It Wasn't Me, It Was the Room
Until Wednesday, I would have told you that I don't let anything show. That it's simply how I am. That it's me.
Then I did a ten minute interview. My preparation took five minutes, and it went into choosing my virtual background. That's all.
The moment he said hello, I was myself. I was smiling. I was sitting up straight. I was actually listening. And I knew it while it was happening, which almost never occurs.
What I Had Wrong
I thought my unreadable face was a trait. Something settled in me, to be fixed someday, with work.
Those ten minutes showed me something else. There was no large room. No one was evaluating me. No presentation to land. Just someone asking questions and me answering.
My face didn't change its nature. The context stopped asking it to protect me.
Emotional Expression, Plainly
In the EQ-i 2.0 model, emotional expression is the ability to let what happens inside reach the outside. Tone, face, words, posture.
It isn't a matter of volume. It isn't speaking louder or sharing more. It's the gap between what I feel and what others can perceive of it.
And that gap moves. It isn't the same everywhere.
The Question I Ask Now
I no longer ask myself how to open up more. I ask in which conditions I come through.
That question is far more useful, because it has concrete answers. No large room. A real conversation. No performance to deliver. Someone who genuinely listens.
It applies at work. It applies just as much to family dinners and doctor's appointments.
We Are Emotional Beings
We often tell ourselves we are a type of person. Reserved. Expressive. Cold. Warm.
Most of the time, we are simply describing the rooms we stand in most often.
Why This Matters to Me
I have administered more than sixty EQ-i 2.0 assessments. What I see coming back isn't people short on emotions. It's people who learned, somewhere along the way, that showing them was costly.
An assessment doesn't hand down a verdict on who you are. It offers a snapshot of your current tendencies. And a tendency shifts when the context shifts.
What if your reserve wasn't your nature, but a perfectly logical response to rooms that didn't suit you?
Tell me in the comments which situation makes you feel most like yourself. I'm curious whether it comes down to the people or the format.
Rachel
What if the right question wasn't "how do I express myself more," but "where do I already come through"?
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