Knowing ourselves I guess is the most important piece of emotional intelligence as you said. Maybe, this is why we have those philosophers always telling us "Man, know thyself"

Knowing who we are makes life worth living. And that is because we will be able to piece together our emotional intelligence in all of our actions

we are able to decipher right from wrong, this shows we are connected to some being, and for Christian, that being is GOd.

He is the one we look up to as one who can decide to take our life, body, spirit, and soul at anytime

so no matter how careless we would want to live, a mere remembrance of the creator(God) makes us retrace our steps

We have a life that is full of choices, we can choose to kill someone who offends or irritates us, but our emotional intelligence alongside the scripture holds up our conscious for judgment

This is what makes us humans, and the difference between humans, and animals is clearly a result of equanimity; a word you have explained is connected to emotional intelligence