Emotional Intelligence 101: What this should look like in your home

Ever wondered how emotional intelligence impacts our lives? Can understanding your own emotions positively influence your relationships and success? This episode invites you on a journey of self-exploration, examining emotional intelligence and its profound effects on our well-being. With the guidance of two remarkable books - Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goldman and Emotional Agility by Dr. Susan David, we'll demystify this often misunderstood concept and how it shapes our every day.

We delve into the significance of self-awareness, a vital aspect of emotional intelligence. Honing your emotional agility is all about 'showing up' - acknowledging, accepting, and being mindful of our emotions. We discuss the crucial 'step out' concept, inviting you to create a healthy distance between yourself and your emotions. This episode introduces the practice of journaling, a powerful tool to gain perspective and understanding of our emotions.

As we navigate the path of emotional intelligence, we also spotlight the development of coping skills. We draw upon Dr. Susan David's concept of 'Walking Your Why', a strategy to align actions with core values and long-term goals, and how understanding these values can help manage emotional triggers. We conclude the episode with an invitation - to you, our listeners, to share your topic suggestions. If there's a particular topic you'd like us to discuss, we're all ears! Let's connect on Instagram at cures underscore neuron. Remember, emotional intelligence is not a destination, but a journey. So, let's begin this journey together. Tune in, learn, connect and grow with us.

Resources:
https://jamesclear.com/core-values

Amazon (Canada):
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman

Emotional Agility by Susan David

Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hello, my dear friend, welcome back to another episode of the Curious Neuron podcast. My name is Cindy and I'm your host. I'm a mom of three and I have a doctor degree in neuroscience, and I'm here to share the science with you and also share my stories or even interviews. You know experts once in a while. So today we are talking about emotional intelligence. I wanted to do this up. I've been wanting to do this episode for a long time now, because emotional intelligence is, you know, something we all talk about, but there are different definitions. It's new in the field of research, so it's kind of complicated sometimes and it's easy to fall upon, like this website that might talk about it a certain way, or there's different books that you might want to look into, and so what I would like to do for you today is take all this information and bundle up for you into this tiny little episode. I'm not gonna make it long, but I do want to take all this information and I just want you to have a sort of foundation or base to come back to when you're not really sure what it is and when you're trying to assess yourself or trying to assess your child and you're like, hmm, what do we need to work on this week or this month or this year? So that is the goal of today's episode.

Speaker 1: 1:11

As always, before I begin, I do have some people to thank, because we have sponsors, and without these sponsors, this podcast would not be available and I wouldn't be here annoying in your ear. So let's get to the sponsors. First and foremost, I would like to thank the Ten and Bomb Open Science Institute for supporting and sponsoring the Cures Neuron podcast. Without them, this podcast literally would not be possible. So thank you. They support open science and that is what I do here at Cures Neuron. I want to make sure that you have all the science available at your fingertips so that you can make the decisions that make sense for you and your child and they see that what you know, that sharing the science, is really important, and that's why they support the podcast. So thank you. I would also like to thank BetterHelp for sponsoring the Cures Neuron podcast.

Speaker 1: 1:59

Mental health and well-being of both the parent and the child are important to the brands we work with, which is why we were so happy to get the support and to get sponsored by BetterHelp for this podcast. Betterhelp is the world's largest therapy service and it's 100% online. With BetterHelp, you can get the same professionalism and quality you expect from in-office therapy, but with access to a huge network of therapists, more scheduling flexibility and a more affordable price. Click the link below to get 15% off the first month of therapy. Secondly, I would like to thank PocPoc Playroom for supporting the Cures Non-podcast as well. We have been friends with PocPoc for a long time now and they are giving you 50% off a one-year subscription for this app.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Pocpoc is a collection of digital toys that spark creativity and learning through open-ended play. This was, in fact, the first app that my kids ever played with that I felt comfortable introducing to them because it is open-ended, there aren't loud sounds, it's not over stimulating, so it's great for neurotypical kids, for neurodivergent kids, it's okay for like a calming activity, even if it's screen time. So I really do encourage you to try it out for seven days for free and to click on the link in the show notes to download the app and get 50% off your first year. And, as always, if you haven't done so yet, please take a moment to rate the podcast, to review it. I hope you are subscribed to it so then you'll see the notification every Monday when there's a new episode and when you do rate it and review it either on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Please send me an email at info at CuresNoncom. Not only will I send you a free PDF that we have at Cures Non-Academy on our website at CuresNoncom, which is called Meltdown Mountain. It gives you a visual of that you can print and show your child to help them understand their emotions, but it is also kind of a workbook that you could, or a PDF that will help you understand emotion regulation skills in your child. I'll also give you a coupon code so that you can apply to our parenting bundle at the Cures Non-Academy. So send me an email, let me know.

