Permission to Feel

Highlights

And then a miracle took place. Its name was Marvin. Uncle Marvin, actually.

And then a miracle took place. Its name was Marvin. Uncle Marvin, actually. He was my mother’s brother, a schoolteacher by day and a bandleader at night and on the weekends.

More than half of college students experience overwhelming anxiety, and a third report intense depression. And over the last two decades, there has been a 28 percent increase in our suicide rate.

What can happen in a single exchange? A moment of small talk in a hallway? Probably very little. Although if you are like me, you have some memories from early childhood that stand out from the fog of years, that have endured over time for no other reason than that a grown-up made space in his or her life, for a moment, for you. A small thing like that, if it is heartfelt, can reverberate.

we surveyed more than five thousand educators and found that they spend nearly 70 percent of their workdays feeling “frustrated,” “overwhelmed,” and “stressed.” This conforms with Gallup data showing that nearly half of U.S. teachers report high stress on a daily basis. A frightening snapshot of our educational system, wouldn’t you agree?

If its like that in U.S. , how is it in poland or Ukraine

Do they snap at students unintentionally, or ignore their needs, because they are emotionally exhausted?

Fear and anxiety made it impossible for me to try to deal with my problems. I was paralyzed. The science now proves why. If there had been someone to teach me the skills—if there had been someone to even tell me there were such skills—I might have felt more in control of my situation.

At the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, that’s all we think about: how we can help people to identify their emotions, understand the influence of their feelings on all aspects of their lives, and develop the skills to make sure they use their emotions in healthy, productive ways.

Great mission statement

Feelings are a form of information. They’re like news reports from inside our psyches, sending messages about what’s going on inside the unique person that is each of us in response to whatever internal or external events we’re experiencing. We need to access that information and then figure out what it’s telling us. That way we can make the most informed decisions.

It’s been a quarter century since Daniel Goleman published his bestselling book Emotional Intelligence, which popularized the concept.

Our thinking and behavior absolutely change in response to what we’re feeling. But we don’t always know why or how best to address our emotions.

Anger can sometimes seem unprovoked or inexplicable, but in almost every case it’s a response to what we perceive as unfair treatment.

When it’s an adult who’s angry, our response isn’t much different. We immediately pull back. We stop listening sympathetically. We feel under attack, which makes it nearly impossible for us to deal with the information the person is conveying. But that anger was an important message. If we can try to mollify the injustice that sparked it, the anger will go away, because it’s outlived its usefulness. If not, it will fester, even if it seems to subside.

As with any science, there’s a process of discovery, a method of investigation. After three decades of research and practical experience, we at the Yale Center

Perpetual happiness can’t be our goal—it’s just not how real life works.

Or is it confidence, kindness, a sense of purpose, the wisdom to build healthy, lasting relationships?

When we consult with corporations, they tell us they’re searching for employees who persevere with a task, who take personal responsibility for their work, who can get along with others and function as members of a team.

firms are looking for people who are flexible, who can present new ideas, inspire cooperation in groups, manage and lead teams, and so on.

We all want our lives to be filled with healthy relationships, compassion, and a sense of purpose.

We all want our lives to be filled with healthy relationships, compassion, and a sense of purpose. That we can make happen. Uncle Marvin showed me how. It starts with the permission to feel, the first step of the process.

Children’s brains are less developed than ours, their defenses less robust, and yet the rivers of emotion that course through kids often are more powerful than the ones we experience. It’s a wonder anybody learns anything.

Our multiple senses bring us news from our bodies, our minds, and the outside world, and then our brains process and analyze it and formulate our experience. We call that a feeling.

We humans have a long history of disregarding our feelings, however. It goes back millennia, even before the Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece argued that emotions were erratic, idiosyncratic sources of information. Reason and cognition were viewed as higher powers within us; once, the idea of “emotional intelligence” would have seemed inconceivable, a contradiction in terms.

Then, in 1990, psychologists Peter Salovey and John Mayer introduced the first formal theory of emotional intelligence to the scientific literature.

burgeoning areas of scientific research, which demonstrated that emotions,

Emotional intelligence was a synthesis of three burgeoning areas of scientific research, which demonstrated that emotions, when used widely, supported reasoning and complex problem solving. First was the rediscovery of Charles

Subjects who were made to feel sad recalled more negative memories and negative words and remembered more unpleasant events for their diaries.

