Emotional Intelligence or EQ has been a thriving concept since Daniel Goleman’s bestselling book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, which was published in 1995 and has been a great hit ever since.
Daniel Goleman was brilliant in the selling point he used for his book. He leveraged what a large portion of the world already knew and offered something different.
Consider the education systems that for almost a century have used IQ, which stands for intelligence quotient, as a basis for measuring someone’s intelligence.
IQ is a combination of aspects such as memory, mathematics, pattern recognition and logic.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is how aware of your emotions you are and how well you know how to manage them from a psychological standpoint.
Daniel Goleman found that emotional intelligence has proven to be a more important factor for how well you succeed in your lifetime versus intelligence quotient.
Success could be what your core desire is relative to how your life unfolds.
Success, defined in this way, could mean anything based on the way the individual perceives things, hence the reason they say that success is defined differently for everyone.
However, there is one thing that is common and that is a certain desire. If you achieve that desire, regardless of how small or large it is, then you have been successful, which, according to Daniel Goleman, is that EQ plays a large role in the attraction of said desire.
Understanding your emotions is far more than just acquiring what you desire; having a simple fundamental understanding of your emotions will help you feel better in your life.
It is about not letting your emotions take complete possession of you.
Just as Daniel Goleman leveraged IQ, I am leveraging EQ, and rather than coming at it from a purely psychological standpoint, I’m coming at it from a spiritual and higher consciousness standpoint.
This, however, isn’t about being better, it’s simply just a different perspective into how you can leverage higher consciousness.
The end result is the same for both Daniel Goleman and me, and that is to become more emotionally sound.
Mindfulness
Thoughts, to a very large degree, are what dictate our emotional energy charge.
The body itself has an intelligence that the mind cannot comprehend to its full extent, and yet, this intelligence is largely directed by the mind and its thoughts.
An emotion is the body’s reaction to the thoughts of the mind. Firstly, you begin to perceive reality, and collective thoughts in that instant can create the way that your body is reacting.
The mind is a swirling vortex of thoughts and, often times, we are not aware that we are thinking.
The thoughts themselves are not the main cause of emotional stress, pain and suffering, it’s the lack of awareness of the thoughts and the awareness that thoughts are happening.
The key difference between being conscious and unconscious is that someone who is unconscious is thinking without the realization that there is something beyond the thought.
There is a watcher of these thoughts; the watcher is non-thinker itself, full stop.
If you are unconscious of this, then this means you don’t know it; conscious means that you have found that space behind the thoughts, that allows for a break in the never ending stream of thoughts.
Mindfulness is not about being aware of what you are thinking, it’s that you’re thinking.
Once you do gain the sense of neutral awareness then you will eventually be able to realize the thoughts and beliefs that are causing you pain.
Acceptance & Detachment from Thoughts & Emotions
Next is that we must not identify (Establish who we are) with the thought or the emotions.
“Nothing that comes and goes is you.” – Eckhart Tolle
If “you” believe that who you really are is the thought or the emotion, then you are only confirming the thought or the emotion to be absolute realty and absolute essential.
In the present moment through mindfulness you must first accept that the mind has created pain in you, which is OK.
This means you are aware that the “what is” state of your mind is causing pain and that “what is” already is, so it is OK.
In undisturbed mindfulness you will know exactly how you are feeling in that moment and you must accept it with your complete being.
Even in a state of….
Anger
“You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.” ― Gautama Buddha
Because a lot of people can take in the energy of someone who is angry, anger can trigger the emotions of other people, although it does not have to.
With that said, anger may or may not hurt the surrounding people, but 100% of the time it will hurt the person who is angry.
There are 2 quotes that sum up this perfectly.
“Holding onto your anger is like holding onto hot coal expecting the other person to get burned.” – Buddha
“Where there is anger, there is always pain underneath.” – Eckhart Tolle
Being that anger is one of the normal emotions that humans have, it seems like it is a necessary emotion for people to have in order to make reality go their way.
