The Science of Emotion Regulation: Strategies for When You're Anxious, Angry, or Comparing Yourself To Others | Marc Brackett

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Science of Emotion Regulation: Strategies for When You're Anxious, Angry, or Comparing Yourself To Others

Podcast: 10% Happier with Dan Harris
Guest: Dr. Marc Brackett, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence
Date: March 16, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, host Dan Harris sits down with Dr. Marc Brackett, a pioneering researcher and professor from Yale known for his expertise on emotional intelligence. Dr. Brackett, author of the books Permission to Feel and Dealing with Feeling, offers a deep dive into emotion regulation: why it matters, how it shapes our health and relationships, and practical, research-backed strategies for managing our emotions—from anxiety and anger to gratitude and social comparison. The episode balances science, personal stories, and actionable steps to help listeners navigate their own and others’ emotional landscapes.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Critical Importance of Emotion Regulation

• Why emotion regulation is the "single most important skill"

  • "If you can't deal with your own emotions, life is pretty tough. And if you can't deal with other people's emotions, meaning if you're not a good co-regulator, I don't think many people want to be around us." (Marc Brackett, 04:54)
  • Dr. Brackett connects the societal mental health crisis to widespread struggles with regulating emotions and being present for others.
  • Emphasizes that most have never received any formal "emotion education." Only about 10% of people in his research could even define emotion regulation.

• What emotion regulation means

  • "Emotion regulation is a set of goals and strategies so we can prevent unwanted emotions, reduce difficult ones, initiate the ones we want, or help others to have… I have an acronym, I use ‘PRIME’: Prevent, Reduce, Initiate, Maintain, Enhance." (C, 06:45)
  • Regulation depends on the emotion, the person (personality), and the context.

Health and Relationship Benefits

• Benefits of emotion regulation:

  • Better learning, decision-making, relationships, physical and mental health, achievement, and longevity.
  • Poor regulation leads to chronic stress, unhealthy behaviors, and worse health outcomes. (C, 08:46)

• On permission to feel:

  • Giving ourselves and others permission to feel—without judgment—is a powerful regulatory technique.
  • “That alone is a master emotion regulation strategy.” (C, 10:34)
  • Brackett shares a personal story about childhood trauma and emotional neglect, underscoring the importance of having someone (like his Uncle Marvin) who simply listened with presence and without judgment. (C, 12:13)

Why We Avoid Other People’s Feelings

• Many avoid emotional conversations due to:
  • Believing it’s a waste of time
  • Fearing what we’ll hear or not knowing how to respond
  • Lacking skills (B, 15:04; C, 16:04)
• Key tip when someone shares strong feelings: Don’t try to fix or solve, just be present and curious—“People are not looking for someone to fix their feelings... People are looking for presence and co-regulation or support.” (C, 17:23)

Practical Strategies and Approaches

1. Savoring Positive Emotions (and Supporting Others)

• Developing "positive empathy"—an advanced form of empathy involving savoring and amplifying good emotions with others (like “sympathetic joy” or mudita from Buddhism).
  • “You want to be the person that other people like to call when they have good news.” (B, 20:26)
• Teaching kids how to savor and prolong elation as a crucial life skill. (C, 21:22)
• The same curiosity and presence applied to negative emotions is also powerful for positive ones: “Say more.” (B, 23:40)

2. Upregulating Your Own Pleasant Emotions

• Identify what brings joy (yellow/high-energy) and contentment (green/low-energy) in your life using tools like the Mood Meter.
• Schedule wellbeing activities just like meetings or work to make them happen. (C, 32:48)

3. Quieting the Mind

• Techniques: breathing exercises, mindfulness, meditation.
• Deep breathing can deactivate the nervous system, but telling someone to “just breathe” can be triggering; it needs to be taught skillfully and proactively. (C, 34:44)
• Mindfulness practice is effective but often neglected because it doesn’t seem “productive”—a problem in our productivity-obsessed culture. (C, 36:47)
• Emphasizes starting emotion education early for best results but notes it’s “never too late” to benefit.

4. Redirecting Thoughts — Cognitive Strategies

• Distance self-talk: Use your own name and empathetic phrases to create space in moments of rumination or distress.
  • “Mark, you know this feeling is impermanent. Yes, Mark, it's true… but tomorrow there's going to be a rainbow, so it's okay.” (C, 44:52)
• Temporal distancing: Remind yourself that strong feelings are temporary and may not matter in a day, week, or month.
• Reappraisal: Creativity in finding multiple alternative explanations for upsetting events; allows the mind to become curious, not certain.
  • “Curiosity feels safer. Actually, when you do it…” (B & C, 53:43-54:25)

5. Gratitude as a Cognitive Shift

• Use gratitude when stuck in envy or comparison, especially in social media contexts.
• “When you’re in a classroom of 300 people like mine and you’re looking around thinking everybody else is better than you… If you don’t shift the way you see the world, you’re going to drown in the envy.” (C, 58:53)
• The “three good things” practice is most effective in moderation—avoid list fatigue.

6. Regulating Identity and Acting from Your Best Self

• Identity regulation: Aim to see yourself as an emotionally intelligent person—“the Yoda of emotion regulation”—to accelerate skill development. (C, 62:54)
• Use the “Meta Moment” strategy:
  • Sense – Notice the trigger
  • Stop – Pause, breathe
  • See your best self – Recall the qualities you want to embody in the current role/context
  • Strategize and act
• Example: As a parent, you might set intentions to be “easy to talk to, fun, and passionate.” (C & B, 68:02-69:54)
• Reflect afterward on barriers to being your best self—this is where the deepest learning occurs.

7. Multiple Strategies in Concert

• Effective emotion regulation nearly always requires a mix of strategies (mindfulness, cognitive reframing, self-compassion, intentional action, etc.), not a single “magic bullet.” (C, 73:34)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Emotion regulation is the single most important skill we can develop.” (C, 04:54)
• “It hasn't been explicitly taught. None of us really ever got an emotion education.” (C, 06:15)
• “People are not looking for someone to fix their feelings or even to give them necessarily specific advice. People are looking for presence and co-regulation or support.” (C, 17:23)
• “We want somebody to... sit there, hold somebody's hand and sit in the light too... savoring these beautiful experiences in life.” (C, 19:06–19:23)
• “You want to be the person that other people like to call when they have good news.” (B, 20:35)
• “Curiosity feels safer. Actually, when you do it... 100% agree with that.” (B & C, 53:43-54:25)
• “Mark, you know this feeling is impermanent.” (C, 44:52)
• “If you don’t shift the way you see the world, you’re going to drown in the envy. And if you take a moment and think, wait a minute, I’m actually a student at Yale University…It just pulls them away from the rumination…” (C, 58:53)
• “Effective regulation is using all the strategies. They’re a collective.” (C, 73:34)
• “Permission to feel is the attitudinal shift — but for others and yourself.” (C, 73:34)
• “My new book is called Dealing with Feeling. My first book is called Permission to Feel.” (C, 76:22)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [04:41] – Dr. Brackett explains why emotion regulation is fundamental.
• [06:37] – What is emotion regulation, and the “PRIME” model.
• [08:46] – Health benefits and dangers (dysregulation).
• [10:34] – “Permission to Feel” as a master strategy.
• [12:13] – Dr. Brackett’s personal story (abuse, bullying, and Uncle Marvin).
• [17:23] – How to respond to other people’s emotions: presence and curiosity.
• [21:22] – Teaching kids to savor elation—positive empathy.
• [32:48] – Upregulating your own positive emotions; schedules for joy and wellbeing.
• [34:44] – Mindfulness and breathing are foundational, but tricky to teach/maintain.
• [44:52] – Distance self-talk for rumination.
• [53:43] – Reappraisal: thinking of five alternatives to a situation.
• [58:53] – The importance of gratitude in moments of envy/comparison.
• [62:54] – Identity regulation: seeing yourself as someone competent at emotion regulation.
• [68:02–69:54] – The “Meta Moment” and specifying your best self in relationships.
• [73:34] – The necessity of combining multiple regulation strategies.

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Tone & Takeaways

The conversation is candid, warm, and practical. Dr. Brackett shares both scientific insight and vulnerable personal stories. The episode encourages listeners to drop judgment, practice curiosity and presence (with both positive and negative emotions), and to develop emotion regulation as an active, holistic practice. No quick fixes—lasting change requires intention, self-compassion, creativity, supportive relationships, and ongoing effort.