Fourth is the influence of emotions on our health. Positive and negative emotions cause different physiological reactions within our bodies and brains, releasing powerful chemicals that, in turn, affect our physical and mental well-being.

I’ve championed five areas where our feelings matter most—the aspects of our everyday lives that are

Fear of intangible harm—of embarrassment, of shame, of looking foolish or inadequate in any way—works in a similar way. We may experience it as anxiety or worry instead of terror. The emotion may seem vain and irrational even to ourselves. Doesn’t matter. As we’ve seen, feelings are highly impervious to cold logic. When we anticipate an unfavorable outcome under any circumstances, we’re inhibited from thinking about much else. Perhaps our attention should be elsewhere, but we’re helpless to redirect our minds at that moment.

Instead of stimulating the production of cortisol, positive emotions are generally associated with the excretion of serotonin, dopamine, and other “feel-good” neurochemicals that exert their influence on thinking and behavior.

Pessimism can make it easier for us to anticipate things that could go wrong and then take the proper actions to prevent them.

Whenever we notice that we’re suddenly having difficulty paying attention, or focusing, or remembering, we should ask ourselves: What emotion information is there, just beneath the surface of our thoughts? And what if

We believe that our ability to reason and think rationally is our highest mental power, above our unruly emotional side. This is but a trick our brains play on us—in fact, our emotions exert a huge, though mostly unconscious, influence over how our minds function. This fact is especially evident when it comes to the decision-making process.

If our emotions are negative—anxiety, anger, sadness—our decision may be quite different, even though we’re working with the same set of facts.

anxiety narrows our attention and improves our focus on details. It makes us anticipate what could go wrong. That may not seem like a feeling we’d welcome, but it’s a good frame of mind when we’re performing tasks involving numbers, such as finances, for instance. If we’re deciding whether to make an investment or a major purchase, a sunny mood might lead us to minimize the risks and do something we’ll regret later. Negative emotions make us weigh facts carefully and err on the side of caution.

Ode to anxiety

Positive emotions, on the other hand, fill us with the sense that life is going our way. If we’re feeling strong, exuberant, energetic, we’re more likely to base our decisions on heuristics—our gut instinct at that moment—than on careful reasoning. That’s a useful outlook if we’re planning a birthday party or when someone is in need of moral support, but maybe not so helpful when we’re filing our tax return.

And in a study on medical school admissions, it was found that applicants were more likely to be admitted on sunny days than when it rained (yes, admissions officers’ decisions were biased by the weather!).

These quick decisions are particularly susceptible to our moods and unconscious biases, especially when additional information is unavailable. We decide often with minimal conscious thinking.

Knowing this, we can take our emotional state into account before choosing a course of action. Is it our negative mood that’s making us suspicious, or do we have a genuine reason to worry? Is our confidence a result of our exuberant mood, or is this truly the perfect decision?

Outside the classroom, we all operate in the same way. Human relations are infinitely complex because we ourselves are, but the basic dynamic is rather simple: approach or avoid. We tell people to come closer or we tell them to back off. People communicate the same thing to us. So much of what happens between human beings is a result of how we communicate our emotions. And it all depends on something deep inside us, perhaps hidden from our own view: our emotional state.

Human relations are infinitely complex because we ourselves are, but the basic dynamic is rather simple: approach or avoid. We tell people to come closer or we tell them to back off. People communicate the same thing to us. So much of what happens between human beings is a result of how we communicate our emotions. And it all depends on something deep inside us, perhaps hidden from our own view: our emotional state.

People feeling emotions such as sorrow, shame, or anxiety often wish to discourage social interactions, and those signals are also being communicated. Those people might benefit most from engagement with others, but too often it’s unlikely to happen.

Do you look forward to working alongside the colleague who’s perpetually mad at the world? Normally, this emotion isn’t something

Do you look forward to working alongside the colleague who’s perpetually mad at the world?

Sometimes the emotions we feel send signals that elicit the opposite of the response we want and need. Picture a typical child: if he’s troubled or anxious, he may wish that his parent or teacher would reach out and offer comfort. But when those adults sense that child’s emotional state, especially when he’s “acting out,” they may respond in just the opposite way, because of their own emotional response to the signals of a negative mood. This dynamic rules much of human interaction—when we need emotional support most is when we’re least likely to receive

Why is it so?

