“You’re such a Drama Queen!” sneered Samson. Eyes blazing, arms waving wildly.
“And you’re so cold!” retorted Janice eyes brimming with tears, arms akimbo, stance defiant.
“There you go again getting all emotional on me – Women.” muttered Samson; shaking his head while stalking off with an exasperated sigh.
This scene is typical of some relationships. However, it turns out that both parties are wrong in their assessment of each other.
God made us all emotional creatures. He wired our brains to make us that way. The physical structure of our brains ensures that our very first reaction to any event will always be emotional.
I can see you scratching your head and going ‘huh?’
Here’s how it works.
We all have five senses. Everything you see, hear, smell, taste and touch goes through your body as electrical signals. These signals go from one cell in your body to the next until they reach their final destination, your brain.
The signals enter your brain at the base, near the spinal cord. From there, they must make their way to the front of your brain (the frontal lobe – behind the forehead) before you can think about what you experienced through your senses. On their way to the frontal lobe the electrical signals have to pass through the part of the brain called the limbic system. This is where emotions are produced.
Let’s say that I touched a hot stove. After doing their rounds from cell to cell, the electrical signals enter my brain and pass through my limbic system where I feel pain before they get to the frontal lobe of my brain where I register that I got burned.
The rational/thinking part of your brain can’t stop the emotion “felt” by your limbic system, but the two areas impact each other and are communicating all the time. This communication between the emotional/feeling part of the brain and rational/thinking part of the brain is the physical source of what is called “Emotional Intelligence”.
Emotional Intelligence is your ability to identify and understand emotions in yourself and others. It extends to your ability to use this awareness to manage your behaviour and relationships. Samson and Janice need some of this don’t you think?
Emotions can help you or hurt you. You can make the choice between them helping or hurting you by learning to understand them and using your understanding to manage your behaviour in any given situation.
Admittedly, not many of us have this skill. We were not taught to be aware of our emotions and understand them. As a matter of fact, we were most times encouraged to deny and shoot them down like pesky flies. This leaves us with little or no resources to manage our emotions.
This is a stark reality in our country where a number of suicides have followed the onslaught of the Covid 19 pandemic. A host of feelings accompany being faced with a pandemic and with the attendant social distancing rules, the wearing of masks, closure of schools, loss of livelihoods etc. How do we handle these emotions healthily? Emotional Intelligence provides one major part of the answer.
The good news is that this deficit in awareness of how to handle our emotions can change. Emotional Intelligence is a skill that can be learnt.
God wants us to be like His Son Jesus Christ who was very emotionally intelligent. We can catch glimpses of this in the following passages.
John 15:10-11 (NIV)
If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept My Father’s commands and remain in His love. I have told you this so that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
John 2:14-17 (NIV)
In the temple courts He found people selling cattle, sheep and doves and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So He made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; He scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves He said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning My Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: ‘Zeal for your house will consume me.”
John 11:33-35 (NIV)
When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him? He asked. “Come and see, Lord,” they replied. Jesus wept.
How much of an impact does Emotional Intelligence have on your successfully managing your life? The short answer is a lot! Emotional Intelligence is foundational for a host of other critical skills like:
Just to name a few.
Come take a journey with me to learn and improve your Emotional Intelligence. I assure you it will be well worth your while.
Some of the information presented was excerpted from “Emotional Intelligence 2.0 by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves (2009)
Sharon E. Hermitt
Managing Director
HRWisdom Limited
ahermittsmusings@gmail.com
hrwisdom2020@gmail.com