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Further Resources

• Marc Brackett’s books: Permission to Feel, Dealing with Feeling
• Marc Brackett’s podcast: Dealing with Feeling
• Website: markbrackett.com
• Social media: Instagram, LinkedIn

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If you’re looking for actionable ways to improve your relationship with emotions—your own and others’—this episode is packed with science-backed wisdom, memorable anecdotes, and clear strategies.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign. This is the 10% Happier podcast.

[B]

I'm Dan Harris.

[A]

Hello party people.

[B]

Today I am talking to a world

[A]

leading expert on emotional intelligence. He is a professor and researcher from Yale who is sometimes referred to as the Feelings Master. We're going to talk about how to deal with stress, anxiety and anger. How to use gratitude in moments of compare and despair, like when you're on Instagram comparing your life to other people's lives, how to talk to yourself in moments of high stress, and how to talk to other people when they're experiencing powerful emotions.

[B]

By the way, this is a thing a lot of us avoid or fear

[A]

dealing with other people's emotions. But as you're about to hear, my guest makes a very strong case for developing this skill as a way to vastly improve your own life. And I've seen this play out in my own life. My guest is Dr. Mark Brackett. He's the founding director of the Yale center for Emotional Intelligence and he's the author of a book called Dealing with Use youe Emotions to Create the Life youe Want. As you know, meditation is a great way to manage your unruly emotions. So please check out my new meditation app, 10% with Dan Harris. We've got guided practices from many of the world's greatest teachers.

[B]

We also do these amazing weekly live

[A]

video meditation and Q and A sessions. There's a ton of evidence that shows that meditating with other people is a great way to keep the practice going. You can get the app by heading over to danharis.com, dash A-N H-A-R-R-I-S.com, join the party. We'll get started with Dr. Mark Brackett right after this. As many of you know, I'm not a big fan of the so called power of positive thinking that just because you think something like let me get a million bucks or let me cure

[B]

whatever disease I'm struggling with right now,

[A]

just because you think it doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen. However, one of my sponsors today has a product that is as close to genuine power of positive thinking as I can imagine. It's called wix and they have this thing called the Harmony Editor which makes it so easy to create a website exactly how you imagined it in your mind that it's almost like you're thinking out loud, thinking it into existence. Experience the New Way to Create Websites Wix Harmony is a hybrid website editor that offers the perfect blend of AI and precise drag and drop tools. Introducing the world to the next generation of website creation. Launch a pro grade website by entering a single prompt, essentially turning your words into a full website flow between prompting your AI agent and manual design tools to shape every detail of the site. And I can tell you as a small business owner that it is easy to burn out because there's so many details. You've heard me say this before. There's so many details to deal with that can pull you away from your core mission. Ready to create your website? Go to wix.com harmony and that's wix.com harmony. You know what gives you peace of mind? Financial security.

[B]

I can tell you, and you've probably

[A]

heard me say this before, I have spent a lot of my life unfortunately worrying about financial security. And I'm always on the lookout for new products and services that can help in this regard. I think this is true for many of us. One of the biggest sources of background stress for many of us is money, specifically worrying about whether we've done enough to prepare for the future. This mindset is kind of the opposite of inner peace and contentment. And that's why I'm going to tell you today about Gainbridge. Gainbridge offers financial products with a guaranteed rate, and I want to emphasize that word, guaranteed. You're not guessing, you're not refreshing an app wondering what happened overnight. You know exactly what growth you're going to get right from the start.

[B]

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[A]

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[B]

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[A]

And another design for retirement planning. The idea is you set it up and then you don't have to think about it. That's the peace of mind part. It's not only about growing your money, it's about releasing an element of financial anxiety. Your money grows, you know exactly how much, and then you get on with your life. Gainbridge, let your money work for you. Learn [e-mail] rates subject to change. Doctor Mark Brackett, welcome to the show.

[C]

Thank you for having me.

[B]

It's a pleasure. You make a pretty strong claim here. You say emotion regulation is the single most important skill we can develop. Why is that?

[C]

Because if you can't deal with your own emotions, life is pretty tough. And if you can't deal with other people's emotions, meaning if you're not a good co regulator, I don't think many people want to be around us.

[B]

Your belief is that this inability that many of us have or this underdeveloped skill to co regulate with others and to regulate ourselves is a major contributor to the mental health crisis we're seeing these days.

[C]

It is if you think about what we're seeing these days, whether it's emotion dysregulation with anxiety or depression, or whether it's the inability to control oneself from doom scrolling for six hours every night. I mean, in the end it's a form of self regulation that most people are lacking. And in the relational aspects, let's think about our society today. I mean, don't you think maybe our society would be a little bit better run if leaders cared about how people felt and were concerned about the well being of society?

[B]

I do. And that caring quotient fluctuates in Washington and in the seats of power around the country. This is a whole digression. But I'm not sure how high it has ever been. I mean, we were a flawed species. Sometimes it's high, sometimes it's not, but I'm not sure how high it ever gets.

[C]

Well, it hasn't been explicitly taught. And that's my whole argument that none of us really ever got an emotion education. And you know, from my book, I did this research with thousands of people across the world. Less than 10% of people said they had any formal education in emotion regulation. They couldn't even define it. Most of us can't even articulate what it even means.

[B]

What does it mean?

[C]

Good question. You want the long form or you want the short form first?

[B]

This is a podcast. You can go as long as you want, baby.

[C]

All right, good. So the way I like to think about it is that emotion regulation is a set of goals and strategies so we can prevent unwanted emotions. These are the goals we can reduce difficult ones, we can initiate the ones that we want to have or help others to have. We can maintain our emotions, we can enhance our emotions. So I have an acronym, I use PRIME for that. So we can prevent, reduce, initiate, maintain or enhance our own or other people's emotions. And we use strategies to do that that we can go into in a minute because there's a lot of strategies. So emotion regulation is a set of goals and strategies, but there's a lot more to the formula because it's a function of three big things. The emotion you're feeling. I do different things to regulate my anxiety than my stress, than my anger than my disappointment, or to feel more pleasant emotions like happiness and contentment. That's the E. The P is the personality. I'm an introvert who's on the neurotic side. So, you know, what I need and what you might need are two different things. But I have a feeling you might have some of these traits too. And then there's the context, which is right now I'm traveling, so got my nice setup here in the hotel. I feel really good. I got a good mic. And so the context matters for regulation because I can't go for a run right now if I'm feeling anxious during the podcast, I've got to like use some cognitive strategies or breathing strategies. But tonight or early this morning, I can use different strategies. So just to put it together, emotion regulation is a set of goals and strategies that are a function of the emotion we're feeling, the person that we are, and the context we're in.

[B]

We're going to go deep on your strategies because the book is loaded with them. But let me just ask a few more sort of high level questions.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

First, just to make this even more

[B]

appealing to people, what are the health benefits of learning how to regulate your emotions? And maybe we can even think about it in the inverse, like, what are the health dangers of not doing this well?

[C]

What does dysregulation lead to? It leads to an immune system that doesn't function well. It leads to cortisol levels that are skyrocketing in our body throughout the day. It leads to us choosing poor foods. It leads us to not engaging in a lot of physical activity in general, lots of downside health benefits. On the upside, what my research and other people's research shows is that people who regulate better are better learners in school. They make more sound decisions. They have healthier and higher quality relationships. They have better physical and mental health. They achieve their goals in life. And I think the big one, which seems to be the new thing that everyone wants to talk about, is longevity. People live longer. You're going to live a healthier, happier life if you can deal with your

[B]

feelings on the longevity piece. My understanding, and you're the expert here, so I'll defer to you obviously on this. My understanding that the most powerful way to regulate your emotions is by having positive relationships, and those positive relationships are what help us do it. Is that your understanding?

[C]

It's part of my understanding. We have never put all the variables into the equation to look at predictive wise. A lot of the studies, you know, my friend Bob Waldinger is the big person to do the Good life study. And yes, relationships do matter. But I find in My research that something I wrote about earlier in my career seems to have the same predictive power, which is what I call permission to feel. That when we give ourselves just the permission to be true full feeling selves, that we don't judge our feelings, that we're comfortable being with them. That alone is a master emotion regulation strategy.

