Society is awash in a sea of emotions, some beautiful, some fascinating, some frightening and as you develop your emotional perception you will find you can rise above it all. It makes me sad to know that not everyone is as naturally tuned into these currents, especially other men, but a large percentage of women are also not fully conscious or appreciative of what’s going on around them even though they are typically the more emotionally-aware gender.

I believe you can benefit greatly by being more aware of and tuned in to the feelings of all the other humans you share this planet with. I also believe that despite varying personality types and personal experiences, you too have been born with the ability to perceive the emotional states of others. This is important because when you perceive those states you can better relate to every person you meet. In this article I hope to help you better understand what emotional perception is, how to develop yours, and how to use it to improve your interactions at work, at home, with friends and with the general public.

What is Emotional Perception?

It is the ability to sense, appreciate and relate to an emotional state without resorting to the spoken or written word. When you know that you are in love, you have successfully recognized your own emotional state. When you know someone else is in love with you before they tell you, you have successfully recognized another individual’s emotional estate.

Emotional Perception comes in Three Flavors:

1. Self-Perception – Intuitively you might think that this would be the easiest, but often it’s not. The stronger the emotion the more likely it is to interfere with your ability to properly process it. Your own strong emotions can also interfere with your ability to perceive the emotional state of others. This is one of the most powerful things to focus on in your own personal development. The better you understand your emotions the more control you have over the direction of your life. Far too many people allow themselves to be  ruled by whatever emotional state they happen to be in, and they don’t realize that they have the ability to change that state in an instant to receive different results.

2. Individual Perception – Having a sense of what other people are feeling greatly enhances your ability to relate to them especially if you have been working on better understanding your own emotions. A word of caution, if you are highly attuned to the emotions of someone who is ruled by them, you have a moral responsibility to improve their lives. I have no time for people who would use this an advantage over someone else and manipulate their emotional states for your benefit.

3. Group Perception – This relates to group think, the mob mind, and mass market appeal. It’s useful in applications such as politics, business, marketing, speaking, and trend forecasting. The more in tune you are to the emotional mood of the group the better you are able to create value that will benefit many individuals in their day to day lives.

How to Develop Your Emotional Perception

You can start developing your emotional perception immediately. Since we are all feeling something at any moment there’s no need to wait for the ‘right moment’ to begin your development. This can be entirely internal or a quick interaction, either way it will only take a few seconds and each time you practice one of the following exercises you will gain insight. Don’t worry too much about how accurate your perceptions are at this point or try to figure out a way to put them to use. Just start practicing and improving your ability.

Two Easy Exercises to get You Started

* For Yourself – At any moment, in any situation you can simply ask yourself: “How am I feeling?” but I find it more helpful to put it into context: “How do I feel about…”; “How does it make me feel when…” Be careful not to associate this with another person as in: “He/she makes me feel…” this has nothing to do with anyone but you. It’s very easy to lie to ourselves because there’s no accountability, so it’s tricky to get honest feedback. Not that we intentionally lie to ourselves about our emotions, but we all want to feel that what we’re feeling is right and justified, so it’s human nature to rationalize even the most irrational thoughts and feelings.

* Write it Down – If it’s appropriate to do so, take a moment to write down the time, place, situation and the emotional state you believe you’re in. This way you can create a journal of emotional states that you can look back on and analyze. The benefit of looking back is that when you re-read your journal you will likely be in a different emotional state, and your analysis is likely to be more objective. Try to be as specific as possible about the situation because it will help you later when deciding if you were correct about the emotional state you were perceiving.

* For Others – You may want to start here because it’s easier to get quick and reasonably honest feedback. Pick a person you already know well and who you believe will be honest about how they’re feeling. Observe them, their body language, their behavior, their overall demeanor and make a decision about what emotional state you think they’re in, then simply ask: “You seem happy, what’s up?”; “You seem angry. Has something upset you?” If you’re right and they feel comfortable enough with you (the point of practicing on someone you know well) they will tell you what’s going on. If you’re wrong they’re likely to correct you: “No, I’m not upset, I’m just feeling a bit down.” This will help you to hone your perceptions and over time you will become more accurate when analyzing others states. It’s worth noting that people are often more honest with others about how they’re feeling than they are with themselves. But don’t just take one person’s word for it. Once you’re comfortable with the exercise, practice it on everyone, so you get a better feel for how different people project their emotional states.

Using Emotional Perception for Personal Development

The point of all of this is to improve your life and the lives of those around you. The better you understand your own emotions the greater control you have to improve your life. The better you understand the emotions of others the better you can relate to them and improve their lives. Here are some practical applications.

Emotional Perception At Work

Using emotional perception to gain greater insight into the emotions of yourself and others will help you to rise above things like office politics. Do not force your beliefs on those around you or make yourself the resident psychologist. Rather, use your perceptions to make subtle improvements that will promote a more stable and pleasant atmosphere in your workplace.

Emotional Perception At Home

One of the most important uses of emotional perception is knowing when not to bring up potentially contentious issues with your spouse/partner. If they are clearly in a strong emotional state it would be best to wait until they’re more calm and relaxed before bringing up a serious problem that needs to be discussed. You will also be able to quickly recognize a building argument and stop it before it can cause damage to your relationship.

Emotional Perception With Friends

We all want to improve the lives of our friends and using emotional perception can help us to do just that. You can also use it to grow deeper and more meaningful friendships with a wider variety of people. Anything you can do to better relate to others will make your life that much better.

Emotional Perception With the Public

As your skill in the use of emotional perception increases it will help you in many interactions with strangers as well. Whether your job involves working with the public. Or you simply want to know if that certain someone is interested in you. Developing your emotional perception will make your life easier and more enjoyable.