When considering the influence of emotion on our well-being, we must first remember that our brains—where most of our feelings originate—are as much a part of our bodies as any other organ, fed by the same flow of blood, oxygen, and nutrients. Our emotions are linked to physiological reactions in our brains, releasing hormones and other powerful chemicals that, in turn, affect our physical health, which has an impact on our emotional state. It’s all connected.

But there’s also the opposite phenomenon: physical wellness that’s fostered by positive feelings. Both kinds underscore the importance of managing our emotional lives.

Half of the participants watched a video that reinforced the negative aspects of stress; the others watched a similar video, but the messaging reinforced the positive side. After four weeks, the employees were surveyed: the “stress is bad” group experienced more negative health symptoms than those in the “stress is good” group.

“Stress leaves you in a fight-or-flight state in which your body turns off long-term building and repair projects,” said Robert Sapolsky, a professor at Stanford University, in his book Behave.

Sounds familiar

There’s ample scientific evidence of the long-term harm caused by childhood emotional trauma, such as bullying.

Negative emotional states—anxiety, anger, sadness, stress—are closely associated with unhealthy behaviors, such as poor diet, smoking, excessive drinking, physical inactivity, and social isolation, many of which we found in a recent study with more than five thousand teachers from across the United States.

According to one study, a thirty-minute argument with your significant other can slow your body’s ability to heal by at least a day. And if you argue regularly, that delay is doubled. Even subtle forms of anger, such as impatience, irritability, and grouchiness, may damage health.

But our emotions can also prompt the release of beneficial neurochemicals and hormones. Crying is soothing because it carries stress hormones out of our bodies.

Feeling good, therefore, may encourage healthy behaviors, which in turn can promote greater emotional well-being and physical health.

As we reported earlier, our research at Yale revealed that high school students, teachers, and business professionals experience negative emotions up to 70 percent of the time they are in school or at work. Their feelings aren’t the only thing at stake—so is their health. What will it take to switch the ratio of negative-to-positive emotions? What’s your ratio?

Daily, each of us has many chances to be creative, to act in new and thoughtful ways.

Daily, each of us has many chances to be creative, to act in new and thoughtful ways. It’s what makes life an adventure.

Creativity can’t exist only in the abstract, in our minds and nowhere else. That’s just having a rich imagination! The creative process needs to be followed by concrete action.

Creativity also includes two other factors: performance and effectiveness. Creativity can’t exist only in the abstract, in our minds and nowhere else. That’s just having a rich imagination! The creative process needs to be followed by concrete action.

That’s another form of creativity: everyday creativity, the ability to keep discovering new answers when the old ones no longer work.

Who or what could we blame except parents and an educational system that often squash original thinking and penalize students for using their imagination?

In schools, it’s hard to be creative when convergent thinking—the ability to remember facts and perform well on standardized tests—is most highly rewarded.

Creativity is especially important in the face of adversity—when we’re disappointed because plan A didn’t work out; when we tried hard and still received negative feedback; when someone stands in the way of our progress or even tries to prevent it. We first have to manage our hurt or anger—not deny it but accept it and then put it to good use, as a motivational force. That’s where our creativity can come to our rescue and allow us to achieve our goal despite obstacles.

If I’m computing what I owe in taxes, I’m using cold intelligence, though my reasoning powers will absolutely be affected if five minutes ago I noticed a weird lump on my dog’s neck or I had an argument with my next-door neighbor. We have one brain made up of several regions, each with its own functions, and sometimes they pull us in different directions.

Presenting OKRs on a day of major rocket attack in 2023

These are the emotions that infiltrate our thinking without us being aware.

For example, anxiety is a signal that we feel something important is beyond our control.

But if we’re too risk-averse, or give up in the face of obstacles too easily, we’ll never try anything, thereby guaranteeing failure.

When these symptoms present themselves, we don’t always pause to ask: Is there an emotion behind this, and what can I do about it? Or am I just dehydrated or hungry or tired and need to drink or eat something or just go to bed?

An emotion scientist has the ability to pause even at the most stressful moments and ask: What am I reacting to?

When we are making a decision, there are two kinds of emotions: integral and incidental.

When we are making a decision, there are two kinds of emotions: integral and incidental. Integral emotions are directly caused by the action at hand—we’re fearful while climbing a tricky mountain path; we’re joyful as we’re falling in love.

emotional intelligence, which Salovey and Mayer defined as the ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth.

