Do You Know Your EQ?

Have you ever been put in a position where you had to express your emotions and you found yourself either: A. shutting down, or B. filtering them out? If you chose “A”, you might have a lower EQ, and if you chose “B”, you might have a higher EQ.

Your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) “is the ability to identify, use, understand, and manage emotions in an effective and positive way. A high EQ helps individuals to communicate better, reduce their anxiety and stress, defuse conflicts, improve relationships, empathize with others, and effectively overcome life’s challenges” (Durlofsky).

Recently, I was struggling with self doubt and my own feelings of self worth. When you are struggling with these feelings, the words of others can start to carry more weight than they might any other day.

People with a high EQ are able to understand how people tick…

I was battling my own inner demons on the subject when I brought my feelings to the attention of a professional. He listened patiently to everything I had to say and he asked me if I had ever heard of the term “emotional intelligence.” I told him I had heard it mentioned before but wasn’t too familiar with the concept.

He explained that your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is like the IQ score but for your emotions and feelings. He told me that my empathy shown towards others was not typical of most people and that he had never really had too many conversations with someone who was as in tune to their own emotions (these are all his words, I’m not bragging, I swear), and who was able to identify and channel them correctly and efficiently.  I was intrigued. I wanted to learn more, so I did some research (actually quite a bit of research), talked to other mental health professionals, and I was fascinated with what I found out.

People with a high EQ are able to understand how people tick, and are able to work with them because of that understanding. There are 4 qualities that are common in people with a high EQ.

• Empathy
• Self-Awareness
• Self-Regulation
• Ability to Build Relationships

I want to take the time to explain each quality in a little more detail, but I want to address why this topic has become so interesting to me recently.

A little background. I’ve written, in past articles, about how I’ve been called dramatic, a drama queen, playing victim, overly sensitive, and a variety of similar “observations” about my character. For a very long time, I’m not going to lie, I internalized these so called observations and they weighed heavily on me. This was mainly because these were the opinions of people I held dear to my heart at the time. I didn’t realize that those observations were actually veiled and outright attacks on my character.

The problem with dime store psychology from anyone is that they can make you feel like you don’t have a right to feel the way you do. It’s easy to analyze someone or label them as dramatic or sensitive, but that’s an oversimplification. They simply don’t want to take the time to validate your feelings, especially if that person’s actions were hurtful and you called them out on it.

The good news is that you can learn to develop a higher EQ.

One of the qualities I’ve had from a very young age is my ability to show empathy towards others. People with a high EQ are able to show empathy and have the ability to feel every emotion of other people. In contrast to people who feel sympathy, people who are highly empathetic aren’t necessarily able to just walk away from a sensitive situation.

For example, if you have a friend who is being abused by her husband / partner, and that friend keeps going back to that abusive relationship, how would you react? Would you A. Try to convince your friend to leave that person? Or B. Let her make her own decisions and accept the outcome of whatever that decision might be?

For someone with a lower EQ, they might take the colder route. Not my circus, not my monkeys, figuratively speaking. Those people who have a higher EQ are more willing to stand next to that person and fight for them, regardless of the outcome because they can empathize with the situation and emotions involved. People with a higher EQ have a difficult time detaching themselves from an emotionally charged situation because they feel what the other person is feeling / experiencing on a more personal basis.

The good news is that you can learn to develop a higher EQ. We always hear about the benefit of a high IQ (Intelligence Quotient), but there are studies that suggest that EQ is actually more beneficial to success than one’s intelligence. Why? It’s relatively simple. People who have a higher EQ are able to work with others more easily because they can identify the “why” behind certain decisions, and they have the ability to reflect on the intentions behind something instead of just the circumstances involved.

Let’s take a minute and look at those qualities in greater detail:

Empathy

Our ability to empathize with others helps us to develop relationships at a deeper and more intimate level. Empathy can be scary for some people, especially as we recognize how and why people feel the way they do. When we are empathetic towards others we are able to anticipate how our actions might influence the people involved, which allows us to make a more informed decision.

People who are highly empathetic can be misunderstood and labeled incorrectly. Often, they will be labeled as manipulative or controlling. Having the ability to think and act with both your heart and mind is a strength, and there’s nothing manipulative about being able to understand emotions and feelings. This can be very difficult to understand for people who have a low EQ or who hide from their own emotions. It can be tough to feel things that make us uncomfortable, so it’s easier to just project out on the other person and mislabel them.