[B]

I'm thinking about my longtime meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein. He teaches in these pithy phrases and one of them is it's okay. By which he does not mean everything's fine. He means it's okay to feel what you're feeling right now. Like you might not think you can withstand it, but you can just let

[C]

it all in 100%. That's a big project that I'm working on right now, which is the follow up research to that concept of permission to feel. About 70 studies that I've run across the world on it. Actually, it's a powerful concept to give oneself permission to feel so to live without judgment of the emotional experiences you're having. So much of our dysregulation comes from the judgment around the feeling. I'm anxious, that makes me weak, you know, I can't feel this way. It's the feelings we have about our feelings, you know, we call that meta emotions. But you know, the shame I had as a kid that I was being bullied, so I was feeling fearful, you know, with the bullying. But my shame around being a boy who was bullied and had a father who was a tough guy is what really got in the way of dealing with it.

[B]

What you were just saying right there, that's your story. That wasn't just a. For example.

[C]

Yeah, that's personal. Yeah.

[B]

So that sounds pretty searing. Bullying, I think, is always, most of the time, quite a searing experience. And then when you add that into the context of your family configuration, is that what drove you into this work?

[C]

It is. Although if we want to go deeper into the personal, unfortunately I also was abused sexually by my parents best friend for five years of my childhood.

[B]

Oh my God.

[C]

And so if you couple having five years of sexual abuse from 5 to 10 years old and not disclosing it with hating school and having two parents who love me. But one was angry, couldn't deal with his life, and the other one was anxious and couldn't deal with her life, where do you go with your feelings? You eat your feelings, you scream your feelings, you cry your feelings. You do mischievous things. The reason why I wrote my first book called Permission to Feel was because I had one person in my life who was my Uncle Marvin, who was an amazing human being. He was a schoolteacher by day and a band leader by night. And he happened to be running a curriculum to teach kids about feelings in the 1980s. And he happened to use me as a guinea pig. So we sat in my backyard when I was around 11, and he'd say, hey, Mark, how you feeling? I would say things like, sad, angry. He was the only person who ever asked me how I felt. But on top of that, when I shared what I was really feeling, he didn't say, you know, toughen up, kiddo, or, I can't handle this because I'm going to have a breakdown because of your feelings, which was what would have happened at home. He's like, let's get through this together. He didn't fix me. He didn't solve my emotional difficulties. He just was present. And that's what we're hoping for, or what I'm hoping for for everybody. Because my research shows only about one third of us have an Uncle Marvin. One third of us, and only about 15% of us say it's our parent. 85% of us are growing up in homes where we don't believe our own parents give us permission to feel.

[B]

I'm having a million thoughts as I'm listening to you talk. First of all, I'm really sorry that happened to you.

[C]

I appreciate that. Thank you.

[B]

Not the Marvin part, the abuse part. And the bullying. That's awful. The other thought I was having, which is we don't have to dwell on. It's just I sometimes think about how we use language. We say to people, how you're doing, how you feeling. We often say, also, take care or take care of yourself. And we don't actually mean any of that. It's just rote. But it would be interesting if we as a culture started to mean it.

[C]

I mean, I do, because I think you're correct, which is that, you know, in the workplace especially, it's like, you know, we don't say, how are you feeling? Because that's, like, very intimate, right? It's like, how you doing? And then before the person even responds, you're already down, you know, the hallway. We don't really stay with people's feelings. And I have research to show why that's the case, too. A lot of it is people don't think it's worthy. It's like, time. Like, really, I'm going to waste my time with this. The second is fear, which is that people are afraid about what they're going to hear, like, if I asked you, hey, Dan, how are you feeling today? By the way, how are you feeling today?

[B]

That's a whole other discussion. Let's blow past that. We can come back to it if you want, but we.

[C]

All right.

[B]

I would answer, and I will answer, but I don't want to derail the point you're trying to make.

[C]

I appreciate that, but the point of me asking you is that if you were to say, like most people say, good, fine, okay. You know, it's like, great, me too. And then we move on. But if you said, you know, Mark, I'm actually feeling this odd mixture of anxiety and frustration and overwhelm. I'm excited to be with you on the podcast, but I got so much going on in my life. What do most people do when they hear that? They're like, oh, gosh, really? This is why I didn't ask you how you felt from the beginning. I don't want to have to deal with this. And that leads to the third issue. Well, for parents, by the way, it's a lot of fear. If I ask my kid how they're really feeling and they tell me the truth, yikes, what am I going to do with that? The big one is skill, which is why I wrote this book. Because people don't have the skills. They don't know what to do with that information. They get overwhelmed by other people's emotions, and they don't know how to work with them, to support them.

[B]

You're one of these guests. This happens every once in a while where your answers beg a bunch of questions. I'm trying to write them all down and then figure out what order I should ask them in. But you said something right there at the end that kind of begs a question. I think a lot of people don't know. What do you do if you actually inquire of someone how they're feeling and they say something that's has some moment to it, some power, it's momentous in some way. How do we handle that? How can we develop that skill? Because it's a massive public service to be Marvin for other people.

[C]

That's my vision. And again, I think people have this weird conception that being the Uncle Marvin means that you're, like, indulging. You know, this is the pushback we get now for the work that we do in schools. It's all, you're indulging kids emotions. I'm like, absolutely not. This is emotional intelligence, not emotional indulgence. We're helping people develop the Skills they need. Because if a kid, for example, comes into my classroom as a teacher who's just gotten bullied on the bus and feeling fearful and hatred and anger, they're going to be ruminating about that pretty much all day long and figuring out a way to get home safely. They're not going to be good learners. So it's my obligation to help kids A be safe and B have the vocabulary and the strategies to deal with their feelings. So I think the first step is, let's say you said, I'm anxious and overwhelmed. I said, gosh, Dan, yeah, it's a lot of feelings today. What's going on? Just be curious. What's wrong with being curious about someone's experience? Again, what I want to share is that people are not looking for someone to fix their feelings or even to give them necessarily specific advice. People looking for presence and co regulation or support, and that really should relieve people, provide some relief to people who are listening, thinking, you know, the reason why I'm afraid to ask people how they're feeling is because, you know, I'm not sure what to do. You don't have to do that much, just gotta be there. People actually their resilience muscle will be built by not giving advice, by not doing problem solving. For kids especially, it's letting them be with their feelings, the ones that are uncomfortable, and help them think through the solutions to those emotions, if they're even in need of a solution. Because most emotions, they're ephemeral. We're not regulating all day long. We go crazy. It's the strong ones, it's the big ones that we have to deal with.

[B]

I just want to completely agree with you. I mean, it's something I learned late in life that you don't need to fix. In fact, fixing is annoying, usually for the person who is being worked on. I often think of something Renee Brown said here on the show, actually about her own children. And of course this applies to grownups too. She often says to her kids, or at least did at the time we did this interview, I can't solve the problem, but I can sit in the dark with you. And I like that because that's what people want. We want somebody to.

[A]

I learned this when I was a hospice volunteer too.

[B]

Like sit there, hold somebody's hand and

[C]

sit in the light too. I think that we underestimate the power of co regulation of positive emotions, the savoring of these beautiful experiences in life that we say, oh, fabulous, good, congratulations. As opposed to really being with those pleasant feelings.

[B]

I completely agree with you. And another little moment of wisdom is coming to mind from another past guest on this show. She didn't say it on the show. She said it in the context of a direct teaching from her to me. There's a great dharma teacher named Spring Washam, who one of her subspecialties is teaching what are known in Buddhism as the Brahma Viharas. These four interrelated skills of. I would call them love, call them warmth or heart qualities, whatever. Compassion, friendliness, equanimity. And then the skill she was talking about specifically, that comes to mind when you said your thing about sitting in the light. It's called sympathetic joy, or mudita, which is just the pleasure we take in other people's success. This is a trainable skill through meditation, where you envision people and imagine people savoring their success, and you send them wishes for continued happiness and success. And it's very hard to do. That's why there's that expression, every time a friend of mine succeeds, I die a little bit. But what Spring once said to me, that has never gotten out of my head is, you want to be the person that other people like to call when they have good news.

[C]

Exactly. I would say that it's a skill, and I teach this skill to kids and to others. But kids are my favorite because they're our future. Just to give an example of this, it was a fun one. When I do writing, I oftentimes go into the real world to do it, meaning I do it work workshops with kids or with teachers or leaders, and I record them, and it helps me think about my work. So I'm working with this group of fourth graders, and I'm asking them to differentiate the feelings of excitement and elation.