We tend to view a calm, poised demeanor as a sign of superior emotional wisdom. It denotes inner peace and harmony. People who are serene and “together” may possess great emotion skills, but the same may be true of those who are conspicuously neurotic. In fact, sometimes—out of pure necessity—people who are high in neuroticism also demonstrate great emotion skills. They need them in order to regulate their own tumultuous inner lives. But neither stability nor neuroticism equals emotional intelligence.

Research by Tom Boyce from the University of California–San Francisco and colleagues has revealed biological markers that differentiate how “sensitive” children (referred to as “orchids”) respond to environmental changes compared with how “resilient” children (who they call “dandelions”) react.

Dandelion children may thrive in most any condition, whereas orchid children tend to be more fearful and overwhelmed in uncertain social situations.

To some observers, emotional intelligence or emotion skills signify something fuzzy and touchy-feely, like a retreat from reality. This is especially so in the business world. In fact, just the opposite is true. These are mental skills like any others—they enable us to think smarter, more creatively, and to get better results from ourselves and the people around us.

Throughout the rest of this book, we’ll explore those skills in detail. Here, I’ll provide a brief introduction. They’re known by an acronym—RULER.

People with a more mature “feelings vocabulary” can differentiate among related emotions such as pleased, happy, elated, and ecstatic.

In the RULER framework, the first three skills—Recognizing, Understanding, and Labeling—help us to accurately identify and decode what we and others are feeling. Then, the two remaining skills—Expressing and Regulating—tell us how we can manage those emotions to achieve desired outcomes—our ultimate goal.

licensed psychologist will charge a couple thousand dollars to administer a standardized three-hour examination that produces a defining number: your intelligence quotient.

A licensed psychologist will charge a couple thousand dollars to administer a standardized three-hour examination that produces a defining number: your intelligence quotient.

These assessments are mostly concerned with self-control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, teamwork ability, the ability to influence others, and inspirational leadership—all potentially important aspects of being a good leader and manager.

They are often expressed automatically in our facial expressions, body language, and other nonverbal cues.

Finally, emotions mobilize us into action—to approach or avoid, fight or flee.

For example: We developed the feeling of fear because it was advantageous to our survival, and we all express it in the same way because it is part of our biological nature.

A feeling is our internal response to an emotion. I’m angry about something that’s happening between us, it’s caused me to give up hope, and I can’t keep going this way. That’s a feeling. It’s nuanced, subtle, multidimensional. When you ask someone how they’re feeling, the answer is sometimes an emotion, such as happy, sad, afraid, angry. But they may also say they’re feeling supported, connected, valued, respected, and appreciated. These words do not refer to emotions per se but are motivational and relationship states that are steeped in emotion. Technically, an athlete doesn’t feel motivated to run a marathon; it’s

We can even have emotions about emotions. We call them meta-emotions. I could be afraid of public speaking and embarrassed about being afraid. Or I’m being bullied so I feel victimized, and I’m ashamed of myself for allowing that to happen.

A mood is more diffuse and less intense than an emotion or a feeling but longer lasting. Most typically, we don’t quite know why we’re feeling the way we are during a mood, but we are very certain when feeling an emotion. Moods also can be the aftermath of an emotion.

An emotion—happy, sad, angry—arises from an appraisal of an internal or external stimulus. By appraisal I mean an interpretation of what is happening in the world or my mind through the lens of my present goals or concerns.

In addition to emotions, feelings, and moods, there are emotion-related personality traits. This feels like who we are, at our core—our predisposition to feel, think, and act in a particular way. We’re optimists or pessimists, we’re take-charge types or fatalists, we’re introverts or extroverts, we’re calm or hyper.

Where emotion scientists operate with open minds and good intentions, emotion judges are afraid of hearing something dreadful. They come prepared to deny, defend, and blame.

Emotionally intelligent individuals had an intuitive understanding of one of the central conclusions of happiness research: Well-being depends less on objective events than on how those events are perceived, dealt with, and shared with others. Because emotionally skilled people are more likely to recognize this core concept, they are likely to have an advantage in their decision making.

People higher in emotional intelligence are just as likely to push back when attacked—but they will have an easier time dealing with the emotions in a confrontation and will be more skillful at finding a peaceful solution. None of this means that the emotionally wise

mean your basic, fundamental state, right now: I feel great. I’m fine. I feel bleh. I’m stressed.

