How can recognizing, understanding, and managing our emotions contribute to our happiness, success, and well-being?

Emotions play a big role in our lives. Yet, for most of us, they're viewed as something to ignore or overcome. For these reasons, we often have little experience identifying our feelings. We say we're stressed out, when what we may actually be feeling is frustration, anger, or even disappointment.

While the distinction between stress and frustration may seem slight, it's actually enormous. Marc Brackett, author of the book, Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive, explains: "Imagine how many of us...don't really have clarity about what we're feeling, and feel uncomfortable talking about those feelings, don't know how to regulate them. It's a disaster really. It's why so many people are unhappy."

Marc shares a tool to help us more accurately identify our emotions, so that we can work with them more effectively. This tool is part of a framework he's developed to help us live fuller and happier lives. He shares that his bigger goal for this work is to "create an emotion revolution," in order to "ensure that everyone has permission to feel."

Marc is the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University. He's published over a hundred scholarly articles on the role of emotions and emotional intelligence in learning, decision making, and performance, and he consults regularly with organizations like Facebook, Microsoft, and Google.

The Host

You can learn more about Curious Minds Host and Creator, Gayle Allen, and Producer and Editor, Rob Mancabelli, here.

Episode Links

@marcbrackett

marcbrackett.com

RULER

Mood Meter

Emotional Agility by Susan David

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CM 150: Marc Brackett on Permission to Feel

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