Today I'm thinking about emotional intelligence, sometimes referred to as EQ. We've all heard a lot about IQ, but only more recently have been learning about EQ. Neuro-research is revealing EQ to be much more important than IQ in experiencing success in areas of life such as career and relationship, and is finding it key for attaining states of peacefulness, compassion, happiness... the list goes on and on. To me it's where the gold is.
I experience emotional intelligence as fluidity, a flow of the truth of experience through awareness. If something comes up in us and we've mastered emotional intelligence, we feel it right then. It moves through us quickly and completely. We can easily identify the feeling, and more importantly, we recognize it as ours. By this I mean we are 100% responsible for it rather than laying the blame on whoever or whatever triggered it. Ultimately all of our emotions are information about
us, not the world around us, no matter what sets them in motion. EQ is, in short, an ability to honestly experience what we are feeling, own it, and move on. It sounds simple, but we are taught from a very young age to be truly unintelligent, even dishonest in this way. ("Jimmy, say you're sorry." Jimmy, who is 3 and isn't remotely sorry for smacking his sister, lies because his parents insist. Whatever he was really feeling is shelved). Many of us have learned such an automatic stop or diversion mechanism, we don't ever actually feel what we feel. We completely circumvent or bury our feelings before we know what they are. If left unearthed, this treasure trove of emotion (energy) can turn into all sorts of maladies down the road.
Emotions and the biochemistry they trigger in our bodies last about 90 seconds. That is, if we actually experience them! If we don't, they can go on for years. We can also extend them through instant replay, like watching a movie scene over and over again, re-triggering the resulting biochemistry each time we think about it. But as we learn to be more emotionally intelligent, we feel our feelings all the way through fully and deeply the first time and move on. They are done. We haven't resisted them because "we shouldn't feel that way." We haven't fixed them in us by assuming the role of victim. We haven't judged what we felt. And we don't need to go back to them again because we had the experience 100% the first time. Which leaves us free to be present to whatever is happening
now, i.e our life.
I once watched acute irritation move through an emotionally intelligent person. I could almost see the current move up through his body like a flash. It burned hot and then was gone within about 2 seconds. This made a real impression on me, as I often have to be alone and in a safe place before emotions will venture forth at all, and by then they might be days old! Well, okay, when I first started working in this way, I'm sure many were years old. Lifetimes, probably. But even within a few days emotions can gain steam and mutate themselves into all sorts of confusion. It's been a real journey to learn to identify and stay current with what I'm feeling, moment to moment. And I love it. You can feel when an experience is clean and clear, when you're present to what is, in the flow.
And, like so many things in the journey of consciousness, when we really dive in, it becomes fun and even funny. By the end of today I was just feeling pissed. Probably there were lots of reasons, but more important than the why was simply the what. I was angry. So I drove home telling the world how f-ing stupid it is, how I hate it, how I hate this planet and everything on it. And as I went all of the way into my anger, I began to giggle. Once I had the full experience, there was no hanging on to it, and those emotions showed themselves to be just what they were - energy that needed to move. I giggled on past all of the houses I'd cursed, laughing myself home. Isn't it nice to know that living in the stuck sludge of emotional dullness is optional, not required? :)
pictured above: detail of smudge on tea kettle lid
