Permission To Feel Marc Brackett Quotes

Most of us are unaware of how important vocabulary is to emotion skills. As we’ve seen, using many different words implies valuable distinctions—that we’re not always simply angry but are sometimes annoyed, irritated, frustrated, disgusted, aggravated, and so on. If we can’t discern the difference, it suggests that we can’t understand it either. It’s the difference between a rich emotional life and an impoverished one. Your child will inherit the one you provide.

Emotion regulation is not about not feeling. Neither is it exerting tight control over what we feel. And it’s not about banishing negative emotions and feeling only positive ones. Rather, emotion regulation starts with giving ourselves and others the permission to own our feelings—all of them.

Labeling emotions accurately increases self-awareness and helps us to communicate emotions effectively, reducing misunderstanding in social interactions.

It’s possible to distract ourselves to such a degree that we avoid dealing with anything difficult—even when our lives would be improved by facing reality and doing something about it.

The core skill of Understanding is the search for the underlying theme or possible cause that fuels the emotion. We’re not asking questions and listening to answers just to provide a sympathetic ear. As we listen, we’re looking for a meaning that goes deeper than the words being said.

The irony, though, is that when we ignore our feelings, or suppress them, they only become stronger. The really powerful emotions build up inside us, like a dark force that inevitably poisons everything we do, whether we like it or not. Hurt feelings don’t vanish on their own. They don’t heal themselves. If we don’t express our emotions, they pile up like a debt that will eventually come due.

Strong, negative emotions (fear, anger, anxiety, hopelessness) tend to narrow our minds—it’s as though our peripheral vision has been cut off because we’re so focused on the peril that’s front and center.

My message for everyone is the same: that if we can learn to identify, express, and harness our feelings, even the most challenging ones, we can use those emotions to help us create positive, satisfying lives.

First, our emotional state determines where we direct our attention, what we remember, and what we learn. Second is decision making: when we’re in the grip of any strong emotion—such as anger or sadness, but also elation or joy—we perceive the world differently, and the choices we make at that moment are influenced,

Sometimes parents avoid dealing with their child’s feelings by turning to technology as a way of removing themselves from the stress of the moment. According to research, this only increases the child’s misery and inspires even more bad behavior … which parents then use as an excuse to isolate themselves even further.

These inventive metaphors may be descriptive on the written page, but they often create distance between our feelings and our words.

third-person self-talk is a way of being empathetic to ourselves.

As we listen, we’re looking for a meaning that goes deeper than the words being said.

It’s a wonder that adolescents manage to learn anything when you recall all the intoxicating daydreams that fill our heads at that age.

It makes you wonder: Do I even know how I’m feeling? Have I given myself permission to ask? Have I ever really asked my partner, my child, my colleague?

emotions are the most powerful force inside the workplace—as they are in every human endeavor.

As a rule, doing something you enjoy is a very effective strategy for regulating negative emotions.

We can even have emotions about emotions. We call them meta-emotions. I could be afraid of public speaking and embarrassed about being afraid.

Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. emotional health is facing reality at any cost. —M. SCOTT PECK

It’s human nature to pay more attention to negative emotional information than positive.

Knowing what emotions tell us is the first, necessary part of the process. For example, anxiety is a signal that we feel something important is beyond our control.

Contentment, however, is more a state of psychological balance, not something we actively pursue—we feel contentment when we cherish the present moment.

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).

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 to be there for one another.

Society tells us that when a woman expresses her intense negative emotions publicly, she’s lost control and should be penalized. When a man does the same, it’s normal male behavior and does not merit punishment.

Back in the eighteenth century, the poet Alexander Pope said it well: “All looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.” If you go through life angry, you will see anger everywhere you look. The same is true of other emotions—even positive ones.

Harsh self-criticism activates the sympathetic nervous system (fight/flight) and elevates stress hormones. Self-compassion, on the other hand, triggers the mammalian caregiving system and hormones of affiliation and love such as oxytocin.

In every grade, students love it—being asked for their input is something of a novelty. All day long, year after year, their emotions are bottled up, and suddenly here comes a teacher wondering what they’re feeling, how they want to feel, and what they’ll do to get there.

Are we actually getting worse at reading one another’s emotions? There’s evidence that says we are. The more time we spend communicating through electronic screens, the less face-to-face (or even voice-to-ear) time we spend and the less practice we get at reading the nonverbal cues.

