn't label her emotions either, they were expressed non-verbally with a glare, a turning away, or a "hidden" sign of disapproval or put-down. She would never directly say how she was feeling or about what. We knew when she was displeased but we didn't necessarily know about what or in what way. This was typical of women of her generation. My mum, along with many other women, were taught to be seen and not heard, and often their only power was through silent manipulation. Managing the emotions of others appeared to be done through discipline. For example, I remember often being told to quieten down if I got excited, which I did too often for my parents' pleasure! This is not a full picture of my family. I have missed much out and I don't wish to cause my family embarrassment as they are very good people and I love and admire them greatly. I do want to show how important it is to reflect on your own upbringing as a way of gaining insights and understanding into the development of your emotional intelligence. How does this compare with your upbringing? Every family is different. We are all exposed to different rules and levels of emotional literacy and emotional intelligence in our families. If you have your own family now what are you teaching your children about emotions and how are you developing their emotional intelligence?

Developing emotional intelligence as an adult. In case you are now feeling gloomy or despondent about your own emotional intelligence, take heart, you can keep developing emotional intelligence as an adult, and reduce the impact of any unhelpful conditioning you have gained. The first step is to become aware of what you learnt as a child and then to ask yourself the following: In what ways am I still following my family's emotional habits, rules or beliefs? What did I learn as a child that is still useful to me? Which rules have I changed and updated and become more skilled in? Which areas could I still update so I keep developing my emotional intelligence? What other role models do I have to help me in developing my emotional intelligence and showing me what is possible? For example, I find it easy to express affection, and learnt this from my parents. I can hug, shake hands, and hold hands easily with a range of people. However, I have developed my emotional intelligence beyond the family model, in terms of verbally naming love and affection. I am very comfortable with telling people that I love them. A day would not go by when I didn't tell my husband that I loved him. I have also told my mum that I love her. I have told friends that I love them too. Expressing emotions in this way is all part of developing emotional intelligence on dimension 2: expressing feelings. I have also worked hard to overcome the silent manipulation that I learnt from my mother and her mother, and instead to differentiate between, and honestly label, my emotions. How have I done this? I have devoted a lot of time to developing journal writing as a skill for expressing and labelling my emotions. I have used the journal to identify patterns in my emotionally driven behaviour that are not helpful to me. Journalling has helped me to identify and reduce the triggers that used to ignite anger and frustration in me. I continue to use meditation practice, the Feldenkrais method, and other related strategies in developing my emotional intelligence as an adult. Once we become adults, developing emotional intelligence to a higher level is still possible. We are all works in progress.

What can I do next in developing emotional intelligence? Your emotional intelligence potential can still be polished. There are emotional intelligence CDs and books you can learn from. There are emotional intelligence courses and speeches you can attend. There are mentors who can help you. There are emotional intelligence activities you can involve yourself in. There is emotional intelligence coaching you can gain from. There are online resources in emotional intelligence for you. For example, we have another page devoted to emotional intelligence activities for adults. There are a lot of practical and down-to-earth emotional intelligence strategies for you to learn in our seven Emotional Intelligence workshops. These include "Mastering Emotional Intelligence" and "How to keep your cool". Even more emotional intelligence tips are available to you on our 2 CD set "Happy not hassled: Easy meditations to manage your emotions and find contentment". The CDs can help you to manage your emotions, find greater calm and reduce anger, anxiety and irritation. There are even more emotional intelligence tips for you on another 2 CD set "How to deal with difficult people without getting upset". This one will help you to stop other people from pressing your buttons, and help you handle angry or difficult people without getting sucked into their negativity or becoming upset in response. You can also subscribe to our free emotional intelligence newsletter and gain free fortnightly tips and articles. Subscribe here. Never give up on developing emotional intelligence. Why would you?

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Updated 26-Apr-2012