No matter how accomplished you may be — how many degrees you have, skills you've mastered, weights you lift, dishes you cook, employees you manage, crossword puzzles you solve, or languages you speak — chances are you have as much formal education about what to do with your big feelings as a five-year-old.

That's why most people are emotionally underdeveloped, undertrained, and undereducated. And that's how they get into what I call a bound state. 

People are often bound to destructive beliefs, habits, patterns, concepts, relationships, addictions, and misconceptions. It's the reason so many suffer from anxiety, depression, addiction, fear, burnout, and unhappiness. And it keeps people from living their freest, boldest, and most authentic lives.

As a psychologist who researches emotional intelligence, I know people with high EQ tend to have a critical skill I like to call "emotional sovereignty." Essentially, that means they've learned to navigate emotions with grace, rather than avoiding, suppressing, numbing or otherwise remaining bound to them. 

When you know how to handle your emotions, you can harness them for creativity, energy, deeper relationships, and greater happiness and fulfillment. 

Why emotional sovereignty is so important

Emotions affect everything you do — focus, attention and memory, physical health, mental health, decision making, and relationships — and everywhere you do it, whether at home or at work. 

When you don't know how to handle your feelings, you suffer, and so do the people around you. 

You may notice that when you're stressed, anxious, or angry, you're not as able to pay attention or remember things. You may have a hard time learning when you're sad. If you need to make a big decision, it's going to look radically different on a day you're burned out versus a day you're relaxed. 

Have you noticed that your inability to handle your negative emotions leads you to hurt the people you love the most and want to hurt the least? 

Ironically, by attempting to suppress or flee from your emotions, you become stuck to them: They last longer. In trying to soothe yourself, you might engage in destructive habits — reaching for comfort through alcohol, drugs, food, social media, work and so on — and end up feeling even worse.

Facing all that life offers — the good and the painful — you grow stronger and wiser. Your emotions, when observed with compassion and patience, pass faster. You're happier, braver, stronger, and freer. Knowing you can stand in the face of anything and come out the other side, you become sovereign. 

What you'll gain with emotional sovereignty

To unbind yourself from your emotions and reclaim your sovereignty over them, you have to be willing to practice feeling your feelings, and be self-aware, honest, and courageous. 

It can be tough, but it's rewarding. You'll gain so much in the process, including:

• Better physical and mental health. Suppressing emotions damages our mental health and can lead to physical health challenges too. As you learn to process rather than suppress your emotions, both your mind and your body will benefit. 
• Better relationships. Others may be surprised by the fact that you no longer suppress your emotions — they might even be a little uncomfortable with it at first. There will be shifting dynamics in how you relate to others. But your relationships will improve. Because as you learn to process your own emotions and recognize that others too must do so, you become more understanding and compassionate. You judge them less. 
• Lightness. When you learn to process your emotions, you don't hang on to them for as long. No longer bearing the weight of suppressed feelings, you feel lighter. It's easy to be happier and more joyful. 
• Courage. It takes guts to feel your emotions fully. I'm not going to lie. But the more you do it, the stronger your forbearance and endurance. You cultivate valor.

How to take the first step toward emotional sovereignty

Notice how fast children get over emotions. The tantrum happens; they scream at the top of their lungs. They cry 100%. Two minutes later they're done. Sovereign once again. 

What makes children so emotionally resilient? They feel their feelings and let the emotions flow through them. As the saying goes, "feel it to heal it." 

The only way out is through. You may notice a strong desire to escape and resist, because you're not comfortable being uncomfortable, let alone in pain. This is where you need patience, acceptance, surrender, self-compassion, and forbearance. 

Let the emotions wash over you like a wave that comes, keeps you underwater for a bit, but eventually passes so you can resurface and take a breath of fresh air. 

Note that fully experiencing the emotion doesn't mean fully expressing it during its peak. It can be damaging to your relationships when you blow up at someone. It's better to communicate once you've calmed down. The point here is that by experiencing your emotion, you process and digest it. You'll communicate better once you've taken those steps.

Emma Seppälä, Ph.D., is a Yale lecturer and international keynote speaker. She teaches leadership at the Yale School of Management and is the science director of Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. A psychologist and research scientist by training, Seppälä's expertise is the science of happiness, emotional intelligence, and social connection. She is the author of "The Happiness Track″ and "Sovereign."

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Excerpted with permission from "Sovereign: Reclaim your Freedom, Energy and Power in a Time of Distraction, Uncertainty and Chaos" by Emma Seppälä. Available wherever books are sold.