[Alicia Davis] Have you ever felt that your emotions took over so much that it kind of took over what you were doing? So we are talking about – if that’s true – what we’re talking about today is the second part of our emotional intelligence series. So Stacie, last week, we talked about noticing our self-awareness, right? How we are feeling. Today we want to talk about, okay, so if we notice, we’re feeling upset or frustrated or cranky about something, what are we going to do? How are we going to behave? Right?
[Stacie Watson] Absolutely, and in some ways, this is where the workplace really comes into focus, right? Because we’re working, whether it’s remotely or in person, with other human beings, and whatever’s going on inside of us can often sort of appear on the outside in terms of our behavior, or our actions. In fact, it’s interesting, that we were just with a group of leaders earlier this week, and we were asking, we were talking about this very topic of emotional intelligence. And so we were asking a really simple, but kind of profound question, which is, when you find that you are agitated, for whatever reason, maybe you’re feeling high levels of stress, or anxiety or anger. And you sort of notice that your behavior is starting to maybe not be exactly what you want. What can you do to sort of redirect yourself – to regulate yourself? And in that room of eight or 10 people, it feels like, there were so many different observations that people had about the things that they do. I mean, what were some of those ideas?
[Alicia Davis] I mean, one person said that they pause, they literally, like, stop what they’re saying, or doing. One person took a couple of deep breaths. Another one said, if it was like an email that came in, and she got really frustrated or upset about it, she literally would like, type out the email, not putting somebody’s name on it, not ever sending it, but just literally typing it out to kind of get out the feeling, kind of get back into understanding, like what her thoughts and feelings were. Somebody said they got up and took a walk. Right? So everybody, right? Everybody was different? And I think that a really important part of this part of self-regulation is, that it’s not going to be the same every time in every situation, right? It’s different. And you get to choose, right?
[Stacie Watson] Yeah, I think that’s really an important part of this. Sometimes it can feel, especially when we’re really caught up in those very strong feelings like we don’t have a lot of control over our actions or behaviors. And the truth of the matter is one of the things that makes us uniquely human is that we do have control. Like we have agency to sort of make a decision to pause, which doesn’t necessarily make the feelings go away. But it can at least give us a moment to gather ourselves to try to regulate a little bit, and if possible, to re, sort of, calibrate so that however we want to show up or however we want to act, you know, perhaps we are better able to do that. Because I think those reactions are human, you know, to be human is to react. So it’s really, how can we notice the reaction as quickly as possible? And find a way to maybe, as you said, hit that pause button if nothing else.
[Alicia Davis] That’s right. And just to clarify, you know, what we’re saying is, it’s not about changing the feeling, right? If you’re mad about something, you’re mad about something. It’s about what you are choosing to do about it versus what are your automatic knee-jerk reaction, or habitual way of handling it is. So that’s really the distinction and we would love to hear your thoughts about how you handle those kinds of situations. So email us at info@tlstransforms.com. Follow us on Instagram @TLS_transforms and we would love to hear your thoughts about emotional intelligence and how you manage it for yourself. I’m Alicia Davis.
[Stacie Watson] I’m Stacie Watson.
[Alicia Davis] And we are the co-owners of Transformative Leadership Strategies. Thanks so much for listening.
[Stacie Watson] Thank you.