People have been scared into making decisions for those who are angry, which would lead one to believe this may be the case.
However, if your anger is predicated on what happens because reality is not going your way or the way you perceive that it should, then the anger is still anchored inside.
When you are angry and reality finally goes your way, then anger is going dormant, but will easily rise again in the instant that you perceive reality should be going differently.
When anger happens, it should be allowed because it already is and what it is, is reality.
“When you argue with reality, you lose.” – Prince EA
Anger, however, should be looked for what it is, a conditioned response to the way things should be, not the way they are, which is prior to thoughts.
Anxiety & Stress
Anxiety and stress are usually intense sadness that continues to linger for different periods of time, and it doesn’t seem like there is any way out.
This is usually not just caused by thoughts that are perceived but often times because there is not enough being or space between the thoughts.
The space, which you are, is already thoughtless, thoughts happen to you, and you are not aware of this thoughtless space, then thoughts will bury you without realizing it.
Fear
Fear is one of the most complex emotions, and the one core emotion for all anger, stress, anxiety and feeling overwhelmed.
Fear is always a result of thinking. This thinking of something happening or not happening based is on the way the mind hopes.
The root core of all fear is the fear of death and of the unknown. They are synonymous in that the death the mind is that there will be the unknown forever.
But even the future that seems to come is a lesser version of this unknown and what the mind does not know, it is afraid of.
The mind needs to know that I’ll be perfectly OK, and, yet, the mind will always be on the hamster wheel of needing to know the future, because, in reality, the future never comes.
The future can never happen now, now is the only place from which the thoughts of the future happen, but you are never directly in the future.
So as long as the future is seen as some reality that will come in a direct experience or direct knowing, fear will continue to haunt you to different degrees in all of your mind experiences.
Realizing the thoughtless space that you are allows you to take a break from the future, which means that it allows you to take break from the mind-based fear.
Peace versus Happiness
Happiness, which is normally based on pleasure, (just as with fear, anger and depression) is going to come and go as well. All experiences, no matter how bad or how good they are perceived, pass.
“This too shall pass.” – Eckhart Tolle
This is not a philosophy; it is a law of the perceived universe.
If happiness/pleasure also passes then how could it be you?
When we are happy, we perceive life situations and circumstances to be good or how we want them.
Perception is largely from the mind, which is built from that past that is already not a reality.
Peace, however, is the natural awareness that arises as a result of the thoughtless space that does not leave you.
Peace is a direct reflection of consciousness, which is who you are in its entirety, not a someone or something, but the entire perceived universe, which exists within and as the one “I”.
Peace does not leave, but it can become buried from the thinking-mind. It’s kind of like, the thoughtless you looks into a mirror and sees itself as peace, but the thinking-mind creates smoke in the mirrors.
Even with the smoke, who you are is still this peace; this smoke has blocked off this realization for a moment.
We can be in an unpeaceful state, which is from too much mind and not enough thoughtless space. When you are in state of mindfulness, you are aware of the thoughtless arising presence you are.
You cannot be aware of this conscious presence and thinking simultaneously. This conscious presence is you without a second and without a thought.
On the flip side you cannot have mindfulness outside of the present moment.
Mindfulness is not that you are thinking about your thoughts, it’s that you’re observing them.
This space does not think, it sees through the thoughts that are not even there to begin with, just as the smoke cannot touch the peace that you are.
When you are angry, depressed and fearful, with awareness you can still have a deep level of peace from within, even when these states don’t feel good at all.
Higher Consciousness Emotional Intelligence
You are the awareness behind the thought or the emotion, NOT the thought or emotion itself.
The nothingness awareness between these thoughts and emotion is consciousness and the reflection of consciousness that transcends all thoughts and emotions is the beginning of deep peace.
Finding the peace that you are is the highest emotional intelligence because it is consciousness intelligence which is unaffected by the perceived universe of things.
