Session 3: Emotional Awareness
1. Homework Exercises
Digging into Emotions and Emotional Intelligence
This session was all about building a solid understanding of emotions and Emotional Intelligence. In particular, we focused on the five ‘E-Skills’ that underpin Emotional Intelligence, and how you currently use those skills. These exercises provide you with an opportunity to dig deeper and not just consolidate and expand your knowledge in this area, but also identify ways that you can apply that knowledge in your day-to-day-life. You can complete the exercises online by completing each of the questions, below, or you can use your workbook PDF.
Exercise 1: Part 1
This exercise will help strengthen your emotional awareness by inviting you to notice, label, and describe your emotions. Follow the steps below and complete this activity at least once daily between now and the next session, remembering to check in with a range of pleasant and unpleasant emotions.
Instructions
You might initially label your emotion as something general, like happy, sad, anxious, or calm. This is a great place to start, but emotions are often more complex, so use the emotion wheel below to help you pinpoint the exact emotion
Say, for instance, after a pleasant conversation with someone, you notice a general feeling of joy. Using the wheel, you can ask yourself: What kind of joy am I experiencing right now? Can this feeling best be described as excitement, creativity, cheerfulness, etc.?
Similarly, you may have felt ‘sad’ at some point throughout the day. Working outward from the inner circle can help you find a more specific label that fits this emotion. For instance, if you’re feeling ‘sad,’ is it more of a ‘lonely,’ ‘bored,’ or ‘tired’ kind of sadness?
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Exercise 1: Part 2
Each day, after you have completed your entries for part one, you need to be sure that you record the specific emotions you experienced, what was going on around those emotions when you experienced them, and exactly where in your body you noticed them.
As you complete this part of the exercise, consider whether you have noticed the same bodily sensations before? If so, when? Also ask yourself if similar situations led to similar emotions and sensations in the past? And then think about what patterns you may be noticing.
Day 1:
Day 2:
Day 3:
Day 4:
Day 5:
Day 6:
Day 7:
Exercise 4: Session Reflection and Looking Ahead
What did you get out of this session? Take a moment to reflect on what insights you gained and what you have learned about emotions, emotional intelligence, and yourself.