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.

Again, the necessary skills: The first step is to recognize what we’re feeling. The second step is to understand what we’ve discovered—what we’re feeling and why. The next step is to properly label our emotions, meaning not just to call ourselves “happy” or “sad” but to dig deeper and identify the nuances and intricacies of what we feel. The fourth step is to express our feelings, to ourselves first and then, when right, to others. The final step is to regulate—as we’ve said, not to suppress or ignore our emotions but to use them wisely to achieve desired goals. In the next section, we’ll take those steps one by

Wordlessly, babies get their messages across loud and clear, as any parent can attest. Infant emotions are focused on the basics of survival—the need for food, sleep, physical comfort, and security. This underscores the primary purpose of emotional expression: it keeps us alive. From a Darwinian perspective, demanding attention to our feelings is a necessity, not a choice.

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?

strive to become emotion scientists. You could be brilliant, with an IQ that Einstein would envy, but if you’re unable to recognize your emotions and see how they’re affecting your behavior, all that cognitive firepower won’t do you as much good as you might imagine. A gifted child who doesn’t have the permission to feel, along with the vocabulary to express those feelings and the ability to understand them, won’t be able to manage complicated emotions around friendships and academics, limiting his or her potential.

When we’re acting as an emotion scientist with someone else, we can ask the other person: What might have happened to cause this feeling? What usually makes you feel this way? What’s going on that you’re feeling this way? What were you doing just before you started feeling this way? Who were you with? What do you need right now? What can I do to support you? As a teaching exercise, we’ll sometimes have children read a story, then ask them: What does this character feel? Why does he or she feel that way? What do you think might have caused this character to feel this way? What about what happened to the character helps you to understand his or her feelings? If the same thing happened to you, what do you think you would feel?

First, our emotional state determines where we direct our attention, what we remember, and what we learn. Second is decision making: when we’re in the grip of any strong emotion—such as anger or sadness, but also elation or joy—we perceive the world differently, and the choices we make at that moment are influenced, for better or for worse. Third is our social relations. What we feel—and how we interpret other people’s feelings—sends signals to approach or avoid, to affiliate with someone or distance ourselves, to reward or punish. 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. And the fifth has to do with creativity, effectiveness, and performance.

Emotional sickness is avoiding reality at any cost. emotional health is facing reality at any cost.

American youths now rank in the bottom quarter among developed nations in well-being and life satisfaction, according to a report by UNICEF. Research shows that our youths have stress levels that surpass those of adults. Our teenagers are now world leaders in violence, binge drinking, marijuana use, and obesity. 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.

Permission to feel strengthens. It’s not always easy to face the truth about who we are and to reckon with our own and our children’s emotional lives. But it is a whole lot better than the alternative: denial, overreacting, and so on. You teach your children to express their emotions by skillfully expressing yours. Conversely, if you are reluctant to express your feelings, or do so only sparingly, in as few words as possible, then that’s what your children will learn to do when they grow up. This is why we adults need to be open to learning and practicing strategies in our own emotional lives before we can support our kids.

Feelings motivate us to do things that improve our lives and those of the people around us, but they can also adversely influence our actions—without us even realizing it. In fact, that’s when we’re most vulnerable to emotion’s impact: when we fail to detect it.

Another common mistake is waiting so long to identify our feelings that they become daunting. We skip over irritated or nervous or apprehensive and, left unattended, they turn into livid or panicked. We ignore apathetic or drained until they metastasize into hopeless or depressed and we’re forced to deal with them. We also tend to talk exclusively about our negative emotions, but why not explore our feelings of serenity or cheerfulness?

Recognition is especially critical because most of our communication is nonverbal. This includes everything from facial expressions to body language to vocal tones—not the words but simply the way we say them. Words can lie or hide the truth. Physical gestures rarely do.

