Emotional Intelligence:  The Hidden Genius

While traditional IQ tests only test for cognitive ability in the area of math, verbal fluency, and spatial ability, scientists are discovering there at least eight different fields of intelligence. There is also one hidden intelligence that doesn’t have anything to do with pursuing a vocation. This is known as Emotional Intelligence, or EI, and comes from a theory by American Psychologist Daniel Goleman. It may not fit in with the categories you would find on a standardized test, but it has everything to do with raising your level of consciousness up from what is known as the "dying" level of consciousness; the consciousness where people struggle with feelings of low self-worth and lack of self-confidence that are found in cases of depression and anxiety.

What is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the development of four main areas of your personality that help you to become more in tune with your emotions as well as how to manage them. This helps a great deal when you choose to pursue a career and establish relationships, including with your life partner when you get married.

The Four Areas of Emotional Intelligence

Awareness:  Self-awareness is where emotional intelligence starts. This is where you seek to understand the underlying issues to why you can’t seem to control your emotions. What is making you depressed? Why do you feel so anxious? What’s causing those panic attacks? Why am I so angry? Awareness is also known in therapeutic circles as knowing your triggers.

Self-Management:  Once you become more self-aware, then you move into self-management. This is where you learn to manage your emotions. While conventional medicine tells us that we have a lifelong chemical imbalance and have to take pills every day for the rest of our lives, this doesn’t have to be the case. Medicine does have its place in therapy but so does talk therapy and support groups. This is where we educate ourselves and put forth the effort to living a more balanced life and eventually become truly healthy by eventually being weaned off the medications: Under a doctor’s care of course.

Social Awareness:  Another field of Emotional Intelligence is social awareness. Not only do we become more aware of our emotions, but we become more aware of our environment. Environmental causes are also one of the suspected issues that contributes to anxiety and depression. Not only do we have to learn to manage our own emotions, so that our emotional flare-ups won’t control us, we also have to learn how to not be controlled by external forces that we have no control over.

Social Management:  The last field of EI is relationship management. There is a standing joke that life would not be so hard if it wasn’t for other people. Then again if there were no people, there would be no human life. People can feel like a thorn in the flesh, and dealing with each other may be what contributes to our feelings of depression and anxiety, which makes our life harder, but through working on ourselves and raising up our own EI, and we can then be a positive influence for others. Next, the law of attraction kicks in, and our relationships begin to improve. This will go a long way toward living a more enriched life. 

Self-Development vs. Stagnation

Now, why would someone not want a higher state of consciousness or an improved emotional intelligence? There is a verse in the Old Testament book of Psalms that says “My people perish for lack of knowledge”. Also everybody is familiar with the saying that knowledge is power. People don’t strive to better themselves because they may not know that it's even an option. Therefore, they tell themselves that their painful emotions are simply a chemical imbalance and they need drugs for the rest of their lives. This does nothing more than create a victim mentality as well as result in a self-fulfilling prophecy. So yes, it’s true that if you tell yourself something over and over again then it becomes truer no matter how big of a whopper it was in the first place.

Another reason people stay in their lower state of consciousness is because they are afraid of themselves, thus they are afraid to get to know themselves and deal with their emotions. Also take into account that the depression medicines are so effective at dealing with the symptoms of depression that people forget they were sick in the first place; that is until they try to get off their antidepressant medication.

There is also the issue of the government benefits for being mentally ill. One of the pitfalls of living with a social safety net is that it may not offer much incentive to want to change - In fact, it can incentivize the development or continuance of a mental illness. If you are diagnosed with Depression, Schizophrenia, or even Bipolar Disorder you can get a Social Security check from the government for the rest of your life - No obligation to work. If you paid into it before you became “disabled” you can get a lot of money for not working.  Along with this you can get food stamps if a doctors says you can’t work and a discount on low-income housing. There is no financial incentive to want to work through anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder, but there is indeed a financial and existential incentive to remain ill.

For those who actually want to heal, what motivates those that do seek to raise their Emotional Intelligence? The answer to that question is because the intrinsically motivated individual wants more out of life than living off of the government's welfare system. They also don’t like the side effects of the depression medicine.  The ultimate reason is as to why some people overcome nearly any challenge is because they don’t want to be victims.  Emotional Intelligence is another field of intelligence that is separate from the eight categories of intelligence that scientists have recently discovered because it doesn’t lead to a career. However having a high EI can lead to a more fulfilling life and an increase in consciousness which can help us develop in one or more of the other eight categories of intelligence. 

Learn how to increase your Emotional Intelligence, and "Heal Thy Self!"

- Erwin Bishop