what is emotional intelligence? and 3 ways breathwork helps build it

Inhale slowly for 4 counts. Exhale slowly for 7 counts.

How do you feel?

There is without a doubt a mind-body connection to the breath. When we inhale, we intake oxygen through our nose and into our lower diaphragm and chest filling us up with life. When we exhale, we release carbon dioxide we’ve created through the breathing process, respiration. 

But what happens when we start to bring our awareness deeper within this process? What happens when we go beyond the physical body, the mental and the anatomy of the breath to actually feel? 

What is Emotional Intelligence? |

Emotional intelligence (EI) s a skill we use for understanding ourselves and others. We use our EI to help us feel our feelings and manage our own emotions in helpful ways to relieve stress, communicate with others effectively, and navigate challenges and conflict. It’s a deeper sense of social and energetic awareness that creates empathy for ourselves and others. 

Emotional intelligence is also incredibly effective for supporting our relationship with our own intuition. Because our emotions serve as the messengers of what we need and how we feel, we can take informed action to take care of ourselves. When we can learn to be present with our feelings and emotions and then decipher their meanings, we learn new ways to adapt and re-parent ourselves.

So how do we do this? What tools do we have to help us become closer to our own emotions and feelings?

Breathwork is a tool that can be a conduit for this experience. Personal and client experiences have shown me there is an inner journey that happens when we practice breathwork. It brings us closer to our emotions and grows our ability to cultivate emotional intelligence. Below are the 3 ways breathwork helps us build emotional intelligence.

|3 ways Breathwork helps build emotional intelligence |

Breathwork supports the rewiring of our nervous system to respond versus react.

Breathwork brings us into a rest and digest state versus fight or flight. States of rest support cultivating emotional intelligence. 

When we respond from a place of grounded calm versus reacting from a heightened state of anxiety and stress, we cultivate higher states of awareness and ability to be present with what we are experiencing. Our brains are in a more reflective, non-judgemental space. This helps us accept who we are and what we are experiencing in the present moment versus a need to escape. 

Breathwork provides a safe space for self-expression and emotional freedom. 

Many of us were not raised in environments where we were taught how to express our emotions. Instead, we are taught that emotions are what makes us appear as “weak”. We’re taught it’s not okay to express anger and that it’s not okay to be afraid. So we bottle them up and repress them or let them run our lives. Cultivating emotional intelligence means knowing how to care for your emotions. It means allowing yourself to express your emotions freely where they are supporting you and your needs instead of locking them up and throwing away the key. 

Breathwork provides a safe personal space to express emotions freely. When we focus on a breathing pattern and allow intuitive movement of the body to follow, we can experience emotional freedom. If our body wants to scream, kick, dance, cry, laugh or all of the above, breathwork supports this expression in a directed way within a controlled environment. 

Breathwork helps us understand how to use our emotions as information.

Our emotions are often the messengers that allow us to understand what our needs are. The somatic quality of breathwork meditation helps with recognizing emotions as entities separate from us. Although they are part of us, when we experience them in breathwork, we cultivate meaning in them. This allows us to use our emotions as information we need in order to set boundaries, take action and self-soothe. 

For example, when you cry during breathwork you might create a meaningful experience with being present with your sadness which then leads you to realize you are grieving a loss you didn’t know you were experiencing. From that space of awareness, you can recognize you need time to grieve and take that information to implement action to support yourself emotionally. 

Experiencing our emotions helps us co-create the life we want by showing us the needs we desire to have met and take action. This process is truly beautiful and helps us to develop a deeper relationship to ourselves and our emotions while reconnecting us to the capacity of our own humanity. 

When we commit to our breath we commit to being present with ourselves. This includes being present with our mind, body, spirit and most of all - our emotions. Through breathwork, we can cultivate a deeper sense of empathy and emotional intelligence that serves ourselves and serves others.

I hope this was helpful in giving you some clarity on what emotional intelligence is and how breathwork can help you build it! If you have any questions, send me a note! I’m at hello@collectiveinnergarden.com.

Until next time,

Keep planting <3

Jamie