Emotional intelligence is a lie

Corporate HR made it up to make you shut up. Here's my technique to deal with negative emotions.

Emotional intelligence is a lie.

Corporate HR made it up to keep you obedient.

They want you to shut up and do what they want you to do.

That’s why I never get along with HR in my 9-5. They hate me for not valuing their work. I run my own recruitment, I get exceptions for my own motivational schemes. Because what they do is demotivational, even detrimental to people’s health. I need my people to thrive. Our work is highly creative, so I need them to be in their best shape. Not scared. Not silent, but loud and active. Not submissive, but leading the way and influencing and inspiring other people to take action. Those are my A players.

And it’s all about emotions. That’s what they need to be like that. Positive, intensive emotions: enthusiasm, curiosity, trust, confidence, charisma, and a bit of anger sometimes.

But that’s not “emotional intelligence”.

By definition “intelligence” is supposed to be the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Rational stuff.

With emotions?

That’s impossible.

Because emotions are something physical.

They happen in the body and are almost always unconscious.

Sometimes subconscious.

Never conscious.

Emotions are inversely proportional to rational thinking.

When emotions are intense, your cortex is shut down. And vice versa: when you’re rational, your emotions are suppressed. It’s when you have the false feeling you’re in control. Until the next trigger happens and your emotions explode again.

There’s a reason why there’s no factual scientific proof of any of the theories about how to deal with emotions. Basically, we don’t have the physical ability to critically analyze them. And rationalize them. Because we’re unaware of them. Ask 10 people what are the main emotions and you’ll get 10 different answers. Even Google doesn’t know.

But corporate HR had to come up with something to deal with highly emotional behavior in the workplace. Because they didn’t want you to get emotional. Just submissive. That’s how “emotional intelligence” was born. That’s how suppressing your emotions became the new normal. A good thing, they say.

But it’s not.

We need all kinds of emotions to live a thriving life. Physically, emotionally, and mentally. Emotions drive our actions. They are bound to our immunity and our overall health balance. That’s why stress causes major chronic illnesses, ageing and many other serious health issues.

Stress is emotion.

But you can’t suppress stress.

You balance it.

Because stress in healthy levels is necessary to survive. It’s what you need to stay awake, to focus, to learn and to craete.

Suppressing emotions is unhealthy. It’s ill-advised by corporate HR serving different agenda.

You don’t have to control or suppress them.

You don’t have to rationalize them. That’s impossible, anyway.

All you need is to balance them!

And balance happens when you have equal amount of the two polarities. It’s the law of physics.

That’s you answer!

Because emotions are physical. Not metaphysical.

Don’t suppress them. Release them. If you don’t like them, balance them.

A negative emotion is balanced by a positive emotion. Never by rational thinking.

A quick technique I use whenever I want to get rid of negative emotions:

• Find what caused it.

• Reframe the cause of it.

  • If it’s a person, make them look funny, ridiculous or lesser than me. Usually I falsely placed that person somewhere higher than me. But we’re all equal. So I make sure I find something about that person that makes them lesser than me. If I’m not aware of such thing, I imagine it. Not making it up, just explore the “what-if” space. Example: imagine this person naked with an imperfect body.

  • if it is a situation, challenge and question your judgment of this situation. Is it really that bad? According to whom? Or it’s just you who is being judgemental? What’s the positive side of this situation? Amplify that!

• Stay with that for a while and even laugh around it.

• Then go find someone who makes you feel good and spend some time with them. Lovers allowed. Just don’t tell anyone ;) (Joking!! Or not…:) Is that a bad thing? According to whom?)

And don’t forget to Have a GUT Time!

Because most of our emotions are initiated in our guts ;)

Got a gut feeling?

Trust that!

Yana