On Emotional Intelligence and Mindfulness

By: Ilanna S. Mandel

In this chapter we will be dealing with the concepts of emotional sobriety, social and

emotional intelligence, and mindfulness. Each in its own way has the ability to impact on the

ways in which we experience love in our lives. The notion of emotional sobriety embodies three

concepts: the ability to live with deep, intimate connections, resilience or the ability to roll with

the punches, and the ability to regulate our behavior. Emotional sobriety is about finding and

maintaining our emotional equilibrium, our feeling.

The point is to bring ourselves into balance when we fall out of it. Balance is that place where

our thinking, feeling and behavior are reasonably congruent; where we operate in an integrated flow.

When our emotions are out of control, so is our thinking. When we can’t bring our feeling and thinking

into some sort of balance, our life and our relationships show it. Addiction and compulsive, unregulated

behaviors reflect a lack of good self-regulation. To maintain our emotional equilibrium, we need to be

able to use our thinking mind to decode and understand our feeling mind. That is, we need to feel our

feelings and then use our thinking to make sense and meaning out of them.

But, how does one learn to self-regulate? We learn through our early experiences, both through nature,

and nurture. Each tiny interaction between parent/caretaker and child actually lays down the neural

wiring that becomes part of our brain/body network. As the parent interacts with the child, the child

learns the skills of relating and regulation which are then laid down as neural wiring. When our skills of

self- regulation are well learned during childhood, they feel as if they come naturally, as if we always had

them.

When they are not well learned, we may reach to sources outside of ourselves to restore the

sense of calm and good feeling that we cannot achieve ourselves, namely drugs, alcohol, food, sex,
gambling and so on. One of the ways our emotional sobriety can be compromised is through trauma.

Emotional trauma can have a negative impact on early development. It can both interfere with our

ability to use our thinking brains to decode our emotions and it can create problems in our limbic

systems. Our limbic systems get set on “high” we are over sensitized to stress and hence, we over react

to it.

Social and emotional intelligence have become popular catch phrases today, and for good reason. They

inform us about ourselves, and our ability to function in healthy relationships. The four components of

emotional intelligence are laid out below:

Self-Awareness: ability of an individual to be in tune with her/his own feelings and to recognize the
impact that his/her feelings have on others. The competency that underpins this dimension is
emotional self-awareness.
Self-Management: ability to keep negative emotions and impulsive behavior under control, stay
calm and unflappable even under stressful situations, maintain a clear and focused mind directed on

accomplishing a task. The required competencies for this dimension are positive outlook, emotional
self-control, achievement orientation, and adaptability.
Social Awareness: ability to read or sense other people’s emotions and how they impact on the
situation of interest or concern. The competencies for this dimension include empathy and
organizational awareness.
Relationship Management: ability to influence, guide and handle other people’s emotions. The
competencies that underlay this dimension include inspirational leadership, influence, coach and
mentor, conflict management, and teamwork.
 Psychologist and author Daniel Goleman is the originator of the term ‘emotional

intelligence’ which has become a popular theory around the world. Self-understanding and

greater emotional management coupled with the ability to deal wisely and effectively with

others, positively impacts people's capacity to negotiate their everyday lives. Researchers and

psychologists maintain that social and emotional competencies "allow us to modulate

emotions, solve social problems creatively, to be effective leaders and collaborators, (and) to be

assertive and responsible." These concepts fit very well with a concept we discussed in the last

chapter – conscious relationships. When we try and bring a sense of our consciousness to our

relationship, we can be aided by emotional intelligence which implies that we work towards a

greater understanding of ourselves, make every effort to manage our emotions in an honest

and appropriate way, and find the skills to deal wisely with others. All of these skills can inform

us in our relationships, and the process of bringing more love into our lives.

Here is an excellent interactive exercise to encourage you to think on these concepts:

To be conscious of our emotions is another step in our ability to channel those emotions in

appropriate ways. One of the steps we can take to achieve this is to begin to consider what sets us

off, and identify our recurring triggers, those emotional ‘buttons’ that get pushed for many reasons

from our past. For example, do you find yourself getting angry if your partner doesn’t say something

you expect them to? Perhaps, they forgot to thank you for something, or they forgot an important

anniversary. Are you able to tolerate these situations, or do you resort to some form of criticism?

The times we fly off the handle when our partner doesn’t do things we expect, or want them to do

are all aspects of emotional intelligence. Once we identify these triggers, then we can work with

them. The next step is to consider what’s behind these triggers. Where do these feelings come
from? How can we respond to them? Sometimes, we just don’t seem able to respond in a way that

demonstrates our emotional competency. However, the good news is we can learn and enhance

our emotional intelligence at any point along the life journey. Just as we have to work hard at other

things, we have to work hard to break our old patterns, and develop new emotional responses. The

effort is we will be rewarded with significantly more loving relationships, and improved dynamics

between ourselves and others.