Silken Fire's Fireplace II

Emotional Intelligence in Successful Relationships

Whether you’re having an argument with your spouse or trying a case before the Supreme Court, you are presenting the major portion of your communication through your emotions, not your words. The stakes in learning to harness our emotions are high. Say the wrong thing, or miss an emotional cue, and it can really hurt.

When we’re in control of our emotions, we can accurately display our trust, empathy, and confidence. Lose control—and we spin into confusion, depression, and doubt. Learn how to bring your emotions into balance and improve communication in all your relationships, providing a big boost for your emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence and communication

How do emotions affect communication in relationships? Babies are bundles of emotion—intensely experiencing fear, anger, sadness, and joy within their first eight weeks of life. As an infant, your emotions attached you to your primary caregiver in what was the first interactive relationship of your life. The emotions you experienced then helped lay the foundation for all verbal and nonverbal communication in your future relationships. Understanding and owning your emotions and their correlating physical feelings benefits you by:

Allowing you to navigate satisfying, meaningful relationships
Helping you understand other people
Enabling you to understand yourself
empowering your communication process
making you “heart smart�?�?emotionally intelligent

The emotions you feel and convey through nonverbal communication are the foundation of your emotional intelligence. Without the ability to communicate emotion, it’s impossible to build or maintain robust, healthy relationships, because the communication of emotions establishes the lifeline that sustains all relationships. If relationship partners do not understand and share their emotions, relationship problems inevitably develop.

Getting in touch with your emotions

Why is it so important to get in touch with your emotions? Emotions are your guide to meaningful communication. Without understanding them, you may be lost without a roadmap on the communication highway. Consider the emotional response of the following individuals in their home and work relationships:

Bernie is a kind, steady, and dependable man whose emotional flatness inspired the nickname“Mr. Spock.�?In his love relationship with his wife, Bernie remains emotionally uninvolved. His mood is always low key—nothing is too exciting, nothing is worth arguing about. It blindsides him when his wife files for divorce; he never saw it coming. Bernie likes his job, but his flatness has hurt his ability to advance. His bosses can’t imagine him motivating others.

Rhonda works hard at her marriage.Attractive, caring, and hard-working, shetakes everything seriously, and seldom complains or criticizes.But her lack of spontaneity, humor, and playfulness is taking its toll, as her husband contemplatesromantic involvements with other women. Rhonda’s seriousness also limits her popularity at work. Her coworkers tend to forget that she is there.

Jim is admired for his kindness and generosity.Only his family knows of his extremely short fuse. After an unprovoked verbal outburst,Jim ispredictably apologetic. When people tell Jim’s wife how lucky she is to have such a wonderful husband, she bites her lip, aware of how she and their children suffer in their relationship with him. His temper also keeps him from working well with others and has limited his choice of jobs.

Like misfiring pistons, these people are incapable of connecting with their strong emotions—the tools they need for compelling communication. They do not experience visceral emotions, or gut feelings. These visceral emotions are crucial to their communication with others.

How are emotions devalued?

We are all born with a capacity for emotional intelligence, and emotion plays a lifelong pivotal role in relationships. Yet many peoplelose touch withsome or all of their emotions. How do we go fromexperiencing sadness, anger, fear, and joy to an existence empty of emotions?

There are two main factors that contribute to this problem. The first is that our culture views emotion as problematic. For centuries, cultural and religious institutions downplayed emotion. People were encouraged to think, rather than feel. This attitude toward emotion has changed somewhat as we have expanded our knowledge of how the brain works. However, in general we continue to prefer thoughtover feelings.

The second factor that can interfere with our emotional intelligence is if we have experienced a disrupted or disconnected relationship early in life: If we have had painful or confusing emotional communication in infancy and early childhood, we may substituteless hurtful, more intellectualsecondary emotions in our adult relationships. Many peopleattempt to control their emotions, rather than experience them, thus causing relationship problems.

