4 Keys To Managing Emotions Intelligently

Managing emotions intelligently means channeling them to maintain balance and harmony. Thanks to this, we are able to be a positive force for ourselves and for everyone around us and we prevent our emotional world from taking away vital energy.

When our emotions manage to stay in balance we are more productive, more creative and happier. We prevent what we feel from taking over who we are. Thus, we manage to give a constructive direction to that subjective world, putting it in our favor and not against us.

With calm emotions we are able to set goals and achieve them. To have healthy relationships with others and to be able to give the best of ourselves. Hence the importance of learning to manage our emotions. Achieving it only requires determination and perseverance. And here are four keys to achieve it.

1. Understand that there are no negative emotions

Emotions have a reason for being. Therefore, it is a mistake to classify them in the group of positive or negative. You just have to keep in mind that there are stimuli that lead to experiencing certain emotions. It is unavoidable.

Fear , for example, is a response to threatening situations. If we did not experience it, we would easily fall into reckless behavior that would put our integrity at risk. Anger, for its part, is also a defensive response, whose role is to prepare us for attack when there is danger.

Therefore, there are no negative emotions. To learn to manage emotions, the important thing is that we know how to interpret the message that each one of them communicates. They are a guide to knowing that something is happening and that this needs to be addressed.

2. Allow yourself to feel, to manage emotions

Traditional upbringing and parenting rarely teach us to manage emotions. They convince us that there are feelings and emotions that we should not experience. They tell us, for example, that crying or being afraid does not solve anything.

However, emotions are not born for their own sake, nor do they disappear for their own sake. Therefore, repressing what we feel is not a correct way to manage them. Trying to suffocate what feels lonely postpones your expression. The repressed returns and sometimes in a bad way.

The first thing then is to understand that all emotions are legitimate and have the full right to exist and express themselves. If we accept what we feel, it will be much easier to manage emotions. Not accepting it implies causing a confusion that ends up resulting in an internal storm.

3. Observe, observe, observe …

The best way to manage emotions is accepting them, but also understanding them. To achieve this, it is essential that we increase the capacity to observe them. The mere fact of paying attention to them already allows you to start channeling them.

Daniel Goleman, the great theorist of emotional intelligence, indicates that “Attention regulates emotion.” This means that when attention is focused on what we are feeling, that subjective experience is automatically modulated or nuanced.

To observe emotions, the appropriate thing to do is ask yourself: what am I feeling? how I feel? Then try to put the exact name to that emotion that is experienced. Is it anger or is it frustration? Rejection or is it fatigue? The more precise the identification, the more easily we will come to understand the why of these emotions.

When we accept an emotion we are not feeding it. Accepting it consists of observing it, seeing what it is telling us. When we feel anger, instead of being automatically carried away by it, we can change it by observing what the emotion produces. When analyzing it, we can realize that many of our reactions are automatic. In this way, we can learn to modulate our behavior without being victims of our emotions.

4. Be critical of our thoughts

Although it may seem that this is not the case, many of our thoughts arise mechanically. These are interpretations of reality, which are sometimes well founded and sometimes not. Sometimes they are the result of reasoning and sometimes not.

Thought is not reality, but a filter for reality. It induces us to feel in a certain way in the face of what happens and on many occasions it leads us to mistakes. For example, thought can tell us that a difficulty is a nuisance. But it could also tell us that it is a challenge, an opportunity. However, this is achieved only when we dare to question those ideas and not simply let ourselves be carried away by them.

As  Cano and Zea (2012) point out, “if we understand that all human beings think, act and react differently to similar situations, we will be able to understand that there are no absolute truths and that what is evident to me and has no doubt, perhaps for others it is not so much ” . Although it seems to us that our way of thinking is the only and the most correct, in reality, it is nothing more than another point of view on reality. If we internalize this, we will achieve more in harmony with ourselves and with others.

Learning to manage emotions intelligently involves being fully awake. Attentive and focused on our inner world. It may be difficult at first, but the benefits are so great that they are well worth it.