emotional intelligence

A leading indicator of personal growth is how curious you are able to be with all your emotions - especially the ones you weren't allowed to feel as a kid.

Harris says we need to dispel the myth that emotional intelligence is a soft skill, she says EQ is a strength because it takes strength to master oneself, and to humble yourself enough to see another person’s perspective.

The short version is that you definitely have emotions…and not understanding them makes it very hard to understand your own behaviour.

Let’s say someone has both a high-functioning theory of mind and an overflowing well of compassion. What then? Well, this is what Hoffman calls “empathic over-arousal.” A person will feel so worn down by the intensity of other people’s emotions that it wears them down — it turns their distress into my actual distress. This might not seem like a bad... See more