How to Build Emotional Intelligence Through Training
Boundaries, coping skills, conflict resolution, empathy, mental health, and self-care are skills we all need in life, and the nonprofit Un/Do Mindset is on a mission to make sure everyone has them.
They're working to build a more resilient and compassionate society and I think we need more of that in the workplace too. That’s why I invited the founder and executive director, Erin Harris, to join me on this episode. She’s sharing how Un/Do Mindset is improving emotional intelligence through training.
Listen to the episode or scroll down to read the blog post ↓
Key Points:
01:47 Erin’s journey improving emotional intelligence in children
05:26 Why emotional intelligence matters
11:06 Understanding your brain and your broad spectrum of emotions
16:38 How to build emotional Intelligence through training
20:02 The results of incorporating emotional intelligence into training
24:17 Where to start with emotional intelligence
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How to Build Emotional Intelligence Through Training
Boundaries, coping skills, conflict resolution, empathy, mental health, and self-care are skills we all need in life, and the nonprofit Un/Do Mindset is on a mission to make sure everyone has them.
They do this through:
Professional development for educators,
Learning for K-12 students,
At-home support,
And more!
They're working to build a more resilient and compassionate society. And I don't know about you, but I think we need more of that in the workplace too. That’s why I invited the founder and executive director of Un/Do Mindset, Erin Harris, to join me to discuss how to improve emotional intelligence through training.
In this blog post, we’re covering the following:
Understanding Your Brain and Your Broad Spectrum of Emotions
The Results of Incorporating Emotional Intelligence Into Training
Erin has proudly worked as an educator in nine different schools and one of the greatest gaps she has observed in her career is the need to support students in making their thought process a productive and positive experience.
Kids are being exposed to so much adult information and knowledge, but don't have the mindset skills needed to support the thought process that goes with that exposure. Erin is passionate about teaching kids the skills needed to efficiently bridge this gap within their own thought patterns.
1) Why Emotional Intelligence Matters
Erin shares that 26% of US kids experience trauma before the age of four.
“I truly believe that trauma is part of the human experience. I don't know if there's a single human that gets to leave this planet without enduring trauma. So we very firmly believe in equipping our kids with skills and tools so that they understand this trauma and they know how to process this trauma.” - Erin Harris
Erin explains that trying to work through past trauma when you are older is a very reactive approach.
“It really doesn't actually help us as much as if we were to embed these skills and tools into our younger folks earlier and help them to develop those skills so that when trauma does happen, they're really able to navigate that trauma really responsibly and in a way that suits them correctly.” - Erin Harris
Erin shares that many adults are not aware of what their trauma responses actually are and how they are impacting them in their day-to-day lives.
“Being able to educate our next gen on that so that they can avoid living the rest of their adult lives in these trauma responses would really be a great opportunity for our whole community and society.” - Erin Harris
Erin’s main goal is to make this education free and accessible to students, educators, and home support networks.
“I truly believe that we need to play catch-up in this way and really bubble-wrap our kids in these skills and tools to really break generational trauma.” - Erin Harris
What Erin has noticed in her mental health journey is that the ability to work on your mental health is a privilege. At Un/Do Mindset they want to make mental health skills and tools accessible to everybody.
“Everything we are producing is computer-based programming. It's skills and tools. It's not talk therapy. So it's holistic and it's very adaptable to just about anybody's trauma, no matter what your lived experience is. It's understanding anger in its entirety to understand how you display that anger in your own being.” - Erin Harris
Apart from students, educators, and home support networks, they want to make this information free and accessible to incarcerated people and transient communities. Part of this initiative includes bringing their computer-based curriculum to public school libraries across the country. They also have partnerships with addiction recovery centers and a domestic violence center. And one day, they would love to support the military and veterans.
Erin explains that sometimes, systems are stacked against people when they try to access mental health resources so they want to make sure they can be a resource for these people.
Finally, they also have a vision of being able to offer their curriculum to corporate offices on a subscription basis as well.
2) Understanding Your Brain and Your Broad Spectrum of Emotions
In order to build emotional intelligence in training, Erin explains that they delve into how your brain works and understanding your broad spectrum of emotions.
“Everything that we teach is very much grounded in DBT and CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.” - Erin Harris
Erin shared an example from her own life:
She grew up in a very angry house and even though she is a sensitive and empathetic human being, she can still be reactive and become very angry. Only once she started doing this work on herself, did she realize that this was a trauma response.