When we deny ourselves the permission to feel, a long list of unwanted outcomes ensues. We lose the ability to even identify what we’re feeling—it’s like, without noticing, we go a little numb inside. When that happens, we’re unable to understand why we’re experiencing an emotion or what’s happening in our lives that’s causing it. Because of that we’re unable to name it, so we can’t express it, either, in terms the people around us would understand. And when we can’t recognize, understand, or put into words what we feel, it’s impossible for us to do anything about it: to master our feelings—not to deny them but to accept them all, even embrace them—and learn to make our emotions work for us, not against us.

people who grew up in homes where everyday emotional issues were ignored because no one had ever learned how to talk about them or take actions to address them. Your life didn’t have to be tragic for you to feel as though your emotional life didn’t matter to anyone but you. Here’s how I responded: I became numb to how I felt. I was under emotional lockdown. Survival mode.

But we also think of emotions as being disruptive and unproductive—at work, at home, and everywhere else.

Without Labeling, our feelings remain inchoate. Once we name them, we begin to possess their power.

The difference between good stress and bad stress mainly has to do with duration and intensity.

Our brain responds to intense emotions by activating the sympathetic nervous system: our heart rate goes up, stress hormones and/or endorphins are released depending on the emotion, and (when pressured) we prepare to flee or freeze.

Mindful breathing helps us to hit the brake on the activation of our stress response system by decreasing our heart rate.

when we count our breaths or repeat a calming phrase while breathing, we regain balance and control because the area of the brain in charge shifts from the brain stem to the motor cortex. Breathing also helps us to reset the autonomic nervous system by activating the parasympathetic nervous system and inhibiting the sympathetic (excitatory) one.

My first impulse was to fire right back and embarass her in front of her colleagues with a comment like "A lot of us, meaning you and your thirty personalities

The research is clear: The best way to engage students in the learning process is to build positive relationships with them, not prevent them, and the currency of relationships is emotional expression.

The recognition skill improves only with practice. And because it relies on nonverbal information, we have to be sensitive to the sensations and nuances of emotions, our own and those of other people. If you overthink it, you’re doing it wrong. At this point in the process, we’re not looking to nail down the precise emotion, just the general area where it exists—the quadrant of the Mood Meter.

Judgement, demands punishment.

We seem to prefer spending more money and effort on dealing with the results of our emotional problems rather than trying to prevent them.

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.

An emotion judge, on the other hand, is seeking something else. An emotion judge attempts to evaluate feelings (even his or her own—we’re not immune to harsh self-judgment) and deem them good or bad, useful or harmful, grounded in reality or a figment of the imagination. An emotion judge wants the power to validate feelings or negate them—to pass judgment.

But loving me was not synonymous with seeing me.

An emotional outburst signals that something is going on, but it doesn’t tell us what. We need to grant the permission to feel, and then ask the right questions, if we wish to know what’s behind that outburst.

Today, when nearly every question can be handled instantly by Siri, or Google, or Alexa, we’re losing the habit of pausing to look inward, or to one another, for answers. But even Siri doesn’t know everything. And Google can’t tell you why your son or daughter is feeling hopeless or excited, or why your significant other feels not so significant lately, or why you can’t shake that chronic low-level anxiety that plagues you.

The implication seems clear: the importance of a subject is demonstrated by the number of words available to describe it.

In that same spirit, we have to assume that there’s a connection between the size of our emotion vocabulary and the importance of emotions in our lives.

Another common mistake is waiting so long to identify our feelings that they become daunting. We skip over irritated or nervous or apprehensive and, left unattended, they turn into livid or panicked. We ignore apathetic or drained until they metastasize into hopeless or depressed and we’re forced to deal with them.

When you can understand and name your emotions, something magical happens. The mere fact of acknowledgment creates the ability to shift. When we don’t have the words for our feelings, we’re not just lacking descriptive flourish. We’re lacking authorship of our own lives.

For example, more and more schools are incorporating project-based learning and design thinking—a five-stage process for solving complex problems that includes (1) defining a problem; (2) understanding the human needs involved; (3) reframing the problem in human-centric ways; (4) generating a multitude of ideas; and (5) a hands-on approach in prototyping and testing.

But the trigger is inside us, not out there. We have to take responsibility for our actions rather than shift the blame elsewhere. It may not have felt like a choice, but it surely was—we decide how we’ll respond to life’s provocations.

In one study, sixth graders who went five days without glancing at a smartphone or other digital screen were better at reading emotions than their peers from the same school who continued to spend hours each day looking at their phones, tablets, computers, and so on.

