24: Understanding Our Emotions and Expanding Emotional Intelligence with Dr. Thoraiya Kanafani

In this episode, I speak with Dr. Thoraiya Kanafani about emotions and our nervous system. Dr. Thoraiya is a Clinical Psychologist with 20+ years of experience in educational and counseling psychology who mainly specializes in working with young adults, ages 18-45. Her main areas of focus include personality disorders, relationship issues, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addictions, learning disabilities, and trauma. Dr. Thoraiya has taught in 7 universities and is currently working for the Human Relations Institute & Clinics in Dubai. Hope you enjoy! 

Key Themes & Takeaways:

Unpacking Emotions  

• We begin by discussing emotions as signals and how our bodies use them to inform us of what is happening within us as humans. 
• We transition from there into a discussion on how to assess and respond to our emotions when they arise. 
• We finish by discussing the difference between our thoughts and our emotions.

Managing Emotions as They Arise  

• We start off by discussing how to identify emotions that are not helpful or serving us. 
• We then move to talking about the difference between hypo- and hyperarousal. 
• We close this segment by touching on the importance of calming your body when you enter a state of hyperarousal to return back to your window of tolerance.  

Regulation and Resilience in the Modern World 

• We kick off this portion of the episode by discussing how dysregulation plays a part in throwing off your emotions, and the unique challenges of maintaining regulated emotions in 2025.
• We then transition to talking about building resilience and how to push yourself outside of your comfort zone safely to build long-term resilience. 

Emotional Intelligence

• We wrap up the episode by talking about Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and how to build high EQ. 
• We move to talking about conflict and conflict resolution and its impact on the brain. Specifically, we touch on how to deal with those who have lower EQ.

Timestamps

• 00:00 Intro

• 01:45 Get to Know Dr. Thoraiya

• 03:15 What is an Emotion? 

• 05:47 The Relationship Between our Thoughts and our Emotions

• 12:40 How to Manage Emotions That Aren’t Serving

• 19:00 Disregulation in the Modern World

• 26:45 Building Resilience

• 32:25 Discomfort’s Relationship to Personal Growth 

• 39:30 What is Emotional Intelligence? 

• 46:00 Conflict Resolution and How it Impacts the Brain 

• 48:45 Emotional Literacy

• 54:25 Advice for Dealing with People with Low EQ

• 57:30 Nuggets of Wisdom and Resources for Expanding Emotional Intelligence

Book Mentioned by Dr. Thoraiya

• Widen the Window by Elizabeth A. Stanley: 

Connect with Dr. Thoraiya

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.thoraiya/?hl=en
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