Repeatedly using emotional intelligence–(EQ) strategies and behaviors contribute to building new neural pathways that increase our EQ. Self-awareness is an ongoing process. It is the basis for developing our inner-observer, separating us from the doer, the feeler, and the rational-thinker. The inner observer is our ability to self-reflect, identify our gifts, skills, and opportunities for self-improvement, learn from our actions, and genuinely get to know our unique selves to our fullest potential. Self-awareness contributes to in-depth unlearning, relearning, and seeing where we can become more flexible.
We tend not to be aware of the essential aspects of ourselves.
During Noah Harari’s interview at Penguin Talks in South London, he underlined how crucial it is for us to strengthen our self-awareness since he believes that humans are becoming hackable animals thanks to Artificial Intelligence and Biometric Data. He explains that nobody can know us fully and perfectly but that industries just need to know us a little better than we know ourselves to be able to hack our thoughts, desires, and much more, which is not impossible because we often don’t know ourselves as well as we think. He contributed a triggering view by saying that we often don’t know the most important things about ourselves —another reason self-awareness is becoming crucial in our quickly ever-changing world.
Patience is the key.
To master identifying unconscious patterns, we must consistently practice developing our inner-observer.
Here are a few methods that help us cultivate our inner-observer:
- MEDITATION
- READING
- JOURNALING
- MORNING ROUTINES
- RECEIVING COACHING OR THERAPY
- TRAVELING
- IMMERSING INTO NEW EXPERIENCES
- MEETING NEW PEOPLE
- YOGA
- MINDFULNESS
- FOCUSING ON THE PRESENT MOMENT OR OUR OWN BREATH
EQ is related to many aspects of constructive interpersonal conduct for success in life.
One of the core behaviors to contribute to EQ is empathy. Individuals with a strengthened EQ are better at perceiving, understanding, and managing their own and other individuals’ emotions.
Have you ever heard the expression
“smile your way to happiness”?
Many believe that our facial movements can express our emotions to others who may empathize with our emotional state and could also influence our feelings of emotion. In psychology, this idea is called the facial feedback hypothesis. Studies have suggested that the degree of reaction of one individual mimicking another individual’s facial expression of happy or angry faces might even define the empathy level of the mimicking individual.
Though still strongly speculated, according to recent studies, it is the limbic system and the amygdala (an essential area of the brain for our emotions, emotional behavior, and motivation) that gets activated by our facial muscles and skin when we imitate the facial expressions of the individuals with whom we interact. A simple way to test the power of your facial muscles toward your emotions is to force yourself to smile when having a negative emotion. Often, when doing this, we can feel the negative feeling begin to dissipate, making the emotion lighter and sometimes even making it disappear altogether, causing a reversed effect into a positive emotional state.
Being sensitive to body language and facial expressions is essential for EQ.
Facial feedback sensitivity is a core characteristic that helps us when making decisions, negotiating, making a request, convincing others about our views, and finding solutions or coming to agreements during interactions with other individuals.
In my personal experience, I think most of us agree that learning to strengthen our EQ positively impacts adapting to our environmental changes. With a few tweaks here and there, change, growth, unlearning, relearning, and flexible mindsets are all aspects we can and should start focusing on today for the challenges of tomorrow. What has the pandemic taught us about drastic change and uncertainty? We can take advantage of our human nature and work on our ability to become more self-aware, emotionally intelligent, and flexible to adapt and grow, improving our skills in multiple areas, not only cognitive but also socially and emotionally.
