Did you know that our emotions are a feature and not a bug? Emotional intelligence is a unique human data processor. Because we did not understand their integral value, we mistakenly tried to push emotions out of our way. We even labeled them as good or bad and categorized them as appropriate or not appropriate by gender.
Essentially, we completely dismissed integrating our emotional intelligence into our core human operating system for generations. Is it any wonder that so many of us go through life making things harder than they have to be? We are armored up and defensive, wrestling with our emotions – fighting the insights that they offer.
The reality is that our emotional intelligence is data-rich and gender neutral.
Emotions helps us stay aligned with what matters most to us by providing us with important alerts. Emotions are a key component of our inner GPS. When we work with our emotions and not against them, we can actually meet life with more resiliency, empowerment and ease.
Think of your emotions as “check engine” lights. Unchecked emotions take us on a wild ride.
Paying attention to our emotional alerts, we use the knowledge we gain to control our own destiny.
Spend your life armored up and being defensive — or install your emotional intelligence into your core operating system and engage in your life in a dynamic, new and much improved way. You’ll feel more grounded, confident and better informed about how you want to live your life. You’ll begin to make choices that align with your values; your behaviors and responses will line up with those better choices.
Prepare to be amazed at how much easier and more fulfilling your life becomes when you are functioning with integrated emotional intelligence. Imagine trying to run programs on your laptop without one of the most crucial data processing components. Nothing would work quite right.
Personal growth and self discovery become a natural part of life, instead of the work we need to do when things fall apart or we hit rock bottom. We don’t have to go out and “find ourselves” because we are building and shaping our lives with intention and invaluable personal data on a daily basis. We know who we are and who we want to become. We can chart our progress just like we do our height on the wall when we are young. Growing forward.
You know that old advice that we push away what we want the most? We were pushing away the emotional data that we most needed in order to skillfully get what we want out of life!
As a direct result of this game-changing breakthrough from neuroscience, there has been a foundational change in contemporary parenting models. Dr. Becky Kennedy, author of Good Inside, is one of the leaders teaching parents how to integrate emotional intelligence into their kids at a very early age. Her workshops have been evolving at a very rapid pace because she recognizes that parents need to “unlearn” from that broken old model — parents need to integrate their own emotional intelligence so that they can teach it to their kids.
The good news is that one of the fastest ways to learn something is to teach it, says organizational psychologist, Adam Grant.
We can all tap into this power of fast-tracking the installation of our own emotional intelligence by teaching what we are learning. All of us need this major upgrade in our core operating system. You wouldn’t hold back from telling a friend or family member about the awesome benefits of that latest update for your phone or laptop. Share what you are learning by teaching it to others. It is the best reinforcement of this dynamic new program you now possess – emotional intelligence.
Here’s a little analogy that will help you embrace this human evolutionary leap — We no longer drive cars with manual steering and windows that need to be rolled down by hand. Look how easily we have adopted cars with power steering, built in GPS and back-up cameras, heated and cooled seats, and cruise control. Why in the world wouldn’t you want all these same features for your life?
Listen to Dr. Marc Brackett’s insights on this breakthrough. Marc is the founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence: