Coming Full Circle on the EI3.0 Theory of Emotional Well-being
Abstract
Emotional Intelligence 3.0 offers a revolutionary framework for understanding and enhancing emotional well-being. This comprehensive approach integrates assessments, models, and development strategies and tools to foster emotional health, maturity, and core well-being. At its nucleus, EI3.0 posits that the quality of relationship dynamics is the key to sustainable happiness and satisfaction.
Keywords
Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Well-being, Emotional Health, Relationships, Happiness, Satisfaction
Table of Contents Show
Introduction
After four years of extensive research using the Emotional State Indicator assessment to explore emotional well-being (EWB), a comprehensive theory has emerged. While the potential for new insights remains, the current theory feels complete and is well-supported by the various elements of the EI3.0 framework.
The central tenet of EI3.0’s theory of EWB is the quality of our relationship dynamics with four key elements: self, others, life, and the system. These dynamics form the foundation of how we experience love and belonging through three primary dimensions: connection, collaboration, and communication. This article discusses the importance of relationships and breaks down the essential components of relationship dynamics. In short, it’s all about how we love and belong.
The Significance of the Quality of Our Relationships
“Happier Relationships, Happier Life” (Treleavan, 2018). It’s not just a saying; it’s backed by science, and the science is compelling:
Social connections… not only give us pleasure, they also influence our long-term health in ways every bit as powerful as adequate sleep, a good diet, and not smoking. Dozens of studies have shown that people who have social support from family, friends, and their community are happier, have fewer health problems, and live longer.
Conversely, a relative lack of social ties is associated with depression and later-life cognitive decline, as well as with increased mortality. One study, which examined data from more than 309,000 people, found that lack of strong relationships increased the risk of premature death from all causes by 50% — an effect on mortality risk roughly comparable to smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and greater than obesity and physical inactivity (Harvard, 2010).
Nurturing positive relationships is essential. It should be a priority, not an afterthought to be addressed after completing all the other tasks on your list. However, it's crucial to note that quality matters more than quantity. The presence of supportive individuals in our lives is what truly makes a difference, as harmful relationships can potentially be more detrimental than having no relationships at all (Gordon, 2020).
“When we know how to heal [relationships] and keep them strong, they make us resilient. All these clichés about how love makes us stronger aren’t just clichés; it’s physiology. Connection with people who love and value us is our only safety net in life” (Treleavan, 2018).
This short research summary packs a punch:
It’s not an exaggeration to say that lack of social connections can be deadly. Strong social relationships increase the likelihood of survival by 50 percent regardless of age, sex or health status, according to a meta-analysis of 148 studies on mortality risk by Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, of Brigham Young University, and colleagues (PLOS Medicine, Vol. 7, No. 7, 2010). They found social disconnection is at least as harmful to people as such well-accepted risk factors as obesity, physical inactivity and smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day.
And a lack of social companionship is a widespread problem. In the United States, 20 percent to 43 percent of adults over age 60 experience frequent or intense loneliness, according to a study by Carla Perissinotto, MD, and colleagues (Archives of Internal Medicine, Vol. 172, No. 14, 2012). Some 30 percent of U.S. married couples report severely discordant relationships, as Mark Whisman, PhD, and colleagues found (Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Vol. 76, No. 5, 2008). And the size of the average American’s core social network has declined on average by a third since 1985, according to the Pew Research Center (Social Isolation and New Technology, 2009) (Wier, 2018).
According to the 2023 U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community, “The health and societal impacts of social isolation and loneliness are a critical public health concern in light of mounting evidence that millions of Americans lack adequate social connection in one or more ways” (U.S. Surgeon General, 2023, p. 9). We are wired to connect: “Social connection is a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter. Throughout history, our ability to rely on one another has been crucial to survival. Now, even in modern times, we human beings are biologically wired for social connection” (U.S. Surgeon General, 2023, p. 9).
Connection is the conduit for love, and collaboration is the conduit for belonging. Maslow (1943) recognized the profoundness of these emotional needs decades ago. His hierarchy underscores the crucial role of love and belonging as foundational elements for achieving higher-order personal growth and self-actualization.
The most important and longest relationship we will have throughout our lives is with ourselves. It determines how we treat others, so it cannot and should not be overlooked. Sadly, so little attention is paid to it.
EI3.0 aims to unravel the intricate tapestry of relationship dynamics, illuminating pathways to enhance not only our interpersonal connections and collaborative efforts but also to cultivate a deeper, more harmonious relationship with ourselves.
Understanding Relationship Dynamics
Relationship dynamics in the context of love and belonging are the patterns of interaction, communication, and emotional exchange between individuals that shape their connections and sense of acceptance within relationships and social groups.
This concept encompasses several key elements:
Communication: How individuals express themselves, listen to others, and engage in dialogue.
Emotional reciprocity: The give-and-take of emotional support, empathy, and vulnerability between people.
Attachment styles: How individuals form and maintain emotional bonds influenced by early life experiences.
Power dynamics: The balance or imbalance of influence and decision-making within relationships.
Trust and intimacy: The depth of emotional closeness and reliability between individuals.
Conflict resolution: How disagreements are addressed and resolved within relationships.
Social inclusion: How individuals feel accepted and valued within their social circles.
Boundaries: Establishing and respecting personal limits and expectations in relationships.
These dynamics play a crucial role in fulfilling our fundamental needs for love and belonging by facilitating meaningful connections, fostering security and acceptance, supporting personal growth, and providing a framework for navigating complex social interactions.
The Dimensions of Relationship Dynamics
The quality of our relationships is determined by how we engage in three key dimensions:
Connection: How we care for the structural elements of self, others, life, and the system (these are defined below).
Collaboration: How we partner with the structural elements to create and problem-solve.
Communication: How we express ourselves through words, tone, and body language. It can be defensive or open.
Defensive communication is a way of expressing oneself, whether conscious or unconscious, designed to protect one's self-concept. It often manifests as behaviors intended to manipulate, control, subdue, dominate, influence, direct, punish, isolate, deflect, rationalize, explain, or deny. This communication style creates entanglement in relationships and can hinder genuine connection and collaboration despite the communicator's intentions.
Open communication is a warm and welcoming way of interacting with the structural elements of self, others, life, and the system through a balanced exchange. It creates engagement and is a tool for inspiration and transformation.
The Quality of Relationship Dynamics: Engaging vs. Entangling
While most of us think the most critical relationship status designations are single, married, or committed, they aren’t. They are "engaging" or "entangling":
Engaging: Creating positive energy through balanced exchanges that foster growth, understanding, and mutual benefit.
Entangling: Creating negative energy through imbalanced exchanges that hinder growth, understanding, and mutual benefit.
See Table 1 for additional information on these designations.
Table 1. The Quality of Relationship Dynamics
The Four Structural Elements of Relationships
In EI3.0, relationships are formed by four structural elements: self, others, life, and the system. Table 2 defines each.
Table 2. The Structural Elements
There are many facets of the self. The adapted identity is formed in childhood. It is the output of the imbalanced emotional operating system—emotional balance is the primary benchmark of EWB.
In childhood, people disown the parts and pieces of themselves that aren’t welcomed in the family system; thus, they adapt who they are to stay emotionally safe. This is an imbalanced relationship with the self. It has two emotional presences: the stressed self and the managed self.
The stressed self shows up when the managed self has run out of resources. This imbalanced emotional presence has one job: to protect at all costs, which it usually does.
Upon activation, the stressed self circumvents the conscious brain, taking over decision-making and overriding conscious choice. It is so determined to keep a person safe that it will not only turn on others but also turn on the self to suppress those parts and pieces it perceives to put safety at risk.
This protective mode is a shield formed by the heat of anger, resistance, and defensive communication (the patterns of the stress response). It protects by keeping others and life at arm’s length, making love and belonging challenging. This process operates automatically without conscious thought—it is a survival instinct (fight, flight, freeze, or fawn) and is initiated before the mind recognizes what is occurring.
Anger is at the forefront of protective mode as it is the typical response to the stress caused by the fear of marginalization of worth through unfair treatment, social rejection or isolation, provocation, or frustration. It is a warning signal that something is amiss.
Once anger occurs, an angry person usually opposes whatever transpires by resisting. Resistance manifests as a withholding of collaboration that slows down or halts progress on something like a task, project, or relationship. People resist instead of choosing what is best for themselves because they are unsure how to do that. The stressed self surrendered most of its authority to the system long ago, in childhood. Anger and resistance are then conveyed via defensive communication.
The managed self attempts to have its love and belonging needs met through emotional tendencies. In an average stress environment, a person whose emotional operating system is imbalanced will compulsively attempt to meet their love and belonging needs via the entangling patterns of seeking, offering or over-relying instead of allowing:
Seeking: Compulsive pursuit or searching for something to meet your need or desire (entangles).
Offering: Compulsively presenting or proposing something to another to meet your need or desire (entangles).
Over-relying on: Compulsively depending on someone or something because you have a need or desire and don’t know how to fill it or are afraid to (entangles).
The unique self is the facet of identity that knows and uses your unique gifts and talents. It is a balanced relationship with the self. Knowing this part of ourselves intimately begins to soften our emotional tendencies.
The authentic self is a facet of identity that is whole and unfragmented. It has accepted the self (physical, mental, and emotional design) as it is. The emotional tendencies are recognized and released here.
If you are wondering what the dynamic process of the structural element of life looks like, here is an example: you go to start your car, and it won’t. Your car not starting is a circumstance life has presented to you. Alternatively, you plan a once-in-a-lifetime vacation to Hawaii, and it rains four of the six days you are there. The weather is a circumstance life has presented to you. You are not responsible for these events, and neither is another person. They are just what shows up.
A person’s Book of Life usually determines the quality of the interactions with these structural elements. Most of us make rules about how life works, etch them in stone in our Book of Life, and then live by them. Additionally, families pass down notions of life, and we are loyal to those notions. Thus, they, too, get etched into our Book of Life. Knowing how life works gives us a sense of control and lets us feel like we know what will happen on a given day.
In Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together, Williams Isaacs called these notions about life a person’s noble certainties—things we believe to be accurate but likely aren’t because they are based on a partial understanding of the world. When the behavior of the structural elements (self, others, life, and the system) doesn’t align with these noble certainties, stress results from cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance refers to the mental conflict that occurs when structural behaviors and a person’s beliefs don’t align. It can look like this in your head: “This shouldn’t be happening.” But it is.
Connecting the Dots
We unveil the subtle forces shaping our interactions by dissecting the core elements of relationship dynamics. This insight illuminates why some relationships may fall short of our expectations. Such clarity empowers us to make conscious shifts, fostering genuine engagement rather than becoming entangled in unproductive patterns. Ultimately, this understanding paves the way for more meaningful connections, collaboration, and personal growth.
The EI3.0 body of work promises a better quality of life and high emotional well-being through improved relationship dynamics. This framework simplifies the journey toward genuine happiness and satisfaction by identifying the three pillars of love and belonging as connection, collaboration, and communication, and that the transformative movement is from entangling to engaging.
EI3.0 thus provides a clear roadmap for personal growth and more satisfying relationships. It’s as simple as assessing your current state with one of our assessments, growing using our EI3.0 assessments and development guides, and then maximizing your happiness and satisfaction with what you learn.
The EI3.0 Assessments are a suite of diagnostic tools that measure the balance of a person’s emotional operating system and deliver focused insights based on the specific challenges facing individuals, teams, and organizations:
The Emotional Well-being Inventory is a comprehensive assessment tool designed to reveal a person's emotional profile and identify potential emotional dysfunction. It addresses a broad range of emotional-related conditions found in the DSM-5, making it a valuable resource for counselors and mental health professionals.
The Relationship Inventory reveals a person’s unique relationship dynamics across six fundamental levels, showing how their patterns affect personal performance and the quality of their relationships.
The Executive Presence Inventory measures how a person’s leadership style influences team engagement and cultural outcomes. Through precise analysis, we reveal the direct connection between presence and organizational success, showing exactly how minor adjustments in leadership approach can create significant performance improvements.
The Power Style Inventory reveals how individuals naturally engage and work with others in both harmonious and challenging situations, providing crucial insights into team dynamics. By understanding these collaboration patterns and their impact on team interactions and decision-making, organizations can identify the root causes of team dysfunction and develop focused solutions for peak performance.
The Cultural Dynamics Inventory precisely measures your organization's alignment and its impact on performance. By analyzing key cultural indicators, we reveal specific ways to strengthen organizational effectiveness and team culture.
Our two pre-hire assessments, The Leadership Fit Inventory and the Culture Fit Inventory, measure how candidates will influence team dynamics, adapt to their roles, and contribute to organizational success.
All of our assessments except the Emotional Well-being Inventory are fully described on Bryan Insights, the Emotional Intelligence 3.0 Assessment Center.
Conclusion
EI3.0's theory of EWB offers a transformative perspective on the human experience. By focusing on the quality of our relationship dynamics across four key domains - self, others, life, and the system - this framework provides a holistic approach to understanding and enhancing our emotional landscape. The three dimensions of connection, collaboration, and communication serve as practical guideposts for navigating the complex terrain of love and belonging.
The research we’ve conducted to help us develop a new approach to EWB not only validates the importance of relationships in our lives but also offers actionable insights into how we can improve them. As we continue to apply and refine these concepts, we open doors to deeper self-awareness, more meaningful connections, and a greater sense of fulfillment. The EI3.0 framework thus stands as a powerful tool for personal growth and societal progress, inviting us all to engage more consciously in the art of loving and belonging.
By embracing these principles, we can cultivate richer, more satisfying lives and contribute to a world where emotional balance is recognized as a cornerstone of human flourishing. As we move forward, the potential for further discoveries within this framework remains exciting, promising continued growth in our understanding of emotional well-being and relationship dynamics.
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References
Bilodeau. K. (2021). Fostering Healthy Relationships. Harvard Health Publishing, https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/fostering-healthy-relationships.
Gordon, A. (2020). Love: What Really Matters. Psychology Today, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/202008/love-what-really-matters.
Maslow, A. H. 1943. “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review 50 (4): 370–96. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0054346.
Staying Healthy. (2010). The Health Benefits of Strong Relationships. Harvard Health Publishing, https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/the-health-benefits-of-strong-relationships.
Treleavan, S. (2018). The Science Behind Happy Relationships. Time, https://time.com/5321262/science-behind-happy-healthy-relationships/.
Wier, K. (2018). Live-saving Relationships. Monitor on Psychology, https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/03/life-saving-relationships.
