How to raise your Emotional Intelligence (with your eyes closed)

My town, Encinitas, is mentioned in the famous Beach Boy’s song “Surfin’ USA”. Yes, there are many wonderful surf spots along our stretch of the Pacific Ocean: Swami’s, Cardiff Reef, Stone Steps, Bamboos, Beacons, Grand View, to name a few.

When the waves are big, boards break.

Colorful, wildly decorated boards snapped by the surging surf. When these boards are broken open what’s revealed is they all have the foam core. Regardless of their surface design, the boards are the same on the inside.

It’s the same with people.

Deep within, we’re made of the same motivations, emotions, and human concerns. In the day-to-day challenges of work, it’s easy to forget this and over-focus on our surface differences.

The surfaces differences are real.

People do bring different values, perspectives, and agendas to projects and meetings. Team members can reach different (and valid) conclusions about how to solve business issues. Some individuals are comfortable with abstractions. Others like nitty-gritty facts. The differences are real.

But, when you’re interested resolving conflicts, negotiating, reaching agreements, or making collaborative decisions – it’s important to go beyond surfaces and connect to the deeper-than-surface motivators and emotions in others.

To connect with others – below the surface – takes a form of emotional intelligence called empathy.

Empathy is your ability to feel AND understand another’s inner experience.

When you’re being empathetic, you connect with another’s experience at a deeper-than-surface level. To do this you have to be connected to your own deeper-than-surface self.

When your perceptions, insights and understandings are based on your own surface-self perspectives, all you’ll be aware of is the other person’s surface-self. Your surface-self can only connect with their surface-self. Which will highlight your differences.

It’s your deeper-than-surface self that is able to connect with their deeper-that-surface motivations, emotions, and needs.

Fortunately, evolution has wired your nervous system to do just that. You’ve got the neurological hardware to be empathetic. The empathy process is enabled by a part of the brain called the insula.

These empathy-enabling structures have played a very significant role in human evolution. Some scientists suggest that they are among the key neurological elements that have facilitated our unique human evolution.

You’re wired for empathy.

One indication of how important these parts of the brain are is this – they consume 8-10 times more oxygen and glucose than even your major muscles. Here’s how the insula works: When you feel basic emotions, your insula lights up. But, also, when you see others in emotional states, your insula activates. Whether the emotional state is “inside” you or “outside” you – the insula lights up.

It’s as though the insula replicates the inner states of others – by generating interior bodily sensations within you.

The insula allows you to “resonate” with another’s inner experience. The more you’re in touch with your own bodily sensations, the more you’re able to attune to and understand the inner experience of others.

The insula enables you to sense your own bodily states.

When you have a “gut feeling” – that’s your insula in action. Sensing the temperature and texture of the breath in your lungs activates the insula. Noting the sensations in your muscles and joints lights up the insula.

By attending to your own inner bodily sensations you build your “insula-ability”.

You literally thicken the cellular structure that constitutes your insula. You improve the neurological hardware that enables empathy. It’s like building muscles. By strengthening the insula, empathy gets easier. And also more accurate.

A well-developed insula enables you to tune in more deeply and more precisely to others’ inner experience.

This allows you to:

Respond skillfully to others emotions:

Without empathy, your attention is locked onto the surface – what others are doing. And when what they’re doing isn’t working for you, the tendency is to attribute all kinds of negative intentions or qualities to the other person:

“She’s just a difficult person.”

“He’s not capable of collaborating.”

Tune into the emotions of others (without taking them personally):

Instead of taking others emotionality personally, you become aware that the other person has her own struggles. That she’s not just being a difficult person. Rather, that she’s a struggling human. A person who is struggling to adapt to change, navigate through difficult choices, balance conflicting priorities. In short, dealing with emotional challenges just like you.

To be better at empathy, strengthen your insula.

How? By becoming a better student of your own bodily states. Particularly, those inner body sensations, like the texture and temperature of the breath.

When you pay attention to your own inner bodily states the insula lights up.

It’s a simple thing to do – with huge pay-offs for your work and personal life. Who would have thought that simply by regularly attending to your breath and bodily sensations, you could get better at understanding others? But, it’s true. The same neurological hardware is employed to do both tasks.

The simplest and most research-based way to do this is through the regular practice of meditation.

Research shows that meditation dramatically – and positively – thickens the insula. Meditation literally builds your empathy hardware. This means that you can enhance your emotional intelligence with your eyes closed. You can get better at empathy – reading and understanding others – by through mindfully attending to your breath and body.

Empathy is foundational to emotional intelligence.

And emotional intelligence is foundational to leadership. It’s wonderful to discover that you can grow as a leader by meditating. You can improve your ability to resolve conflicts, manage differences, and influence others, by sitting still and mindfully breathing. For just a few minutes each day.

It’s regular practice that provides the best results.

I’m including a simple practice with this post. Click here for a guided practice (that takes 3 minutes) you can download and use daily. If you take time each day to pay attention to your breath and body, the next time you’re in a meeting and the emotional waves surge – you won’t have to break any boards.

You’ll empathetically hang ten, dudes.