Emotional Intelligence Is Not Something Natural

by with No Comment Emotional Intelligence

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His name said, Amable (Kind, in Spanish), but he did not honor it because he has lack of emotional intelligence. Who would imagine that this young enthusiast for life, happy and vibrant, and such a good person that he once was, would become a hermit?
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He went from being a good friend, neighbor, and member of his family, to being a bitter, hermit. He had been through difficult times in his life, but he had also received many blessings and could not see them, for his isolation had only brought with it severe emotional blindness.

Amable had isolated himself from all that he once loved, his closure in himself had caused the feelings and emotions of others to become irrelevant. Due to his rough and unconsidered treatment of others, people who appreciated him and his loved ones were gradually moving away from him.

Lack of emotional intelligence

One of the problems that Amable had was a lack of emotional intelligence. It can define as the ability of a person to manage, understand, select, and work on their emotions, and the emotions of others.

The problem with emotional intelligence is that it is something that is not innate in us. We are not born emotionally intelligent. Why? Because we are all born into a world contaminated by sin. And the product of the sinful state we carry inside of us and the sinful actions of the people around us.

We have been exposed to traumatic, very negative experiences that have led us to experience emotions that we have not been able to handle. However, our chronological growth is not determinedly connected to our emotional growth. I can be an adult chronologically but a child emotionally.

Emotional children

For example, emotional children interpret disagreements as personal offenses. They feel easily injured, they complain, they retract, they manipulate, they seek revenge. Besides, they are sarcastic when they do not get what they want. And they have great difficulty talking calmly about their needs and the things they want in a kind and mature way.

Emotional adolescents

Emotional adolescents tend to always be on the defensive. They are threatened and alarmed by criticism, they treat conflicts badly, they usually blame, appease, go with a third person, frown, or ignore the issue altogether.

Emotional adults

Emotional adults are deeply attuned to their emotional world. They can enter into the feelings, needs, and concerns of others without losing themselves. They can ask for what they need, want, or prefer, in a clear, direct, and honest way. Not only that, but they recognize, control, and take responsibility for their thoughts and feelings.

Likewise, they can, even under pressure, affirm their personal beliefs and values ​​without being aggressive. They respect others without having to change them. Amable, the man in the story. It was an emotional child.

How do you get emotional intelligence?

So, the question you should be asking yourself is this: how do you grow emotionally? Our spiritual growth must connect to our emotional growth. The Bible says that “our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit” 1 Cor. 6: 19-20; that “we have the mind of Christ” 1 Cor. 2:16.

The Holy Spirit is the one who produces in us spiritual and emotional growth. As Ephesians 4:13 says: Until he is a man of full maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. The word maturity means complete, whole, perfect, well-developed, and adult.

Read the book Learning to Love and learn how to grow emotionally.

Discover your emotional level and reach your potential

by with No Comment Emotional Intelligence

Today, I want to help you discover your emotional level. In this series of posts, we are considering the people in the story of Israel, and why that generation of men that got out of Egypt could not consummate the dream of entering the promised land. And we discovered that one of the reasons was that the people of Israel did not let the Holy Spirit, the Almighty God, change their lives.

The second reason was that the people of Israel, that generation who got out of Egypt, did not grow emotionally. By not growing emotionally, they did not let the Holy Spirit transform their lives. Why? Simply, because emotional growth must be proportional to our spiritual growth.

Emotional Level

Let’s go deeper into why emotional growth is important. You cannot grow beyond where your parents grew emotionally because they were your first models and instructors when you had to learn how to express your emotions and how to love. I mean that you cannot go beyond the emotional dynamics you learn in your family.

If you are struggling because you do not know how to solve your emotional issues, how to handle your emotions, or how to express your love for your wife and children, and you see that you have issues, maybe the problem is linked to the emotional dynamics you lived back in your childhood. If your parents were not helping you grow emotionally, you could be having problems handling your emotions and expressing your love for other people in the present.

The first school you had when learning about emotional intelligence was at home, with your parents, and in those aspects, many people’s problems lie. Their parents did not teach them how to grow emotionally, and they are struggling in their life today.

Emotional Level by Peter Scazzero

In his book, The Emotionally Healthy Leader, Peter Scazzero presents the different stages people go through in their emotional growth.

