Emotional Intelligence: The Hidden Genius

Standardized IQ tests measure a narrow slice of the mind: math, verbal fluency, the ability to rotate shapes in your head. Researchers have since mapped out at least eight distinct kinds of intelligence, and there's one more that sits quietly outside that list. It has no obvious connection to landing a job or climbing a ladder. The American psychologist Daniel Goleman named it Emotional Intelligence, or EI. You won't find a bubble for it on an exam sheet, yet it bears directly on whether a person lives at what some describe as the "dying" level of consciousness, the place where low self-worth and shaky confidence feed depression and anxiety.

So what is it, exactly? EI is the growth of four parts of your personality that bring you closer to your own emotions and teach you to steer them instead of being dragged around by them. The payoff shows up everywhere you deal with people: in the work you choose, in the friendships you keep, in the marriage you build with a partner.

Everything begins with awareness. Self-awareness is the doorway. You start poking at the question of why your emotions keep slipping out of your hands. What is pulling you down? Where does the anxiety come from? What sets off the panic? Why does the anger arrive so fast? Therapists have their own phrase for this work. They call it knowing your triggers.

Awareness opens onto self-management, which is the next piece. Here you practice handling what you feel. Mainstream medicine often frames the problem as a permanent chemical imbalance, a condition that requires a pill every morning for the rest of your days. That story doesn't have to be the whole story. Medication has a real role; so do talk therapy and support groups. This is the stage where you educate yourself and do the daily work of a more balanced life, until (under a doctor's supervision) you may be able to taper off the drugs and reach genuine health.

Social awareness is a third field. Beyond tuning into your own emotions, you begin reading your surroundings. Environmental factors are among the suspected contributors to anxiety and depression, so there's a double task: managing your internal flare-ups so they don't run the show, and refusing to let outside forces you can't control run it either.

The fourth piece is relationship management. There's an old joke that life would be easy if it weren't for other people. Of course, strip the people away and there's no human life left at all. Other folks can feel like a splinter under the skin, and the friction of getting along with them may be exactly what deepens the depression and anxiety that makes everything heavier. When you work on yourself and lift your own EI, you start becoming a steadying presence for the people around you. The law of attraction does its part, relationships warm up, and life grows richer.

Why would anyone turn down a higher state of mind or a stronger emotional intelligence? The book of Psalms carries a line about people perishing for lack of knowledge, and almost everyone has heard that knowledge is power. Many people never reach for something better simply because no one told them it was on the table. So they repeat the chemical-imbalance line to themselves and accept a lifetime of pills. That script breeds a victim mentality and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tell yourself anything often enough and it hardens into truth in your mind, no matter how tall the tale started out.

Fear plays a part too. Some people stay parked in a lower state because they are afraid of what they'll find if they look inward, so they never get acquainted with themselves or their feelings. And consider how well the medications mask the symptoms: they work so smoothly that people forget they were ever sick, right up until they attempt to stop taking them.

There's also the matter of government support. A safety net can quietly remove the reason to change, and in some cases it rewards staying ill. A diagnosis of depression, schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder can qualify you for a Social Security check for life with no requirement to work. If you paid into the system before becoming "disabled," the payments can be substantial. Add food stamps when a doctor certifies you can't work, plus discounted low-income housing, and the math tilts a certain way. There is no financial reason to push through anxiety, depression, or bipolar disorder, while there is both a financial and an existential reason to stay exactly where you are.

So what moves the people who do climb out? The ones who raise their EI tend to want more from life than a check from the welfare office. They're tired of the side effects the antidepressants bring. At bottom, the people who break through almost any obstacle share one stubborn trait: they refuse to be victims.

Emotional intelligence stands apart from the eight categories scientists have recently identified because it doesn't steer you toward a career. A high EI still earns its keep. It can make life more satisfying and lift your consciousness, and that lift can feed your growth in one or more of those other eight intelligences. Learn to grow your Emotional Intelligence, and heal thy self. - Erwin Bishop