[B]

Do you want to try it verbally to distinguish them?

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

Excitement to me is jangly. And elation has a bit more stability and ballast and calm in it.

[C]

Nice. That was a beautiful way to describe them. Definitionally speaking, one is more anticipatory. I'm excited about going to the park. I'm excited to go on vacation, where elation tends to be kind of. Afterward, you're elated. When you watch the thing in sports, the goal, you get the goal. And you like this sense of joy and kind of pride coming together. So I'm teaching this to kids, and I asked them to think about, well, what are the ways that you would help a close friend prolong their feelings of elation? And it was amazing. I mean, they got into groups and they're thinking about all like, give me scenarios where this could be true and where you would practice this and do it and what would it look like and sound like and how would you do it? And then we role played it. I mean, these kids were, would blow your mind. And what I loved about it was at the end, I usually tell kids, these kids, obviously it was a letter that went home that Professor Brackett came to visit your class today. And your parents are going to probably ask, what did Mark do with you in that class on emotional intelligence today? And this one girl raises her hand, she goes, sir, I think we learned a new form of empathy. And I said, say more. She goes, well, we always talk about empathy. If someone's grandma dies or their dog dies, we have to show that we care and that's obviously important. But helping people savor their pleasant feelings, that's a really important form of empathy.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

My point is that you can teach this at a young age and when they see the value of it, they're going to do it more. But I didn't learn, I mean, did you learn anything about mudita or positive empathy when you were a kid?

[B]

No, I have to say I had really touchy feely parents, like hippie ex hippies. And I was raised in, as I often joke, the People's Republic of Massachusetts. And it was like, you know, free to be you and me, that record that they played to kids back then. So I may have been taught it, but I wasn't paying attention.

[C]

Yeah, it's not explicit.

[B]

Yeah, it should have been more explicit. Absolutely. And I agree that it's a new form or a enhanced and advanced form of empathy. I will also shout out that you said two words there that can be very practical for the rest of us when dealing with what can feel like an emotional onslaught from other people. Say more.

[C]

Exactly the same thing, by the way, goes for pleasant feelings.

[B]

Yes, yes, of course.

[C]

That's how you engage in the mudita process. Right. It's like, tell me more about that goal you got. What did it feel like in your body? What was going on in your mind? I want to hear the whole story. And people love that. As a matter of fact, longitudinally speaking, when we reflect back on our childhoods or even when we reflect back, period, and we think about the people that had the greatest impact on us, it's the people who engaged in the positive empathy that stand out.

[B]

Hmm.

[C]

More so than the people who engage in the traditional empathy.

[B]

That's great. That's good to know. As the father of an 11 year old as well.

[A]

Coming up, Dr. Marc Brackett talks about a self interested top spin on everything we've been discussing this far why savoring positive emotions actually strengthens relationships, upregulating joy and contentment in your everyday life life and the upside of identifying what brings you well being and then thinking about how to get more of it. Probably the most important variable in my experience as an entrepreneur, even more important than the quality of your idea for the business, is the quality of the

[B]

people who you work with.

[A]

It's just so crucial to have high quality, really smart, really effective, really committed people on your side as you're building a business. However, hiring can be a pain in the butt. You spend a lot of time waiting for the right candidates to apply. Sorting through resumes, trying to get in touch with the potential candidates can be a nightmare, honestly. Which brings me to one of our sponsors today, ZipRecruiter. They've got the latest tools and features to help you speed up finding the right people for your roles so you can save valuable time and get the human resources you need in order to build your company and bring your idea to fruition. And now you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com 10% with ZipRecruiter's new advances, you can easily find and connect with qualified candidates in minutes. If you see a candidate you're really interested in, you can unlock their contact information instantly. Over 320,000 new resumes are added to Zoom ZipRecruiter every month, which means you can reach more potential hires and fill roles sooner. Use ZipRecruiter and save time hiring four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter. Get a quality candidate within the first day. And if you go to ZipRecruiter.com 10% that's T E n P E R C E n T. If you go there right now, you can try it for free again. That's ZipRecruiter.com 10% ZipRecruiter the smartest way to Hire. As a dedicated exerciser Is that even a word exerciser? Anyway, as a dedicated one, one of

[B]

the big things I've learned over time, after decades of of hitting the gym,

[A]

is that you need variety not only to keep you interested and keep you coming back to the gym, but also to prevent injury. Which is why I want to talk to you about fitbod, which is a product that customizes every workout and adapts as you improve to avoid boredom and plateaus on your journey. I've checked out the fitbod app. It's really cool. Lots of great trainers on there, lots of options, and it's very easy to use. Having a trainer can be incredibly helpful, but not everybody can afford one. And not everybody lives in an area where you have access to great trainers. Which is why fitbod is so attractive, because you can get all the benefits of a trainer without the logistical hassles and without the massive price tag. Fitbod creates a personalized workout routine based on your goals, your fitness level, and your available equipment. The workouts adapt to your growth, so each workout is challenging enough to push you to make progress. Fitbod tracks your muscle recovery so you can avoid burnout and keep up your momentum. Level up your workout Join Fitbod today to get your personalized workout plan. Get 25% off your subscription description or try the app free for seven days at Fitbod. Me 10%. I just want to put a fine

[B]

point on this part of the discussion. I'm always, and I don't know if this is a service that people actually need, but it's what I need as a person who's wired for selfishness. I want to put a self interested, top spin on everything we've been discussing.

[C]

Sure.

[A]

In my experience, if I had heard

[B]

this discussion 10 years ago, even though I was already kind of interested in Buddhism and personal growth, I don't know that I would have understood why helping people savor their positive emotions or survive their negative ones would be in my interest. But I think to me it kind of. Well, there's the evidence base, which is what you referred to earlier with Bob Waldinger and his work at Harvard with the Harvard Study for Adult Development, which has shown over 80 plus years that the quality of your relationships determines the length and quality of your life. So there's that. And then I can also just say from an end of one perspective, having these skills to draw people out and be with them no matter what's happening has brought my life from black and white to color. I don't do it all the time. Once heard somebody on my team say that Dan practices what he preaches about 70% of the time. So that felt pretty good. Actually. It really has helped.

[C]

You're making me think about not just about parent child relationships, but colleague to colleague relationships. You know, I work at a university where people are not so great at celebrating other people's success. I see couples all the time who feel inhibited sharing the good news they had because they feel like maybe Their partner will feel like, well, I don't get the good news that you get. And so it almost is like this weird dynamic of power where I can't really share my pleasant feelings because I'm afraid that you can't handle the fact that I'm actually enjoying my life, which is. We can do like a 17 part series. I think where we were going, just from my own sense of staying on track, is that the regulation of emotion oftentimes is focused on down regulating unpleasant feelings. And we just had a little movement here around. It's not just that. It's also about supporting other people in experiencing pleasant emotions and also upregulating our own pleasant emotions to enjoy our lives. And that matters a lot.

[B]

Well, say more about that. Upregulating our own positive emotions, because I don't think we've really touched on that. We talked about how to get other people to savor theirs. But I think given the negativity bias that is so hardwired into the human

[A]

animal, it can be very easy to

[B]

move past the pleasant things in our day. The taste of our food, the quality of a tiny, fleeting little interaction with your pharmacist or somebody at the barista or whatever, or big positive things. How do we draw those out and savor them more?

[C]

Well, first we have to know what those things are. In our work we have a tool we call the mood meter, which you may have seen before. It's this box of four colors. The yellow, the red, the blue and the green. And we have an app now that helps people to use that more effectively. And so yellow emotions are the high energy, pleasant ones. The excitement, the elation, the optimism, the hope. The green emotions are those of calm, content, tranquil, peaceful, relaxed, low energy, pleasant feelings. And then we got the blue and the red, which are the unpleasant emotions, the anger and the anxiety. Family. And the kind of sadness and loneliness. Family. So firstly, do you know what brings you into the yellow? Like, what actually brings you into the yellow quadrant? Like, what are the things that you like to do that when you're there or doing them, you feel joy and excitement? People don't reflect on these things very much. What are the things that bring you into that green quadrant? The things that make you feel content? It's funny, I live now in the countryside of Connecticut. We moved after the pandemic to a very rural area. I've got lots of property and hiking trails. And people always say, what do you love to do, Mark? And I said, well, now that I live in the country, I Love to hike. And people say, well, how often do you hike? And I'm like, I think I did two last year. It's like I don't make the time to do the things that I know bring me pleasant feelings because I'm busy working. So identifying those things in your life and planning them for me. One thing that I do that I've never done before is I plan my wellbeing time. And so my calendar, I may look like a severely neurotic human being, but I schedule my workouts, I schedule my hiking time, I schedule my connection time, because otherwise I'm not going to do it. My default is research and analysis and blah blah, blah.

