How to be Emotionally Flexible at work and in relationships

Being emotionally flexible is an essential aspect of emotional intelligence, the ability to recognize and regulate emotions.

Emotions are often considered the "messengers" of your body. They convey important information about your thoughts, situation or environment that affect you psychologically or physically. For instance, if you're hungry, your body tells you to eat, and we all know what 'hangry' look like! Or when you're in danger, your body's anxiety level rises to help protect you from harm.

Emotionally flexible people understand how these feelings affect their behaviors and are able to use this information to guide their actions.

For instance, we might feel anxious before a big presentation, but that's what prepares us to perform our best. It drives us forward. At the same time, there are times where fear or anger turns against us, making us act irrationally or display poor judgment. That's when we need to learn how to calm ourselves down and distance ourselves from our emotions so we can think clearly. This is being 'flexible' with our emotions.

To be flexible means being open-minded, tolerant of divergent views, cultural differences, or lifestyles, and ready to do what it takes to reach a goal. Being emotionally inflexible, on the other hand, can make you stubborn or unreceptive.

What are some ways emotional flexibility can help in your career?

Emotions motivate us to work toward what we want, either in relationships or jobs. If you're inflexible with your emotions, it may affect your goals and plans. For example, if you feel the need to impress people, you may be more likely to change your plans or goals in order to do so. Your emotions will control you and they may not take your where you want to go. The famous Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

I believe self awareness is the key.

A person with emotional flexibility is able to regulate their emotions well and use them as a guide without letting them totally affect the decisions they make. When we're able to recognize our emotions, we can better ourselves and do our best to improve our lives.

This not only benefits ourselves, but it benefits everyone around us. When you are emotionally flexible, communicating with your significant other becomes much easier. You're able to convey what you feel in a way they can understand it and vice versa. Rather than getting angry when your partner annoys you, for example, an emotionally flexible person knows how to calm down before addressing the problem in a rational manner.

Here are 3 steps toward developing Emotional Flexibility that you can start working on today.

1. Observe your emotions

Pay attention to what you're feeling when something happens in your life.

The first step is recognizing how an emotion affects your behavior. From there, you can learn what triggers certain feelings and how to control them better in the future. For example, if a situation makes you angry, immediately jot down what you are feeling and try to describe the feeling.

2. Accept your emotions

Once you know how to recognize your feelings, learning how to accept them is the next step. When we don't know ourselves well enough, it's easy for us to ignore our emotions and act like they don't exist. But the second step is to accept your emotions and embrace them, because you can't control what you don't acknowledge.

It's important to remember that your emotions are not you. They are simply a part of who you are at this moment in time. When you're able to accept them, the next step is being flexible with them so they can guide you but not control or influence your decisions too much.

3. Use your emotions as a guide

Once you accept your emotions, you can identify how to channel them into healthy behavior. For instance, if you're sad that you didn't get the job of your dreams, it's important for you to understand that it doesn't mean your life is over or that you are a failure. Acknowledge the emotion and then channel it into motivation to work harder on your future endeavors so you can get what you want.

This is an ongoing process, but working toward being emotionally flexible will have a positive effect in your life and the lives of people around you. If you feel that something isn't right with how you're coping with emotions or trying to be more flexible, talk about it with a trusted friend or mental health professional. Being flexible with your emotions will take time, but it is definitely worth the effort!

Until next time,

Bob H