How to grow our Emotional Intelligence using 3 simple questions?

People seek out therapy merely as a last resort. When they aren’t able to solve their problems by themselves, they reach out to a therapist to seek help in resolving their snags.

However, I attempt to transmogrify my clients into sovereign beings, those who are proficient and accomplished in unraveling their emotional issues and biases by themselves.

In this article, I have simplified the approach towards emotional mastery through 3 vigorous and extremely productive questions.

Question 1: What am I doing?

“What am I doing?” is the preliminary self-analysis that I suggest to everyone who contacts me for help. An honest acceptance of material facts is a part of the foundation for any unbiased cognitive therapy. A simple conscious realization of your ongoing activity puts you in the driving seat of your life. A mere recognition that you need help, or probably you aren’t doing or interpreting something in the right way, would help you evaluate the circumstances in your life with much better clarity.

Emotions are an integral part of human behavior. Pretty much everything in our lives – values, beliefs, desires, choices, and situations – is a reflection of our feelings. Whether you’ll read this article till the end also depends on how you feel. Therefore, I have two choices for doing this. Either I can do this in a superficial feel-good way (it doesn’t lead to growth), or I can be brutally honest with you, which inevitably will not make you feel good. But it will help you escape the web of false beliefs and principles. I choose the latter. Let’s decipher how to deal with our emotions and feelings in a healthy way to grow our emotional intelligence.

The paradox of emotional inconsistency in life begins when we choose our values and beliefs according to what we feel is right. We construct our opinions based on feelings, and they act as the prejudiced metrics of almost all our judgments. And from there all our interpretations are sieved through preconceived notions of our feelings ².

For instance, those who feel inferior or jealous of a rich guy also inevitably conceive that such a person is a bragger. A classic example of a pre-existing belief (that wealthy guys indulge in show-offs) dominating the interpretation without considering the benefit of the doubt.

Whether the question is about our choices, our family, or our dating life, emotions, rather than the application of rational knowledge, are always a factor in making decisions and forming opinions.

‘Do what you feel is right’ is the social principle from which all good guidance is unearthed. This principle is applied consistently in all cultures of human society, and almost all our choices are made through the same code.

Struck between grim choices and don’t know what the hell you should do? Don’t worry. Just choose whatever you feel is right.

This is how our societies and cultures are oriented.

Don’t know how to maintain a relationship? Don’t worry. Just keep doing what you feel is right.

Can’t decide whether to visit your parents this holiday or not? Don’t worry. Just do what you feel like doing. They’ll understand.

Dude, do you wanna smoke some weed? ³ The majority of us make this choice according to the state of our emotions. Not only those who choose to blow but also those who refuse – the rationality behind the decision-making is almost non-existent.

Going by the current data of markets all over the world, it’s the feel-good and feel-bad factor that determines the success of a product, service, and even national economies.

This is happening everywhere. Even when you reach out to your best friend or anyone else you trust with your life problems (whether it’s about career decisions or relationship advice), more often than not, “do what you feel is right” is the social music that you hear as Christlike gospel.

This social music is like a heroic band that plays itself over and over again in our cultures. And once played over a few times in an individual life, it takes the form of the very meaning of that life. Many people develop Stockholm syndrome within their behavior ⁴, meaning that they are unable to imagine a life beyond gratification through appeasement to their feelings. Therefore, they have become hostages of their feelings.

In the West, there has been a lot of emphasis on the approach of rationalizing human brains into two types: the Thinking and Feeling Brain, or the Conscious and Subconscious Brain, or the Objective and Subjective Brain.

Such differentiations appear great from the outside, as if science has stepped into a highly significant proximity level in the study of human behavior and emotional psychology. However, they are nothing but delusional marketing propaganda because let’s face it, anything that sounds intellectual ultimately makes us feel good about ourselves. We also feel intellectually stimulated by the mere fact of associating ourselves with such knowledge.

Such philosophers can hardly be blamed. The human brain inclines towards cognitive bias and instant affirmations to whatever ‘feels’ as right. Whereas, aversion from instant affirmation is merely a sign of due diligence on a man’s part.

Feelings are our ability to express our emotions. Or put this way, feelings are the reaction to the chemical expression of our emotions. Emotions are energy put in motion by our thoughts.