[B]

Yes, you're reminding me of somebody on my team. She didn't give me permission to name her, so I won't name her. But somebody on my team who talks about her default mode being work robot and so therefore has to put go to the movies with a friend or take a walk on her calendar because otherwise it's just the slog.

[C]

Exactly. So identifying those things that bring you joy is critically important and scheduling them really matters. I mean, I think that's just one thing. If everybody did that every week, twice a week or three times a week, just found those 15 minute blocks or one hour blocks and just schedule that, I think it would be a huge difference in people's lives.

[B]

Okay, let's dive more deeply into the book you referenced. Your first book, Permission to Feel. The new book is called Dealing with Feeling. It's just packed with, as you say, research backed strategies for emotion regulation, which as we established at the top of this episode, is a very important skill. And so number one, the first strategy you mentioned is quieting the mind. What do you recommend for doing that?

[C]

I mean, this is your whole thing. I mean, I listen to you all the time. This is your practice, right? It's the breathing exercises, it's the mindfulness exercises, it's the meditation. Writing a book on emotion regulation that has a chapter on quieting the mind was not easy, by the way, given there are 3,750 million books on this topic. And so I wanted to be really clear in terms of. I was very curious around the nuance in the research because I mean, it's pretty obvious for most of us breathing is going to deactivate our nervous system. Would you agree?

[B]

Yeah, I think that's unimpeachable. It's the advice every mom gives their kid. You'll take a deep breath, but it actually, there's evidence for it.

[C]

Exactly. Except it's not great when we tell people that I've learned that the hard way.

[A]

Fair enough.

[C]

I mean, it really doesn't work. I'm like, everybody breathe. That's a trigger, Mark. That's a trigger. I'm like, okay. But we do know it works and it's the place where we can build that space to deactivate. I make sure I'm clear that I don't think breathing is sufficient. I always joke when my mother in law got trapped with us during the pandemic, I would do a lot of breathing exercises and I'd be like, I'm even clear why she needs to go home. So, you know, yes, it does lower the temperature. It helps us to be able to access some of those cognitive strategies that I think are critically important, but it doesn't guarantee we're going to use them. Obviously the mindfulness work is important, whether it be mindfulness exercises to be more present or to, as we talked about earlier, the compassion focused ones. And so I think stating the obvious that we need to do that, the problem is that nobody wants to do it. We haven't sold it. Well, the best example I have for that is here I am, got a large amount of money from a donor to do a study with my undergraduate students to put them through different forms of mindfulness training. And we were going to pay these people and they didn't even need the money, but we paid them anyway to participate because we figured we'd get them to stick with their research. By the time the study was over, something like 70 something percent dropped out. So we couldn't even actually analyze the data because there was nobody left to actually study. And it was once a week working together through the mindfulness exercise. And they had their on their own time practice, 0% practice on their own numbers were terrible. And when I interviewed the students afterwards, what do you think the number one reason why they didn't do it was?

[B]

Not enough time.

[C]

Not enough time. That's only a piece of it. It's deeper than that. It's a waste of their time.

[B]

Huh?

[C]

But you can't be productive while you're doing mindfulness and breathing exercise.

[B]

Oh, I see, I see, I see, I see. To me that seems like a problem with the pedagogy. I deal with a lot of people who have beefs with meditation. Usually if I can bend their ear for five minutes, they're disabused of the notion that it's a waste of time because there's a ton of science to show that it's really good for you and it's actually can make you more productive and focused and all that stuff. What I found is that people aren't doing it because they don't have enough time and habit formation is really hard. The same thing is true with exercise or sleep hygiene or eating a healthy diet. There's a reason why New Year's resolutions, we bail on them by February.

[C]

You're right. But I think this goes back to I'm a prevention scientist and it sometimes fascinates me how unpopular prevention sciences and how popular clinical research is or treatment research is, because if we keep on treating people with anxiety disorders or depression or whatever it is like the number of new kids or adults who fall into that system of the need for help is never going to diminish. It just makes no sense to me why we don't think oh, my other background, by the way, is I taught martial arts for 30 years and have a strong background in Eastern philosophy and Buddhism myself. And I would teach 5 year olds really complex meditations and mindfulness exercises and they loved it. But I got them when they were young and they saw the connection between the breathing exercise and the mindfulness and their martial arts and their lives. And I taught them that explicitly. But now as a professor of college students, I have kids who are 18, 19 years old. They've gone through a system where the only thing that makes you successful is playing an instrument that no one ever heard or having something on your CV that sounds so special that it's like, wow, you went to a country that I didn't even know existed to volunteer. There's no reinforcement for having these kinds of practices. And so we're starting late. And so we have to work in that mindset, which is before the way I talk about it in my book is like, before we can get to teaching people, whether it's mindfulness or cognitive strategies, we've got to get them to believe that all this matters. Yes, they have to have that both that emotions are data and valuable sources of information and that it's a learnable skill because a lot of people think of this as something that's innate. Like I thought this way, by the way. I mean, until I got a PhD in psychology, I just thought it was emotionally a basket case. I had so much neuroses from my childhood, it was complicated life and I would have strong emotions. That's just part of who I am. And I just thought, okay, you got to live it out. And then I realized, wait a minute, there's evidence based strategies to regulate emotions. There's actually a science to this. There's skills you can learn, and it's harder, not impossible, to do it as we develop. You know, my big push is let's start this in preschool and teach it in a developmentally appropriate way across development. And of course, now at 56, I run a center at the university. I've got 40 employees. I've got political pushback on my work. I still got to regulate and I need new strategies, but the muscle has already gotten that exercise that it needs to try a new technique.

[B]

Well, I agree with you about teaching them while they're young. I totally agree with you about that. And I will say that the people listening to this show want to buy what you're selling. So this is a hospitable environment.

[C]

The good news, it's never too early, it's never too late. The areas of our brain responsible for learning these skills are with us until we're in our 90s. I get a letter from a 90 year old man just a while back thanking me for teaching him this stuff. He said, I only wish I learned it earlier, but you're making the last years of my life better. So I promise everyone this is something you can learn today and make a difference. So the breathing and mindfulness work that we discuss, I have my favorites. And I think that's part of the work, is that I came from a Zen background. I learned vipassana and other forms of meditation and mindfulness. But the one that stuck with me the most was the work from Thich Nhat Hanh. And I just related to him as a human. I liked the way he thought about the world. And so I like his mindfulness practices. And they work for me. I've been practicing them now for 40 years. I can tell you that I don't need 15. I need like two or three different ones for different purposes. And it really does its work for me.

[B]

Okay, so strategy number one, quieting the mind. Strategy number two is about redirecting your thoughts or cognitive strategies. What should we know about that?

[C]

This goes back to your point about the negativity bias. We really have to fight that. And because again, we're not taught from a young age to sit through the way people are talking to us. For me, this is a big one because I grew up with very low self esteem, hated myself. I was too Jewish, I was too chubby, my nose was too big, I was too feminine. The world had a lot to say about who I was and nobody really helped me sift through that and say, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Wait a minute. Who are you to define my reality for me? That's called gaslighting, by the way. And I don't accept that. I do think that most of our negative talk comes from gaslighting. I think that other people just feel they have the right to tell you who you are, and then you start believing it because no one else teaches you otherwise. And so going from that self critic to the person who's self compassionate is effortful. And we have to learn the strategies that work of positive self talk and that distant self talk of like Mark, take the high road. Like my favorite. Because of my Zen meditation background, my favorite strategy for cognitive strategies is I say to myself consistently, mark, you know, this feeling is impermanent. And to me it's like, oh, I can breathe, because I don't know about you. But when bad stuff happens, little bad things, like, you know, the flight gets canceled and you're stuck there freaking out or whatever, you're having a really rough day, you get news that something didn't work out at work, and you just go into that ruminative state, which is my default. I take that breath, which gives me access to the cognitive strategies. And I say, mark, today's a rainy day. It's okay. Tomorrow's gonna be a sunny day. And recognizing that emotions are ephemeral and that that's kind of the law of physics is freeing for me. And I don't think many people take the opportunity to adopt that mindset around their emotions. They get stuck in it. The biggest challenge I'm seeing today, by the way, this is with a young teenager. Like, I do a lot of work in high schools, and I can't tell you how many high school students come up to me. They don't want to say this in front of their peers, but they say it privately. And they say, mark, I don't feel anxious. I am anxiety. They define their whole body and life by the emotion. And there's where the problem lies. They're not anxiety or not your emotions. Your emotions are experiences. Some of us have stronger experiences than others, and sometimes they're more intense or more frequent than others. But emotions are ephemeral. And if we can adopt that mindset and recognize that when we're experiencing the strong, unpleasant ones, life is going to be a lot better for us.