You know what I’m talking about, even if you don’t always put it into words. I mean your basic, fundamental state, right now: I feel great. I’m fine. I feel bleh. I’m stressed.

We need to pause—to physically stop whatever we’re doing, check in with the state of our minds and bodies, and ask ourselves: At this exact moment, what is my emotional state? Am I feeling up or down? Pleasant or unpleasant? Would I like to approach the world or steer clear? Next, let’s check for physical clues. Am I energized or depleted? Is my heart racing, am I clenching my fists, is there a knot in my stomach, or am I feeling balanced, cool, and at ease?

As a child, I was secure in the knowledge that I was loved by my parents. However, I went to school every day and played after school on our street where I was being abused and bullied for many years. How did this go unnoticed? All the obvious signs were there. But loving me was not synonymous with seeing me.

was a textbook example of self-defeating outbursts and calculated seclusion. But these are the times when we need to try hardest to break through the displays of rage or self-alienation. This is when we must remember that our behavior sometimes sends the exact opposite message of what we really need. Our actions scream, “Get away!” or, “I’m fine!” while our emotions beg for attention.

After dinner, I took this friend aside and pointed out that in every case, she shared a more negative view of people than they had of themselves. She was mortified and shocked—it didn’t occur to her that her view of anyone was particularly sour. But it surely was.

Finally, I asked her about this, and she told me that when I was reading her work a look of disgust would come over my face. She couldn’t bear watching, she said, which was why she would flee. I was shocked—I had absolutely no problem with her work. Part of this student’s reaction may have been her own insecurity about her writing. But the truth is that I have no idea what signals I may have been sending while I was concentrating on grading papers.

As we discussed earlier, the primary emotional message we interpret from reading people’s emotions, strangers or intimates alike, is to either approach or avoid—or freeze to some extent, as with surprise.

Interestingly, a sincere smile tends to last for a few seconds, whereas a polite or disingenuous smile tends to last for just a quarter second.

Cultural influences matter. We are more accurate at reading emotions of people from our own cultural background.

Our perception of emotion is easily swayed by the opinions of others. In a classic study, a person posing as a visiting professor gave a lecture to university students. Before the speaker appeared, half of the students received information that he was a rather warm person. The other half of the students were told that he was cold. The second group of students perceived the lecturer to be more irritable than those who were told he was a nice guy.

his stone-faced expression when I said hello to my boss this morning, he’s clearly disappointed with the report I turned in yesterday. How was I to know that he had just come from a tough meeting with his boss? The term psychologists use for this phenomenon is “attribution bias,” meaning we observe someone’s cues or behavior and wrongly attribute them to our own emotional state.

It’s human nature to pay more attention to negative emotional information than positive. Starting in childhood, it’s how we rely on the reactions of other people to measure the danger in any given situation. This is the reason kids study their parents’ faces before trying anything potentially risky—they’re searching for a clue as to how risky it might really be.

You can try the same thing with the people in your life—whether it’s your spouse, your boss, your kids, or the desk clerk at the library. There’s no penalty for exploring and quite a bit of potential benefit from developing this skill. In any event, it’s the first necessary step. However, as we’ve seen, we can’t rely solely on that visceral sense to tell us everything we need to know.

Nice icebreaker idea for a work meeting

It’s the kind of question you can ask yourself every hour on the hour and get a different answer.

what if it seems that for me its been weeks and months what seems like constantly oscilating between red and blue?

Understanding emotions is a journey. Possibly an adventure. When it’s finished, we may find ourselves someplace new, someplace unexpected, somewhere, perhaps, we had no intention of going. And yet there we are, wiser than before—maybe wiser than we wished to be. But there’s no other way forward.

we’re faced with the emotions of someone close to us—a loved one, a valued colleague, a good friend—the stakes are even

If we’re faced with the emotions of someone close to us—a loved one, a valued colleague, a good friend—the stakes are even higher, because now there’s a distinct possibility that we are somehow complicit.

That’s another part of the emotion scientist’s skill set—the ability to put aside one’s own appraisals so we can comprehend and empathize with those of other people.

