This Is How Emotional Awareness Improves Your Life
We are all humans, with emotions governing our thoughts (not the other way round as most would think it is). Emotional states have been socially deemed as irrational. And in this age of technology and science, irrationality has been demonised, which means that emotions have been demonised. However, our emotional states have been shown to affect the way we view the world and the way we interact with it.(Ethan, 2018).
Emotional awareness is the ability to identify and understand the emotions in you and in others. Should one be aware of their emotions, one would be able to identify with their emotions and recognise the implications of them. They will be better at verbalising their feelings, intentions, thoughts and ideas (Goleman, 1998). Since emotions facilitate the thought processes, one who is emotionally aware of themselves will allow their analytical side to take better control in various situations and hence able to better manage the situations or issues on hand.
When interacting with people; colleagues, friends, spouse and acquaintances etc., one who is emotionally aware will be able to converse and articulate their feelings well. One will also be able to detect various emotions on the table and be wiser about their choice of words. More often than not, communication does not simply involve the exchange of words. It also involves the exchange of emotions. If one can identify the underlying emotions, one can better understand why the person is communicating in a particular manner. For example, someone who is passive aggressive in their speech clearly indicates that he or she is upset with you about an incident yet unwilling to take the first step in addressing the matter and probably expects an explanation or an apology. What about someone who is trying to suppress their emotions and says “I’m alright” yet their body language betrays them to the bones? If you have encountered these some point in your life, how did you handle it?
In a project or gathering sessions, simply being more emotionally aware will supplement the outcome of the plan with emotions that will spread to the other people involved. For instance, an emotionally aware lady who plans a gathering for colleagues or friends will take into account the venue, settings, choice of food and aesthetics (Mayer & Salovey, 1997) of the whole event and make sure attendees feel warm and welcomed. On the contrary, one who is less emotionally aware would probably select a plain old lifeless café or dining place that can house the number of people and leave it at that. If you’ve had a long day and looking forward to the gathering, which option would look forward to?
In different organisations, leaders who are clearer about their emotions, will determine the culture and work environment which then affects the people in company down to their engagement (Cherniss, 2001; Seow & Cai, 2018) and quality of work. A leader who has better emotional awareness can identify (and in some cases pre-empt) emotions that arise in different situations. As such, they can better de-escalate and resolve these emotions pronto without letting emotions snowball and affect the work environment for everyone else. A leader who identifies and appraises their people’s emotions will be able to effectively align their directions and goals thus working towards a common vision. Amongst employees, those who are emotionally clearer would know the cause of their emotions, and how they respond or behave in response to different emotions which then allows them to manage themselves more rationally. And if these emotions are well communicated, it would smooth out team work especially when they know what their colleagues are feeling without having to second-guess and assume for the worse.
During stressful situations in life, when one faces pressure from work and at home, one will be able to identify what stirred the different emotions, and why that emotion is affecting them and more importantly, how they can handle their emotions so that it doesn’t spill over to everyone else and having everyone to be responsible for his or her emotions. Have you come across parents who have had a terrible day at work and starts lashing out with their emotions on their kids? Or were you one who was on the receiving end? How did you feel?
What if one day you find that people around you, including yourself, are more aware about emotions, having more empathy for each other, considering each other’s emotions and feelings? What if one day you find that you can actually trust people by revealing your emotions (and vice versa)? What if one day you realise that misunderstandings are better identified and addressed because we know that emotions did not get in the way of communications?
References
Goleman, D. (1998). Working with emotional intelligence. New York: Bantam.
Mayer, J., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Implications for educators (pp. 3–31). New York: Basic Books.
Cherniss, C. (2001). Emotional intelligence and organizational effectiveness. In C. Cherniss & D. Goleman (Eds.), The emotionally intelligent workplace (pp. 3–12). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