[B]

You said this was your favorite strategy for interrupting rumination. Is the name for this strategy distance self talk?

[C]

It is because distance self talk is just literally having empathy for yourself and saying, mark, you know this feeling is impermanent. Yes, Mark, it's true. Today, Mark, you know, this is like that rainy day, it feels like a thunderstorm, but tomorrow there's going to be a rainbow, so it's okay. And I have to say, like, again, I Repeat this, I'm 56, I still get caught up in the rainy days, never going to go away. I even take like a double step back. Mark, last week you had that really shitty experience and you were in that same spot and the next day everything was fine. Remember that? Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Okay, it's work. Maybe I just need a lot more work than other people, but from my exposure in the world, I don't think so.

[B]

Dude. Yes, yes. I completely identify with what you're describing by yourself. And just to be technical here, you added on top of distance, self talk, temporal distance.

[C]

That's another form of it. Which is, that's when you say to yourself, mark, is this really going to be something that's problematic in a week from now? Does this really matter? I do a lot of that in my relationship. I've been with my partner for 31 years and we have very different lives and different styles of being and we have different values about buying things. Part of it is like, really? You really need that? And then I have to say, mark, you're not your partner's father. Let it go. Or I have to say something like, is this really going to impact our finances? No, let it go. So that forward looking, forward thinking strategy, very, very helpful reappraisal, oh my gosh, how critical is that? Instead of going right for the blame, can you just try to see it from a different lens or a different perspective for a minute? It may not be the right answer, but give someone the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're not trying to sabotage you. Maybe they're not intentionally late because they don't respect you. Maybe they just really hit traffic.

[B]

I want to talk about reappraisal in a second. But just to say on distant self talk, which includes the kind of bonus level of temporal distancing, just want to point out to the audience that the key move that Mark was making was using his own name. That is the way to distance yourself. Dude, bro, Mark, whatever you want to call yourself, it allows you to harness this ability we all have underdeveloped, but there anyway to give good advice when appropriate to children, mentees, friends, whatever. You can do that to yourself.

[C]

Correct?

[B]

You can be your Uncle Marvin.

[C]

Well, by the way, I love that you just said that because a Big part of my training now is, you know, because two thirds of us didn't have the Uncle Marvin. A lot of people and my research shows that if you have the Uncle Marvin, you tend to be more successful in life. You tend to have greater life satisfaction, greater purpose and meaning, better physical health, better mental health. You actually sleep better at night. Big benefits to having grown up with that uncle marvin. But then 2/3 of the people in the room thinking like, look at me, like maybe that's why I'm so messed up. Look, I didn't have the Uncle Marvin. And I have to remind people got to look in the mirror and be around Uncle Marvin.

[B]

Yes. I just think that's so important. We can, and I'm here for this to a certain extent, bemoan our life circumstances and we've all got challenging ones, some of us way more than others. And that's all true. Nobody's trying to take that away from you or gaslight you. And you still have this opportunity right now to be your own supportive aunt or uncle.

[C]

By the way, just for the research, plug a little bit of my research here that will help clarify what that means. Like is being Uncle Marvin. Like, okay, that sounds complicated. Like what is that? My research shows three things that Uncle Marvin's have. And by the way, they can be Aunt Marias, they can be grandparents, they can be coaches. This is just people that we want to be around that are emotional allies, as I call it. Three things, nonjudgmental good listeners who show empathy and compassion. That's it. And by the way, that shows up cross culturally. There are cultural differences and strategies that people use to regulate or how people express emotions. But in terms of people reflecting on their childhoods and thinking about the people that created the conditions for them to have permission to appeal. I have not found cross cultural differences. People say non judgmental good listeners who show empathy and compassion.

[B]

Write it down, people.

[A]

Coming up, Mark talks about some tools for breaking out of rumination. The importance of gratitude when you're in one of those envy or social comparison situations on social media, for example. And how to regulate your identity and act from your best self. He'll explain what that means. Right before I came into the studio today to record these ads, I had a shave. And I had a shave with a Henson razor. Here's something interesting. Most people don't realize modern razors have quietly taught us to press harder than we should when we're shaving. And that's not really a bad habit. It's a design thing. Most mainstream Cartridge razors use springs and flexible blade mounts. The idea is that flexibility helps the razor adapt to the contours of your face. But when a blade can move slightly while it's cutting hair, the cutting angle can shift mid stroke. Ever feel that slight tugging sensation while you're shaving? That tiny bit of movement is usually what's causing it. So what do most of us do? We press a little harder to steady it, but the more pressure means more friction and that's where irritation starts to creep in. Henson takes a different approach. Their razors were designed in Canada by aerospace machinists. And instead of allowing the blade to move, they fully support it and precisely control the cutting angle. No springs, no pivots, no lubrication strips managing side effects, just fixed geometry that works consistently without needing extra pressure. Like I said, I just used my hands and razor. Along with the shaving cream that they also make super smooth, super easy and kind of fun and old school. You have to do a little bit of assembly. I mean, it takes 30 seconds. Even I could do it. You actually put the razor blade in safely. Even I didn't get hurt doing it. Yeah, it makes the shaving experience cool. If you want to try it, they're offering 100 blades free with the purchase of a razor. Just head to hensonshaving.com happier or use the code Happier at checkout. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. March includes international Women's Day. A moment to celebrate women's strength and progress while also recognizing how much they carry every day. Between caring for others and managing unseen responsibilities, their emotional well being can easily be overlooked. One tool that can be incredibly powerful for women and for everybody is therapy. Shout out to my wife, a big believer in therapy, both individually and for

[B]

for everybody she knows.

[A]

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[B]

Okay, so reappraisal. Yeah, Another Josephism. Don't side with yourself.

[C]

Nice. I love that. The reappraisal piece. For me, I actually love reappraisal and I love teaching it because I think it's actually one of the most creative emotion regulation strategies there is. And I love helping kids think about it. Like, give me five alternative ways of thinking about that particular experience. And they love the challenge. And so this is where I think there's a beautiful intersection of emotional intelligence and creativity.

[B]

Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein's longtime partner in crime in the meditation world, has this rap that she goes on sometimes about how we all think certainty is going to help. We crave certainty in a world in constant, non negotiable flux, which is scary. We find refuge, we think, in certainty, but actually thinking we know how things are, that they're terrible and will never change makes us feel worse. It's that think of five different explanations. That's how uncertainty, actually, curiosity feels safer. Actually, when you do it, 100% agree with that.

[C]

That's also the certainty control. This is why we get anxious, because we can't make the prediction. And we want to make that. We want to be clear. The pandemic. I want to be clear. When are the offices opening? I want to be clear, when am I going to be able to take off the mask? I want to be clear. All that kind of stuff. And for things that we have no control over. This is where all these strategies come into play. I remember my favorite one during the pandemic. Remember that? Like, it was like maybe May, and it was like nobody knew what the heck was happening. Everybody was freaking out and we're spraying our groceries with Windex. I mean, it was nuts. The stock market's crashing. I mean, it was just like you're watching the news and it's like horrific. And I would just sit there thinking. I started singing songs like, we all go down together. Mark, you're pretty selfish. Thinking like, you're the only one who's suffering right now. You're actually doing pretty good. You got a good job. You have a Home, little home office. Actually, life is pretty good. How about some gratitude? And I switched from all the negativity to gratitude. And it was eye opening for me. And I actually did a study on gratitude during the time because I was very curious how people thought about gratitude during the pandemic. And the little results of that study were that people just rely on like they think about, I'm grateful I have a family, I'm grateful I have food. There was no real gratitude for things like the doctors and nurses who were putting their lives at risk to help people, the people who have jobs where they're cooking for people in precarious waters, or the delivery people. And I think that oftentimes taking a moment, it's another strategy, right, of cognitive strategy of gratitude really does make a difference. As we know, probably the strongest research is in the field of gratitude.