The first emotional level

The first stage is the one he considers emotional babies. And many people behave as such. They try to find people who can take care of them, but they find it difficult to enter the emotional world of others because they behave like babies. They are driven by the need to be gratified. So, they use others as objects, so their needs can be met, and they continuously depend on someone else.

The second emotional level

The second stage is the “emotional children.” They manifest themselves when they are under pressure, trying to find solutions or when having problems in life. This kind of person explodes when they have work or home problems. They cannot control themselves because they are emotional children. They interpret disagreement as a personal offense.

Thus, they attack and cannot control themselves. They cannot have healthy relationships because every criticism they receive is an emotional problem for them. Thus, they feel hurt easily, complain a lot, withdraw themselves from situations, manipulate, get revenge, and are sarcastic when they do not get what they want. They find it difficult to talk in a nice, mature, and calm way about their needs and the things they want.

The third emotional level

Then, people can reach the emotional adolescent stage. They are used to being on the defensive. Criticism makes them feel threatened and alarmed. If your wife criticizes you because you left the garbage or your shoes in the wrong place, you take that criticism personally and explode. You do not know how to handle your emotions or how to handle criticism. You take everything personally.

Besides feeling threatened and alarmed by criticism, they keep score of what they give, so they can ask for something in return. I mean, they are continuously giving, serving, and helping, but then they feel bad if people do not provide them the same. They deal with conflicts poorly.

They are generally blaming others, appeasing, going to a third person, building emotional triangles, frowning their faces, or completely ignoring the subject. And, maybe, you see people behaving like this in your own family or your place of work. If so, it is because they are emotional adolescents; They have not grown. They have not reached the emotional maturity they need to reach.

Let’s know about the emotional level. Emotional adolescents are concerned with themselves. They find it difficult to truly listen to other people’s pain, disappointment, or needs. They are critical and judgmental. So, they cannot grow. They do not burst the emotional bubble that keeps them tied to their past, to what they learned in childhood.

The fourth emotional level

Emotional adults also exist. May God help us reach this kind of emotional maturity and help us be emotional adults. They can ask for what they need, want, or prefer in a clear, direct, and honest way. Thus, they recognize, control, and take responsibility for their thoughts and feelings. They do not blame others for the negative experiences or feelings they have.

Besides, they take responsibility and say, I feel this way because I let myself feel this way. Nobody controls how I am going to react to something. They react maturely, and can, even under pressure, affirm their own beliefs and principles without being adverse.

Some people cannot talk to emotional adults because they take everything personally, get agitated, or lose control. This is linked to the fact that a person like this has not grown emotionally. The person who grows emotionally, who reaches adulthood, behaves maturely and knows how to handle emotions and how t respect others without changing them. That person makes room for mistakes and recognizes that he/she is not perfect. Nobody is perfect.

The emotional adult recognizes that people are not perfect and tries to give them the benefit of the doubt because it is necessary when building healthy relationships. He or she also appreciates people as they are: good or bad, and not for what they give in return.

Acceptance

I accept you unconditionally. Jesus accepts you unconditionally, and God does too. But, people who do not grow emotionally accept you under certain conditions. Emotional adults accept you as you are. They evaluate their limits, strengths, and weaknesses with precision, and they can discuss them with others freely.

So, they feel satisfied and happy when they get what they want. They are also in deep harmony with their emotional world. And, they can enter the emotional needs and feelings. And concerns of others without losing themselves in the process. They can solve conflicts maturely and can negotiate solutions taking other people’s perspectives into account.

And you, friend, who are reading this blog, I challenge you to grow. If you are an emotional baby or child, set your mind on growing even more every day in your emotional life, and your relationships.

May God help you discover how to grow emotionally and reach the stature He wants you to reach, through these words about learning how to love, how to be a husband, a father, or a wife and a mother who knows how to handle emotions and to glorify God in everything you do.

Emotional growth is not proportional to biological growth

by with No Comment Emotional IntelligenceSpiritual growth

Your emotional growth is not proportional to your biological growth.

Why did the people of Israel fail? Why, from that entire generation that left Egypt, did only two people, Joshua and Caleb, get into the Promised Land? The people of Israel failed due to their sinful nature. And perhaps, the reason why you have failures in your marriage or your family is because of the sinful nature you have.

But, even though we have this nature, we do not consider it an excuse for not achieving our dreams or having healthy families because the same God who freed the people of Israel from Pharaoh’s hands is the same God who is present in our lives today and frees us from Satan’s hands, so we can experience a new transformation and a new life in Jesus Christ.

