Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You w/ Ethan Kross

Summary

Raising Good Humans Podcast Summary
Episode: Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You w/ Ethan Kross
Host: Dr. Aliza Pressman
Guest: Professor Ethan Kross
Release Date: January 31, 2025

---

Introduction

In this insightful episode of Raising Good Humans, Dr. Aliza Pressman welcomes Professor Ethan Kross, a leading expert in emotion regulation and director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab at the University of Michigan. Together, they delve into the complexities of managing emotions, offering practical tools for parents to help both themselves and their children navigate emotional challenges effectively.

---

Understanding Emotions

Defining Emotions and Their Functions

Professor Ethan Kross begins by exploring the nature of emotions, likening them to "little software packages" that activate in response to specific situations to help us deal optimally with our circumstances (02:22). He emphasizes that emotions trigger coordinated responses involving bodily sensations, thoughts, and facial expressions. For instance, experiencing anger when witnessing a violation of personal or familial safety prompts a focused and energized reaction aimed at rectifying the situation.

Examples: Anger and Anxiety

Kross elaborates on how different emotions serve distinct functions. Anger, for example, arises when there's a perceived need to fix a situation, such as a child riding a bike without a helmet. He notes, "All emotions are useful when they're experienced in the right proportions, even the negative ones" (04:03). Similarly, anxiety can be beneficial by signaling the need to prepare or focus, as seen in professional or academic settings.

---

The Myth of Avoidance

Balancing Engagement and Distraction

A significant portion of the discussion addresses the common misconception that avoiding negative emotions is inherently toxic. Kross challenges this "myth of avoidance," explaining that strategic distraction can be a valuable tool in emotional regulation. He differentiates between chronic avoidance, which is detrimental, and flexible, strategic distraction that allows individuals to regain composure before addressing the emotional issue (25:01).

When to Distract or Address Emotions

Kross shares personal anecdotes, such as taking time away to cool down after a conflict with his partner, illustrating how temporary distraction can lead to more rational problem-solving later (27:37). He underscores the importance of flexibility, stating, "Sometimes emotion managing our emotions and helping our kids can be really simple and straightforward. And sometimes it takes a lot more effort and that's okay too" (29:58).

---

Tools for Managing Emotions

Reframing Negative Emotions

One of the primary strategies discussed is reframing. Kross recounts helping his daughter reframe her anxiety about a school assignment by explaining that her anxious feelings were signals to focus and prepare, thus transforming her perception of anxiety from a negative to a constructive emotion (14:17).

Distanced Self-Talk

Another tool is distanced self-talk, where individuals talk to themselves as if advising someone else. Kross describes how his daughter used this method to overcome her fear of diving, effectively managing her anxiety through self-coaching (21:36).

Ritual Actions

Ritual actions, such as rhythmic hand slapping and deep breathing, provide a physical component to emotional regulation. Kross illustrates this with his daughter's method of calming herself before diving (21:36).

Mental Time Travel

Kross introduces mental time travel as a technique to gain perspective on current emotions by asking oneself how they will feel about the situation in the future. He explains, "When you jump into this mental time travel machine and you just ask yourself, how am I going to feel about it tomorrow, next month, next week, when I'm dead? It powerfully puts into perspective what you're going through" (46:34).

Utilizing the Senses

Activating the senses, particularly through music, is another effective method. Kross highlights how different types of music can shift emotional states, allowing individuals to either amplify or diminish certain feelings based on their needs (32:18).

---

Parenting and Emotional Regulation

Teaching Children Emotion Management

Dr. Pressman and Kross discuss the pivotal role parents play in teaching children how to manage their emotions. By introducing tools like reframing and distanced self-talk, parents can empower their children to handle emotional challenges independently. Kross shares how his daughters adopted these tools in real-life scenarios, demonstrating the effectiveness of parental guidance (19:28).

Creating a Supportive Home Culture

The conversation extends to the importance of shaping a home culture that values emotional regulation. Kross argues that "culture is the air we breathe," encompassing the values, beliefs, and practices that influence how emotions are managed within the household (56:09). By fostering an environment where all emotions are acknowledged and managed appropriately, parents can build resilience and emotional intelligence in their children.

---

Flexibility and Individual Differences

Personalizing Emotion Regulation Tools

Acknowledging that there's no one-size-fits-all solution, Kross emphasizes the necessity of flexibility in applying emotion regulation strategies. He advises parents to experiment with different tools to discover what works best for their unique family dynamics and individual personalities (14:17, 29:58).

Respecting Individual Preferences

Kross also highlights the importance of respecting individual differences, such as varying comfort levels with physical touch. He notes that while affectionate touch like a hug can be profoundly soothing for some, it may not be appropriate for others, advocating for personalized approaches (42:26).