Speaker 1: 4:06

And if you are online and you know, use Instagram. Come and visit us at curious underscore neuron on Instagram. We also have a parenting Facebook page. You can search CuresNuron there. There's the emotionally aware parent, which is a private page you can join there. And lastly, as always, you can visit CuresNuroncom. We have lots of articles written by graduate students. We have the CuresNuron Academy. You can search the podcast episodes perhaps a little bit more easily there.

Speaker 1: 4:35

And that is all I have for you, alright, so emotional intelligence has been on my mind lately because I've been trying to compare the different kind of definitions or the different categories that they have or people's different interpretations of it. As I said at the beginning, emotional intelligence was sort of born in the 90s, so this is very new. When it comes to science. We're still trying to understand what it looks like. I mean, we have a much better understanding today than we did in the 90s, but I would consider this, you know, still in its infancy when it comes to research.

Speaker 1: 5:07

What I wanted to do today, there are two books that I've read that I thought would be interesting for you. So Daniel Goldman's book called Emotional Intelligence, and there's also Dr Susan David's book called Emotional Agility. I will put the links to those in the show notes so that it's easy for you to access. What I wanted to do was kind of talk about emotional intelligence from their two perspectives. It's not that they are redefining emotional intelligence in two different ways, but rather taking different approaches. That I think is interesting for you to listen as either a parent, a grandparent, somebody who works with children, because that might help you understand where or how to begin the work with a child that you are with, or on yourself if you're a parent. So when you read Daniel Goldman's book and also if you search Emotional Intelligence I think you can search like categories or domains you will find five different domains, which include self-awareness. This involves recognizing and understanding one's own emotions, your own strengths, knowing your weaknesses, understanding your values and your motivation. So, basically, it's truly the first step, or the foundation, of emotional intelligence, and it really involves being attuned to your own feelings and your emotional reactions. This is something that I talk about so much.

Speaker 1: 6:24

I was recently interviewed for Dr Tracy's podcast and we spoke a lot about awareness, because she was asking me if somebody out there really struggles with their emotions, what are the first steps, what should they start working on? And in my opinion, it's the awareness part, and here's why With WonderGrade. Wondergrade is the app that I have. You can also click the link below in the bio and the show notes. So we've been working on the app, we're developing it and we have a parent center now and we were asking parents what do you struggle with the most? And 350 parents answered this questionnaire and it was across the board.

Speaker 1: 7:07

Parents were saying I often feel triggered and I don't know why, or I feel like my emotions go from zero to 100, and I don't see it coming. I don't understand it. It just happened so quickly. And here's my response to that and I think that I've said this sentence before in a podcast episode if you feel like you are going from zero to 100, it's that you need to work on the awareness of the one to 99. It's there. It might be quick, it might be slow, but it's there.

Speaker 1: 7:38

And I find that we have a lot of these micro moments, these micro emotional moments that we are not aware of because we're not labeling, as Mark Brackett talks about that first step in his book. Permission to Feel talks a lot about like labeling the emotions. I see it as awareness, this emotional, intelligent piece of simply being aware of whenever an emotion is stirred up inside of you, even if you would rate it as a one or two on a scale of zero to 10, 10 being blowing up, it's okay. I don't want you to miss those little, tiny micro emotions. So, even if you feel frustrated because your partner said something or your child did something that morning, just try to say it in your mind. Say it in your head, rate it if you want to, if you have time, but it's okay to say oh, that comment made me feel frustrated, just start labeling it. That is the first step to emotional intelligence and that is one of the domains called self-awareness.

Speaker 1: 8:33

The second step is self-regulation. This refers to the ability to manage and control one's emotions or impulses and behaviors. It involves staying calm under pressure, adapting to changing circumstances and avoiding impulsive and destructive actions and behaviors. This is, as you know, something I often talk about here at Keras Neuron. This is something that you can work on in terms of avoiding to ruminate or avoiding to externalize your emotion, which looks like yelling at your children, yelling at your partner. Self-regulation is truly it's a lot of work, but that's when you start taking tools and skills and applying that, so when you're aware of that emotion. So, for example, if somebody says something to you and right away, immediately in your head, you say I'm at an eighth with frustration right now, how can they say that? Label it, as I just did. And then it's about using your coping tools. What are your coping tools? So, for today, we're not going into all the coping tools. We've done that in some episodes, but I do want to say that that is truly the next step.