When a child says, “I hate you!”—as most probably do, sooner or later—we recoil. There are few things more dispiriting a parent can hear. But hate in all likelihood isn’t really the issue. Those words are fueled by something impossible (in the moment) to articulate. It’s the listener’s job to remain calm and try to hear the words that aren’t being said—yet.

These are some of the questions we can ask when we’re trying to understand our own feelings: What just happened? What was I doing before this happened? What might have caused my feelings or reaction? What happened this morning, or last night, that might be involved in this? What has happened before with this person that might be connected? (In the event that your emotion has to do with a relationship.) What memories do I have about this situation or place?

Shame, guilt, and embarrassment Shame is a judgment, but from

Shame, guilt, and embarrassment Shame is a judgment, but

My favorites

Shame, guilt, and embarrassment

A great deal of bullying’s damage to the victim, and resulting isolation, comes from this more than any physical suffering.

Envy could lead us to focus our efforts and work harder to attain something desired. In that case, it may be a force for good. But it can also be the opposite—it can lead to resentment and even to aggression toward the person who has what we desire.

Joy feels energetic and contentment feels calm, and joy is caused by a sense of getting what one wants and contentment is caused by a sense of completeness (not wanting or needing anything).

Paradoxical to what we’ve been taught, the constant pursuit of happiness can be self-defeating. Accumulating research shows that the more we value happiness, the more likely we are to feel disappointed.

Stress is a response to too many demands and not enough resources—managing both family/work responsibilities and financial burdens—to meet them.

To some, that still might not make a difference—Ian was in the wrong no matter how humiliated he felt. But punishing him or making him apologize did nothing about what caused the incident.

What happened? How are you feeling? And: Why do you feel that way?

Had either my mother or father been able to cope with my tantrums and reach out to me, maybe with a hug or some show of affection and acceptance, who knows how those scenes might have ended? If my mother had said something like “Okay, Marc, I can tell you don’t want to talk about Hapkido now, how about if we stop for ice cream on the way home and then watch TV?” perhaps we would have found the space to explore what had happened. Maybe at bedtime, a few gently probing questions might have elicited some honest answers, enough to begin understanding what

If your child had felt shame, it’s possible that professional counseling was needed.

Can you imagine being so eloquent about fermented grape juice but so limited in describing your inner life?

We know from neuroscience and brain-imaging research that there is real, tangible truth to the proposition that “if you can name it, you can tame it.” Labeling an emotion is itself a form of regulation.

If I say “Fine” often enough, and you say it often enough, anything more descriptive will seem unnatural—even alarming. But our feelings shouldn’t alarm

modulate them, just cross our fingers and hope they last. We don’t expend much mental energy analyzing why we feel so good. But we experience negative emotions more deeply—they slow our processing down because they indicate a problem.

We don’t expend much mental energy analyzing why we feel so good. But we experience negative emotions more deeply—they slow our processing down because they indicate a problem.

brains process positive and negative feelings differently. We tend to give our positive emotions superficial attention only; we see no need to modulate them, just cross our fingers and hope they last. We don’t expend much mental energy analyzing why we feel so good. But we experience negative emotions more deeply—they slow our processing down because they indicate a problem.

differently. We tend to give our positive emotions superficial attention only; we see no need to modulate them, just cross our fingers and hope they last. We don’t expend much mental energy analyzing why we feel so good. But we experience negative emotions more deeply—they slow our processing down because they indicate a problem.

We tend to give our positive emotions superficial attention only; we see no need to modulate them, just cross our fingers and hope they last. We don’t expend much mental energy analyzing why we feel so good. But we experience negative emotions more deeply—they slow our processing down because they indicate a problem.

And just as our brains make use of neural pathways to connect one region to another, our emotions travel on pathways too. If we’re disposed to anger, then certain kinds of stimuli will routinely trigger it, and anger becomes our immediate, go-to response.

When the two groups were compared, she reported, granular individuals were less likely to freak out or abuse alcohol when under stress and more likely to find positive meaning in negative experiences.

Interesting

alexithymia

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, named for a pair of linguists, maintains that the language we speak determines our worldview and even how our minds work.

What if you speak multiple languages? Or if your inner voice speaks in foreign language?

Anna Wierzbicka, a Polish linguist, contends that we rely too heavily on the English language, which might actually keep us from attaining greater self-awareness.

Kvell is the Yiddish word that describes the feeling of overwhelming love and pride you get when you see what your child can do. And ya’arburnee is Arabic for “May you bury me”—meaning, the hope that you will die before a loved one because you couldn’t stand to live without him or her.

