SELF AWARENESS (Part 1) - Emotions & our physical state

Whether we know it or not, we all possess Emotional Intelligence to a greater or lesser extent, and in the first of three blogs on the subject we shall take a look at the fundamental role of self awareness in developing our EI.

Our ability to be aware of and to manage our emotions on a consistent basis, and then to apply our EI to other people and even groups, is not easy. The good news is that it is a skill that we can learn, enhance, and ultimately command. It all begins with self awareness, and in mastering the 'self' we can gain control of what could be called the 'behaviour supply chain'

SELF AWARENESS

The main step towards this is to develop much higher levels of awareness of our moods and emotions, as they occur, moment by moment. Abandon all thoughts of navel gazing - this refers to a very practical approach to understanding and then managing our “behavioural supply chain”, from inception to delivery! Our emotions, particularly when negative, can provoke both thought patterns and reactions that can adversely affect decision making, quality of management, and leadership.

In order to attain such control, we need an intimate awareness of our emotions and the knock on effect they can have on our lives. In that way we can become used to intervening with negative emotions as soon as we are aware of them and we can learn to do this by understanding how our emotions affect three main areas:

1. EMOTIONS AND OUR PHYSICAL STATE

Although our emotions can have serious effects on our thought process, quite often the first thing we know about it is through physical sensations. This is particularly the case, for example, during stressful meetings. Many of us will have experience some of the following physical sensations either before or during a challenging meeting:

• Neck stiffening
• Shoulders tensing 
• Tight throat 
• Pressure on the chest
• Feeling a block in the stomach 
• Throttling your pen!
• Feeling hot 

Although we may know when we are feeling stressed. we may not fully understand the causes. Furthermore, if we recognise we are experiencing these types of physical sensations, our state of mind may not be lost on others in the meeting. If, however, we are sensitive to the meaning of physical manifestations, they can become useful 'trip wires' for making us pay close attention to our thinking and to taking measures to counter those sensations.

In Part 2 we shall look at the effects our emotions can have on our thinking.


Alan Keyse is a fully qualified Business and Life Coach who now applies his 30 years of experience as a sales executive to coaching Emotional Intelligence to business leaders, executives, managers and their staff either in one-to-one sessions, in groups, or speaking to larger audiences. 

Alan Keyse

keysforliving.org
email Alan