How can we use emotional intelligence to manage our relationships?
Transcript
Disclaimer: This transcript was generated using AI and may contain occasional errors or inaccuracies.
So, how do we use emotional intelligence to manage our relationships? Okay, it's a big subject, but mainly, firstly, it begins by stopping, by not treating others as xeroscopies of ourselves. What the ego does is, if I like something, everyone must like it. If I like it and you don't like it, that means you are a strange person.
No, a person is not strange, a person is just different. So, often, even like-minded people are not alike. So, sometimes what happens is, we just project our expectations, our desires, our likes and dislikes on others.
Like once there was a court case between a husband and a wife. It came to the court and they said, the court case was that the husband wanted the son to become a doctor. And the wife wanted the son to become a doctor.
And the judge said, why a big deal? Just ask the son. He said, no, the son is not yet born. So, what happens is that, especially this happens with respect to parents, we project our expectations on them and often that spurs the development of their personality.
This can happen very much in that relationship, but it can happen in all relationships. So, if you just recognize that others are individuals and find out what are their likes, what are their dislikes, what are their soft spots, and then we behave appropriately. Then that itself is sensitivity, which goes a long way in avoiding unnecessary tussles in those relationships, unnecessary conflicts in those relationships.
So, sometimes people say that my wavelength and his wavelength or her wavelength don't match. So, actually, the art of developing relationship means to change our wavelength so that it matches. That requires effort.
Now, we may not be able to change our wavelength permanently. But if I want to develop a relationship with someone, it is that we have to change ourselves to some extent. And of course, that person also has to change the wavelength to some extent.
If it's only one way change, it's not going to work. So, understanding the other person and then trying to adjust that person's needs, interests, concerns, that is helpful in developing the relationship. And emotional intelligence means the capacity to perceive other's emotions.
What someone likes, what someone doesn't like. Now, we are able to perceive that. Prabhupada says that, he talks about three kinds of servants.
He says, the best servant is the servant who understands the need of the spiritual master before the spiritual master expresses it also. And then, okay, this is what the spiritual master wants, I'll do this. That's the first class.
The second class is when the spiritual master asks and one does. Third class is when the spiritual master asks and still one doesn't do. So, especially the third category, if you apply it to relationships, when somebody asks us to do something, somebody expects us to do something, and then we don't do it, then that is like a very great debit in the relationship.
We lose credibility over that. So, that means there are voiced expectations, there are unvoiced expectations. So, at the very least, the voiced expectations need to be fulfilled.
And if they are not fulfilled, then there has to be clarification. Because of this, this, I was not able to do this. Otherwise, the relationship gets spoiled.
So, in general, the emotional intelligence means understanding other's expectations and then either changing ourselves to fulfill it or clarifying so that that frustration or expectation doesn't happen. And when that way, one can tune oneself, as I said, adjust one's wavelength, then that relationship can develop much more smoothly and deeply.