The phrase “emotional intelligence” sounds like a complicated concept, and it can be. I’ve developed my own definition: emotional intelligence is about learning with your heart.

Music and learning can’t be separated from emotions: music contributes to emotional learning, helping us understand our human potential as it relates to our emotions. Simply feeling, communicating, recognizing, remembering, describing, and explaining our emotions are all part of emotional intelligence, and music can facilitate all of the above.

How do we learn from our emotions? When something frightens us, for example, we examine the source. Is it time for “fight or flight”? Is our survival at stake?

We also learn how to manage our emotions. Rather than “fight or flight”, we may choose to learn how to overcome our fear, live with it peacefully, or channel the energy in another direction.

We can use our emotions by learning how to evoke desired emotions in ourselves and others. It’s part of why children naturally cry. It’s why childrens’ relief organizations will show you a picture of a sad-faced child with tears on their cheeks. “Help me!” they seem to cry out, and we reach for our wallets. Perhaps there is mournful music in the background.

Emotional intelligence is also about integrating our hearts with our minds. Our hearts are truly our guides, the inner voices that we can learn to listen to prior to us mobilizing our minds to help figure out the “how”. The heart is the barometer of our souls.

So how does emotional intelligence really relate to music? Music created and played with the intention of healing, of creating joy and relaxation and relieving stress, opens us to our full potential, releases us from our unwanted emotions, creates bridges between the spirit and the body, mind, and actions.

Music can help us mourn, express what words cannot express, and connect us to others. Stand in a stadium and sing a national anthem with thousands of others, and I dare you not to be moved. We can hear how we are united by our humanity through music that also expresses our diversity simply by listening to world music or to each other’s anthems.

Music can tune in to our innate emotional intelligence and help us make value decisions that affect our success in everyday life. Religious music can inspire us through our emotional reactions to be better people. A national anthem can inspire us to solidarity of purpose. Madonna can help us exercise or do our housework!

Music and emotional intelligence can be a catalyst for change, stir our consciences, inspire our creativity and individuality, and keep us learning and growing. Music and learning, two of the bricks in the foundation of emotional intelligence.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 4:56 pm and is filed under Music and Learning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.