Cheatsheet: Emotional Intelligence: Understand Your Emotions and Connect with Others

By Better Wise

A lookup card for the whole course. Use it before a hard conversation, after a reactive moment, or when journaling.

1. Core Distinction: Feeling vs. Interpretation

Layer	What it is	Example	How to spot it
Event (camera fact)	What a recording would show or a transcript would capture	"She replied 'fine' and left the room."	Observable, verifiable
Interpretation (story)	The meaning you assign to the event	"She's angry at me."	A guess about cause or intent
Feeling (emotion)	Your internal state	"I feel anxious and a bit rejected."	One word, lives in the body
Need / value	What the feeling points to	"I need reassurance and clarity."	Often unspoken

Test: if the sentence after "I feel" contains that, like, ignored, disrespected, manipulated, it is usually an interpretation, not a feeling.

Wrong: "I feel like you don't care."
Right: "I feel hurt, and the story I'm telling myself is that you don't care."

Tip: Name the event first, then the feeling, then the story. Order matters: it keeps the story from masquerading as fact.

2. Precise Emotion Vocabulary (1.2)

Broad labels hide information. Narrow labels point to a need and a response.

Vague	More precise options	What it usually signals
Bad	discouraged, ashamed, lonely, resentful	unmet need for connection or worth
Angry	irritated, frustrated, indignant, hurt	boundary crossed, or pain underneath
Sad	disappointed, grieving, wistful, discouraged	loss or unmet hope
Anxious	uneasy, apprehensive, overwhelmed, tense	uncertainty or threat anticipation
Good	relieved, grateful, content, hopeful	need met, safety present
Fine	(usually a placeholder)	ask yourself: fine how?

Intensity scale (0-10): rate the emotion. A 3 and an 8 need different responses. Low intensity: reflect. High intensity: pause first.

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