Emotional Intelligence: When East Meets West

One of the key gems I gained through my coaching training with Integral Coaching Canada is the appreciation of how we have each had a unique pathway of development from the time we were born to where we are right now. Some capacities were significantly developed, while others were less developed. This is not good or bad, but it is important to become awake to and fully own the levels of capability we have, and where we have opportunities to further grow in our adult lives.  This is my story about my unique pathway of development having been born in the East while receiving a Western education, and what I came to discover was the pivotal area I needed to develop as an adult in order for me to live the life I have always dreamt of living.

My scientific background, passion for learning, and for helping others led me to a career path that has brought meaningful change in my life and the lives of others. I am a pharmacist-owner with an MBA, an Integral Master Coach™, an ICF Professional Certified Coach, and a tutor at the University of Montreal. I have had the privilege of travelling extensively and living in different countries: Mauritius, France, USA, and Canada. My cultural diversity, fluency in different languages and sensitivity to the needs of others has added to my passion of helping others and alleviating suffering. However, in my most recent years, I discovered that I needed to develop my emotional capacities to remain fully present to the strong emotions of others, as well as my own strong emotions, if I was going to advance the depths and ways in which I am of service to others. My Integral Coaching^® training through Integral Coaching Canada helped me awaken to this and through the development of these emotional capacities, my life has been powerfully transformed.

I am fond of this story from my childhood which I share dearly with my cousins: when we visited relatives and I was asked a question; I was not even expected to answer. The questions were addressed to my mother on my behalf. My role was to smile and agree. My parents decided everything for me. My behavior had to be exemplary, and I had learnt at a very early age to read adult facial expressions and respond accordingly. My fate depended on it. It was an authoritarian parenting style that marked my childhood. This style of parenting was devoid of warmth and my emotional needs were not taken into consideration. In contrast with my Eastern upbringing, I had a Western education. My parents believed in higher education for girls and my path to university had been paved.

In university, I went from a space of control to a space of freedom. My emotional barometer took a hit. In my earlier life, my parents had complete control and I grew accustomed to the fact that I had no say in my own life. I had developed a sense of gratitude towards everything they had done for me, and the guilt of displeasing them was continuously in the background. I did not talk back or contradict elders even if they were wrong. My external expression of emotions was that of a soft-spoken, quiet, very respectful, resilient human being with a very high capacity to soothe myself. In the Western world, I kept my distance with others and smiled from afar. Hugging was a bit of a stretch for me. My way of being with its limited portfolio of emotions served me well in the Western world. I was quiet, hardworking, always smiling, and did what was required of me. I felt that I should not ask for anything.  My boss would acknowledge my way of being and the asset I was to the company and behave accordingly. I was lucky in that my bosses were decent human beings. However, I found any criticisms of my work hard to take. According to me, I had covered all my bases and any criticisms were a sign of injustice. The business world also matched my sterile way of expressing emotions and seemed to embraced Descartes’ proposition that “I think, therefore I am.” My emotional cues were giving me the wrong information about the world around me, and I often judged any display of emotion I was not familiar with.

My view of myself was that I was kind and understanding and people loved being around me. I built strong connections with people and I felt that I had this whole emotional intelligence thing covered. Consider my shock when I began my training with Integral Coaching Canada and realized that my emotional line of development was low. How could that be? I was in disbelief. That was not possible, the people I was close to also had ways of being similar to my own, and I tried to convince myself for a long time that I was self-aware and could read the emotional states of others. I only started to change when I emptied my cup and was ready to embrace something new. I was able to do this because I had access to some amazing Integral Coaches™, and my family was very supportive and held my hand along this journey of discovery. It was not easy for them or for me. My practices were focused on discovering what each emotion meant and how it was expressed in different cultures. I was also a little excessive in the knowledge and embodiment I tried to acquire. I read as many books as I could in neuroscience, emotional intelligence, science of emotions, understanding emotions and took many classes related to this topic. Hard to expect anything else from an Enneagram 7.