Enhance your CQ as well as IQ, EQ & SQ

IQ, EQ and SQ

We have seen in our daily life that IQ does not predict happiness. Our happiness is relying on our emotional intelligence (EQ) and spiritual intelligence (SQ). We can measure our IQ easily but EQ & SQ both are extremely hard to measure.

IQ-Intelligence Quotient

IQ is about our thinking. It measures our cognitive ability but academic or cognitive intelligence alone offers little preparation for the emotional challenges we all have to face in our daily lives.

EQ-Emotional Quotient

EQ is about feeling. It is a term used to represent factors that can lead us to healthy relationships. It is represent our ability to respond appropriately and positively to our everyday life situations. It is about recognizing emotions and managing them. EQ is about understanding ourselves, how we relate to others and how others perceive us. EQ also helps us to understand how others are feeling and enables us to develop more fulfilling and deeper relationships.

SQ-Spiritual Quotient

SQ is very difficult to define. It is not about organized religion only. One of the biggest qualities of SQ is wisdom. SQ is related with values such as courage, integrity, intuition, compassion, empathy and knowing the limits of our knowledge. It is about questioning life issues; thinking outside the box; seeing situations and issues differently; having a greater understanding of all possibilities. Spirituality is an essential component of a holistic approach to life. Spirituality sustains us from within when all else fails; spirituality allows us to dream, aspire and raise ourselves up. Thus, while computers have IQ and animals can have EQ, it is essentially an SQ that sets human beings apart. Therefore, for the ‘Wheel of Life’ to roll smoothly, all the spokes of the wheel - IQ, EQ and SQ - have to be equally developed. The journey from IQ to SQ represents moving from gross to subtle, finite to infinite and from tangible to intangible.

Consciousness Quotient (CQ)

Consciousness: No aspect of human mind is as complex, puzzling, mysterious and indefinable as is consciousness. As Baars BJ [7] puts it, “Consciousness seems to be the biggest and loudest phenomenon we can possibly study, as it is the study of human mind by the human mind”. In its simplest form, Velman M [8] considers consciousness in everyday life as presence or absence of experiences. According to him, if phenomenal content (experience) is present, the person is conscious and if phenomenal content is absent the person is not conscious. Baars BJ [3] defines the conscious processes as events that can be reported and acted upon with verifiable accuracy under optimal reporting conditions (minimum delay between event and report).

Consciousness has only recently emerged as a psychological variable and the consciousness quotient (CQ) theory and consciousness quotient inventory are latest arrivals in the theory of consciousness [1], as cited in Brazdau O [2]. Brazdau O [2] defines consciousness quotient as the general level of being conscious/aware throughout a day, in regular life conditions. The Consciousness Quotient is related with six primary factors:

• Physical Consciousness
• Emotional Consciousness
• Mental (Cognitive) Consciousness
• Spiritual Consciousness
• Social-Relational Consciousness
• Self-consciousness.

According to Brazdau O, et al. [2] some other secondary factors of the Consciousness Quotient is,

• Internal State Awareness
• Self- Reflectiveness
• Mindfulness
• Autonomy
• Personal Growth
• Positive Relations with Others
• Purpose in Life
• Verbal Expression
• Openness toward new experiences

Regular Check Your Body, Mind and Emotions Several Times a Day

Becoming present - presence being a term for describing being in the here-and-now, not carried away by your thoughts or emotions or lost in other mental activity. Meditation techniques teach this skill of becoming present. Several momentary checking per day is as effective as one long meditation session.

Observation of Reaction

Observing our reactions to situations from a mental ‘arms- length’ and acknowledging that these reactions are attempts to control a situation or to survive – psychologically speaking. We often observe our activity partially unconsciously. Being more conscious doesn’t imply that we give up our ability to take action or make choices, but rather that we do this through conscious choice instead of unconscious, automatic programming or reaction to our circumstances.

Seek Feedback from Dear Ones

This feedback adds to your self-awareness. Feedback takes you usefully into the territory of that which you didn’t know that you didn’t know about yourself.

Pursue Actuality

It makes acting powerfully more difficult because we try to effect change based on our interpretations, judgments and denials connected to circumstances. Better to accept and work with the material facts of what is actually true in this moment, without resisting them, denying them or deluding ourselves about them.

Assumption Alert

Being on our toes about the assumptions we make and making a point of delving deeper to check in with information at source. It can be listening to our own intuitive feeling and observing the assumptions we make.

Decrease ‘Drag’

One way of doing this is to carry out a broad scan of everything living within your awareness that feels incomplete, is nagging you or for which you feel guilty. And then take action to complete these items [10].

Practice Abundance

Choose to practice and experiment with an abundant mindset: that there is enough to go around, that giving is a better practice than taking, and that giving out rather than hoarding (money, information, accolades) tends to encourage circulation of the same, including back to you. Experiment - and see what happens.

View Relationships as Mirrors

To develop your relationship consciousness, practice viewing others as a mirror of yourself in such a way that what you see in them may be a reflection of you demonstrated in your interactions with them.

Oneness

When the barriers (mental and emotional habits) that cause us to feel separate from and unaffected by others are decreased, we naturally experience a greater sense of connectedness with all things. The greatest practice to develop a sense of oneness is meditation.

Allow your Emotions to Breathe

One way of growing more conscious is to acknowledge and express your denied and judged feelings and to give space to these feelings through verbal expression, experiencing yourself moving through your internal judgments and walls of fear and shame. Consider that denied aspects of ourselves take up space in our consciousness and continue to be part of us, while we use up the energy of consciousness to keep them hidden, from ourselves and from others.