Being self-aware is at the heart of emotional intelligence. Emotional self-awareness is the ability to identify and understand our emotions and their impact on our thoughts, behaviours, and others.

In my book Stress Wisely, I write about how emotions are a multiplex mosaic that shapes the lens through which we see the world. When we tune into this insight into our internal world, when we meet all the feelings with curiosity and compassion, we can find inner strength and resolve that will serve us well.

Here are four practices that can help improve your self-awareness and emotional well-being:

1. Get curious about your emotional home. Our emotional home is a learned emotional state of being. It is the place we seek out and stay most of the time because it feels familiar. Going back there has become a habit because the patterns are recognizable, even if it might not be the healthiest and safest place for us to be.

For example, someone’s emotional home could be anger. This person could be on vacation, looking out at the most beautiful vista in the world, and still find something to be angry about. Someone else’s emotional home may be chaotic and dysfunctional. This person may find themselves in workplaces or relationships that are chaotic and dysfunctional because, on some deep level, this feels........

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