Creative Emotional Intelligence

Emotions in life

From birth, we have been guided through our emotions. The way a mother and father understand what an infant may need is through their infants' emotions. Young children become curious and intrigued by new things due to emotions. At every stage in our lives, emotions guide our choices and our decisions (Birwatkar, 2016). Good or bad emotions are at the core of everything we do, want to do, or have done. Emotions affect how we think, and act. Our lives continuously elicit an emotional response.

If we are so affected by emotions, managing them should be high on our priority list. Unfortunately, many people become adults and still have difficulty managing and understanding their own emotions, which in return, makes it impossible to understand others' emotions. When a person has an emotional response, it is a trigger for one to understand that something needs to be addressed, understood, or changed. If this is not managed your life and mentality can get consumed by someone else's struggle or even your own.

Creativity in combination with emotion

The creation process of any kind begins with creativity. Creativity is a subset of emotional intelligence (Birwatkar, 2016). Meaning emotional intelligence produces creativity as a skill. For creativity to happen people must be open. This is the only way ideas and imaginations are given the freedom to expand. Original approaches and ideas through openness and flexibility of the mind enable people to solve problems.

Emotions show what is meaningful to the learner

Emotional intelligence is, in short, the ability to regulate your emotions, as well as being able to understand other people's emotions. This ability helps in the success of social and professional settings. Encouraging a learner to understand and express emotions with growth, insight, self-reflection, and deeper self-realization, educators can capitalize on their openness to express ideas. This promotes meaningful attachments to new projects creates innovations through the knowledge of a deeper part of the self.

The Emotional Intelligence model developed by Daniel Goleman has identified four components, this was found in research from Vezhavan and Sivasubramanian (2013):

1. "Self-awareness - we recognize our own emotions and how they affect our thoughts and behavior, know our strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence."

2. "Self-management - we can control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage our emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances."

3. "Social awareness - we can understand other people's emotions, needs, and concerns, notice emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization."

4. "Relationship management - we know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict."

According to Mayer et al. (2004a), there are 4 emotional intelligence skills

1. Perceive emotions: Pinpointing the feeling of emotions in self and things.

2. Using emotions to facilitate thinking: Manipulating emotions to engage in the cognitive processes

3. Understanding emotions: Interpreting the root cause of one’s emotions and why they evolve.

4. Managing emotions: using emotional information and transforming its effectiveness in oneself and others to create and promote progress or self-evaluation for personal growth.

Using the system of emotional Intelligence through creative arts to motivate engagement

Creativity is not art, but art is created through creativity. Artforms like music, drawing, dance, and even theater can change a person's mood. Using art, we can transform emotions into a motivator for creative activities to achieve critical thinking. Building emotional intelligence through the creative arts. Engagement is determined by emotions. When looking at learning, many questions like, how does this make me feel or the interest in a particular thing can alter the learning experience. Just think about how you feel about the subjects you have learned or studied. For example, if you do not have positive feelings or emotions about math, your ability to learn can be inhibited by those negative emotions. On the contrary, if you have positive emotions for a subject, you might become excited and motivated to learn. This is because Positive emotions promote curiosity, discovery, openness, and exploration (Gabriela, 2017). Engagement is determined by emotions. When educators manage emotions, engagement can be controlled.

Emotional Creative Learning promotes Volition

Learning emotions and how we are affected by them through art or creative expressions like poetry or music allows us to become aware of the role emotions play in our cognitive thinking. We learn how to quickly adapt to personal and social situations that manipulate how we feel in each moment and create a different desired emotion using that creative avenue. For example, if we would like to feel happier, listening to some upbeat music can change our mood, which could be helpful for a brainstorming session. Emotional intelligence makes us less susceptible to frustration, inexactness, and failures, helping us creatively think and be motivated easier with fewer distractions.

Whether it is painting, storytelling, meditation, dance, theater, or music we feel every stroke, word, breath, movement, reenactment, and sound but knowing why or how we feel what we are emoting can connect dots for a deeper understanding of self which will allow us to express more effectively, communicate more comprehensively, and live without limitations.

References

Birwatkar, V. (2016, August). The Art of Emotional Intelligence. https://noemalab.eu/ideas/27417/

Gabriela, K. (2017). CREATIVITY, PERFORMANCE, AND EMOTIONAL BALANCE. Journal Plus Education, 18(2), 38–46. https://doi.org/10.24250/jpe/2/2017/kg

Management 3.0. (n.d.). Emotional Intelligence Sketch notes [Illustration]. https://management30.com/develop-competence/emotional-intelligence/

Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2004a). A Further Consideration of the Issues of Emotional Intelligence. Psychological Inquiry, 15(3), 249–255. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1503_02

Mayer, J. D., Salovey, P., & Caruso, D. R. (2004b). Emotional Intelligence: Theory, Findings, and Implications. Psychological Inquiry, 15(3), 197–215. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli1503_02

Moltafet, G., Sadati Firoozabadi, S. S., & Pour-Raisi, A. (2018). Parenting Style, Basic Psychological Needs, and Emotional Creativity: A Path Analysis. Creativity Research Journal, 30(2), 187–194. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2018.1446748

The Neurosurgical atlas. (2021). Emotional Intelligence [Illustration].

https://www.neurosurgicalatlas.com/volumes/non-technical-skills-in-neurosurgery/emotional-intelligence

Vezhavan, T., & Sivasubramanian, M. (2013). Emotional Intelligence: A Strategy for Effective Administration. Language in India, 13(5), 637–646.