Speaker 1: 9:38

All right, so now we've spoken about self-awareness and your self-management or your ability to regulate your emotions, the third one, I was gonna say fourth. The third one is social awareness. So now that we've done, we've looked at ourself in this emotional intelligence definition, we switch on to outside of ourselves, the people that we are with. So do we have social awareness? What does that mean? Well, are you able to accurately notice the emotions of others? Can you read a situation appropriately? So, through the language that they're using, through their body language, through their nonverbal language, so are you able to recognize and understand and read that with somebody that you're with? So that's the social awareness piece of emotional intelligence. Oh, and there's also the empathy part, right? So that's something we talk a lot about with our kids.

Speaker 1: 10:33

I hear parents say, like, how can they, you know, show more empathy towards the people that they're around? And that's part of the social awareness. But I think that we often jump to that as parents and want our child to be empathetic. But there's, in my opinion, there are the steps before that. If I want my child to be empathetic towards the people around them, I need them to be empathetic towards the people like themselves and understand their emotions and to learn how to control it. And once they're able to do that, then they'll be able to recognize the emotions in other people and the empathy will come. But the really like, truly the first steps is really self-awareness and then self-management and the social awareness will come after that, and that, I would say, is closer to early elementary school, although the empathy piece can come much earlier than that. I think I had a post about that. I think the empathy piece comes around three to four years old where it begins. So we can't expect a child to, you know, show empathy right away and understand it in social situations. It has to develop and that's through how you are supporting their emotions and how you are modeling this for them as well.

Speaker 1: 11:41

And then that last piece of emotional intelligence is about relationship management. So how are you, how good are you at teamwork and conflict management, leadership skills? You know the influence that you can have on people. That's all your conversation piece. However, there's a huge part about emotions, right? So it's not just about like. If you think of conflict resolution, I think I had spoken about this book, never Split the Difference, another one that I recommend you read. But they speak a lot about, or the author speaks a lot about the emotions and how in conflict management. We would never think that the emotions before right Like many years ago, we never thought that emotions were important, but now we understand that that's the biggest thing. If you are having a conflict with somebody and trying to manage this and trying to regulate it and fix it, you need to validate, you need to kind of help that person feel seen and feel heard, and that is part of conflict management and that's something that we also want to teach our child.

Speaker 1: 12:42

Now here is how Dr Susan David sort of looks at this emotional intelligence piece or sort of the four it's not domains, but the kind of steps towards this, and I absolutely love this book. I love both books, but I really recommend that you read them, especially if you're trying to understand emotions in yourself or you're trying to understand them in your child. I do recommend these two books. So she looks at it more from step one being showing up. What does showing up mean? Well, this is the principle about acknowledging and accepting your emotions, even the uncomfortable ones, without judgment. And so she's bringing that mindfulness piece, that self-compassion piece. It's the ability to be present with your emotions. You want to understand them, you don't want to suppress them, you don't want to deny them. And if we think back to that first step with Daniel Goldman, it's the self-awareness piece it's showing up.

Speaker 1: 13:37

And we often hear on social media and I've said it too where you need to sit with your emotions, and I think that if you struggle with sitting with your emotions or saying what the heck does that mean, then I really recommend emotional agility, because she paints such a beautiful picture, that about what sitting with your emotions looks like and it's really just taking it in, accepting it. So, right now, if something happens and you feel sad or you feel frustrated or you feel embarrassed, sitting with it looks like accepting it. That's just what I'm feeling. I don't want to push it away, I don't want to suppress it, I don't want to pretend it didn't happen. And it's easy to go towards that because many of us, when we were young, were told just let it go, just, or here you know, like something happens and you get hurt and they would put this toy in front of you or try to change your mind immediately. It's okay to feel sad and I think that's what happened.

Speaker 1: 14:33

Now, as adults, we don't want to feel sad, and we don't feel comfortable when we feel sad. And we also don't feel comfortable when our child is sad and we want to make them happy, but we don't have to make them happy right away. Part of developing this ability to regulate their emotions, this self-awareness piece, and understanding it in others, is understanding how it feels within them. So if your child has an experienced feeling sad, and sitting with it and just sitting together with you where you're validating it, you're showing up for them and showing them how to show up to their own emotion. How can they feel empathy in somebody else if they don't know what it feels like, that it sucks, that it doesn't feel good, that it's not comfortable. So that's what showing up looks like Not suppressing it, not pushing it away, not denying it, just sitting with it for a moment, whatever moment you want it to be a couple minutes, a couple hours, a couple days, depending on the situation. Sit with it, accept it, embrace it. It's okay to feel that way and that's what we want to do with our kids.