[B]

Tell me about the how of gratitude. If we want to use that as a motion regulation strategy, what's the best practice?

[C]

It's pausing. There's multiple strategies. I mean techniques. One can be just doing the writing exercise. One little caveat about that though is that people tend to overdo it. And so this is the stuff that never gets published. But I won't mention the scientists on this, but years ago, as part of a think tank of researchers doing stuff on this. And there's a sweet spot because if you write 10 things you're grateful for every day, by the time Friday comes, you can't think of anything. And then all of a sudden you're sort of like, you know, like, I guess I have nothing to be grateful for and it actually backfires and your happiness goes down. It's like all things to me. It's like the Buddhist way, the middle path. All these strategies are middle path. The breathing is the middle path. The cognitive is the middle path. Eating's a middle path. You know, it's all kind of that way. But I think the writing of it is great. And I think just the pausing as a mindset shift for me. I do it in the morning. I have some rituals that I do. And one of my other rituals in the morning is I say to myself how wonderful it is that today is the first day of your rest of your life. And it's just like all that shit that was like, oh, yesterday, that's the past. I got the whole day, I got tomorrow. And I think we could all be more forward looking in our lives. To be frank, it's like present moment with forward lookingness. One other quick side about the gratitude thing. I Think it's a beautiful antidote to a very popular emotion these days, which is envy. I know from my research with students, they say they're stressed, but the research actually shows that the deep feeling is envy and jealousy. But they don't have the vocabulary. So they say stressed. But when you get into the nuance, it's actually all about social comparisons. Whether it's about body type, or whether it's about studying for less hours and getting better grades, or parents who have better connections in Wall street or Hollywood, everybody's like just scanning the world for what's going to be better than me. Remember my formula. I don't think just doing kind of mindfulness and breathing exercises alone is sufficient. Because when you're in a classroom of 300 people like mine and you're looking around thinking everybody else is better than you are, you got to switch your cognitions. If you don't shift the way you see the world, you're going to drown in the envy. And if you take a moment and think, wait a minute, I'm actually a student at Yale University. Wow, I got a great freaking professor, whatever it is. But getting people to shift out and please just focus on three things that you might have gratitude for. And it just pulls them away from the rumination or the perseveration around their not worthiness or everyone else's bitterness, and it gives them a bit more freedom.

[B]

So just to put a fine point on this, I think what you're saying is to the listeners, next time you find yourself in a moment of social comparison, if you can catch it, because it can be sneaky and subtle, but if you're in that moment and it's probably going to happen the next time you're on Instagram, if you're on Instagram or whatever social media death trap in which you find yourself, try to use that as a wake up an alarm bell to pause for a second and think of three good things in your life to mitigate the pernicious effects of comparing yourself to other people's curated versions of their lives.

[C]

Exactly right.

[B]

Okay. I'm skipping around a little bit in your book.

[C]

That's okay.

[B]

One of the strategies you recommend is identity regulation. What does that mean?

[C]

Well, what I mean by that, it goes back to kind of our opening conversation about like, why is this so important? I got this idea, by the way. So one of the things I did for my own well being while writing the book was I started doing a rigorous weightlifting workout. I was always a physically active person with martial arts and Other things I taught exercise in gyms during graduate school. But, you know, you become a professor, you get a little dumpy, and if pandemic hits, you're eating too much Thai food. And I'm like, mark, you gotta work out. You gotta get yourself in shape. So this is the positive benefits of social media with scrolling. One night, kind of feeling disgusted, and I found this virtual trainer and I decided it was a reasonable price to get me started. And I meet this person, his name is Marco. And he interviews me. He's like, I only really want to take people who are motivated. And I'm like, wow, that's pretty intense. Anyway, we had this long conversation and he said there's different phases of working out. The first phase is you're going to hate it. It's like, why am I doing this? This is ridiculous. Which, by the way, went through for months. I would be doing like deadlifts. And I'm like, I'm 50 years old. You know, I've been with my partner for 30 years. Who cares? Like, nobody's looking at you anyway. All the negativity, I got through that. I was like, mark, this is ridiculous. Take the high road. You know that this is what you want to do. And how self talk worked. Then I saw changes. But the conversation that was the most interesting to me was that he said, just to make the parallel, I see myself as a martial artist. I have a 5th degree black belt in a style called hapkido. If you ask me, do you consider martial arts an aspect of your identity? I'd say 100%. I feel like I operate as a martial artist in the world around. I'm scanning the environment. I feel confident in terms of protecting myself and other people. Do I feel like I have a black belt in emotional intelligence? Not so much. Do I identify? Do I see Mark Brackett as a highly regulated human? Not yet. And I feel like that's where people need to grow. That when we start identifying as people who got this, yes, I am the Yoda of emotion regulation. That's when our automatic, habitual, unhelpful reactions to stimuli become our automatic, habitual, deliberate, conscious, helpful ways of dealing with our emotional lives. And that's my whole life is striving for that. I mean, for helping people to see that, to identify that way.

[B]

But isn't that a setup for failure? If you think you're a Yoda, the next time you're a shitbag, like, it's gonna be devastating, well, you're gonna be

[C]

Yoda with some humility. But for me, it's actually great because I'm very easily. For whatever reason, I feel strong emotions in the world around me. And whether I'm getting a coffee and I feel like the barista is nasty, or whether I'm online at the airport or wherever, or people challenging me in my public speeches or students, for example. Professor Brackett, I've got a question, but I'm not sure you're going to know the answer. I'm thinking to myself, okay, this is going to be a winner. I use that as an opportunity. To me, it's like Mark. I go into Mark, the Yoda. Mark, you are the feelings master. Mark, you are the world's leading expert in emotional intelligence. Use that identity to solve this problem. And by the way, it works. And there's good reason to support that.

[B]

Okay, but let me press on that. What does it do to your identity in those inevitable moments when you are dysregulated and in a bad enough situation, that dysregulation might last for a while.

[C]

It might. And that's where you have to have the humility and the courage to either have some self forgiveness or apologize to your partner. There's a lot of emotion regulation that goes into having the courage to say, I'm sorry, honey. I have to do that pretty much every week. I'm terrible at this, by the way. And just the other day I was like, we went out for dinner with friends and I was triggered by something. And we're walking home and of course I like, don't say it, Mark, don't say it. Of course I said it. And then I'm like, j, why did you do that? And then it was like a whole thing. When we got home the next morning, I woke up and I was like, I don't know what got to me, that I needed to say that and I'm sorry. And I'm going to really work on not doing that again. That's the best you can do. You reflect on it and you try to move forward. I think that 90% of our divorces are because people can't regulate, they can't deal with their feelings in their relationship. Whether it's telling someone about their discomfort or whether it's managing these moments. People just either decided they're going to cheat on them, they go to the gym for six hours, they compartmentalize, suppress, deny, repress, as opposed to approach. The approach takes courage, the approach takes skill. But I think the approach is what makes us healthier, happier people.

[A]

You have this kind of order of

[B]

Operations in this section of the book under identity regulation sense, stop. See your best self, strategize and act. Yeah, walk us through that.

