Wherever possible, I have chosen to use friendly, open-ended questions that will direct our attention to the root causes of emotional trouble and help us choose the right tool. We must build our mental tools from which we will choose.  I hope this format to build all your mental tools will:

• Aid memory and penetrate your thought life more readily, producing effective analysis of what is really going on inside of us. 
• Function as a stimulus for more thought. 
• Make for simplicity with profound results.  

We are aiming at emotional intelligence and development of the skillful use of tools — mainly mental in nature.  Analysis of the emotion or emotional problem precedes the choice of other tools.  Fashioning the tool to fit your temperament precedes the use of it.  The logic of this should not surprise us.  

Basic Tools for Obtaining Emotional Intelligence

We are limited when we think of the materials available for selecting or combining our mental tools.  The main materials are:

• Knowledge, understanding, and wisdom — and they are obtained in that order.  Emotional intelligence is wisdom.  This requires study and concentrated, zealous learning. 
• Questions are probing tools, opening up the subject for thoughtful analysis. They work well when discerning the source and nature of our emotions.  I will provide the questions for you.  
• Focus is an essential material in the building of any mental tool.  In fact, without focus all methods fail.  Focus presupposes that we are aware of our feelings and thoughts.  
• Desires are plentiful and are used for motivation.  Without motivation of some sort, we cannot energize our actions.  
• Belief (faith) is the basis for all action.  We are what we believe.  
• Physical actions (especially speech) mold our thoughts and feelings. Therefore, they are a handy, familiar material, and they make reliable tools.  However, controlling the tongue will test your powers.  
• Will power is another tool. But if not used with understanding, it is only sheer force and often fails to achieve much. 
• Memory is, of course, a useful material for building repeated successes.  
• Visualization or imagining reality in our minds is dependent on how well we can imagine, but is effective in certain cases of emotional control.  It can also be understood as mental practice as opposed to physical practice. 
• Meditation is a material from which mental tools are often made.  All religions and some philosophies advocate meditation in one form or another.  

Can We Use Negative Tools to Build All Our Mental Tools?

Sometimes, negative feelings will motivate us, such as feelings of fear, guilt, and shame.  They are not included in the above list because using a negative emotion to produce a positive emotion is both contradictory and emotionally dangerous.  The side effects that damage our spirits and influence others negatively are not worth the risk.  It is also important to remember that fear motivates but does not effect a positive inner change.  Our behavior might change because of a temporary change in our beliefs, but emotionally we learn little and our life center is un-renewed.  

Make a List for Constant Reference

I suggest you write these ten positive tools on a card, memorize them, and refer to them until they become second nature. When trying to control an emotion, use one or a combination of the tools.  Each person and each temperament will tend to use these tools differently.  What works is what matters most. Your list might look like this:

The Ten Basic Tools for Building Emotional Intelligence

• Learning path:  Knowledge, understanding, wisdom
• Diagnostic path:  The right questions
• Attention path:  Focus and its precursor, awareness
• Motivation path:  Desires and passions
• Fundamental path:  Beliefs and faith
• Action path:  Right physical actions, including right speech
• Determination path:  Mental force or willpower
• Consistency path:  Memory for repeated success
• The path inside the virtual mind:  Visualization, a form of vivid imagination
• Actualizing path:  Meditation

Other materials exist but these are the main materials I will suggest you use and out of which we will build our emotional control.  I always begin with a question to help locate the problem accurately.  Asking the right question will lead us to the right answer.

Next, we’ll discuss using the tools.

Resources to Help You:

THE WONDERFUL TRUTH ABOUT EMOTION

Are there such things as intelligent emotions? Intelligently Emotional will argue that there are. And they are the ones we must focus on if we want to know success.

Ray W. Lincoln will show us how understanding the patterns of emotion in our temperament will enable us to manage our emotions effectively. If you long to know how to understand your emotions and the immense power of your feelings, Intelligently Emotional  will show you the way.  The path to real emotional intelligence requires learning to partner with intelligent emotions.

DISCOVER THE TRUTH OF WHO YOU ARE!

Lean into the whole truth.  Discover the truth of who YOU are — the “Real You” — and who your children truly are.  Discover how to best engage your children in finding the whole truth.  INNERKINETICS, Your Blueprint to Excellence will guide you in that

Our team at InnerKinetics is ready to provide that help, too.  If you’d like some assistance, you can request a consultation.  An InnerKinetics consultant will call you to answer questions and schedule your meeting. Schedule an Initial Consultation. Alternatively, if you are more independent and want to cut to the chase, you need not wait for a call back. You can get answers to your questions and schedule your session HERE.

Our first and most important task in a world-changing mission is to learn how to think straight (and teach straight thinking) and combat the insurgence of crooked thinking in our culture and in our world today. If we become passive victims of this crooked way of thinking, we promote it. Furthermore, if we remain silent, we also give it credence. In Who Am I?, the reader progresses from how we have become “crooked thinkers” to how to break out of this prison of the mind to become instruments of change for a better world.  We do this by recognizing from where we derive our value as humans. “Build a straight and powerful mind.” ~ Ray W. Lincoln