Speaker 1: 15:35

Step two, according to Dr Susan David David, is stepping out. Stepping out involves creating some distance between yourself and your emotions. You want to allow yourself to gain some perspective and it's about recognizing that you are not your emotions and they don't define you. This principle really encourages the self-awareness and the ability to observe your thoughts and your feelings without becoming overwhelmed by them. So remember, in a couple episodes at some point in August I think I posted about this the space or the pause between your child's action and your reaction.

Speaker 1: 16:11

So that was coming from Susan David's book as well, and that stepping out piece is similar to what I've spoken about in terms of zooming out right, so zooming out from a situation to gain more perspective. So if you, for example, are feeling really frustrated or mad about something and you stay zoomed in to that scenario, or that, whatever caused you to feel this way, you're not showing up to your emotions, you're not accepting them, you're trying to ignore them or deny them and you're not stepping out of yourself. Or stepping out or zooming out whichever word you want to use You're not going to gain perspective about who's involved in this, what happened, what actions, who else is involved? What happened earlier in your day that perhaps also played a role in how you're feeling right now? That somebody say something, maybe a conversation with a family member or a partner the day before or that morning. We need to step out to gain perspective, and that's where the journaling the journaling piece that I've spoken about, something that I started doing this year when you start writing about what happened, it's like talking to a friend. I don't know if you've ever had this aha moment. I do this with my partner, christy, for Wonder Grade.

Speaker 1: 17:22

Wonder Grade is the app that I am the co-founder of, and we have these moments where I work on weekends and then I come on Monday to our business meeting, our weekly business development meeting, and I'm like you know, I'm stuck on this. I don't know what to do. I was thinking if we did that and that, and then if we did this, oh, why didn't I figure that out before? Now that I said it out loud, I realized that I was missing this piece or whatever it was. So it's kind of like saying it out loud when you don't have somebody to say it out loud to that notebook that you write on, that you write in, or your computer.

Speaker 1: 17:55

I have a mix. I have a notebook that I like to write in, but my writing I always feel pressured by time. No, but it's true, I always feel pressured by time. So I feel that I rush when I'm writing. I prefer journaling through my computer and it's not as fancy and pretty as like some people's journals that I see online, but it's okay because it works for me and I'm able to jump onto my laptop and just write for three minutes if I need to, or write for 20 minutes if I need to get it out, and then I gain perspective because I reread it and I'm like, oh, now that I wrote about the situation that made me angry, I realized that my thoughts in those moments were not contributing to better communication with my partner, for example, and if I would have changed those thoughts, it would have been different. I would have responded very differently. So when you put it on paper or get it out there, you are trying to assess and validate and gain perspective in terms of what your feelings were during that emotion and what your thoughts were. So that's the second part, according to Dr Susan David.

Speaker 1: 18:59

I like this third one called Walking your why, and this is this principle is centered around your values and what truly matters to you. It's about aligning your actions with your core values and your long-term goals, even when faced with you know difficult emotions. So walking your why really involves making choices that are consistent with your values and your aspirations. You might be thinking, hey, cindy, why are we talking about values when we were talking about emotions? Well, because you might have a situation and oh, there was a study that I read so many years back and it brought in values. I had researched gosh, I wish I could remember, but I don't know if it was a post or Instagram or the podcast, but they spoke about values.

Speaker 1: 19:42

Because in that moment, when somebody says something to you or something happens, somebody does something or whatever it is, sometimes our emotions are triggered because that moment in particular is against our values. If we haven't taken the time to write our values down or to just be aware of them and obviously and hopefully actually not obviously, but hopefully everything that you do aligns with your values. So, for example, if one of your values is authenticity and you're with somebody and they seem to want to change you and to be somebody that you're not, but if your values being your true self and being authentic, then somebody trying to change you might trigger you, might trigger anger, might trigger shame, might trigger guilt, and if you're not aware that that moment is kind of triggering these emotions. So if you're not showing up and acknowledging, I feel shame when that person makes me want to be somebody else. And then when you have the thought by, let's say you're journaling about it, and then you realize, of course I feel shamed or guilty or angry when that person doesn't want me to be me. Because if I look at my values, my values are, you know, it could be two, three things Authenticity, I don't know family and something else. Of course it triggers your emotions and that's where the awareness piece is so important. So take the time and you know what I'm going to put a link to James. Is it James Clear? There's an art, there's a website. It's the person who wrote Atomic Habits. He has a really amazing page on his website that talks about your values and you can go through them.

