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

By Better Wise

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

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## 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.

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## 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.