6 Habits of Emotionally Intuitive People
#1: They listen to their emotions—but rarely trust them
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Most of us grow up with a pretty confused attitude toward our emotions, especially the difficult ones.
We tend to simply avoid anything that feels bad and desperately hold onto anything that feels good.
But if you’ve ever tried dieting, saving money, having a difficult conversation, studying for a test, or basically any other important task in life, you probably understand on a gut level this important truth about emotions:
Chasing what feels good and avoiding what feels bad is often a recipe for both failure and unhappiness.
But there are some fortunate people out there who made it into adulthood with good instincts for how to handle difficult emotions in a healthy way. And luckily, we can all learn from them if we take the time to pay attention.
If you want to cultivate a healthier intuition about your emotions, these 6 habits are a good place to start.
1. They listen to their emotions—but rarely trust them.
Most of us fall into the trap of either avoiding our emotions altogether or blindly following them. But here’s the thing most people don’t fully understand:
While emotions are sometimes quite helpful, they’re often unhelpful and unreliable.
For example:
- Fear can keep you safe and help you avoid dangerous situations. But it can also lead you to miss out on a lot of wonderful experiences in life.
- Anger can give you the energy you need to fight injustice and unfairness. But it can also lead to impulsiveness and harmful aggression.
Emotionally intuitive people understand that there’s no one size fits all approach to dealing with emotions. They have to be taken on a case by case basis.
If you want to be more emotionally intuitive, get in the habit of listening to all your emotions but trusting none of them.
When faced with a difficult emotional situation use your head! And when in doubt, ask yourself this…