This, as you can imagine, is of huge importance when dealing with children. Their emotional lives are often a mystery to us precisely because they haven’t yet learned to process and express what they feel. The more words that children can use, the better able we’ll be to support them. When we use a wide variety of terms to describe emotions, our children learn the words, but they also absorb the lesson that describing their feelings is a natural, positive thing to do.

In collaboration with Hopelab, we’ve also developed an app (<www.moodmeterapp.com>) so you can track your emotions over time.

by middle school every child will learn a minimum of eighty-four terms that describe, specifically, things they feel.

The more skilled we become at labeling what we feel and describing why, the more likely we are to get the empathy or help we need.

The trick in Labeling is to make sure we’ve hit on the correct word. If we go too far afield here, we may find ourselves addressing a problem that doesn’t exist and ignoring one that does. When we become emotion scientists, we find quite a few of these potential near misses that can lead us astray if we’re not attentive.

Anxiety, as we learned earlier, is worry about future uncertainty and our inability to control what will happen to us. Fear is the palpable sense of a danger that lies just ahead and will eventually strike at us. Pressure is the force from the outside that tells us something important is at stake, and whether we succeed or fail will depend on how we perform. And, finally, stress is what we feel when we’re facing too many demands from all of the above and fear we may not be up to it.

Finally, I realized that I felt “stressed” because I was taking on too many tasks—more than anyone could easily complete. Stress wasn’t the root of my problem—I was overwhelmed. I had too much on my plate. When I cut back a little on my work obligations, scheduled exercise and downtime, my stress levels subsided considerably. I couldn’t have come up with that fix if I hadn’t been able to analyze exactly what I was feeling, and that began with naming it.

Often, I’ll ask audiences to define the difference between anger and disappointment. I’m always surprised to see that people have such a hard time with that one.

Disappointment is about an unmet expectation. The strategies we might use to deal with our own or another’s disappointment likely would be different from those we’d use for

We also tend to talk exclusively about our negative emotions, but why not explore our feelings of serenity or cheerfulness? If we never acknowledge those emotions, we may go through life with the sense that we never really experience them.

If they can recognize a difficult internal state while it’s still manageable, kids can get support before they are overwhelmed and unable to regulate.

or the children who were silent but despondent and seriously depressed.

She went years without reporting the welts and bruises she suffered from blows she received almost daily—because she didn’t want her kids to be expelled or go to prison.

So I said, “Dad, it seems like you might be jealous of Jane’s grandson.”

She’s spending so much time taking care of her grandson. I didn’t expect my retirement was going to be spent like this.”

When we settle for the six or seven words that we all rely on, we’re shortchanging ourselves—it’s like taking a vow of emotional poverty when riches await.

With this chapter, that changes. With Expression, we reveal ourselves. Now we’ll have to decide: Can I share this?

With Expression, we reveal ourselves. Now we’ll have to decide: Can I share this?

With Expression, we reveal ourselves. Now we’ll have to decide: Can I share this? And if the answer is yes, then how much exactly do we share, and when, and where, and with whom?

Before we express our emotions, we can’t help but wonder: Will I be heard? Accepted? Judged? Will I get the support I need? Will I get disowned? Am I even ready to own these feelings?

On the one hand, it’s important to be honest and forthcoming. On the other, we need to take the possible consequences of our honesty into account.

But the opposite could also be true—your emotions might provoke something negative in me, something I’m not prepared to deal with or control. In which case, honest expression has the potential to distance us or make both our lives significantly worse, at least in the short run.

Looking back, I realize that the inability to express emotion was at the center of all my childhood trauma. Had I been able to tell my parents the horrible things I was feeling—fear, anxiety, shame—then they would have discovered the source of all those destructive emotions. They would have heard about the sexual abuse I endured in secret and the bullies who victimized me every day at school. It isn’t only feelings that we hide—it’s what is causing them.

For whatever reasons, I didn’t have permission to feel at home or at school, so my emotions remained bottled up inside, leading to self-doubt, low self-worth, extreme loneliness.

But when we express our emotions, we’re saying: Here’s what I feel and why. Here’s what I want to happen next. Here’s what I need from you right now. It’s probably as intimate as we’ll ever be.

