How to Build Emotionally Intelligent Friendships

Here’s how to develop emotionally intelligent friendships:

• Validation: It’s not saying, “Yes, you’re right to punch your neighbor because his dog barks too much.” Validation is about recognizing the emotion behind it. “You’re furious, and I get why you’d be upset if their dog is keeping you up.”
• Attend: Pay attention. Ask questions that serve them, not you. Say things like: “Can you explain that?”
• Copy: Repeat what they last said as a question.
• Contextualize: “If I was in your shoes, I would have handled it even worse. I’d be on the news.”
• Propose: Describe their pain to them. You won’t always land the dismount. But more often than not, they’ll recognize something true in what you said.
• Emote: Too often we respond to people’s vulnerability with all the warmth of an airline safety video. Be the person who gasps. Who laughs. Who winces.
• Disclosure: Keep it simple, short and relevant. Offer your experience like a cup of water at mile 18 of their personal marathon — not as a story about the time you ran a better marathon.

We’ll happily apply the above methods of validation to friends, coworkers, and dogs…

But we’re often reluctant to use them with ourselves. We dig into every perceived mistake we make like we’re mining for guilt diamonds.

Next time you find yourself losing it, try contextualizing. Stepping back and going, “Okay, that was not my finest hour, but let’s look at what led up to it. Was I tired? Yes. Was I hungry? Yes.”

Offer yourself a get-out-of-jail-free card stamped with the words “You’re human.” This is not lowering your standards. It’s recalibrating them to reflect reality.

Using validation with anyone can be tricky at first. We are a problem solving species. But problem solving doesn’t connect us. It’s tech support. And nobody ever felt loved by tech support. You bond over someone understanding you. Validation is the emotional WD-40 that makes actual communication possible.

And when done right, people leave a conversation not just feeling heard but feeling known.

Which is, if we’re being honest, the thing we’re all starving for.

Source: bakadesuyo.com