{"id":220118,"date":"2025-06-11T18:32:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T16:32:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/?p=220118"},"modified":"2025-06-12T16:03:05","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T14:03:05","slug":"developing-the-intelligence-of-emotions-knowing-oneself-understanding-oneself-increasing-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/en\/articles\/developing-the-intelligence-of-emotions-knowing-oneself-understanding-oneself-increasing-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"DEVELOPING THE INTELLIGENCE OF EMOTIONS. Knowing oneself, understanding oneself, increasing awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starting with the research of Peter Salovey and Jack Mayer, who first defined EQ – Emotional Quotient – as a scientific concept, it is now a self-evident truth from numerous studies at many levels that emotional capacities significantly explain personal and professional success. For many years ignored and stifled, emotions are now recognised as an asset, a source of information, an authentic guide in decision-making processes, and knowing how to manage them is of fundamental importance. At Studio Growing you can choose emotional skills assessment and training courses, supported by professional coaches with specific experience.<\/em>

Knowing oneself, understanding oneself, raising awareness<\/strong>
I found a recent publication by Susan David, a psychology instructor at Harvard University, to be of great clarity and practical effectiveness. In the Harvard Business Review, Susan talks about ‘emotional agility’ as a critical skill for the effectiveness of leaders in any field and defines it as the ability to accept thoughts and emotions without trying to repress them and without being ‘hooked’ by them; instead approaching them in a present, constructive way and under the guidance of one’s values.<\/p>\n\n\n

Working, relating, living confronts us with even negative thoughts and uncomfortable feelings, such as irritation, doubts, fears. Hiding or repressing them, as we would be inclined to do according to an old cultural heritage, is not a good strategy. To manage emotions is instead to realise that these thoughts and moods exist, that they are part of everyday normality and have a positive function if we recognise them as such: thoughts and moods, not facts.<\/p>\n\n\n

Emotions are phenomena that occur in the body and mind, independent of our will and consciousness, and contain specific energy and information. The skill lies in taking in the emotional message and using it, while maintaining choice over consequent action. Thus in the presence of an impulse it becomes possible to become aware of the factors that triggered it, to draw information and learning from that experience, and to act not with an automatically piloted behaviour but a choice that reflects what matters: our values precisely.<\/p>\n\n\n

Acting instead of reacting is the great freedom that emotional intelligence gives, together with the possibility of living for longer and more frequently in desired and resourceful states, which are also individual and very personal preferences: to feel confidence, serenity or concentration; to be present, to feel inspired, to feel centred. This competence is not acquired in an instant, but is trained over time by working on all its components. The starting point is awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n

Listening to ourselves is the first thing, giving space, without judgement: we accept the signal from our internal system that something is perceived as important and requires our attention in terms of reading and decoding. An essential step is to give what we feel a precise name: if I have the word to say it then it exists and I recognise it. This ‘literacy’ process is all the more effective the richer the emotional language and can be facilitated by models that provide semantic references. These include Plutchik’s scheme, which isolates eight primary emotions, their meanings and degrees of intensity.<\/p>\n\n\n

Furthermore, it is important to learn to recognise one’s triggers, those factors that touch sensitive points in each person and trigger an emotional reaction. Joseph LeDoux, a neuroscientist at New York University, calls them memories indelibly imprinted in the amygdala, our most archaic brain. While erasing them is unlikely, identifying them allows other resources to kick in: first and foremost, the cerebral cortex and consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n

And again: draw a profile of the emotions habitually experienced, learning for each one to recognise and represent the triggering patterns, intensity and average duration. Recognising and noting patterns: those neural patterns or pathways, automatically activated after a stimulus, which include thoughts, interpretations, sensations in the body and actions (on the definition of automatic emotional mechanisms, the studies of Silvan Tomkins and his ‘Affect Theory’, 1962-1992, remain interesting).<\/p>\n\n\n

It is a process of developing emotional awareness that is not always easy, and far from quick. Many of us have to work at it for a long time, tackling one aspect at a time. Evaluation tools are often helpful: questionnaires based on solid research work, such as the SEI or MSCEIT, give a clearer picture of initial skills, and can suggest which elements to focus on first. Fundamental is constancy: a systematic, constant and punctual practice of collecting, recording, physically analysing. And training in staying in touch with our inner experience and noticing what is happening to us as early as possible.<\/p>\n\n\n

Reward is the power of meta-cognition, the ability to think about thoughts, which supports self-understanding and self-experience, enables authentic and immediate relational behaviour and improves the ability to decide for actions appropriate to the situations we experience; with respect to the environment, others and ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n

by Laura Ravanetti<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Starting with the research of Peter Salovey and Jack Mayer, who first defined EQ – Emotional Quotient – as a scientific concept, it is now a self-evident truth from numerous studies at many levels that emotional capacities significantly explain personal and professional success. For many years ignored and stifled, emotions are now recognised as an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":117758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"brizy-blank-template.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,131],"tags":[125,104],"class_list":["post-220118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","category-eng","tag-eng","tag-intelligence-of-emotions"],"acf":[],"lang":"en","translations":{"en":220118,"it":117065},"pll_sync_post":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220118"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220489,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220118\/revisions\/220489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clienti.analyticseo.it\/growing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}