“This reaction is not productive, it's not getting me the results I'm hoping for, and it's really damaging a lot of my relationships. All it's doing is really causing me to have a lot of mental health challenges personally and internally.” - Erin Harris
Erin is triggered by clutter and messes. During the pandemic, she was getting angry at her kids constantly for making a mess.
To cope with these emotions, Erin did an “anger iceberg”.
This is a picture of an iceberg and at the top, Erin wrote anger and at the bottom, she wrote all of the other feelings she was experiencing at this time with the help of an “emotion wheel”.
“It's not just that I'm angry about my kids' mess, but I feel unheard. I feel unappreciated. I feel disrespected. I feel not taken care of. I felt like all of these much deeper emotions. And I realized I wasn't even reacting in that way. I was reacting out of straight anger.” - Erin Harris
When she was able to articulate these deeper, broader, and more accurate emotions to her children, it was much easier to resolve the problem.
“Ever since I learned that skill in my own being about anger and how I am projecting and mispointing my anger in the wrong places, I see that in people around us in society.” - Erin Harris
3) How to Build Emotional Intelligence Through Training
Erin shared a few of the practical things they are doing to build emotional intelligence through training:
1. Tools
They use various tools throughout their trainings like the “emotion wheel” previously discussed.
2. Guiding Questions
Erin explains that guiding questions can be used to bring awareness and understanding to a different part of your journey.
“A lot of our curriculum is asking guiding questions and challenging certain narratives that are typically very human like the defaulting to specific emotions that are maybe not the most accurate depiction of what we're feeling.” - Erin Harris
Erin explains it’s about understanding what a coping skill is, why we need coping skills, and when to use this coping skill.
3. Identifying Physical Signs of an Emotional Response
Erin explains that she can tell she is starting to get angry because her hands get clammy, her brain starts racing, and she stops having complete thoughts. When she has to process some harder emotions like anger, anxiety, or frustration she also notices some stomach issues.
“What are your signs and symptoms before you get to a space of being angry? How can I tell I'm starting to get frustrated or angry? And how can I circumvent the big explosion that would happen if I was angry?” - Erin Harris
Erin explains that paying attention to those emotions will help you start to implement coping skills prior to you being out of control of your emotions.
4) The Results of Incorporating Emotional Intelligence Into Training
As an educator, Erin has noticed a significant impact in teaching emotional intelligence to students as well as to her own children.
She shared a personal story about her son:
A few years ago her son was changing the cat litter and he was complaining about how disgusting it was.
“I said, bud, I need you to stop for a second. I need you to step back and say to yourself, am I making this harder on myself or is this task actually that hard?” - Erin Harris
After he cleaned the cat litter he came back and told Erin that he thought about what she said and she was right.
“He said I was making the situation a lot harder on myself. If I just stopped getting in my own thoughts and spiraling it really wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but I made it exponentially bigger on myself.” - Erin Harris
Erin explains that time and time again kids and adults get tunnel vision when they are feeling hard emotions.
“We stop being able to really depict and understand all of the different details of our lives that would help us make a good, sound decision.” - Erin Harris
With the tools Erin shared, she has seen some of the most reactive kids in the classroom become the most grounded kids who are able to not only coach themselves through some of these hard interactions with their peers but also become mediators for each other and coach others out of their hard emotions.
“I have seen how within a year of a student really having these structures and these questions and pushing those narratives that we internally always have and really understanding themselves in a deeper way, get to a place where they're really able to avoid conflict completely, or the conflict doesn't send them into a tailspin.” - Erin Harris
She explains that these emotions are no longer the main focus in their lives, but something that's just a part of life.
5) Where to Start with Emotional Intelligence
If you want to start this emotional intelligence work on yourself or bring it into your organization, Erin emphasizes that even simple changes like following people on social media who are aware of these skills and tools is a great start.
“I think that seeing reels that help you understand what boundaries are in 30 seconds are even a great start to start doing this work. I think that dipping our toes in however makes the most sense for you is always great.” - Erin Harris
Erin is a big proponent of therapy.
“I think everyone should go to therapy no matter what your journey is. I think that's always a great space to start doing this type of work because your therapist will guide you through a lot of these sorts of exercises as well.” - Erin Harris
She also recommends reading books like The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.
“We hear people saying we need to do the work. And I think there's always this apprehension to do the work, but I have not met a single person in my journey that has done the work and regretted it. So any way in which you can start accessing the work is always a positive start. Just get started.” - Erin Harris
To hear the full conversation I had with Erin Harris on the Learning for Good Podcast, scroll all the way up and tune into episode 114.
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