Emotional intelligence – let go and move on…

I’ve not been blogging here for a little while with my focus on building the content over at The Success Zone. Thing is, I had a useful personal lesson today. About my past, my future, and the application of emotional wisdom, not just emotional intelligence.

As is the case with many of us, I have a past, that while providing me with absolute joy (i.e. my daughter) comes also, some baggage. Dare I call this my old wrinkly suitcase? Clearly, I am talking about a past relationship (indeed now long past) that did not manage to survive. When life moves on, and people don’t, vindictiveness and obsessing about new information are hallmarks of staying stuck. This week, on the 10 year anniversary of the cessation of that relationship, I have discovered again frenetic google searching, bogus client calls to access information about my business and who knows what else.

While this level of detail might seem indulgent, it does serve a purpose. You see, my first response was indignation, the second violation and the third sadness. My initial thoughts, I will admit, were to serve the same kind of behaviour in return. Clearly, a Red Zone response. It took some distance from the situation, some reframing, some labelling and permission to move on from these feelings. These four methods of thinking about your emotions have been shown to manage down unwanted emotions, and in my case allowed me to move on from staying stuck in around an hour. Not years, months, days even.

So if you in the middle of a strong Red Zone reaction, try:

1. Being a fly on the wall to your thinking and emotions – distance gives clarity. Ask yourself – will I remember this in a year’s time? If not, move on…
2. Give yourself permission – life has its ups and downs, and the downs are neither permanent, nor define you.
3. Label how you feel – in my language, it is the Red Zone. Whatever language you use, make it symbolic (not detailed). Symbolism helps (hence the reference to the suitcase above), detail just re-triggers the emotion. Fun, but disabling language really helps. A friend of mine refers to the fruit salad in her head, symbolic for the confusion she often feels.
4. Reframe: retell the situation in a way that reduces the impact for you. In this case it was “she just hasn’t found happiness yet”. This keeps you out of all of the accusatory self-talk that, again, just re-resonates all of the damaging thinking/feeling.

Practicing these cognitive tricks to manage your feelings builds your emotional intelligence and moves you towards being emotionally wise.

What if you are the one who is stuck? Magically, the same four strategies work for you too…

Related articles by Zemanta

• Emotional Intelligence for Personal Growth (dare-to-dream.us)
• Emotional Intelligence (slideshare.net)

More on this over at The Success Zone, blog and book…