Becoming Self Aware

Over the past two decades, the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has shown to have far-reaching impacts on not only personal health and well-being but also leadership and organizational health.

Bessel van der Kolk M.D. wrote a fabulous book; The Body Keeps the Score, which I found to be very helpful in developing self-awareness.

For me, the eye-opener of the book is that our emotions are help physically in our bodies. Hard emotions and memories of difficult or traumatic experiences are not stored in our bodies.

Our emotions have a physical embodiment that is held in our bodies.

The main locations could are our stomach, chest, shoulders, and neck.

Body Scan Practice

A body scan practice is a simple method for gaining awareness of the emotions we are holding in our bodies.

1. Sit in a chair with an upright posture and feet flat on the ground. You could also lay down on the floor. Take a few long and slow breaths in and out of your nose.
2. On an inhale, scan through your body, starting with your feet and going up to the top of your head. Look for locations of tension and see what emotions they are. The main emotions are sad, angry, scared, and happy, excited and tender (SASHET).
3. With each emotion, see if you can connect the dots to the context or the narrative that is behind the emotion. What happened that made you sad and angry? What going on that made you happy and excited?

When you do this, you don’t have to find every emotion, try to see what is there and what’s been going on.

I hope this helps you check in with yourself and others at a deeper level.