[C]

Yeah. So that's a technique we call the meta moment. I cultivated this technique with a colleague of mine whose name is Robin Stern, and we came at this from a really fun perspective. She's a clinician who was dealing with patients. She was teaching them emotion regulation strategies. They go home and they would not use them. So we just worked on this in your couples therapy, like, what's going on here? I was a scientist working on research and teaching people this, and I got all this resistance. And so we're like, nobody wants to regulate. It's not just about the strategy because you can do the breathing exercises, you can do the cognitive exercise that we've talked about and others, but if you don't actually see that my life is going to be better, my relationships are going to be better by applying these strategies to my life, then you're probably not going to do them because it does feel good to be dysregulated. I proved myself right that evening on that walk home. And it does feel good to say, go blank yourself and have that extra alcoholic beverage in the moment. These strategies don't tend to do well for you long term. With that said, we realized the missing link was something we've spoken about already, which is this idea of cultivating your best self. So we get the four step process of the meta moment. Three of the steps are similar. Right. The first step is you notice that something has shifted in your environment. I am triggered. I'm feeling tense in my shoulders. I have that negative thought, I want to say something mean or hurtful. And then we do that pause button where we do that breath. But the critical and creative thing about the meta moment is this moment of seeing your best self. So what does that mean? Well, it's role specific, but very simply, if I were to ask you, Dan, you're a father of an 11 year old, you just said yes, okay? So I'm going to put you through this exercise. You didn't sign the consent form, but it's okay. Dan, in your role as a parent, your best self, or you would say this to yourself. My best self. How I want my child to see me, how I want my child to experience me, how I want my child to talk about me to their peers, what are the three qualities that you would want them to have in mind?

[B]

Well, I think number one is the Uncle Marvin role. Just a safe place. I don't know that my son would have the vocabulary for this, but like a safe place to just express himself in his full range.

[C]

So, so what's the trait or attribute that you would have?

[B]

How about easy to talk to?

[C]

Great. So you want to see yourself as a dad who's easy to talk to.

[B]

Yes. Give me two More fun to be around. Like I'm down to do his stuff, even though I don't really want to do it. Listen to him talk about video games as long as he wants to talk. Take him to sporting events. Another thing I also don't really want to do. But I play drums with him, I watch 30 Rock with him. We're working our way through that whole show, which has a lot of inappropriate shit in it, but whatever.

[C]

So easy to be around. Fun.

[B]

Easy to talk to, fun to be around.

[C]

Okay, easy to talk to, fun to be around. Give me one more aspirational figure.

[B]

Like I want to be like him.

[C]

Say more about that.

[B]

I don't believe as a parent in a lot of direct instruction of my child because I don't believe that will work. So I try to lead and teach through osmosis or example, you know, and so I want him to feel like, yeah, that's a dude. I want to be like because he has rich relationships, he has work that he really cares about, he pays attention to his marriage, he's fit, you know, to the best of his ability. And I don't mean like looking a certain way. I pay attention to my fitness. I want him to look up to me in that way.

[C]

So what's a word? What's an attribute?

[B]

Role model?

[C]

Yeah, but that's not specific enough for me. I want more specific. Is it passionate? Is it perseverant? Is it motivated? Is it.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Passionate, sure.

[C]

Nice. So as a dad, I want my son to see me as someone who

[B]

is easy to talk to. Fun, passionate.

[C]

Nice. So tonight, or wherever you are, if you're gonna meet your child tonight at home, you can be forward looking. I said I was a preventionist. Well, if we always are waiting for our kids to trigger us to then activate that best self, it's gonna be harder. But you can be proactive about this. Can you? Before you walk into your kitchen tonight for dinner or whenever you're going to see your kid next, just pause and set a goal and remind yourself, I've made a commitment that I want to

[B]

be a dad who is easy to talk to. Fun, passionate. Yeah, this kind of gets into the whole idea of intention setting, which I feel can metastasize in a very positive way throughout your life in a Buddhist sense. I wake up in the morning and this is Buddhist language. Say that, you know, my job is to be of benefit to all beings. It sounds to me, and you'll correct me if I'm wrong, that you're saying that we can just be tweaking our intention or our best self and setting that as a North Star in different contexts throughout the day.

[C]

That's exactly right. And my best self as a husband is very different from my best self as a public speaker on stage, which is different than my best self as a colleague. And there's different attributes that come up for me. But how many of us really take the time, like I did with you, to just sit back and reflect on these things? And that's how you feel right now with your kid being 11. When they're 17 or 18, you might think of different attributes because of what's going on in both of your lives at that point. The real point of it is, is, like you said, it's the intentionality of it, but it's the granularity of it. Just saying I want to be a role model, it's kind of too broad. And so for me, this joke in my book when I say, because my students call me the feelings Master, is that I had to operationalize that. What does that mean exactly? It means he is beautifully creative at dealing with life's curveballs. That means that when I'm in a classroom and someone throws that curveball at me, I see myself as beautifully creative at solving those big challenges. And if I can bring myself into that place, I'm just going to be much better at managing it. And then you reflect on it. Because importantly, Dan, this is not about. You're never going to arrive there. This is going back to your thing. Well, Mark, you're going to make mistakes and you're going to mess up. Course I am. Then I have to look at the barriers. Then it's like, okay, so what was the reason? And I could say say this publicly. I felt insecure about what my partner said in that dinner, and it was my issue. And so that was a nice reflection for me to have. Oh, so the reason why, really, the real, deep down reason why I didn't live up to my best self was that I got insecure. Oh, okay. That's interesting. Mark, Sit with that for a little bit. Let's get curious about that. So oftentimes when we're trying to be our best selves, the things that are the Barriers to that are where real, the real learning happens.

[B]

We're almost out of time. So let me ask you the two questions I ask at the end of pretty much every interview. One is, is there something you were hoping that we would get to that we didn't?

[C]

We covered a lot. We weren't linear, which is fine. I like over the river and through the woods. I think we covered a lot. You know, we didn't get into some of the other strategies, but that people can read about them in terms of the biology of regulation. You know, the way how food and sleep and physical activity all are supportive of that. That's an important thing for people to know because a lot of people, I'm trying to be my best self, but I can't. And I just say things like, well, how much sleep did you get last night? Well, terrible. I'm like, well, there you go, there's the barrier. And so we need a budget, we need fuel to regulate our emotions effectively. But for me, I see it as really two big things. One is the attitudinal, it's the permission to feel pace. And by the way, the one thing we didn't talk about was to give ourselves permission to feel. We have to give other people permission to feel. And I want to recommend that people do this in public, meaning show up and let other people observe you being the non judgmental good listener who's empathic and compassionate because it has a contagion effect also. So once we can give ourselves and everyone we love, and even the people we don't love that much permission to feel, we can lean and figure out, well, even though I give myself permission to feel, there are certain feelings that are interfering with my success, with my goals. I need strategies to deal with them. And I think importantly that our society is so like, the quick fix thing is like I was giving this speech for, I don't know, a couple thousand actually police officers. And like, they were very impatient with me and they were like, dude, what's the one strategy that works? And I'm like, I'm sorry, it just doesn't work that way. They're like, I'm asking you right now, what's the one strategy? I'm like, all right, be kind to yourself. And my point in sharing that with you is that when we're regulating our emotions in real life, it's never just one strategy. It's using all the strategies that I write about. And you realize you're having a strong emotion, you take the deep breath, you walk out of the room, you gather your thoughts, you go back and you say something to try to rectify the situation, or you take a break and you go look at nature, or you go work out, or you call a friend. We need all of these strategies. They're a collective. And if we can help ourselves to see where our strength areas are and where our challenge areas are and kind of cultivate the challenge areas, we're going to be, I think, happier, healthier people.

[B]

Well said. Final question. Just can you remind everybody of the name of your new book, your, your old book, any other books, any other things you do in the world, website, social media that we should know about?

[C]

So my new book is called Dealing with Feeling. My first book is called Permission to Feel. I have a Dealing with Feeling podcast now where I interview the world's experts on emotions and emotional intelligence and learn about their ways of dealing with emotions, which is fun. I'm on Instagram, primarily on LinkedIn, which is my name, and my website is

[B]

markbrackett.com we will put links to all of those in the show. Notes for anybody driving or otherwise not holding a pencil. Mark, great job. Thank you very much.

[C]

Thank you, Dan.

[A]

Thanks again to Dr. Mark Brackett. Awesome to have him on the show. Don't forget to check out my new app, 10% with Dan Harris. We've got a big meditation challenge coming up. It's coming up on March 23rd. It'll go for five days. And this challenge is pegged to the release of a new Audible book that I'm putting out with my co author, 7A Selassie. The book is called Even you can meditate. You can get it on Audible.

[B]

If you want to join the challenge,

[A]

which will be led by 7A, head on over to danharris.com to download the app. If you already a subscriber, nothing you need to do. The challenge will begin on March 23rd and there'll be plenty of notifications for you right there in the app. Last thing to say here, thank you so much to everybody who works so

[B]

hard on this show.

[A]

Our producers are Tara Anderson and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our managing producer. Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer. Producer DJ Cashmere is our executive producer. And Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.