LEAN INTO YOUR FEELINGS

The self awareness component in EQ relates to your ability to accurately perceive your own feelings in the moment and to understand your tendencies across different situations. A high degree of self-awareness requires you to have the courage to focus directly on feelings that may be negative. As Winston said, courage isn't the absence of fear, it's a decision (conscious) you make that something is more important than the fear you're experiencing. In the inner game, it's about learning and growing through your experience of emotion.

To improve your self-awareness, spend time thinking through them to figure out where your feelings are coming from and why you feel them. It is by understanding the depths of our emotions that we can begin to free ourselves from the hold they seem to have over us at times. Lean into your feelings and learn.

Feelings can be categorised into six primary emotions: love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear.

Whatever it is that you are feeling; good, bad, or somewhere in between, and we are always feeling something, take the time to develop your understanding of your emotions. Sometimes the simple act of noticing what you are feeling can make a big difference to how greatly your feelings affect your life for better or worse.

Just jotting down a quick list of emotions, possible causes, and deeper feelings can release some of the pressure that builds up from unexpressed and unexplored emotions. Putting thoughts and feelings on paper can be very powerful at taking them out of the realm of your mind, and helping put an end to the free reign that they often seize.

Whenever you sense that something is bothering you, take some immediate action, however small, to regain control over your sense of balance. Start putting emotions in their place as a part of your life experience, but not the master of it. Has it got you or have you got it? The choice is yours.

The ability to read the emotions of others has enormous value too.

There are 10,000 different facial expressions. About 3000 of these facial expressions are relevant to emotion and most people use only 50-60 in normal conversation.

These expressions can be "macro" expressions which last 1-3 seconds or even longer. An example would be a smile. The question: "Is the smile real or fake?" If fake, what does that mean?

We also make micro expressions that give up our more hidden feelings. These are like reflexes, because it's very difficult to stop them from happening since they are part of our brain's hard-wiring. That's why we get a "feeling" when we watch small discrepancies between someone's words and their expression.

These expressions last only 1/25th of a second. (That is faster than an eye-blink). Most people can't pick up micro expressions consciously. When viewed on film and played as slower speeds, these expressions look just like macro expressions. Many homicide detectives do this. If you don't happen to be looking for a serial killer, it's still a great way to watch what signals you give off when you are speaking or running a meeting.

How to Use This?

The primary emotions are the ones that are most important to you. You want to know whether someone is angry, happy, etc., with your interaction. Memorise the list (or carry a cheat sheet) and increase your awareness of these.

When you think you have enough visual information to believe that the person--or people--are, say, "surprised", don't make the assumption that you are correct. Instead, matter-of-factly state your observation: "You know, I'm watching the response to this slide and am getting the sense that maybe you are a bit surprised. Is that so?" This will lead to affirmation or will yield other responses that will help you--and them--stay or get on track.