Name them to tame them (DW#458)
A simple first step towards building emotional intelligence is to notice and label the feelings you are experiencing at any given time.
Although a simple exercise, it can be challenging at first to name an emotion and it is easy to mistake a thought for a feeling.
An effective way to begin this practice is to get in touch with the physical sensations in your body. When you experience an emotion, electric signals are triggered by your brain to your body and show up as physical sensations such as changes in heart beat, in pace and depth of breath, in muscle tenseness and change of temperature on your skin.
You can take a moment to check in with yourself right now. Close your eyes and get present to what is happening inside right now. Begin to notice your breath and your heart rate. Do your muscles feel tight or relaxed? If tight, where is the tightness precisely?
Once you get comfortable with a neutral reading of your body, you may want to practice thinking about a positive and negative event in your life and notice how your internal sensations change in response.
Please don’t let the simplicity of this exercise fool you in thinking that it does not work.
It is an extremely powerful practice. AND it is a practice – which means that you have to do it repeatedly to become comfortable with it.
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