Self care: Emotional Intelligence

by Vanessa Mekicic, Cairns Student Hub support worker

What is Emotional Intelligence?

It is the ability to understand, manage, and control your own emotions. Having an understanding of how your emotions affect others, as well as being able to read other people’s body language and emotions is also part of emotional intelligence.

Why is being emotionally intelligent important?

Being emotionally intelligent will help you with things like getting a job and problem solving when issues arise with friends, family or partner.

How do you develop emotional intelligence?

Developing your self-awareness is fundamental to developing your emotional intelligence. Stop and think before you act, take a couple of seconds to think about how your reactions and emotions will affect others. Is there a better calmer way you could approach a situation?

Self-regulating is about staying in control. People who have good self-control rarely verbally attack others. A good start being better at self-regulating is by learning to calm yourself when you get angry or overwhelmed, take a few seconds to breathe and slow down.

Being empathetic is about being able to put yourself in some else’s shoes and think about how others feel. For example, if a friend is suddenly not turning up to class and is less chatty maybe they are worrying about something, they may be going through a relationship breakdown, they could be struggling to manage their time.

Need help? Would you like to talk about this? 

If you have trouble dealing with your emotions, get stressed a lot, or find it hard to control your anger and frustration, our support worker Vanessa, would be happy to meet with you and help you learn how to manage this better.

To make an appointment follow this link.