I think that Emotional Intelligence is the strength of the mind to enable the awareness and management of emotions and thoughts. It can be trained so that a person can consciously act in a situation instead of simply reacting.

IQ has to do with a person’s intellect, and their cognitive abilities. It is a measure of how well a person can retain knowledge. Whereas EQ has more to do with mental stability, clarity of thoughts and emotions.

I regularly practice mindfulness and I find it be very calming, it can help put my mind at ease or give clarity in some situations.

With meditation/mindfulness, I am able to separate my thoughts from emotions, let go of the thoughts and it's judgements, and simply notice the emotions without being overwhelmed by them. (Well not all the time, but more often than not, it takes practice.)

I meditate almost daily. It’s not always the same type of meditation; for example – some days I will listen to guided meditation, while others I will simply practice the breathing technique or body scan.

What was it like to be fully listened to?
I actually really enjoyed this experience. I noticed that I get really nervous when I know that someone is actually paying attention to what I am saying. I think we as modern humans, have become fairly used to creating ways for ourselves to be heard. We can dress to how much we want people to pay attention to us, or use repetitive texts, tweets, likes, volume, emojis, flashing gifs etc. to get a response from someone. This is why when you know someone is listening, without interrupting with their own opinion, we almost run out of content as we are used to using additional methods as a form of communication.

At least that was my outtake of that exercise

What was it like to fully listen?
I thought I would be good at this but realized that I am quick to summarize a persons’ thoughts and feelings into a sentence. And from that sentence, I analyze that person. In doing this, I lose out on the details of what the person told me, and just remember their feelings on the topic. I guess this explains why I remember that I am upset, but don’t know what I was upset about.