Montse Sans: the importance of emotional awareness

Although many times we believe that what we feel and experience depends on the events that occur around us, the truth is that this is only half true. It also depends on the way we interpret reality, and the way we manage our emotions and decide where to focus our attention.

From this fact arises the concept of emotional awareness, an important term in the world of psychology and coaching. The person we interviewed in the following lines will talk to us about this, Montse Sans, from the European School of Coaching, who has extensive experience training people and intervening in companies.

• Related article: "The 6 types of Coaching: the different coaches and their functions"

Interview with Montse Sans, from the European School of Coaching: emotional awareness

Montse Sans is Director of the center European School of Coaching from the Valencian Community and coach in the same entity, as well as trainer and supervisor of the Executive Coaching Certification program. In this interview she talks to us about the concept of emotional awareness.

Are our actions motivated by our emotions or is it the other way around, are our emotions motivated by our actions?

Human beings, at least most of us, live in the fallacy that we are "observers" of "reality", and yet what we do is "interpret" what we observe. We think that this interpretation that we make gives rise to judgments and opinions that provoke our emotions.

But the emotions were already there. From the time we get up to the time we go to bed, we are always in a emotion. The actions we carry out during the day always start from an emotion. What happens is that, depending on the emotion in which we find ourselves, the derived behaviors will have a more or less effective result. Clearly this is a feedback process.

Is it possible to develop something like an addiction to a feeling or emotion?

Yes, it is something that some people do: always and only show certain emotions and not others. In this sense, the interesting thing is to realize what is the emotion that we do not allow ourselves.

All people need to have a good level of emotional awareness because to the extent that we are able to identify what the emotion or feeling is in the that I am at every precise moment, I will be able to understand the reason for some of my behaviors and, therefore, the reason for some of the results that I am experiencing. getting.

In the world of organizations and the business world in general, what can be the negative consequences of not knowing how to identify emotions well?

In the world of organizations, until recently, very little attention has been paid to emotional awareness. We have spent a lot of time and effort hiding our emotions, which has caused a certain deficit of understanding not only of others, but also of ourselves.

Today we already know that precisely emotions are the key to certain behaviors and behaviors. We have gone one step further and now we not only know that it is necessary to know the emotion, but we also know that we can modify and manage it.

The management of individual emotions that are generated in the thought of each one of us from our paradigms have their faithful and parallel reproduction in what happens in the business culture that is full of paradigms that generate certain collective emotions and, in turn, generate certain behaviors and behaviors of people and, therefore, of employees. systems.

What are the most common risks to which a leader who does not know how to manage her emotions well is exposed?

Undoubtedly, the greatest risk is emotional blindness. A leader, like any of us in our respective roles as manager, father, mother, friend... we have to do self-reflection work to understand our own emotions and we have to work on our emotional self-regulation.

The key is to understand what has generated the emotion. Therefore, it is not about "controlling" that emotion (as was said before that it was convenient) but about knowing and accepting it in order to regulate the emotion that appears in such a way that we are able to of reversing the process that generated it to be able, in turn, to generate a different emotion chosen by us, which we find more useful and more empowering of new behaviors.

When it comes to training people in management and emotional awareness, which key ideas are the most important? And the ones that are often overlooked?

Until recently, we have been using the term "emotional control." Depending on the context and culture, certain emotions were not "welcome". Today we know that the emotional is decisive.

It is not about covering up the emotion or trying to avoid it. Emotional awareness and management consists of understanding emotion and accepting it because only from that look we will be able to learn and take different actions to achieve better results.

On the other hand, having emotional awareness I will be able to intervene in the emotion, I will be able to go back in the steps that have given rise to this emotion to understand what interpretations and opinions have given rise to this that I feel.

And finally, what tools and strategies have been shown to be useful when it comes to modulating our emotions well and making them work in our favour?

Knowing that there are no positive or negative emotions, that all emotions are useful and that they have a certain purpose. Also understand that all emotions carry a positive intention. For example, anger helps us set limits; fear helps us to take precautions…

Emotions inform us of valuable matters. Understanding the message that emotion brings us is the first step to be able to become aware and manage it. This is the key to emotional management and awareness.