Speaker 1: 21:29

I had done the sort of activity with my friend recently who has a coach, and I realized that my values I would always say if you were to ask me, if you would have asked me two months ago, cindy, what are your values, I would have said family, yep, family, and it still is. But it gave me the perspective in terms of what really kind of feeds my soul and family is in there, but family is under connection. Connection is my number one value and, as you know, anybody who's written an email to me, dm on Instagram, is different. I have trouble getting to them, but if you've written an email to me, I take the time to write back to you because that email that you sent to me, when you read the podcast and you tell me a little something about how it's helped you, it means the world to me. Those days just fill me up and I feel pure joy and happiness and gratitude. So that connection piece is really important for my life. That's a big value for me.

Speaker 1: 22:25

The second one that I realized was growth. I'm somebody who's constantly trying to figure out not obsessively, but constantly trying to figure out how can I be a better human for myself, for my partner, for my kids, for you, for the people that are around me. So connection and growth are really, really important to me. Those stood out as the two most important ones, and then the other three that stood out to me or that popped up in terms of at the top of my list were compassion curiosity, which is what curious neuron is built on, being curious about our kids and compassionate about them, about their emotions, as well as being curious and compassionate towards ourselves. But the last one was authenticity and it's interesting because I gave a talk at the English Montreal School Board last week and I had the pleasure of meeting all these consultants and talking to them about emotion regulation skills and dysregulation and emotional intelligence and how we need to bring that into the schools and, by the way, if your office offers like lunchtime talks or training for leadership and if you have a school that likes to have talks about emotional intelligence, emotion regulation skills and how that impacts our mental health. I've given talks to companies I have some booked for the fall as well and in schools and private schools and public schools, and to the consultants. That was the first time that I trained or did a workshop specifically for school consultants, both in elementary school and in high school, and it was amazing. I just love helping people understand their emotions and the emotions and others. All that to say, authenticity ended up as my fifth value and it showed up when I was giving the talk, because the person leading the talk came to see me at the end of the workshop and said they told me you felt real and I don't know how I do that and I think some people have said that about the podcast as well it's just. I don't know how to not be me. This is me and there's nothing else that I can do, and it's just I show up. That's who I am.

Speaker 1: 24:32

So walking your why means realigning or coming back to your values, because that will trigger you and your emotions. And the last step, according to Dr Susan David and her book Emotional Agility, is moving on. She defines this as moving on is about you know, taking purposeful action that help you move forward, even in the face of like challenging emotions or situations. It's really the ability to let go of an unproductive pattern or make intentional decisions that support your growth and your wellbeing, because at some point you will have this emotion and you might get stuck with it, but you need to find a way to get it out. And you know, I think about like movement and exercise something that I started doing this year as well and writing.

Speaker 1: 25:17

How do we get something that is stuck inside our minds? How do we get it out? We've got to externalize it. People do that, or psychologists often do this with children, right, like, if you're anxious about something, can you draw a picture of it. How do you get it out of your mind? So you need to find something that works best for you. It could be journaling, it could be writing a note, it could be coloring. Coloring is fine. There are many coloring books for adults. You grab colors that are, you know, red. If you're feeling really angry, just get it out. It could be what else do we say? Journaling, exercising, moving meditation, something any way for you to get that emotion out of you. So you've sat with it, you've acknowledged it, you said hey, welcome. And now you're finding ways. You've understood it right and now you're finding ways to get it out of your system. That is emotional intelligence and healthy emotional coping skills that I hope you can work on slowly, bit by bit, take baby steps.

Speaker 1: 26:16

I hope this episode was really helpful to you. I will put everything that I mentioned in the show notes and that is all I have for you today, so you know if you have any questions. I'm building something called the Emotionally Aware Parent and you can join me on Facebook and and or, you know, send me an email. I'll send you the link to the Facebook page if you don't find it. So you can email me at info at curesnear oncom. If you are enjoying the podcast, I please take a moment to subscribe to it so that you get a notification every single Monday. Today is a solo episode, obviously, but the rest of the month I've got some amazing interviews lined up for you and I can't wait to share them all.

Speaker 1: 26:54

So I hope that the school year has begun on the right foot for you. I will try my best to cover some topics as well for the school year. To help you out if you have a child in school, send me an email. By the way, info info at curesnear oncom.

Speaker 1: 27:07

If there's, if there's a specific topic that you'd like me to cover, it always helps me. It's like it's like my partner telling me what to eat for dinner. I love it. I appreciate it because I don't have to think about it. So if you do have a topic in mind, send me an email. It will help me so much. Thank you all of you for taking the time to listen to the podcast. It means the world to me that you are part of this community, that you take the time to listen to me wherever you are on your walk, in the car, at home, you know, folding laundry. I don't know what it is, but thank you so much for being here. Come follow us on Instagram at cures underscore neuron and have a wonderful and beautiful week. Please don't forget that you matter. Bye.