For example, my ex husband lacks the ability to feel or show emotions. It was frustrating, in my marriage, to try to interact with him on an emotional level. He had no facial expressions and it was difficult to see if he was happy, sad, mad, ecstatic, or whatever emotion he was feeling at the time. He was robotic. There was no passion, and that filtered into every aspect of our lives, even the most intimate moments…I never felt him. Births, weddings, deaths, and even sex had the same emotional response as eating a stale, tasteless hamburger. My emotional thirst was never quenched and I found myself in a perpetual state of relationship cottonmouth.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is your ability to understand your own emotions. I always referred to this as energy, because I knew that my own emotions (whether positive or negative) had a profound impact on my behaviors and decisions.

I’ve heard the phrase that “energy is everything.” When I was a child, I could very easily tell what type of mood my mother was in when I walked through the door. Some days, the negative energy was so thick, it was like wading through a soupy fog. The energy could be felt, seen, and heard throughout the whole house even before I spoke a word to her. This is something I am still very sensitive to today, which is an asset to my day job as a massage therapist. It can be a curse because, at times, it can be overwhelming as well. People with a higher EQ are very adept at reading cues in body language, facial expressions, and the energy of others. 

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation connects to our own self-awareness. Regulation is the ability to control your emotions before you do something destructive or impulsive. Space is the key factor here. This can be one of the most difficult parts of having a high EQ and one of the toughest ones to develop. I can be pretty ruled by my emotions at times (I’m sure I’m not alone in this) and cultivating that ability to filter through these emotions helps with the whole decision making process. This actually helps you make better, more well thought out decisions, instead of just letting you become reactionary.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed or feel that I’m getting too emotional, I always ask for space. This is because I don’t want to make a rash decision, or say something that I would regret later on. It can be all too easy to just lash out, and I’ve been guilty of that more times than I’d like to admit; however, as I have become more aware of my own ability to regulate my emotions, I find myself able to decompress, remove myself from the toxicity, and ultimately make decisions that are beneficial to everyone involved.

Ability to Build Relationships

Building relationships is a key component to anyone, and those people with a higher EQ are able to see the benefit of fostering healthy, positive relationships with others. In essence, this is the quality that best embodies all the concepts of the other three listed above.

Relationships with people who have a lower EQ can often be cold.

Mental health issues can be detrimental to fostering one’s EQ. For example, people on the Autism spectrum have a difficult time showing empathy or any sort of feelings. That’s why children with Autism often struggle with the social aspects of attending school, and have difficulty maintaining strong emotional connections to others, even family.

This is also shown in those with sociopathic / narcissistic tendencies. They are devoid of the emotional connections, and struggle being part of society. While they are highly self-aware, it’s in a purely self centered form, and those qualities of empathy, regulation, and relationship building are not valued or are nonexistent. These can be dangerous people to interact with, since their only goal is to create situations that only serve themselves, regardless of the impact those situations might have on the other people involved.

Relationships with people who have a lower EQ can often be cold. Good relationships are those that are built upon a strong emotional bond, a connection that keeps you coming back for more time and again, because that connection is so worthwhile and rewarding. When you are in a relationship with someone with a lower EQ, you will constantly question your own self-worth, waiting for an emotional response from that person that might never happen. This is the equivalent to a cliff-hanger in a movie or book that never gets resolved. Your feelings get discarded and, ultimately, the relationship morphs into something toxic and unfulfilling, or it simply ends altogether. The problem here is that all too often, there are innocent people caught in the crossfire. It can filter into their lives as well, and they are taught that it is ok to downplay someone’s emotions, people are overly sensitive, or it’s just unnecessary drama.

The good news is that one’s EQ is different from an IQ and you can work to make changes to raise your EQ levels. It takes a conscious effort and time, but it is well-worth that effort. I have been able to heal from my past by recognizing those qualities of my own EQ. Those people in my life who strived to keep me down because of their own shortcomings, no longer carry any value.

Once you are able to identify and develop your own EQ, you will find a world of possibilities start to open up where once there seemed to be only roadblocks to your own happiness and success. It will take time and a conscious effort, but you will find yourself heading down the path you were always meant to take. Good luck on your journey.

Here’s a link to a test where you can see where your own EQ might currently be.