Thinking, feeling, consciousness, and subconsciousness are mere abilities of our brain ⁵. And it has many other abilities such as multitasking, identifying and disidentifying, observing, decluttering, and cogent thoughts.

Asking ourselves ‘What am I doing’, perhaps, is the first step towards developing self-awareness to break out from the paradox of making emotional choices. In other words, to stop dancing to the tunes of the underlying imprudent social music, a meek yet abrasive query of “What am I doing?” does wonders to an ill-influenced brain.

Probably, you have been wishing to get back in shape for months. However, the winters are here, and in such weather, there is no better friend than a blanket. Every morning, the alarm rings, but you stay in your sleep. “I promise I’ll start tomorrow” –  the battle cry of every chronic procrastinator.

Nevertheless, next time the alarm rings, before you knock it off into silence, just very calmly ask yourself – What am I doing?

You can fit almost any situation in this layout. Whether it’s you lashing out at everyone or your smoking addiction (which doesn’t seem to go away), or your compulsion to contact your ex-girlfriend after being treated like shit, repeatedly.

Let’s get to the next level of self-awareness for growing our emotional intelligence.

Question 2: What am I feeling?

The response that your mind creates for the first question will invariably highlight some of your specific feelings. In my example, I was being lazy and wanted to sleep to make myself feel good and, you know, to avoid vigorous mental pain associated with writing a 4000-word article on a chilly night.

The next morning, when the alarm rings and you ask yourself, ‘What am I doing?’, the response might be something like this: “I am acting lazy and averse to mental pain associated with working out in the gym”.

Similarly, by asking yourself – What am I feeling – you can rationalize your choices and decisions. However, for establishing a healthy perspective while simplifying emotional biases and to grow our emotional intelligence, we must comprehend three extremely significant aspects related to our emotions.

#1) Our Feelings are not that Important

Rationalizing the true worth of various aspects of life is a reflection of a prudent man. However, ascertaining the true worth of our feelings is an arduous task. Comprehending when to give more importance to feelings, and when to simply tell them to shut up, is beyond the comprehension ability of most people.

In the end, all our judgments are shaped by our values, which we consistently choose according to our likes and dislikes. Our likes and dislikes, in turn, are eventually based upon our feelings. It is a kind of spiral paradox.

Our feelings are directly influenced by two things: 1) Comfort and Convenience & 2) Visible Progress

We feel mentally retarding to visit a gym regularly because our feelings are initially focused on comfort and convenience. However, once we manage to drag our lazy ass to work out for enough days to gain visible progress towards our goal, we feel motivated and revitalized.

The whole charade of studying for a few hours feels mentally painful until you sit down and go through a couple of chapters. Once you accomplish some progress, suddenly, you feel proud of yourself and give a pat on your back.

The point is that our feelings are kind of dumb. The points and figures they exhibit and wail about are exceedingly debatable and subject to change as per the external situations. As it turns out, they don’t always know what is good for us.

The pain of working out long hours is essentially good for our bodies. The anguish of studying, rather than playing video games, is beneficial for our future.

Therefore, attaching too much importance to feelings is not a sensible idea. Besides, not just our feelings, but we are quite insignificant in the face of this universe.

#2) Our Feelings are not Consistent and can’t be Trusted

You meet someone new and get very impressed by her attitude and behavior. Fast forward a few days, and you grumble about the same person: that cold-hearted bitch!

How many times does it happen?

Further, you meet someone new and instantly hate them. Dude, what is wrong with that guy? However, upon spending some time with that individual, you realize he is a good person.

I was a vegetarian until 19. All my friends were non-veggies, and I kinda felt like tasting the cuisine as well. Hence, I converted myself into a non-vegetarian for the next 14 months. The unhealthy obsession with high protein content in meat sure helped my decision ⁶.

Then in the last year or so, I changed my life principles ⁷ and also I watched ‘The Game Changers’ on Netflix – bibbidi bobbidi boo…. and I am a vegan again.

You love something today and end up hating it tomorrow, or vice versa. Feelings change all the time. Sometimes they change quicker than a snap.

Well, the point is that our feelings are not consistent and thus cannot be trusted as a precise and accurate source of information.

