Permission to Feel; 5 Skills to Develop Deeper Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions. Emotional intelligence can help you to better understand your emotions leading to reduced stress, more effective communication, and increased empathy. Dr. Marc Brackett is a psychologist, a professor at Yale School of Medicine, and the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. His best selling book, “Permission to Feel” introduced his concept R.U.L.E.R, an acronym to help process the five skills of emotional intelligence. These five skills can help you increase your emotional intelligence to better understand and process your emotions.
-Recognizing emotions in yourself and others. In order to process your emotions, you have to identify what you’re feeling. Imagine your partner forgot your anniversary. How would that make you feel? Are you feeling hurt, frustrated, angry, or unappreciated?
-Understanding the causes and consequences of emotions. Your partner remembering your anniversary would have signified to you that you matter to them. Them forgetting important dates makes you feel that your relationship isn’t a priority to them. What are some possible outcomes for communicating this to your partner?
-Labeling emotions accurately. After some reflection, you recognize a pattern of feeling undervalued by your partner. You know they love you, but you would appreciate more effort put into your relationship. You decide that you are feeling undervalued.
-Expressing emotions appropriately. After you have recognized your emotion, understood why you are feeling that way, and labeled the emotion…it is time to express your emotion. In the given scenario, you might decide to talk to your partner about your feelings and how forgetting your anniversary made you feel.
-Regulating emotions effectively. Now that you have recognized the emotion, understood the cause of it, labeled the emotion, and expressed your feelings to your partner, you are able to regulate the emotion. Regulation may look differently for everyone, but it could be something as simple as, “While my feelings are hurt by this, my partner supports me and values me everyday. Forgetting our anniversary was a mistake, but it does not mean they don’t love me.”
Using the RULER approach means feeling your feelings, but processing them in a healthy, helpful way. In the scenario above, you gave yourself permission to feel but also effectively identified and processed your emotions.