Emotional growth

Let’s study this subject a little deeper. There is a factor that we do not often consider when studying spiritual growth, and that is our sinful nature. This has to do with the fact that we do not often grow spiritually because we do not grow emotionally. Your emotional growth greatly influences how you behave with your family and in your relationships.

This means that if you are learning to love, you need to learn something: love is something you learn and your ability to manage your emotions, your emotional intelligence, has a lot to do with how you are going to learn how to love, how you are going to express the love you have for your wife or husband, your children, and your family.

Emotional growth according to the Bible

Many times, we do not grow because we do not mature emotionally. And this was the problem with the people of Israel. They were released from Egypt. God was present, but they never grew emotionally. What does this mean? Let’s analyze it. Whenever they had a problem, stress, or a crisis in their lives, how did they handle their emotions? The Bible has many examples that show us that they lost control. In the first moment, they tended to curse Moses, the leaders of God’s people, and even God Himself.

They threw stones to eliminate and kill the leaders of God’s people because they were not satisfied with the way God had been leading their lives. And nowadays, the same thing often happens in many relationships: family members argue, fight, and they lose control because they cannot control their emotions. That is why there are many families in crisis.

Emotional growth according to example of life

As a therapist, I have many cases with people coming to the office, destroyed, saying: “My husband (or wife) said words that hurt me emotionally, my husband (or wife) did things that I cannot name here.” This happens because the husband or wife did not know how to manage their emotions.

Often, we do not grow spiritually because we do not grow emotionally. A person can be 50 years old and behave like an emotional child or adolescent because his or her emotional growth is not proportional to biological growth. Many people are confused about this subject, and in my practice, I find many cases in which people do not understand the importance of growing emotionally.

Your emotional growth

Your emotional growth will not be proportional to your biological growth unless you intend to grow, mature, and change the way you think, to reflect Christ’s mind. Otherwise, you will not grow emotionally. And, this is why in your relationship as a husband or a wife, you manifest behaviors that surprise you, and you wonder, “Where did these behaviors come from? Why do I not do the good thing I want to do and do the bad thing I do not want to do?”

That happens because you have not grown emotionally. And since you have not done it, you do not know how to handle your emotions, you do not have emotional intelligence, you do not understand your wife’s emotions, your husband’s, your children’s emotions, and you end up screaming, manifesting negative emotions in a way that God does not want you to manifest them. All because you have not grown emotionally.

Your emotional growth should be proportional to your spiritual growth. This means that in the same way you grow spiritually, you need to grow emotionally. The same Spirit that produces spiritual growth produces emotional growth.

What you can do for reaching emotional growth

Maybe you have been in the Kingdom of God for many years and know the Bible completely. Maybe you are married and have a family, but none of this is going to be important or relevant unless you grow up emotionally. A person who grows spiritually and does not grow emotionally is inconceivable because the same Spirit that produces both kinds of growth must be present.

If we go to the book of Ephesians, we will see that Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit. That is love, joy, and peace. Those fruits are produced by the Holy Spirit. These fruits will not be produced even if you go to church, sing, and read the Bible. But then go home and mistreat your husband or wife, your children, and talk to them improperly. Because you do not have patience, tolerance, or self-control. The same Spirit that leads you to worship and to have the presence of God in your life is the same one that helps you control your emotions.

Due to this confusion, we have decided to present the program “Learning to Love.”

Learning to Love

Yale University has proven and has written many articles that show that 80 percent of people’s success is based on their emotional ability and intelligence.

Maybe you are struggling with your family, with your marriage. Maybe you want a healthy marriage, or to learn to love God and others, but you see that in the middle of that fight, you fail, and like the people of Israel, you give up because you do not know how to do it.

Today, I challenge you to learn something new. If you want to learn how to love, you need to grow, t mature emotionally, to reach Christ’s stature and His mind. This means that you need to reach and develop the emotions Jesus experienced. That is, to have Christ’s mind. You can do it. I also challenge you to start growing emotionally. And, through these posts, we will show you how to grow and develop emotional intelligence.

Through these lines, we want to help you achieve this goal. You can also buy the book Learning to Love on Amazon or contact us.

You can learn how to love and that way, you can transform future generations.

God bless you.