Emotional Self-Awareness can be hard to see
Having always been a fan of movies–and using movies to support my training and coaching, I am always on the lookout for good, juicy clips that illustrate the kinds of behaviors that we at OKA teach and talk about. Emotional Intelligence lends itself–as a behavioral model–to many movie examples and illustrations. Assertiveness, Optimism, Empathy–there are a number of important behaviors that are not hard to find. Widely accepted as important and frequently depicted, examples of many of these EQ behaviors abound. However, there are a few Emotional Intelligence actions that are so internal, so often hidden from the view–that finding movie clips that display them is a much greater challenge. Emotional Self-Awareness is one of these “hard-to-spot” EQ elements.
Emotional Self-Awareness is your ability and tendency to know what you are feeling and why–to know your emotional triggers (positive and negative) and to have a vocabulary that enables you to reflect upon and identify one emotion from another within yourself. While this is a powerful–even a foundational EQ action, its actual engagement can be hard to spot. It is an action that happens internally.
Ad Astra
It was to my great delight that I saw James Gray’s Ad Astra (starring Brad Pitt). This is the compelling personal story of an astronaut on both a personal journey and a literal journey to the outskirts of our solar system. In the not-too-distant future in which the movie is set, astronauts must do a daily emotional check-in–a journal of sorts–to prove their fitness to serve and work that day. Getting to see multiple such entries with the main character show us not only Emotional Self-Awareness in action, but show us a world in which the importance of reflection and self-awareness are so great, that proof of them is required before anyone can be “fit for duty.”
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