Emotional Intelligence or EI has been receiving a lot of attention in the corporate world in the areas of leadership, teamwork & collaboration, but what about our day to day life & more importantly what about our relationships with the significant other?
Do you feel that you have not been heard when talking to your partner? Do you listen to your partner with an intent to reply or to empathize & understand your partner’s point of view even if it does not make any sense to you at this moment? How do you solve conflicts with your partner: talking openly through difficult topics or sweeping things under the carpet?
EI impacts us every day, people experience the plethora of different emotions every hour, some of which are passing through our mind unrecognized. It is not a secret that the ability to be emotionally aware & to manage our emotions, moods & feelings is affecting our general mental & physical well-being & happiness. Our emotions are an integral part of our system and shall be taken care of & developed not less than an intellect. Who is not dreaming of strong & healthy relationships with their significant other?
The statistics shows that around 50% of marriages end up in divorce in the 21st century. No doubt, that various factors are influencing the divorce rate & the relationships’ break-ups, however lower level or imbalanced level of EI is one of the reasons. EI is one of the most significant factors affecting partners’ relationship satisfaction.
Relationship satisfaction is an intriguing & substantial predictor of couples mutual happiness, well-being & long life span of the relationships. Good news is that EI skills are not fixed & stagnant, they can be developed & advanced with the help of Coaching. Such helping intervention as Coaching is very relevant due to the fact that painful separations are affecting our mindset and people carry the risk of developing the feelings of anger & resentment, lowered self-esteem & self-defeating mind frames. Sometimes the relationships issues occur when there is no clarity in our own values & beliefs system, means the lack of self-awareness. Other common EI challenges that the couples are facing could be the lack of empathy, poor conflict management, communication skills. My Coaching practice showed that there is a big danger for the Client to turn into Blaming state of mind in the unhappy relationships and put the burden of fault on the partners’ shoulders. However I believe that the problem is always mutual.
Relationships is a complex & multifaceted process which entails many implicit & explicit challenges for individuals to attain adjustment & depends on the compatibility of the partners, trust, closeness, intimacy & overall satisfaction. We are satisfied when we feel that this relationship surpasses our own internal criteria of relationships’ quality & better than any other past ones. But how are we willing to adjust and what are we ready to sacrifice on the road to satisfaction?
Romantic relationships brings people closer & the need to perceive & manage emotions respectively grows as well as the need to be emotionally equipped. The ability to be aware of our own emotions, moods & recognize partner’s emotional state will benefit highly to develop even greater bonding, avoid potential conflict situations.
EI competencies help to avoid unhealthy relationships & toxic attachments, wasting of time on the relationships that are misaligned with your values & goals. The priority of the developed EI is a personal growth & autonomous development as a separate self-sufficient individual who enters into relationships to form a positive & happy union, to interact in a lively & passionate manner, manage the triggers & the ability to be self-driven, self-encouraged & hopeful and not to compensate the emotional void through the partner. Developed EI helps with stress-management by being aware of negative emotions & managing them on time, using the sense of humor to deal with difficult times.
Our emotions facilitate certain thoughts’ process, which provokes action and finally affecting the relationships. The question is how to manage the arising emotions & direct them into productive & positive course to favor the relationships’ satisfaction? EI as any other skill can be a subject to Coaching & thus learned & advanced. However, the success is based on the desire of the Client to change & enrich EI. The goal to self-reflect, learn about emotions & triggers, underlying issues & the need for potential behavioral change shall be present for the Client to transform.
To be continued….
Written by Lidia Plotkina, a Certified Professional Coach (ICF, CCA). She can be contacted at email lplotkina@gmail.com / Instagram lidusha_dushaa