Mary Jo Wevers

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Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence can be defined as having understanding and insight into our feeling experiences. The sign of Cancer is devoted to creating a safe haven to experience emotions in their purest and most direct form. It understands emotions are an integral part of the human experience that provide richness, depth and color in our lives. Cancer intelligently nurtures their healthy expression, application and management, and encourages us to appreciate and master our inner emotional realm.

In her excellent book The Language of Emotions, Karla McLaren explains that emotions contain valuable information and guidance for us. They are our first, pre-verbal information channel to the world, connected to our inner truth and intuition. They continue to inform us, if we honor and pay attention to their messages, after our rational mind develops around age three. 

Cultural conditioning, however, encourages us to value the rational mind and disregard emotions as troublesome, or as annoying inconveniences, especially emotions that we label as “bad.” Yet as Daniel Goleman explains in his groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence, the rational mind cannot control our emotions. Rather, our primal emotional nature can harness the rational mind to justify its association of emotions from the past with present experiences, distorting our perceptions and ability to respond appropriately in the moment.

Emotions, like the element of water, are fluid. They are ephemeral, usually lasting less than a minute, and are continually changing. They arise from our inner depths, shift, ebb and flow into one another. Emotional agility requires welcoming the changing nature and flow of feelings, and allowing ourself to fully feel an emotion in the moment. When we pay attention to our emotions without judging them, we become the neutral observer. Then we can acknowledge the personal information an emotion is conveying to us, and employ the rational mind to guide our response.

Karla McLaren’s book describes messages specific emotions provide us. For example anger informs us a personal boundary has been breached. Fear is our intuition telling us  something is dangerous. Sadness signals something must be released so we can move forward. And shame alerts us that we are out of integrity with our values. Disregarding this information, or allowing the rational mind to explain it away, separates us from important inner truths. 

In his book Daniel Goleman outlines four domains that constitute emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is the ability to observe our internal state and recognize our emotions. Self-management is handling an emotion appropriately by self-regulating our response. It requires adaptability and striving for emotional balance. Social awareness is the ability to recognize emotions in others, having empathetic understanding. And relationship management is the ability to work with the emotions of others in productive ways, of having social competency in the world.

The archetypal energy of Cancer rules our emotional foundations in life. Its wellspring nourishes our security, well-being and creativity in our “inner home.” It guides us with care, concern and compassion to embrace our emotional nature and learn to use it skillfully in the outer world. 

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.” – Baruch Spinoza

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Detachment and Equanimity

The social air sign of Aquarius is known for its rational, objective mind and ingenious intellect. It is logical, scientific and original in its ideas. Its interest in progressive and humanitarian causes attracts it to groups of like-minded people who want to reform society. It forms relationships with others so it can work collaboratively with those who share its idealistic principles and vision of the future. 

Although friendly and tolerant, it can sometimes appear to be cold and aloof. A keen observer, it creates emotional distance between itself and the object of its study in order to remain open-minded and impartial. In this way it can perceive the world and its workings without bias, and receive clear insights into matters. Curious and astute, it can make connections between disparate pieces of information and see patterns within a greater whole. Highly intelligent, it quickly grasps abstract concepts.

We can align with the energy of Aquarius and use rational detachment and composure to our advantage. Consciously employing emotional detachment can help free us from old ingrained patterns of emotional reactivity. When we become aware of an emotion within us, we can quietly observe it, without judgement or analysis, defensiveness or justification. Approaching our emotion with equanimity, we can perceive it from a neutral perspective. It is neither “good” nor “bad.” It is simply an inner comment on our outer experience in the moment. Creating emotional distance in a situation helps us realize we have a choice in how we respond.

We can make space for more creativity, insight, and innovation when we are not mired down by emotional reactivity in a situation. Standing back, we can appreciate we are not the center of the universe, but part of a much bigger picture. Looking beyond our individual needs, we see we are not alone, but a member of a global community where everyone has wants, needs and feelings. We can treat others as equals and practice “dispassionate compassion” for humanity.

Practicing detachment and equanimity allows the right hemisphere of our brain to contribute more to our thinking and understanding. Left hemisphere processes are linear, empirical and applied. The right hemisphere is intuitive, conceptual, abstract, and insightful. It is associated with a higher frequency of mental energy, where solutions to problems are revealed, and from which all inventions come. Aquarius opens our minds to cosmic consciousness and awareness. It compels us to move beyond our ego identification and connect with the universe on a soul level, propelling us on our evolutionary path.

“True detachment isn’t a separation from life but the absolute freedom within your mind to explore living.” – Ron W. Rathbun

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Exploring Emotional Intelligence through the Sign of Cancer

Tuesday June 20th the Sun leaves the curious and interactive air sign of Gemini and enters the emotionally sensitive and protective water sign of Cancer. Each succeeding sign of the zodiac provides the means to rectify or redirect the energy of the previous sign. Cancer shifts our awareness from the realm of the mind and tunes us in to our feelings. A cardinal sign, Cancer initiates activity and creates new beginnings from a feeling, nurturing, heart-centered place.

Cancer rules emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the awareness of our own feelings, their depth and complexity, as well as being able to perceive and understand emotions in others. We develop emotional intelligence when we pay attention to our emotions and allow ourselves to feel them, just as infants and small children do naturally. Rather than distracting ourselves from our feelings, or burying and repressing them, or projecting them outside of ourselves onto others and re-acting impulsively, we can allow ourselves the private internal space to healthily process them. The more we practice this, the stronger our inner emotional foundation becomes. Then, instead of looking for safety and security in the external world, from places or people who will protect us, we can tap into our own inner emotional strength, regardless of external circumstances.

“The more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more you become a lover of what is.”

– Baruch Spinoza