Emotional Management vs Emotional Intelligence
Written by Larissa
Why Talk About Emotions?
The majority of the decisions we make throughout the day guide us towards a particular emotional experience.
We want to feel “good” – successful, connected, understood, happy, and so on.
We do not want to feel “bad”- tired, angry, frustrated, sad, etc.
When we don’t feel “good”, we’ve been conditioned to assume that something must be wrong, instead of recognizing that we simply need a different kind of support when different kinds of feelings are occurring. We also need to be able to express ALL of our emotions in a safe way, rather than just managing them. Expressing ALL of your emotions is not only healthy, but KEY to your overall well-being! But because many of us have seen or experienced the unhealthy expressions – the ones that harm both ourselves and others – we try to curb, bury, or push off those emotions, no matter the cost.
What’s the difference between Emotional Management/Control/Regulation (EM) and Emotional Intelligence (EQ)?
In brief:
✦ EM is great in the moment of stress, dysregulation, or difficulty.
✦ Management/Control keeps the emotion around until you’re ready to deal with it.
✦ EM is a tool within EQ, but it is usually insufficient on its own.
A few definitions that will help us:
Emotional Management/Control/Regulation is defined as:
A. the ability to manage emotions to achieve goals, complete tasks, or control and direct behavior (University of Minnesota)
B. the ability to exert control over one’s own emotional state (Psychology Today)
Emotional Intelligence is defined as:
✦ The ability to perceive, understand, regulate, and respond appropriately to one’s own and others’ emotions. (National Library of Medicine)
✦ The ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict
✦ The ability to blend thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions
EQ is essentially the ability to be aware of your own and others’ emotions, to respond wisely from both your thinking and feeling, instead of reacting from an emotional outburst or avoiding feelings altogether, AND to process the full range of any and all emotions.
4 Challenges with Emotional Management as a Solo Strategy:
- All the definitions of EM have the words ” control, manage, or regulate,” which all basically mean to seek a particular outcome.
- Emotions are energy, and you cannot destroy energy. You can store, convert, or change your emotional state, but eventually that energy must move. Emotions are non-linear, meaning it’s almost impossible to direct them to a particular outcome. (You can’t set a timer to cry for 3 minutes and just get over all expressions of anger. You can’t put a 4-week time cap on loss. You can try, but it will not work.)
- Although it’s incredibly important to be able to control, direct, or manage your emotions to achieve goals and have good communication, control only stores your emotional energy. It will come up again.
- Control alone becomes a suppressant, and suppression causes pressure. This internal pressure can implode or explode, but control alone will not work as a long-term strategy.
Most of us have learned that managing or controlling our emotions is the whole of Emotional Intelligence. If you seem calm, you’re good… Unfortunately, EQ is NOT always calm, cool, and collected; that’s simply emotional management, and it is impossible to always achieve “calm”. True EQ is being able to manage and regulate your emotional state, but also recognizing that no emotion is bad, no emotion will stick around forever, all emotions are simply asking to be expressed, and then actually expressing them safely.
Common Humanity:
Have you ever had an outsized reaction to something “small”, say a sock in the living room, a bike left in the driveway, or someone telling you they love you? This has happened to ALL of us! Every single one of us. You’re simply expressing an emotion that’s asking to be expressed. Your reaction sometimes doesn’t match the moment, but it’s just an opportunity for that emotion to do its thing, so it does.
The challenge here is that we don’t always want to react or have an emotional outburst. Some days that same sock brings simply a long sigh, and you move on; some days it might even elicit a giggle. It’s the day you “flip your lid” that suddenly we notice the emotion arising. Having those emotions is not a bad thing! It’s the “flipping your lid” that causes the issues.
(P.S. Since we’re talking about EQ today, we’re going to stay with emotions, rather than dive into habits and proactive communication about “socks”. Another blog, another day 🙂
“Emotional Control” Isn’t Quite It…
Even the words “emotional control” are a bit of a misnomer, because emotions simply arise; we cannot control whether they are there or not. If we deny our emotions completely, we’re suppressing them, and a reaction will eventually occur. If we let our emotions consume us, we’re also going to be stuck in reactivity. So, what do we do?
We CAN learn from our reactions (rather than judge them harshly), so we can better respond instead of react in the future.
✦ We CAN take responsibility (not blame or shame) for our reactions, emotional outbursts, and emotional dysregulation.
✦ We CAN be more proactive about expressing our emotions in many ways, and often, before we’re stuck in a moment of stress and an emotional reaction is bubbling up.
One of the first steps toward EQ is just an awareness of our emotions in general (then eventually getting good at understanding what they are trying to tell us). Our meditation practice is an excellent place to become more aware of the layers of emotions we carry with us and then seek ways to tend to those emotions.
Another step toward EQ is learning how to safely express our emotions, so they don’t get stamped down within our bodies, or leak/flood out in moments we aren’t expecting them. It’s simply a human need to be able to fully express and move those emotions through our bodies.
Emotions are simply energy: e – motion, energy in motion.
I Want More EQ! Now What?
Similar to last month’s tools, EQ requires awareness and tenderness for you to witness and express alllll of your emotional experiences. Just like it’s GOOD to be able to move your joints in their full range of motion, it’s GOOD to do the same with your emotional range. Safety is the key to acknowledging, witnessing, and expressing the full range. You might have certain emotions that are tougher to feel, or tough to acknowledge; this list might include anger, sadness, grief, but sometimes even joy or feeling fully seen. Just naming the emotion might be your very first step. Witness, and be very, very, ever-so tender with yourself.
The safe expression comes in many forms: you might go for a walk, go to yoga, talk with a friend (naming “are we venting or are we looking for solutions?” is a very good start), go to therapy, create something – a painting, a sandcastle, cook a meal, plant a seed- journal, meditate, speak kindly to yourself, punch a pillow, cry, laugh, or any other tool that lets the emotion OUT. Give the emotion some air, let it be free! And don’t worry about the story that goes with it, just let the emotion move. You don’t have to know why you went from a jolly walk to rage-crying; it’s just an opportunity for the emotion to move. If you think you might cry or get loud, and that makes you uncomfortable, look for a place where you can allow it. By yourself, in your bathtub, in the woods, with a dear friend… anything that gives you a safe container, even if it’s uncomfortable.
It’s helpful to know why we feel how we feel at times, but other times, just allow yourself to feel. Give your brain a break from all of its figuring and just allow that emotion to express itself through your body. Containment of emotions takes a lot of energy, so full emotional expression gives you more bandwidth for emotional management when it’s needed, for connection, for joy, rest, and all the other things you’d like to do with your life. The next time you’re in a stressful situation and feel an emotional reaction coming on, you might just find you have an easier time managing it in the moment.
Join us in meditation to explore some of these tools of awareness, tenderness, and expression.
Join us for 7:30am meditation Monday–Friday via Zoom, or practice anytime on Insight Timer. We’d love to breathe with you.
