How to develop emotional awareness: 5 key ideas

Many people believe that the human mind is what gives identity to each of us, something that ultimately constitutes the essence of each person. But while it is true that each individual is different and that it is relatively easy to distinguish between the way of being of different people, that does not mean that the mind does not change. In fact, in the world of psychology change is the norm, not the exception.

Given that both we and the world in which we live want it or not, we are going to stop due to a process of change, what we must do is not try to make everything stay the same, frozen in time, but to develop the skills necessary to adapt as best as possible to the experiences we go through, even those that are totally new. In this sense, the concept of emotional awareness It helps us to understand one of the most important and, at the same time, most forgotten aspects of change processes: the world of emotions and feelings.

• Related article: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

What is emotional awareness?

The concept of emotional awareness is not easy to explain in a single line, since it refers to the most complex component of the human mind: emotions. However, in summary, it can be understood as the state in which the activation patterns are understood. emotionally so that instead of passively attending their experimentation in the first person, we can make them work in our favour, depending on the personal development objectives that we have proposed.

Thus, emotional awareness has to do with a set of skills that can be applied in day to day, both for oneself as an individual and in group phenomena through the leadership. In turn, getting to progress in the mastery of these skills has nothing to do exactly with learning theoretical knowledge, but rather with applying new dynamics and new approaches to our ways of relating to the environment and our own mental processes.

In short, emotional awareness arises as a consequence of experiential learning.

Examples on how to develop it

Below you will find several general guidelines that give an idea of ​​the type of activities and habits related to the development of emotional awareness.

1. Questioning one's own motives

Much of what we do or think is not based on the reasons and purposes that we usually have in mind when we have to justify what we do. This idea, which was popularized by Sigmund Freud but which had already been discussed by others before him and which in recent decades has been validated by numerous studies in the line of research on bounded rationality, has implications when it comes to relating to our emotions. Because many times we create moral alibis that hide what really makes us feel bad or good about something.

So that, stopping to analyze what psychological mechanisms are really behind many of our attitudes It is liberating, because it allows us to find out about the root of some predispositions that create problems for us on a day-to-day basis.

2. Take advantage of the environment to regulate emotions

People are not islands; what they do and think depends on what is happening around them. Therefore, we can modify the environment to enter emotional states that help us achieve our goals.

3. Distancing from one's own perspective

Although it may seem paradoxical, adopting a distanced perspective can help us better understand what we feel. Being fully involved in an emotion It does not have to lead us to better understand what is happening; in fact, it can blind us.

4. go to courses

It is possible to train emotional awareness by relying on courses that contain content specifically aimed at training the skills linked to this psychological facet.

The European School of Coaching, for example, offers a specialized training program, aimed especially at psychologists and coaches. Among its objectives are the task of recognizing and managing the emotions involved in everyday life, understanding biological processes behind them, and use the potential of our ability to modulate emotional states in ourselves or in other people who need help in this regard. You will find more information about this program by accessing the contact details of the EEC, by clicking here.

5. Learn to control the times

There are times when it is better to postpone certain decisions, depending on how we feel. Knowing how to do this without becoming procrastination It is something that can be very useful to reach the best possible results in those projects that we look at.