The Strength in Soft Skills: How Emotional Intelligence Can Make You Unbreakable

For years, I thought strength meant perseverance; I thought it meant carrying weight without breaking. I thought it meant overcoming the unthinkable and standing tall afterward, proclaiming, "I survived."

And I did survive. I survived sexual trauma. I wrote a book about it. I became a Certified Rape Crisis Counselor. I joined RAINN's Speakers' Bureau. I founded a nonprofit called Earnest Love, Inc., where I created support groups and partnered with community organizations to help other survivors heal. I was speaking on stages, sharing my story, advocating with everything in me. I was doing incredibly well, and I loved every moment of that work.

I thought I had arrived. I thought healing was complete.

But then life handed me a different kind of challenge, a challenge that had nothing to do with trauma, yet everything to do with how I was showing up in the world.

When Strength Wasn't Enough

After a series of emotionally wounding experiences, disagreements with people I cared about, misunderstandings that cut deep, situations where I felt dismissed or neglected, I noticed this pattern. I was easily offended. I was struggling to maintain my emotional balance, and that concerned me.

Here I was, someone who had overcome horrendous experiences, someone who had written a book about turning pain into purpose, someone who was helping others heal. Yet, I was falling apart over various emotional challenges.

I kept asking myself: How is it that you overcame sexual trauma, wrote a book about resilience, and help others heal, yet there's still something missing?

If you know me, you know that once I get a glimpse of something intriguing, I lock in. This wasn't an overnight epiphany, but I knew something crucial was missing. I just had to figure out what.

The Missing Piece

Eventually, I discovered emotional intelligence, and everything clicked into place. I realized that while I had done the deep work of healing from trauma, I hadn't developed the skills to manage my emotions in real-time. I knew it wasn't wrong to feel what I was feeling. I knew emotions themselves weren't the problem. But I needed to learn how to manage them instead of letting them manage me.

At first, I thought I already had this figured out. When I considered "managing emotions," I thought about anger management, not yelling at people, being considerate and polite. And honestly, I felt like I had those things under control.

But I learned there was so much more to it.

I was experiencing a combination of people-pleasing, prioritizing others' needs over my own, suppressing my emotions to avoid conflict, and feeling emotionally vulnerable in the face of everyday adversity. I realized I needed to build emotional strength, not just emotional healing. And I was ready.

The Education That Changed Everything

This enlightenment led me to transformative growth, during which I strengthened my emotional intelligence. Soon after, I partnered with BlueEQ, an organization that specializes in developing emotional intelligence and psychological safety. I partnered with them as a workshop facilitator and coach, and I began leading emotional intelligence and psychological safety workshops for Fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, and individuals worldwide.

Their resources and expertise were instrumental in my journey to better manage my emotions. But more than that, they helped me see something profound:

The soft skills we often overlook are the foundation of real strength.

What "Soft" Skills Really Mean

Here's what I learned: We call them "soft skills" because they are about how we relate to ourselves, to our emotions, to other people. But there is nothing soft about them. They're some of the most complex skills to develop and the most powerful to possess.

Think about it:

Self-awareness is not soft. Self-awareness is the courage to look honestly at yourself, to recognize your triggers, to name your emotions without judgment, and to ask, "What's being activated in me right now?"

Self-regulation is not soft. Self-regulation is the discipline of pausing before you react, reflecting when you're triggered, and choosing your response intentionally rather than lashing out.

Empathy is not soft. Empathy is the ability to hold space for someone else's pain while managing your own emotions, to listen deeply without making it about yourself, and to respond with compassion even when you're hurting.

Social skills are not soft. Social skills are the ability to navigate conflict without damaging relationships and to establish healthy boundaries.

Resilience is not soft. Resilience is the capacity to be knocked down by life and choose to get back up, to transform your pain into wisdom, to use your story as fuel rather than letting it become your prison.

These skills? They are the difference between surviving and thriving. Between reacting and responding. Between being controlled by your emotions and being empowered by your emotional intelligence.

The Transformation

When I started developing my emotional intelligence, everything changed.

I stopped people-pleasing and started honoring my boundaries. I stopped suppressing my emotions and started processing them. I stopped feeling emotionally vulnerable and started feeling emotionally intense.

I went from being reactive to being responsive. From being easily offended to being emotionally grounded. From struggling to maintain my balance to standing firm in who I am. And here's where the transformation manifested: the same experiences that once overwhelmed me became opportunities to practice what I was learning. 

Why This Matters for You

Maybe you're like I was, strong in so many ways but struggling with everyday emotional challenges. You may have overcome tremendous obstacles, but minor conflicts still knock you off balance. Maybe you've healed from trauma, but you're still figuring out how to show up in relationships without falling apart.

Or perhaps you haven't faced significant trauma, but you find yourself:

• Steering clear of tough conversations because confrontation feels unbearable

• Saying yes to maintain peace when your heart is screaming no

• Being swallowed up by feelings you don't have words for

• Having significant reactions and then questioning yourself afterward

If this resonates with you, let me share something that would have changed everything for me:

You are not broken. You are not too much. You are not unfixable.

You are a human being with experiences that have shaped your thoughts and behavior. You are capable of developing the emotional skills to become stronger.

The Real Work

Developing emotional intelligence is not about becoming emotionless. It is not about never getting upset or always keeping your cool. Nor is it about being perfect.

It's about becoming curious instead of critical when emotions arise. It's about responding instead of reacting. It's about building the capacity to feel deeply without being controlled by those feelings.

It's about recognizing that the emotions you feel are not wrong. Our emotions are information. And when we learn to read that information with wisdom instead of fear, everything changes.

This is the work I now do with individuals and organizations worldwide. I facilitate workshops and provide coaching sessions on emotional intelligence, psychological safety, personal and leadership development, because I have seen firsthand how these "soft" skills create profound transformation.

And it all starts with the willingness to acknowledge that strength is not just about endurance; it is also about developing emotional intelligence.

The Invitation

My journey from sexual trauma survivor to advocate to emotional intelligence facilitator taught me something essential: Healing is just the beginning. Actual growth happens when you shift from being controlled by what you feel to being empowered by how you manage it.

The soft skills that society often dismisses as secondary are primary. They are the foundation upon which everything else is built. Your career success, your relationships, your mental health, and your ability to navigate life's inevitable challenges rest on your emotional intelligence.

So yes, soft skills can make you strong. But more accurately, soft skills are a strength. Soft skills are a type of strength that looks different than what we have been taught to value.

The strength to feel deeply without being controlled by your feelings. The strength to stand firm in your values while remaining open to growth. The strength to be fully human and constantly transforming.

That's the kind of strength I'm building. That's the kind of strength I help others build. And that's the kind of strength that doesn't just help you survive life's challenges; it enables you to transform them into your greatest gifts.

Here's what I've learned: the most resilient people aren't the ones who've mastered the art of not feeling. They are the ones who feel it deeply, fully, and honestly, and have also discovered how to turn those feelings into something meaningful.

Maybe you’re working through past trauma, perhaps you’re just trying to handle daily emotional ups and downs, or maybe you’re ready to take your emotional well-being to the next level. Whatever brought you here, moving forward begins with a single choice: deciding to build the skills that transform you from someone who’s just getting by into someone who is genuinely flourishing.

If this speaks to you, you are in good company on this journey. 

Are you ready to take the next step? To choose to build the emotional skills that will move you from just getting by to genuinely flourishing.

Real strength is not about feeling less; it's about feeling everything and learning to grow through it.

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Work with Chanté Dent:

chante@chantedent.com

www.chantedent.com