Earlier in my career when I was a young officer in the Army one of the things I was made aware of fairly quickly was the phrase “hurry up and wait”.  In the military as well in many organizations’ things are going to happen at their own pace.  To make the best use of those moments where we found ourselves with extra time on our hands we were encouraged to have “hip pocket training” events. These were areas of interest that we could train on or talk about in an informal way but that would make productive use of this extra time. I had not planned on writing a blog specifically about Emotional Self Awareness and in reality, I don’t want to think about this as a blog. I’d prefer to think about it as a hip pocket event where I am simply going to live stream what’s prevalent in my mind about emotional self-awareness

One of the leaders I follow shared one time that “We’ll keep going through what we are going through until we grow through what we are going through.” All of us are going through something and many of us are spending a lot more time around the people we care about than ever before.  As for most of us, I am sure there have been wonderful moments and not so great moments.  Out on our walk today Chris and I had a family ride by us on their bikes and by the noise and comments they were having a good time. One of the teenagers made the statement that “this is fun but what are we going to do tomorrow?” This is where I’d like to begin on Emotional Self-Awareness.

Emotional Self-Awareness includes recognizing and understanding one’s own emotions. This includes the ability to differentiate between subtleties in one’s own emotions while understanding the cause of these emotions and the impact they have on the thoughts and actions of oneself and others. In short, this skill Is being in the present with our own emotions and understanding how they guide our actions. It’s not that planning for tomorrow isn’t important it’s that our emotions will take the path of least resistance if you let them and that may mean missing out on what’s most important in the moment.

Volumes have been written about emotional self-awareness and so to keep this in the hip pocket perspective I’d like to share a few strategies to help in developing or strengthening this skill.

Self-Talk- Research shows that on average we use about 300-1000 words a minute of self-talk. Be aware when your self-talk begins to shift from anything other than positive. Many times, there is a build up of emotion that happens and our self-talk will be an indicator that action now is needed. When this shift in self-talk begins move to strategy #2.

Identify and define-This may not come very naturally for us and that’s o.k. In the moments you’re experiencing stronger emotions think about what you were physically feeling at that moment. Identifying physical sensations are a very good start to defining what you are feeling. Anger and frustration are very different and most likely feel very different and require different actions.  Now think about the results you would prefer to have in this moment and how you might respond differently to get those results. Such as anger and needing to step away for a few minutes or frustration which you could possibly express in that moment by saying “I feel frustrated” as frustration may be more manageable in the moment than anger.

While we are in uncertain times and many of us are wondering “what are we going to do tomorrow”, We have the opportunity to grow through these difficult times today. Patience, kindness, appreciation, generosity, empathy, peace, optimism are all available to be freely shared. It  may be difficult to stay in the moment with our current challenges, but it’s in these moments where our growth occurs. 

Lastly, in the military we also used the term “Ranger Buddy”. That meant that no one was left to go at it alone.  Do you have a Ranger Buddy or know someone who might need one?  Let’s partner and help each other not just go through but grow this experience.

All the best,

Ed Hennessy