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Relationship communications are guided by visceral emotions that...

flow throughout the day—changing from sadness to happiness, from anger to joy, as the day’s situations change
inform the individual of deeply felt needs—affecting mental and physical health
positively attract and hold the interest of others—powerfully communicating personal and interpersonal needs

To reduce their relationship problems and improve their work and home lives, Bernie, Rhonda, and Jim need to “get in touch�?with their emotions. Ignoring uncomfortable feelings has cost each of them a great deal. Each needs to recognizethe difference between basic, visceral emotions and the emotional coping strategies they’ve been usingto avoid, minimize, or “manage�?the feelings that they have been stuffing down all this while.

The impact of non-verbal communication in infancy

How does communication in infancy influence adult relationships? As a baby, you were completely dependent on nonverbal emotional communication to satisfy your needs. This nonverbal, nonintellectual sensory experience is the life-sustaining heart of what was your first relationship.

By age two or earlier, babies begin to develop their verbal skills. However, this new means of communication does not render nonverbal communication skills obsolete. On the contrary, the foundation for communication in all relationships remains emotionally- based and nonverbal.

Emotional, nonverbal communication continues to play a major role in all your relationships, throughout your life.

Non-Verbal Communication in Infancy Affects Your...
Trust in Others	Your belief that others will respond to your needs
Sense of Self	Your sense of self is created by an emotional exchange in infancy that impacts your nervous system
Self-image	Your self confidence, strengthened by your ability to communicate emotional needs
Relationship with the Environment	Your belief that the world is supportive and friendly
Empathy	Your ability to comprehend the emotional experience of others
Compassion	Your recognition that other people’s feelings matter, too

Understanding primary and secondary emotions

What are primary and secondary emotions, and how do they affect how we experience the world? Your primary emotions—fear, anger, sadness, and joy—are also called raw emotions because sometimes, like an open wound, they may be difficult to deal with. Some events in our lives may interfere with our ability or willingness to experience primary emotions. For individuals whose early emotional experiences have been frightening or painful, a desire to avoid feeling these emotions may be understandable, or even necessary.

As you advance from infancy through childhood and beyond, your developing abilities to speak, to plan, and to organize give you substantial intellectual powers and control. These provide you with the means to displace, distort, and stifleyour emotions.

To cope with emotions that seem overwhelming, painful, or undesirable, you develop secondaryemotional responses.

Secondary Emotional Responses Include:
Distracting yourself	*Using obsessive thoughts and behaviors in order to feel controllable* emotions.** You may create a fantasy life that distracts you from feeling alone. Or, you may engage in compulsive andaddictive behaviors to absorb your attention.
Choosing one bearable, sustainable emotion	Being consistently angry or constantly clowning around. This behavior may seem emotionally intense, but such feelings aretypically “out of sync�?with reality. Someone who always kids around may be covering up feelings of fear or insecurity; someone who is always angry or sarcastic may be deeply hurtingbeneath the hostile front.
Shutting down and shutting out	Showing a diminishedemotional presence in response to overwhelming feelings of isolationor fear. Physical and sexual abuse can trigger an extreme state of emotional dissociation. People with overwhelming feelings of anger or sadness may cope by numbing themselves emotionally.

Although hiding out on these emotional back roads may seem like a safe alternative to feeling those raw emotions, these are actually counterproductive practices. There are emotional and psychological prices to be paid for using them. Those consequences include:

Shutting down positive emotional experiences. You cannot eliminate experiences of anger or sadness without also eliminating joy.
Adopting an unhealthy mindset. It takes an enormous amount of energy to block genuine emotional experience. This effort leaves you stressed andlacking the energy needed to live a healthy, well-rounded life.
Damaging your relationships.Compulsive or addictive behaviors, anger, or withdrawal, will ultimately stress your work and personal relationships, and you will become more isolated and empty.
Withdrawing from yourselfand the world. The more you distance yourself from your emotions, the more distant you become from others, as well as from yourself. Primary emotion is your best means for successful social contact. It informs you about your needs and the needs of others.

By learning to fully experience your emotions, you will not only be better equipped to handle the difficulties that arise in personal and professional relationships, but may find those relationships richer and more satisfying than ever before.

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