The Key to Managing Stress: A Grounding In Emotional Intelligence

If you know me, you know that I’m a news junkie, particularly cable news.  Admittedly, sometimes I spend a bit too much time glued to what seems like 24-hour breaking news. I often find myself waging the battle between my need to stay informed and my need for some semblance of serenity. 

I often lose this battle.

Parallel to my fascination with politics and the news of the day is my passion for the study of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). I recently became certified in EQ-i 2.0, an assessment tool that analyzes individuals and teams on a number of specifically defined components of our social-emotional functioning. Each plays a critical role in our personal and professional effectiveness. EQ is a deep dive into our self-awareness as well as a proven indicator of success — even greater than IQ.

Why do I share this? Because I’m curious how all of us can stay connected to our own Emotional Intelligence while our political leaders seem to be lacking it. With many politicians showing extremely low empathy, too much self-regard, lack of impulse control or sense of social responsibility, who out there in society is modeling for us high levels of emotional intelligence and achieving greater levels of success and happiness?

Maybe WE need to be the ones who lead the charge in demonstrating the highest levels of EQ.

How do we manage our stress during difficult times? How do we manage our own impulse control when we want to send that inflammatory Facebook post or make that sarcastic and potentially hurtful remark? How do we stay empathetic, especially when we may find ourselves triggered by a friend or family member with opposing political or social views? 

The answer may be in EQ.

Over the next few months, I will be writing a series of blog posts about how we can raise our own Emotional Intelligence in both stressful and not-so-stressful times. We will dive into such EQ components such as self-actualization, emotional expression, assertiveness, problem solving, reality testing, stress tolerance, optimism, and more.

EQ is the formula for success at your job, and as a spouse, friend and parent.  

Join me on this exploration — I’ll share lots of real life examples, tips and techniques to help you raise your own EQ!