Coming Home to Ourselves: Redefining Emotional Intelligence Through Attunement

In this piece, Sharon Blackborow invites us to rethink emotional intelligence — shifting from performance toward true attunement, and honoring the full spectrum of human experience with compassion, authenticity, and love.

Introduction: Rethinking Emotional Intelligence

When I think about Emotional Intelligence (EQ), I think about it the way Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves lay it out in Emotional Intelligence 2.0: understanding and managing yourself — and others.

For me, EQ isn’t just a skill set; it’s a lens through which I move through the world. It’s the leadership differentiator. High EQ leaders build trust faster, create real safety, and lead without needing a title or formal authority. Bradberry and Greaves nail it: EQ is so critical that it accounts for 58% of performance across all job types — and every point increase in EQ can add $1,300 to your annual salary.

We all know EQ is the foundation of leadership. But the way we’re taught to demonstrate emotional intelligence often isn’t inclusive. 

The Problem with Performance-Based EQ

We’re taught that maintaining eye contact shows trust. That sitting still shows you’re paying attention. That smiling and nodding create connection.

But what if that’s not your natural way of connecting?

As I revisited my beat-up copy of Emotional Intelligence 2.0, it struck me:

• Many strategies assume conformity to dominant cultural norms.
• They’re deeply neurotypical-coded.
• They treat behavior as proof of emotional states (smile = happy).

Guess what? Your girl smiles and laughs when I’m overwhelmed or grieving.

Early in my career, when a dear colleague announced his ALS diagnosis, I found myself suppressing an inappropriate smile — my body’s ancient survival response. Today, after a ton of therapy (shout out to Jessie!), I understand that moment wasn’t disrespect. It was self-protection — a lifelong pattern of managing overwhelming emotion by performing ease.

When our insides and outsides don’t match societal expectations, we’re seen as lacking emotional intelligence — but what if the model itself is incomplete, especially for those with neurodivergence?

 Shifting from Performance to Attunement

Behaviors like eye contact, mirroring, and micro expression-reading can be deeply difficult for many neurodivergent folks. If we rely solely on external behaviors to measure EQ, we end up prioritizing performance over attunement.

True emotional intelligence is about connection, empathy, and trust — not how well we perform expected scripts.

• Self-awareness becomes understanding your own regulation needs.
• Self-management means honoring those needs — whether through stimming, taking breaks, or setting sensory boundaries.
• Social awareness is entering spaces with openness, not assumptions.
• Relationship management means building trust through dialogue, curiosity, and compassion — not performative cues.

The Body as Barometer

Our bodies are incredible barometers — yet in modern life, we silence them daily.

We spend hours at desks, detached from physicality, treating ourselves like brains-on-sticks. But The Body Keeps the Score, as Bessel van der Kolk reminds us, our histories are etched in our bodies, like tree rings.

Eastern traditions have long honored the body, mind, and spirit as an integrated system. In contrast, modern Western life splits them apart — creating profound dissonance between what we experience physically and mentally.

Sitting for 12+ hours a day isn’t just exhausting; it’s inhumane. We wouldn’t crate a dog that long, yet we normalize self-crating.

Ask yourself: if your childhood self could see you now, would they be inspired — or horrified?

Reclaiming Emotional Wholeness

Western culture often strips deep practices from their roots — turmeric from Ayurveda, yoga from spiritual tradition.

We’ve done the same with emotions: demanding they fit tidy, performative molds. But humans feel before we think. We are wired for emotional wholeness, not fragmentation.

The Hidden Costs of Remote Work

Remote work expanded possibilities for connection and flexibility. Remote work can be incredibly freeing for neurodivergent employees, allowing people to set up their workspace to best suit their needs and reduce the amount of sensory input throughout the day. But it also deepened our transactional tendencies.

Without physical presence, we lose co-regulation — the subconscious way we co-create safety through body language, energy, and presence. Without it, burnout rises. Connection thins. We fragment further.

We are losing the vital, unmeasurable activities — thinking, reflecting, simply being — that sustain true effectiveness.

Walking Home to Ourselves and Each Other

When we expand emotional intelligence beyond surface behaviors, we aren’t just healing individuals — we’re repairing communities, workplaces, families, and systems.

Systems need their parts to be healthy to thrive. And thriving starts with attunement, authenticity, and love — not performance.

Maybe today, it begins with something simple:

What if you paid attention to how your body responds — not just your mind — when you feel connected, overwhelmed, or inspired?
What if that were the real measure of emotional intelligence?

About Sharon

This is a sneak peek from Sharon Blackborow’s upcoming book, focused on bringing humanity back into our lives and leadership — shifting from performance to true attunement, and meeting the wide, beautiful range of human experiences with compassion, empathy, and love. She is also a candidate for the Certified Neurodivergent Life Coach program at the Natural Wellness Academy.

Sharon is a certified leadership and life coach who partners with clients ready to unmask, transform, and live into a more authentic life. To learn more (or just say hi), visit www.sharonblackborow.com or email her at sblackborow@blackborowcoaching.com.

(And don’t worry — strangers are just friends she hasn’t met yet.)

If you want to dive deeper into the Neurodivergent world and join Sharon in her path to become a Certified Neurodivergent Life Coach, contact the Natural Wellness Academy, and we will provide all the details to expand your knowledge.