#3) There are multiple layers to our Feelings

As I mentioned earlier, feelings are the reaction to the chemical expression of our emotions. And emotions are the energy put in motion by thoughts. Our brain possesses the ability to have cogent thoughts. Hence, as no thought is ever exclusive, feelings aren’t exclusive, either. Every feeling breeds a new conscious layer within itself. Therefore, we can have feelings about feelings. And feelings about feelings… about feelings, and so on.

We feel guilty about feeling guilty, and angry about getting angry. We feel anxiety about getting anxious. And I can relentlessly go on beating this drum, but you get the point. Right?

This chronic paradox of emotions and feelings, called ‘the feedback loop from hell’ by Mark Manson, runs the show of our lives. To quash this insane paradox, the trick is to disidentify yourself 

In the East, in spiritual terms, it has been touted that there are different states possible for a human being to live in. These states are: physical, mental, emotional, and etheric.

The trick is to move from physical, mental, and emotional to the etheric state. In the etheric state, you are disidentified from the external situations of your life in such a way that they don’t leave any mark on your perception.

In Zen, they ask you to do the same thing in a slightly different manner. They ask you to paraphrase your observations in such a way to make you disidentify from your feelings. Instead of saying, “I am angry”, say, “I feel anger”. Instead of saying, “I am getting anxious”, they ask you to say, “I feel anxiety”.

If you carefully pay attention, then you can observe that the subject (you) and the object (your feelings) are very gently decoupled through such paraphrasing. Though it’s a minor difference, it has an enormous effect.

Through such practices, you consciously bring yourself to a position from which you can break free from the chronic paradox of emotions.

I know it is a lot easier said than done. Most of us have been living according to our feelings for a long time. Ergo, to break such a tenacious habit, a lot of disciplinary action would be required. And guess what we do to work on our discipline and focus skills? Right. Absolutely nothing!

Perhaps, lastly, it’s time to try meditation or any other activity aimed at enhancing your focus skills. Even if you find it painful, still keep up with it for a minimum of 30 days. By the end, you would have developed greater resistance to pain.

Probably, by now, you have understood your feelings in a much better way. Therefore, that second question now will be a lot easier to handle without creating superficial stuff and opinions.

Remember, any attempt to eliminate any feelings or thoughts from your system would only make them stronger. Therefore, do not try to fight the negative. Accept it, embrace it, and then act despite it.

Growing with emotional intelligence doesn’t mean having only positive emotions all the time. You can experience life with a remote that denotes different buttons, each of which symbolizes a different emotion. You can choose which button to press in which situation, as per your choice. However, you cannot punch out any button away for eternity.

Question 3: What do my feelings imply?

Once through with the second question, you would have an adequate response based on the state of your feelings. Now ask yourself, “What do my feelings imply?”. No need to drive yourself batty. Just try to be honest with yourself.

This is the level of self-awareness that most people never reach. Not just because this is the toughest, but it involves dealing with a lot of pain and hard facts.

And even if you somehow land here, there is no guarantee that your answer to this question will always be correct. Your interpretations of your feelings are always subject to debate.

I know it sucks, but this is the truth. However, we still can choose our interpretations. Perhaps, we can evolve our desires of constant happiness (because let’s face it, life is never all roses) to staggering self-improvement.

The desire for self-improvement will inevitably lead you to infer your situation in such a way that prompts growth. It’s like when you are thinking of a yellow car, you constantly end up spotting a yellow car.

However, do remember that for any growth to occur, first, there has to be a simple acceptance that there is room for growth. 

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1. Part of the reason I do personal consultations for free
2. Kardash, C. M., & Scholes, R. J. (1996). Effects of preexisting beliefs, epistemological beliefs, and need for cognition on interpretation of controversial issues. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88(2), 260–271
3. Probably, every teenager nowadays finds himself at the crossroads with this obtrusive quandary. Stepping into the third decade of the 21^st century, riding on the alluring growth of Western civilization, it’s hard to argue.
4. Everything is Fucked – A Book about Hope; Self-control is an illusion, Pg 21-46 | Mark Manson
5. A topic I have taken briefly in my book
6. I had not researched much about nutrition until then
7. One of those things that you do when you start taking control of your shit