---

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

Empowering Through Emotional Tools

The episode concludes with a powerful message about the importance of equipping both parents and children with a diverse toolkit for emotional regulation. Kross reiterates that while emotions themselves are tools, their effective management requires intentional practice and flexibility.

Shaping Future Generations

By integrating these strategies into daily life and home culture, parents can significantly impact their children's ability to navigate complex emotional landscapes, fostering a generation of emotionally resilient individuals.

Final Thoughts

Dr. Pressman and Professor Kross leave listeners with an encouraging reminder that managing emotions is within everyone's control. By embracing and teaching these strategies, families can transform emotional challenges into opportunities for growth and connection.

---

Notable Quotes

• Ethan Kross (02:22): "Emotions are like these little software packages that get loaded up when you're in certain situations..."

• Ethan Kross (04:03): "All emotions are useful when they're experienced in the right proportions, even the negative ones."

• Ethan Kross (14:17): "There are no one size fits all solutions... The challenge is to figure out what are the tools that work best for you and your kids."

• Ethan Kross (25:01): "Chronic avoidance... is linked with bad outcomes... You don't have to choose between either approaching things all the time and bathing in the emotion or avoiding all the time."

• Dr. Aliza Pressman (29:03): "Recognizing that there's different kinds of situations that require different kinds of responses."

• Ethan Kross (46:34): "Mental time travel involves asking yourself, how am I going to feel about this tomorrow, next month, next week, when I'm dead?"

• Ethan Kross (56:09): "Culture is the air we breathe... shaping the culture at home is a key part of emotional regulation."

---

Timestamps

• 02:22 - Defining emotions and their functions
• 04:03 - The utility of all emotions in the right proportions
• 14:17 - Introduction to emotion regulation tools
• 25:01 - Debunking the myth of avoidance
• 29:03 - Emphasizing flexibility in emotional responses
• 32:18 - The role of music in shifting emotions
• 41:00 - Observing and understanding individual emotional needs in children
• 42:26 - The impact of affectionate touch on emotional regulation
• 46:34 - Introducing mental time travel as a tool
• 56:09 - The significance of home culture in emotional management

---

Final Note

This episode offers a wealth of knowledge and practical strategies for parents aiming to cultivate emotional intelligence within their families. By embracing the tools and insights shared by Professor Ethan Kross, listeners can foster a nurturing environment that promotes emotional well-being and resilience.

Transcript

[A]

The following podcast is a Dear Media.

[B]

Production.

[A]

Welcome to Raising Good humans podcast. I'm Dr. Eliza Pressman and I'm so excited to share with you this episode with Professor Ethan Cross. He is one of the world's leading experts on emotion regulation. He's a professor at University of Michigan. He is the director of the Emotion and Self Control Lab. He's also got a TED Talk that is coming out in just a few days along with his phenomenal book shift Managing your emotions so they don't manage you. And today's conversation is so amazing if I do say so myself, because he goes through the research on managing emotions, but with every, every single area that we're talking about, he gives concrete tools and language that we can use with our kids and all of the things in the heat of the moment, what we can bake into our household so that we can kind of grow that self regulation muscle. It just is so rich and concrete. So I'm excited about it. And he's also of course dispelling so many myths that we have around emotions. So I hope you enjoy this episode. If you do and you are up for it, please don't hesitate and write that five star review on Apple Podcasts. It helps get it out there in the algorithm and it's so awesome for me. And as always, you can DM me on Instagram @Raising Good Humanspodcast. You can get my free newsletter on substack drlizapressman.substack.com and my own book, the Five Principles of Parenting. Your essential guide to raising good humans is always out there for you. I'm really excited about this one and I hope you get so much out of it for yourselves and for your family. So I want to start with a fairly obvious question. What are emotions?

[B]

So it's such an interesting question because it's actually not something that is easy to define. So like scientists debate this quite a bit. And so here's the way that I like to think about it. Emotions are like these little software packages that get loaded up when you're in certain situations and their function is to help you deal with those situations optimally. And so they activate what we call a loosely coordinated response. So what does that mean? Well, your body might start feeling a certain way. You might feel stuff in your stomach or you got might get energized. Your thoughts are gonna be tuned to certain kinds of things in your environment based on what kinds of emotions you're experiencing. And you also may have certain kinds of facial displays and expressions. So let's make that less abstract. Let's say I were to experience the emotion of anger. It does happen every now and again. So when do I experience anger? When there's some violation of my sense of how things should be, and there's an opportunity for me to fix the situation. So what happens when I experience that emotion of anger? I'll zoom in on the circumstance at hand, on, like, what triggered this. I'll. I'll feel pretty energized to approach the situation, and you'll probably be able to see what the anger looks like in my face if I'm not trying to conceal that response. So what. What do you think? Is that an angry look? No, not so much. I'm trying.

