Remember that cultivating self-awareness has three key components: thoughts, emotions and behaviors. They are inter-linked drivers of your engagement with your experiences and relationships.
Some of the most transformational work you will ever do is gaining objective insights about how much control you’ve handed over to your unchecked emotions. For far too long, you’ve probably been a back-seat driver.
The fundamental reason that “emotional intelligence” shows up in the foundational section of Base Camp is to help you reframe emotions in a positive way. The lifetime goal is to develop a healthy, strong working relationship WITH your emotions.
MIndfulness and curiosity will be the probes you deploy for understanding your current relationship with your emotions. Begin to pay close attention to when you handle emotions with ease. Contrast it to the times that the very same emotions bubble up and you lose control. What are the variables?
Are you cool as a cucumber at worK but a loose emotional cannon at home? What guardrails do you rely on at work to keep you from losing emotional control; in other words — what’s the driver for better emotional discipline?
The reality is that it’s human nature to give our best at work because our self-esteem, self-worth and reputation are on the line. We rely on our social protection system to keep us in alignment with who we want (and need) to be in the workplace. The workplace may be the one part of our life where we are most emotionally consistent.
What changes when you get home and are interacting with those who know you more intimately? Do you slip off your coat and slip out of alignment with the guardrails you rely on at work? Can you observe yourself from a distance and notice how differently you show up in tone and emotional reactivity? Do you have a weaker immune system at home when it comes to emotional contagion? What drives you at home? (Drives you nuts, drives you crazy, drives you to distraction?). Could it be that your emotional drive train is out of alignment?
Dr. Becky Kennedy urges us to become sturdy leaders, especially at home as parents and partners. She uses the analogy of an airline pilot announcing inevitable turbulence. He or she does not freak out and match our anxious, fearful energy. The pilot stays calm and assures us that he or she can navigate us safely through it. This is the goal for our own sturdy leadership. We do this with greater ease and more awareness at work than at home. This is a common blind spot. Guess who deserves your best? Your loved ones. And here’s the bonus: When we teach new and improved responses to our emotions, it doubles the positive impact. It’s a win-win.
If you wouldn’t hire a babysitter, a coach, trainer or tutor who is a loose emotional cannon, then hold yourself to a similar standard. Remember that one of the best ways to learn something new is to teach it. As you are developing greater self-awareness and improved emotional management, share what’s working for you with your family members. The greatest opportunities for putting in the reps for emotional regulation is in real time, at home, with your loved ones. Want to know why? Immediate feedback and seeing firsthand how your positive changes shift an old relationship dynamic.
As you begin to develop a healthy working relationship with your emotions, you will gain a greater understanding of how your body budget affects your ability to regulate; where and why you get emotionally triggered; and just how draining knee-jerk emotional reactions truly are. Wherever and whenever you feel you have the heaviest lifts in managing your emotions is exactly where you should be putting in real effort.
You can leverage what you already possess as core strength and agility in your emotional management that comes easily at work or in public settings, to jumpstart the “heavy lift” practices for your closest and most meaningful relationships.
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Here’s a short clip from a podcast episode hosted by Dr. Marc Brackett, the founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Ethan Cross, author of Chatter (the voices in our head) and Shift (managing our emotions).