Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl, proposed, “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Among the most important decisions we make in life is how we manage our emotions.

In recent years, leadership training events have emphasized the importance of emotional intelligence. But emotional strength and balance are important for everyone, not just those in leadership roles. Utilizing the tools available to help us manage our emotions is especially important for followers of Jesus.

What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence, also known as emotional quotient, refers to our ability to monitor and control our own emotions. Your emotional quotient (EQ) is not the same as your intelligence quotient (IQ), but it is just as important.

Developing a high EQ will reduce mental stress by equipping you with self-awareness, self-regulation, and good communication skills. This will inspire confidence and fortify your emotional strength.

What are the primary human emotions? Several years ago, psychologist Paul Eckman identified six basic emotions that he suggested were universally experienced in all human cultures. The emotions he identified were happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, and anger. He later expanded his list of basic emotions to include such things as pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement.

If it feels like your emotions are “all over the map” during this season, you are not alone. Ongoing wars, divisive political rhetoric, economic uncertainty, and terse public discourse are just a few of the things that have challenged our sense of emotional balance.

Here are 8 tips to help us navigate our emotions:

• Be assured that increased emotional activity is normal. Changes in our routine, reconfigurations in our network of relationships, stress in the workplace or classroom, and uncertainty about the future all tend to elevate our anxiety and stir a variety of emotions.
  
  
• Anticipate emotional fluctuations. During normal times, you may experience momentary surges in anxiety, frustration, anger, and grief. During changing times, those spikes may occur more frequently and last longer.
  
  
• Practice patience. Be patient with yourself and others as you adapt to changes and establish new patterns in your daily routine.
  
  
• Exercise. Walk, run, stretch, or ride your bike. Physical exercise has a way of clearing emotional debris and helping us to recalibrate a healthy sense of balance.
  
  
• Own your emotions. Discuss your emotional fluctuations with a trusted friend, accountability partner, or counselor. Verbalizing your emotions may prove to be therapeutic. Consider adopting journaling, talk therapy, or meditation as regular practices.
  
  
• Become more grounded in your faith. Let your spirituality serve as an anchor. Emotions can be fickle and need to be held accountable to our core values.
  
  
• Fly by the instrument panel. Like a veteran pilot landing a plane in the fog, make decisions based on what you “know,” not how you “feel” at any given moment.
  
  
• Enlist a therapist or counselor. Just like we go to the dentist to care for our teeth and an optometrist to care for our eyes, we may choose to see a counselor for help in navigating our emotions. We don’t wait until our teeth deteriorate to go to the dentist, and similarly, we should not wait until we reach desperation or rock-bottom depression before seeing a therapist.

John Seymour contended, “Emotions make great servants, but tyrannical masters.”

Strengthening our emotional intelligence is key to keeping all the other dimensions of life in harmony. Proverbs 4:23 cautions, “Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.”

(Barry Howard is a leadership coach and columnist with the Center for Healthy Churches. You can follow him on Twitter at @BarrysNotes.)