When these negative feelings are present, our brains respond by secreting cortisol, the stress hormone. This inhibits the prefrontal cortex from effectively processing information, so even at a neurocognitive level our ability to focus and learn is impaired.

be sure, moderate levels of stress—feeling challenged—can enhance our focus.

As is true of all regulation strategies, reframing has the potential to harm as well as help.

Expression doesn’t affect just our emotional lives—there’s abundant research into the physical and mental benefits of expressing emotions. And we should keep in mind that expression need not be only of the spoken, face-to-face variety. Sometimes, sharing with other people is too difficult. In those cases, it may be better to express it in writing.

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.

where there is an emotionally skilled parent, there are children who have a greater ability to identify and regulate their emotions.

We need the ability to experience and express all emotions, to down- or up-regulate both pleasant and unpleasant emotions in order to achieve greater well-being, make the most informed decisions, build and maintain meaningful relationships, and realize our potential.

Emotions Are Information

Research showed that emotions give purpose, priority, and focus to our thinking. They tell us what to do with the knowledge that our senses deliver. They motivate us to act.

And the fifth has to do with creativity, effectiveness, and performance. In order to achieve big goals, get good grades, and thrive in our collaborations at work, we have to use our emotions as though they were tools. Which, of course, they are—or can be.

All learning has an emotional base.—PLATO

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.

Strong, negative emotions (fear, anger, anxiety, hopelessness) tend to narrow our minds—it’s as though our peripheral vision has been cut off because we’re so focused on the peril that’s front and center. There’s actually a physiological side to this phenomenon. When these negative feelings are present, our brains respond by secreting cortisol, the stress hormone. This inhibits the prefrontal cortex from effectively processing information, so even at a neurocognitive level our ability to focus and learn is impaired.

how students feel is what gives meaning to what they are learning. The research is clear: emotions determine whether academic content will be processed deeply and remembered. Linking emotion to learning ensures that students find classroom instruction relevant.

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.

Recognition. That’s what we’re learning in this chapter: simply how to recognize emotions in ourselves and others with accuracy.

We avoid the difficult conversation with our colleague; we explode at a loved one; and we helplessly go through an entire bag of cookies and have no idea why.

I’ve seen the terrible cost of our inability to deal in healthy ways with our emotional lives.

We now know that, aside maybe from physical health, our emotional state is one of the most important aspects of our lives. It rules everything else. Its influence is pervasive. Yet it is also the thing we steer around most carefully. Our inner lives are uncharted territory even to us, a risky place to explore.

when we ignore our feelings, or suppress them, they only become stronger. The really powerful emotions build up inside us, like a dark force that inevitably poisons everything we do, whether we like it or not. Hurt feelings don’t vanish on their own. They don’t heal themselves. If we don’t express our emotions, they pile up like a debt that will eventually come due.

Behavior alone is a clue to the riddle, not an answer.

Without a proper vocabulary, we can’t label our emotions, and if we can’t label them, we can’t properly consider them or put them into perspective.

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.

This is how the investigation behind Understanding often goes. We’re not catching someone at their best moment. It may be a time of terrible suffering and shame. It would be hard to expect lucid, coolheaded analysis from anyone, especially from a child who doesn’t yet have a developed emotion vocabulary or the ability to articulate complex feelings while still experiencing them. Every parent has been through this and knows exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s easy to get this part wrong. We focus on behavior rather than on what might have caused it. It’s like treating the symptom and not the disease. As a result, the best we manage to do is modify behavior—by force. And this distracts us from the underlying causes.

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.

there’s little reason to hope for improvement.

The best SEL efforts are proactive, not reactive

valued, appreciated, inspired, connected, and supported.

Here are the five skills we’ve identified. We need to recognize our own emotions and those of others, not just in the things we think, feel, and say but in facial expressions, body language, vocal tones, and other nonverbal signals. understand those feelings and determine their source—what experiences actually caused them—and then see how they’ve influenced our behaviors. label emotions with a nuanced vocabulary. express our feelings in accordance with cultural norms and social contexts in a way that tries to inform and invites empathy from the listener. regulate emotions, rather than let them regulate us, by finding practical strategies for dealing with what we and others feel. The rest of this book is devoted to teaching those skills and how to use

subjects’ distress decreased rapidly—within one second—when they performed self-talk in the third person compared with the first person

helps people gain a tiny bit of psychological distance from their experiences, which can often be useful for regulating emotions.