EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AWARENESS MONTH CAMPAIGN

For those lacking in familiarity, emotional intelligence is a healthy mind development initiative. Understanding our emotions does matter! October, 2011 is the sixth annual Emotional Intelligence Awareness Month; this month-long campaign has provided an excellent opportunity each year for those with understanding to empower others with a stronger awareness of the helpful and harmful manner in which emotions impact our decision-making.
The knowledge and practice necessary to develop healthier minds compare to the training and practice necessary to operate computer software programs. Just as understanding the complexity of using a software program helps us navigate through its many functions, we must learn to navigate the myriad workings of our minds, in accessing healthier choices. We can optimize healthy influence by understanding how the mind discerns our attitude, as well as effort, and direction.
Improving emotional management has a positive effect on our general demeanor, as well as our outlook and sensitivity toward health, safety, altruism, and life’s other purposeful measures. Thus, the successful management of our emotions enhances our well-being, personal and professional relationships, as well as more worldly kinships. And economically, we contribute to stabilizing the costs of the many services in society that are adversely affected by our personal and social dysfunction.
Allowing our emotional intelligence to develop on its own or by chance is no different from leaving any other important aspect of our formal education to abstract ways of learning. A child who learns only part of his/her multiplication tables will have difficulty with these calculations; so too, poor direction and inadequate understanding, emotionally, make us susceptible to dysfunctional reasoning habits. Even though every decision, choice, action, or reaction involves an often subtle psychological element, our life experiences do not teach us early enough or in an educated manner to realize exactly what is worthy of knowing about our emotions— or healthy mind development, itself, for that matter.
Similar to the unhealthy effects of allowing our taste buds alone to determine what we eat, letting our emotions go unchecked can adversely influence our thoughts and behavior. Simply put, as easily as not recognizing or disregarding the value of healthy foods, we may also fail to recognize or to treat healthy thoughts in much the same manner. We can be too unguarded and accepting of what we put into our minds, just as we can be about what goes into our mouths!
This year’s Emotional Intelligence Awareness campaign theme highlights the fact that we strain public services needlessly because we live in an emotionally under educated world. As the EI Awareness flyer at www.e-ii.org suggests, the world relies upon honorable professionals to reduce further damage caused by society’s limited emotional intelligence (EI) education. Given the phenomenal human, emotional, and economic costs of these services, there are a myriad of reasons to embrace emotionally intelligent ideals and other psychological basics of healthy mind development.