what is the difference between emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence?
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything,
no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become
enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
~ Carl Jung
Very often people think that having Spiritual Intelligence (SQ) is enough. I was one of them; until I realized that to love myself, I needed to study myself and educate in other areas that were beyond my faith. Why? Because humans are the sum of many parts of intelligence, we are complex neurologically, physiologically, and psychologically. A traditional table cannot be a table with only three legs, it needs four. Humans have a spirit, an intellect and a physical body and God created us to use them integrally, not separated. In my journey, I discovered that spirituality was key to sustaining my Emotional Intelligence (EQ) growth because I needed strength and courage to face my demons and do the self-reflective work. For instance, I use to think that I was a very good person until I discover all my motivations for wanting to help others, basically, I used to do that to avoid facing my responsibilities and for feeling superior to others. This discovery was similar to looking at a horror movie!
Although SQ and EQ are scientific facts, universities and schools still don’t teach these subjects. During my life, I have met people without SQ and people without EQ. Can we have EQ without SQ? The answer is no because spiritual intelligence is the root that supports EQ. Every time a self-doubt sprouts in our minds, we potentially can hear two voices the ego and the Spirit, the latter gives us strength if we take a pause and reflect instead of reacting, but if we don’t, we only hear the ego’s voice. Having high SQ gives us conviction of positive identity coming from knowing who we are in God’s image. However, even if we consciously know who we are in God’s image, but still cannot understand how our ego (subconscious) control our beliefs, we still will be stuck and the ego will hold us back from achieving our dreams and call, therefore we are still not free. Ego and Divinity are faces of the same coin. The integration of the two continues through our entire life as the relationship between the two grows and keeps healing.
WHAT DID I LEARN?
I learned that without Jesus I was not going so far, why? Because I needed someone higher than myself that would inspire me to be my best self, someone that would open my eyes and help me to accept what I could not change and help me to change what I could. I needed strength to deal with temporal financial uncertainty so that I could invest in myself and understand what was blocking me (unconscious beliefs and values) from feeling fulfilled. Jesus helped me to transcend my ego limitations and fears. This is how SQ fed my EQ development. We often overlook this part but having an inspirational person helps us to transform and overcome our darkest moments. Jesus’ call and love have been the strongest motivator in my life. In recent research studies have been found that people with more intrinsic than external motivation perform better at work. Therefore, having a spiritual inspiration helps us to perceive our talents in a different light and as a result, our confidence and motivation rise because we become aware of how much potential we have. We are then able to see new possibilities. This is why, when I work with a client, I like to include SQ as part of my framework because I want clients to have a lasting transformation, not a yo-yo change.
Let’s explore more how disintegration on these two parts of intelligence harms us.
We know that we all carry baggage from our childhood, we all come into this life to learn life lessons. But when we don’t develop our EQ, we keep repeating unhealthy behavioral patterns. For instance, we keep meeting unhealthy partners, unhealthy friendships, and abusive jobs. We cannot see that these patterns repeat because we keep having the same blind spots. They repeat because that is the way the universe communicates and tell us what is still in stand-by HEAL folder. We cannot love ourselves because we don’t know ourselves (EQ), if we don’t love ourselves, we cannot love others. This happens because we have not uncovered the subconscious and we have not uncovered it because we have not developed EQ or awareness in that area.
EQ and SQ IMPORTANCE
Emotional Intelligence is important if we want to develop healthy relationships at work or with our loved ones. If we could imagine a tree, the roots would be represented by the SQ, the trunk could be EQ, the branches could be Physical and Intellectual Intelligence (I will talk about them in a different blog) and the fruits and flowers would represent our actions and their impact in others and ourselves. This is why, it takes time to flower different behaviors, to respond to our call, and to achieve our goals. Both intelligences are designed to be intertwine. At church I learned about my real identity, this was good, I love going to church, but I couldn’t learn about my fake identity (ego). In time we all can learn to focus more each day on our real identities, however, this is not possible without exploring the ego. We can transcend the ego when we blend our faith with our awareness. According to science, SQ and EQ have a direct positive effect on our well-being and happiness. These feelings give us a higher level of self-esteem and optimism and we also tend to feel more fulfilled because we choose works and relationships that have deep meaning for us.
This is one of the most important reasons why SQ and EQ are key in personal development. We cannot see the light (our divine image) without knowing what darkness (our ego) is. We cannot identify the white color without knowing what the black color is. Neither of them is the wrong color or the bad color. They are both necessary colors that blend. Both colors are part of a whole and each part intertwines with the other. If I wouldn’t know, what darkness is, I wouldn’t know fully what light is either. Therefore, if I cannot understand my full humanity, I cannot understand my full divinity. There is a pattern of growth and development in nature as well, God designed us in a way that even we can see these polarities in nature. For instance, the Earth has a geomagnetic dynamic called polarity transition. Polarity transition is similar to human lifetime transitions. The Earth also goes through transformative seasonal periods, it suffers many variations in its movements. Scientific studies have shown that the magnetic Earth’s field is capable of shifting at the rate of 6 degrees per day! and there are a lot of series of reversals as well. Just like in humans, when trying to modify behavior, changes can feel chaotic until it finally stabilizes again. Magnetic north and magnetic south are always interchanging, just like EQ and SQ interchanges. These two polarities are similar to what happens to humans, we go through many emotional stages and reversals (failures) just as the Earth does.
Although SI is in reality the real source of consistent lasting self-esteem, without awareness of the other polarity, which is EQ, we cannot raise self-esteem. It is sad, that despite evidence still many professionals only consider basic scientific methods for raising self-esteem based only on Emotional Intelligence theory development. But these methods to increase self-esteem without SQ do not have a lasting impact on EQ or well-being.
Why?
Because if we only use EQ to raise self-esteem it doesn’t work completely because the ego still has the power to control the mind. The ego still can run our mind and body without spiritual intelligence. Therefore, EQ still has to manage a lot of negativity, self-doubt, and low confidence. While SQ prevents low self-esteem and low self-confidence because its self-esteem and confidence come from a source that cannot fluctuate or change. It doesn’t depend on external factors or polarity transitions. SQ doesn’t need to manage negativity because it doesn’t create negativity in the first place.
Without SQ the ego is still in the driver’s seat, because we are blind to our unconscious motivations, fears, anger, revenge, or shame. SQ instead doesn’t react to the ego because is independent of the ego, SQ can transcend the ego and it has its own energy. SQ doesn’t waste energy fighting ego. Doesn’t fight self-doubt, reactivity, or feeling incompetent.
SQ has unlimited abilities, it is not blocked by limiting beliefs, it has direct access to superpowers. This is why SQ gives us a strong foundation for self-esteem that is free from comparing all the time with others. SQ based self-esteem on God’s image this is why is firm and strong. It is not vulnerable to uncontrollable circumstances; it is secure regardless of changes and it is not threatened.
A high level of EQ helps us to feel empathetic and compassionate therefore it helps us to experience God or the Higher Self more (or another name you prefer to call it). High EQ makes our ego “good” however, a good ego is still ego; we need to know that even a good ego doesn’t have the full Spirit capacity.
In addition, SQ can teach us about ego-less perception, ego-less motives, wisdom, intuition integrity, creativity, and high performance. This is why EQ +SQ are more powerful than EQ alone. The identity shifts from ego to Soul, and it helps us to connect ourselves to our ethics, purpose and to cooperate with others for the greatest good!
There is a huge demand for soft, team, emotional, communication skills in the market if you are still confused about your path or how you can keep growing in your career you can contact a professional in this area.