Then I tell them that in our confidential surveys, people report being in the red or blue quadrant roughly 60 to 70 percent of the time.

We have a natural bias in favor of displaying positive emotions, especially in the United States, which translates into a pressure on all of us to seem happy no matter what.

A parent said, “I would never share that I was bullied with my son, he’ll think I’m not tough enough to raise him.”

A teacher once told me, “I don’t share because I’m afraid that once I open up, I’ll never be able to close the floodgate.”

“I don’t share because I’m afraid that once I open up, I’ll never be able to close the floodgate.”

And as you finished, you looked around to see your spouse packing his or her bags, your kids cowering in the corner, and the dog hiding under the bed—and then your boss calls to say you’re fired. And you wonder, was there a better way of handling this?

Psychologists and social workers use the term emotional labor to describe the effort required to manage the way we express our feelings.

Arlie Hochschild first defined it as creating “a publicly visible facial and bodily display within the workplace” and studied how people in certain professions—nurses, kindergarten teachers, police officers, flight attendants, and any jobs involving customer contact—frequently are required to put on false fronts.

It may not sound like labor in the usual sense, but managing how and when we express emotions does require sustained effort, and it wears us down, especially when there’s a big contrast between what we express and what we actually feel.

Office pokerface

Research shows that this so-called surface acting leads to burnout, lower job satisfaction, and even increased anxiety and depression.

My father’s rule that prevented him from talking to me about his own childhood victimization may have had an internal logic—but it came out in real life as shame and aggression.

How many of us have been on the brink of some seriously emotional moment, and we’ve looked up to see our loved one checking their email, or posting something on Instagram, or looking out the window, possibly dreaming of escape.

And so a key skill involved in Expression is listening. Not just hearing. We must be conspicuously open, patient, and sympathetic to whatever’s being said.

By our responses to what we’re hearing—by our words, body language, facial expressions, and eye contact—we send the message I’m here for you. I’m not judging. I want to understand you and help you.

That was just the latest example of how male and female anger are perceived differently. This gender gap comes in many forms, and we’ve heard them all debated in recent years. When men are forceful, they’re strong and assertive; when women are, they’re called bossy and controlling. When a man raises his voice, everyone snaps to attention; when a woman does, she’s dismissed as shrill or hysterical.

But employees further down the totem pole might quickly be out of a job for displaying the same emotions. For those workers, expressions of happiness, optimism, and high energy are safer bets.

In the classroom, the teacher is the boss and the children are the bossed, a dynamic that carries over into the workplace, whether we want it to or not.

Many of the worst injustices in contemporary life revolve around the inability of the powerless to express their fear and outrage at inhumane treatment by abusers.

Sometimes, sharing with other people is too difficult. In those cases, it may be better to express it in writing. Many of us have had the experience of writing something in a journal or letter that seemed impossible to say in conversation.

Expressing emotions benefits us in these specific ways: Significant drops in physician visits Increases in immune function Lower blood pressure Long-term improvement in mood Reduction in stress Higher grades for college students Less absenteeism at work

Lower blood preasure

Pennebaker concluded that suppressing traumatic experiences is debilitating, while confiding them to someone else, or writing them down, can bring relief.

How would your spouse or partner, colleague or boss, or kids rate your expression skills? Are you comfortable expressing the emotions in each quadrant: yellow, red, blue, and green? What rules have you created about what you’ll express to whom? How much emotional labor are you putting in each day? Is it affecting your performance at work, your relationships, your overall well-being?

Accept and acknowledge that there’s no shame in expressing our emotions.

We all know people who seem particularly unskilled at regulating their emotions. They’re easily knocked off course by their feelings, and routinely overreact in unhelpful ways. Or, at the other extreme, they suppress their emotional responses so much that they seem cold and numb.

The initial goal of Regulation is to manage our own emotional responses, but then this skill makes a leap into even greater complexity: co-regulation. Every human interaction we’ve ever had, from infancy onward, has involved co-regulation. It’s impossible to be in the company of another being and not be influenced by her or his emotional state, and vice versa.

You’re joyous, or furious, or bored, and I automatically read the signals and my mood is altered. We’re all constantly affecting each other’s emotional state.

During difficult times, sometimes we just need to be there for one another.

Too often we look for strategies that will shift people out of negative emotion spaces, but that’s not always possible. During difficult times, sometimes we just need

Engineers haha

Good interview question