5 Eccentric Habits of Emotionally Intelligent People

There are moments we let our emotions get the better of us because we simply do not know any other way. We are flooded by waves of strong feelings, it’s almost impossible to resist their control over our actions.

My moment happened a few weeks ago. I was overwhelmed with feelings of anger, betrayal, weakness and I lashed out at someone only to apologize minutes after. That episode led to hours of thinking and moping around.

The burden was huge, but it prompted me to learn how to avoid being so vulnerable to my feelings and letting them overwhelm me. I picked two books: An Emotional Education by The School of Life and Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

These books gave me an insight into the world of emotionally intelligent people. Here are some of their prominent traits:

1. They Stay Attuned to Their Feelings

“It is a quirk of our minds that not every emotion we carry is fully acknowledged, understood, or even truly felt. We fail to know ourselves not out of laziness or casual neglect; it simply hurts a lot.”-Alain De Botton.

Emotions are not without purpose, they are to indicate something either good or bad is happening. For example, you feel happy when you get the right amount of sleep but cranky when you don’t.

Through staying in touch with their emotions, emotionally intelligent people highlight what’s good for them and what’s bad, what stresses them, and what calms them.

They know that negative emotions aren’t all that bad because they’re misunderstood; they’re like babies going through pain and unable to express themselves in words. To recognize what’s wrong, people with high EQ pay them due attention.

Emotionally intelligent people are charitable interpreters of the emotions of others. They look beyond their outbursts, sulks, and generally, uncivil behavior to ask gently “What’s wrong? How can I help?”.

The charitable interpreter understands that even the most unworthy of people are deserving of sympathy. They look beyond the surface level to probe deep inside and find out what the real problem is.

It may sound something like this: “I have a persistent migraine” or “I’m sleep-deprived”, “I was stuck in traffic for five hours…”.

The charitable interpreter doesn’t merely respond to bad behavior, he reacts cleverly to it. He becomes the bigger person in a humbling way.

2. They Understand The Importance of Distraction

Emotionally intelligent people are aware that what you feed grows. They acknowledge that overwhelming emotions could hijack a person’s rational mind, causing them to commit actions they’ll regret later.

Distracting oneself stops the spark before it becomes a fire. It’s crucial to do so just at the starting point.

When you find yourself in a situation that’ll impact your emotions negatively, the next course of action is to tune out.

3. They Don’t Bottle It All In

“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die”- Carrie Fisher.

Much of what we bury in ourselves is as a result of being inhibited by fear or shame to express what we truly feel.

This repression may be followed by moments of happiness or laughter but this doesn’t mean that all is right with the world again and that peace has been restored. It hasn’t, it has simply been delayed.

The emotionally intelligent person has the foreknowledge that these emotions will become less patient with being ignored and shut down, and so arrive unceremoniously.

The antidote to this is vulnerability. Vulnerability is the art of being sincere and trusting the other person won’t take what you say for granted, and if they do, you’re aware that it’s not the end of the world.

It’s the courage to admit a desire or a need or a weakness.

4. They Admit to Foolishness.

“The best wisdom we’re capable of involves never losing sight of our own ridiculousness – in a kind way”- Alain De Botton.

In our attempts to build our confidence, we may become over-focused on our achievements to such an extent that we start to shy away from challenges that posses the risk of failure.

The emotionally intelligent person takes the safer path to confidence; the path of recognizing that others, no matter how respectable they may seem, have made laughable errors at some point in their lives.

They know that is a generously distributed attribute of humans to occasionally fall short on sense and reason.

Confidence is knowing you won’t be the first, nor the last, to be shy, awkward, or act like a nitwit.

5. They Forgive Themselves And Others

“The truth is unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward- Steve Maraboli.”

They choose forgiveness because:

• They are realistic in their expectations of human behavior and actions.
• They realize that everyone is under the pressure of forces they cannot control or much less visualize comprehensively.
• They are aware that hurt is sometimes unintentional, and that no one is completely evil and wholly good.
• They realize that not everyone has the privilege to be good. They recognize that some people’s bitterness may have stemmed from years of a trauma they haven’t recognized or begun to heal from.

Treating emotions as signals, not as facts, is not something that comes naturally to most of us. Emotional growth occurs when you’re able to recognize that you are not what you feel, you are what you do despite what you feel.

Emotionally intelligent people know that it’s never too late to practice these habits. They know it may take some time to get accustomed to- but it’s worth every step of the way.