How To Grow Emotional Intelligence | Pure Desire Ministries

So I think it's really clear already from just our sharing, the three of us, that it is possible to grow in emotional intelligence. But how do we do that? What does that look like?

I think that it starts first with that awareness, that self awareness piece is that if we haven't invested in ourselves enough to learn emotion, be able to label it, be able to call it what it is, you, you know, all. And even in the layers of emotion, that that really has to come first. And especially with like we've talked about with children, that's a great opportunity because children tend to maybe, obviously, let me see, children tend to be dysregulated emotionally more often than adults in an obvious way, but it's a great opportunity for.

Some adults you can get through.

I too, that's why I was being kind of careful about that in general.

Okay, got it, got it.

But I guess the adults are better at masking what they're feeling. And so, but children don't have a 10 to not do that. And so when they're feeling emotional about something, it just comes out. And it's a great opportunity to sit down and have that conversation. Because a lot of parents, just because it can be unnerving, will say, are you hurt? Well, if you're not hurt, stop crying, you know, and it's like, well, it's not really that easy because it has to do with internal pain, not always external pain, you know, and so just being able to sit down with your kid and say, you know, hey buddy, what's going on with you? What are you feeling? What are you, you know, what are you thinking? What's. Because we'll investigate a lot and will invest a lot in that relationship when we take time to learn that. But we can't ask somebody else in our life to have emotional intelligence when we don't have it, you know, and it just is us being aware, us being able to manage our own emotions and then through that process, being able to be empathetic. So when you talk about how do we, when you talk about how do we actually develop emotional awareness, part of it comes from just being willing to sit and listen to somebody else talk. Like, have no agenda, not even in your head, but just eye contact, listening, fully invested. I think that that is one of the best ways that you can start to develop emotional awareness.

I think that's so great. And I've recognized conversations where I need to do that mid conversation and I can ask internally that question, like, why am I feeling maybe really upset or bored or distracted? And If I can name it. And then sometimes it's appropriate to bring it into the conversation, like you have done in your meetings that Trevor brought up of saying, I'm sorry, I'm just really concerned about a meeting after this. And so if I appear distracted, I apologize. I'm really trying to be present, but, man, my brain just keeps jumping to that. So I apologize. It's just helped me understand why am I not able to really engage in this conversation. So I really recommend that. I think we've got a few tools at our disposal that have helped a lot. We talk around here about the faster scale quite a bit, and the faster scale really is an emotional awareness inventory that can lead to emotional intelligence. Because every phase of the scale, we're asking the question, how do I think and feel? And I know for a lot of men in group, in particular, early on, you ask, how do you feel? Say, I don't know. And I've told people it's okay to just guess. Like, guess, what do you think you were feeling angry? Because 90% of the time you're going to come pretty close to, I think I was feeling overwhelmed by this choice or this fear. Like, that's a great. I was feeling very anxious because of this. Okay, you're starting to. Even in guessing, because if we've been so attuned to pushing emotions aside or ignoring them and someone says, well, how do you feel? Like, I don't know. And that can be an honest answer. Well, start to take a stab at it. What would a reasonable person in this circumstance likely to be feeling? What would you guess it is? You're probably going to come closer to what you were feeling than you thought. But one other tool that I've used and I think has been in our Christian heritage for centuries, is something called the daily examine. And it's a practice of just at the end of your day or the beginning, looking at the last 24 hours and asking the question of consolation. The fancy spiritual words are consolation and desolation. Consolation meaning, what was the high point of my day? Where was my day the best? Or in spiritual language, they would ask me, where did I feel closest to God, most connected to him? And then saying, well, why? What about it? In that moment, what was I feeling and experiencing that made it such a great moment? And the desolation of where did I feel most distant from God? Or what was the low part of my day? What was my worst moment, and why? What was I feeling then? And becoming aware of our highs and lows actually then gives Us kind of a framework to see the rest of the day. And if we're doing that in a regular daily exam and kind of wait and this could take five minutes, you know, so we don't have to get. For those that don't like journaling, this doesn't have to be a 12 page, you know, dissertation of our day. It's just a quick like, boy, it was when I was hanging out with this friend that was the best part. Well, why? Maybe it's realizing I felt so accepted. I felt seen, I felt affirmed. Like, well, now you're putting language to what you felt and over time that really can develop emotional intelligence.

Like anybody who knows me knows I'm just going to say journaling, that's like the best way that I've learned. Because it's a place where I'm not burdening someone else. I'm really unburdening myself onto a page and I'm allowing how I feel in the moment, what I'm anxious about, whatever. And it's in a nonjudgmental way too. Cause the culture I grew up in, in the church, it's like I'm feeling really anxious. It's like, well, you know what the Bible says about being anxious, right? And it's like. And maybe someone didn't outright say that, but that's the response I would get, like, oh totally. But like, let's pray or why don't you like go read this book or why don't you like, blah blah, blah. And so I hear the good heartedness of that. But at the same time, if I'm journaling, I'm not gonna get that response. The page as I'm writing, I'm really anxious is gonna be like, well, you shouldn't actually feel that way. It's just gonna be raw, real emotion. And the nice thing is when I get it out sometimes and I'm able to actually acknowledge what it is, I feel free. Like I have taken this burden of these emotions that I've been carrying, set them down. It's like, oh, okay, I can see what that is. I can see. I've been able to process some of my day and it set me up for a lot better emotional state.

And honestly, just go watch the movie inside out, you know, Disney, Pixar, they'll help you figure it out. So good, because it's based on a deep awareness of emotional intelligence. So legitimately, like, go watch it through that lens of what can I learn here.