6 Habits Of The Most Emotionally Intuitive People, According To A Psychologist
The key to being emotionally intuitive is handling your feelings in a healthy way.
DavideAngelini | Shutterstock Most of us grow up with a 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 chasing what feels good and avoiding what feels bad is often a recipe for both failure and unhappiness.
Luckily, there are fortunate people out there who made it into adulthood with good instincts for handling emotions in a healthy way, and we can learn from them if we pay attention.
If you want to cultivate a healthier intuition about your emotions, these habits are a good place to start.
Here are 6 habits of the most emotionally intuitive people, according to a psychologist
1. They listen to their emotions, but rarely trust them
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Most of us fall into the trap of either avoiding our emotions altogether or blindly following them. In fact, research has shown that suppressing our emotions can have dire consequences, including an increased risk of early death.
But most people don't quite understand that while emotions are sometimes quite helpful, they're often 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 aggression.
Emotionally intuitive people understand that there's no one-size-fits-all approach to dealing with their difficult 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: Does this emotion align with my values?
2. They see emotions mechanically, not morally
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If you struggle a lot with emotions in your life, you may have fallen into a trap of being judgmental about how you feel. This can manifest in a few ways:
When you feel sad, you think it means you're pathetic or silly. When you feel afraid, you see it as a sign of weakness. When you get angry, you judge yourself for not being in control of your feelings.
The problem with being moralistic and judgmental with your own emotions is that it makes them more intense:
When you get angry for feeling sad, you only end up sadder or even depressed. When you feel guilty about feeling angry, it only leads to more pain and suffering. When you feel anxious about feeling afraid, you're likely to feel even more anxious or even panicky.
Emotionally intuitive people understand that emotions are not things that can be judged as right or wrong. Because you can't control your emotions directly, it doesn't make sense to judge yourself for them morally. After all, nobody gets put in prison for feeling angry; you only get put away for acting on your anger with aggression.
Emotions themselves are not good or bad. And you are not good or bad for feeling them.
Save your moralizing for your behavior and learn to see your emotions mechanically. You may not like the fact that you're feeling sad, anxious, angry, or anything in between, but that doesn't mean you're bad for feeling that way.
If you want to be more emotionally intuitive, see your emotions mechanically, like a technician opening the hood of the car and checking out the engine. Just because your engine is smoking doesn't mean you're a bad driver.
3. They validate painful emotions, instead of trying to fix them
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Just like emotions aren't morally good or bad, they're not problems to be solved or gotten rid of. Of course, when you're in the grips of some difficult emotions like fear or grief, it's easy to see them as problems. But that's not technically true.
Here's an analogy that explains this perfectly: When you touch your finger on a hot stove, is the pain you feel a problem? Absolutely not — it's a good thing. The real problem is your skin tissue burning; pain is just a signal that helps you move your hand and avoid serious burns.
The same thing is true of emotional pain: Just because something feels bad doesn't mean it is bad. No matter how painful, your emotions are your mind's way of trying to help. Fear is trying to keep you safe. Guilt is trying to prevent future mistakes. Anger is trying to correct an injustice.
Unfortunately, our emotions often get confused, telling us something is dangerous, for example, even though it's perfectly safe. But that doesn't change the fact that it's just trying to help.
Think about emotions like lights on your car's dashboard: You may not like it when some of them blink on, but it would be foolish to get rid of them.
Emotionally intuitive people understand that the correct response to painful emotion is validation, not problem-solving. So, to become more intuitive as it relates to how you feel, acknowledge your emotions, remind yourself that they're just trying to help, and that, no matter how painful, emotions themselves are not dangerous.
4. They talk about their emotions in plain language
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Because we tend to see painful emotions as bad things or problems, most of us get into the habit of intellectualizing our emotions when we talk about them.
Intellectualizing your emotions is when you turn a plain emotion or feeling into an idea, concept, or metaphor: Instead of "I feel sad," you say "I'm just a little off today." Instead of "I'm afraid," you say, "I've just been feeling a little stressed out." Instead of "I feel frustrated with you," you say, "I'm just kind of upset."
The problem is, these intellectualizations are actual subtle avoidance strategies designed to help us feel less bad. Think about it: Let's say you were feeling ashamed and disappointed in yourself for a mistake you made at work and a co-worker approached you and said, "Hey, what's wrong?"
Which of the following responses feels less scary? "I feel really ashamed for that mistake I made," or, "I'm just a little stressed. I'll be fine"?
The first one feels scarier, because when you use plain emotional language, you make yourself more vulnerable — you tell people how you really feel. On the other hand, when you use a concept like stress, it's more vague and ambiguous.
But if you always avoid painful emotions, you're teaching your brain that they're bad. And this will only make you feel worse the next time you experience them.
If you want to cultivate a stronger, healthier relationship with your emotions, practice using plain language to describe how you feel. When in doubt, ask yourself the following question the next time you're feeling bad: How would a six-year-old describe this feeling?
5. They're curious about their emotions, not combative
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Most people's biggest emotional problem is that they're afraid of their own feelings. This deep emotional fear contributes to just about every form of emotional suffering, from depression and anxiety to anger management issues and low self-esteem.
When you're afraid of your emotions, you treat them like threats. And when you treat your emotions like the enemy — always running away from or trying to eliminate them — your brain starts to believe that they are the enemy. This is why most people are so emotionally reactive — they've trained their minds to view their own emotions as dangerous.
But when you have a healthier relationship with your emotions, that fear gets replaced with curiosity. And when you learn to be curious about your emotions (even the painful ones), you teach your brain a much different and much healthier lesson: "I may not like certain emotions, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me for having them." And when you believe that, it becomes so much easier to handle difficult emotions.
If you want to become more emotionally intuitive, practice being curious about your emotions. Wonder about them: Where they came from, what they're trying to do, and what your beliefs about them are.
If you treat your emotions like enemies, that's increasingly how they'll feel. But if you treat your emotions like friends, they'll become far easier to work with.
6. They don't take emotions too seriously and often laugh at them
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Look, there's nothing special about your emotions. Like your fingernails, small intestine, or red hair, at the end of the day, they're just another part of your body. Unfortunately, our culture tends to either glorify or demonize emotions, both of which tend to be unhelpful and often lead to a lot of suffering.
Emotionally intuitive people see emotions for what they are: often useful, frequently misguided, and sometimes plain silly. In other words, they don't take their emotions too seriously.
People who are emotionally intuitive can laugh at the fact that they still, after all these years, get a little nervous speaking in public. They can gently chuckle to themselves when they feel a surge of frustration or defensiveness creep up after a valid criticism. They can smile softly when they feel guilty about something they have no real reason to feel guilty for.
Emotionally intuitive people have a kind of lightness about them. They're not constantly worrying about or even thinking about this emotion or that. They see emotions as just one of the many aspects of being a human being — sometimes glorious, sometimes awful, and frequently just a little wacky.
It's important to understand and respect our emotions, of course. But that doesn't mean you can't laugh at them from time to time, too.
Nick Wignall is a psychologist and writer sharing practical advice for emotional health and well-being. He is the founder of The Friendly Minds newsletter.