If I got this prompt question to answer just a few years ago, I'd have struggled to know what Emotional Intelligence is first and maybe tried to understand it before I could write anything about it. But the case is different now, and I can tell clearly how it all started. "I became self-aware".
I realized I've been living life on autopilot and that have make it a bit harder for me to intentionally work on my emotional intelligence. As I became aware of myself, the things that trigger me and what I can't put up with, I began to be aware of the people around me too, it became a weight.
But a weight I have somehow love to carry, to understand people better while I am on a lifelong quest to understanding myself better than I ever did in the past. And to think that it has been an amazing journey so far to being self-aware and building self-control, I wish I had started for long.
I'm still working on my social skills and I plan to read more into that as I go, I need all the growth in my emotions that I can get and that is because I've understood the importance and it's influence in my communication and relationships with people. We must communicate and relate, we had better do it as best as we can by learning to.
In communication, knowing the right words to say and when to just listen totally relies on how emotionally stable or intelligent you are. I've been with people who just want to keep talking even when they don't make any sense, I realize they just lack the emotional intelligence and they are not self-aware to even realize that about them.
In relationship, especially close ones like between couples or families, the emotions can be scattered everywhere if the intelligence and self-awareness is not learned and mastered to a point. I say this from a place of experience, it happens to me every single day until I started to unlearn and relearn understanding myself more.
I'm not there yet, I still struggle with criticisms (which is one of the signs you'd know someone isn't intelligent emotionally) and I can't keep all kinds of emotions in check yet but being aware that I have them is one big work done and I plan to keep growing from that, taking notes and reading more. It's a journey I'm excited to be on.
Image used is from Imdb.