[A]

No one can see this, but he does not look that angry. So your kids are probably not so scared of you.

[B]

You know, that is probably the big problem. They are not afraid of me. They just laugh. They laugh. But. So I'm a big proponent of the idea that all emotions are useful when they're experienced in the right proportions, even the negative ones. And so anger is a great example, especially in a parenting context. So if I see my daughter, I got two daughters, and if I see them do things that are dangerous, that's a violation of my worldview, and I can do something to fix it. And I want to fix it because I don't want my kids to be in danger. So if I see my youngest daughter ride her bike without her helmet, I may experience some anger. I may display this to her. According to you, I may not actually convey it very well in my facial expression, but I will try. And hopefully, if she receives a little bit of that emotion, it will have implications for whether she does this again. Now, I'm not screaming my head off. I'm not throwing things. That would be an anger response that would be too intense, maybe too long. That's when you want to regulate. But all emotions in their right proportions can be helpful. Anxiety, too. Anxiety. When I think about times in my life where I've stumbled professionally in a public speaking context, they've been situations where I've had zero anxiety beforehand.

[A]

Ah.

[B]

And as a result, there was no cue. Like, there's no software program that was loaded up to say, hey, dopey, prepare. Like, yeah, maybe you should go over what you have to say. Those kinds of. That kind of, like, anxious arousal can actually be helpful. And, you know, in the parenting context, I think communicating that to my kids, I think has been a gift for them, because without that understanding that we all experience Anxiety at times. And if you do, guess what, there's nothing wrong with you. There's everything right with you, as long as it doesn't become too extreme. Now, when they get a little bit of anxiety about something really important coming up, they know that that's their mind and body, probably the same thing. But let's just distinguish them for a little bit. That's just. That's just their. Their.

[A]

Their.

[B]

Their minds telling them to focus and prepare. And when you have that reframe on our negative emotions and when you gift that to your children, I think that is doing a lot of good.

[A]

Okay, there's. I already have seven different directions that I want to take just that one bit. But I think, importantly, a lot of us respond to our kids when we see anxiety, anger, fear, anything that is categorized as a negative emotion, we want to fix that. So I. I do want to highlight the importance of kind of all of the spectrum of feelings. And. And I didn't distinguish between feelings and emotions. And we're.

[B]

We.

[A]

We can do that.

[B]

You want?

[A]

Yeah, I'll let you do that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I do think it's so scary sometimes for parents in this culture of parenting to allow what is perceived as a negative emotion to occur in their kids. And I can't tell you how many people want to fix that or want to adjust the environment so that those feelings don't happen. And so I wanted to sort of hear more about the. The benefits of those feelings and having those emotional responses.

[B]

I'm so glad you asked this question. You know this, no doubt, from when you wrote your book. When you write a book, you have some sense of what material is really going to land with an audience. And then you start talking about a book, and you discover sometimes you were completely wrong. And there was information in the book that really resonated strongly with folks that was just not on your radar. And that has been my experience thus far, talking about shift and emotions. And one of the messages that I have found to consistently resonate with folks is exactly what you're asking about. When I explain to people that there's nothing wrong with experiencing negative emotions in the right proportions, people come up to me and say, it feels liberating. There's this collective just sigh of relief because we're constantly told that we should be striving to lead lives bereft of all negative emotions. A, not possible. Like, goes against the. How we are built, how we evolved. B, not desirable, because negative emotions, all of them serve a function that is a very different worldview. To use to navigate your life. And it's a different way of making sense of our experiences to give to your kids as well. I think about it. Have you ever been successful at eliminating all negative experiences from your life?

[A]

I mean, of course not.

[B]

I mean, it's preposterous to think about. So do you want to give people this unattainable goal or take. You want to explain how the bad stuff, what feels like bad stuff, can actually be useful at times. And, and this is an important. And, and give yourself. And give your kids the gift of tools to be able to chisel those responses, to manage them effectively so you can benefit and learn from them without them taking over in ways that lead to all of the muck that we sometimes have to deal with personally ourselves and that we see in people we love. I think that's the real opportunity here. And it's a totally different perspective on, you know, this emotional world that we live in. And we hear people say, just if you're experiencing some negative emotions, stop it right now.

[A]

Yeah. And I think the, the liberating part of it too, for parents in particular, is that I think we can kind of help ourselves not get tied up into the panic that this particular moment that our child is experiencing is damaging. But in fact, it's growth. Now for a quick break so I can tell you about my sponsors. Okay, Raising good humans listeners, I am going to tell you a little bit about taking care of yourself while raising your kids. Ollie is here to make wellness simple and enjoyable. So I'm spotlighting Ollie's Sleep, Gut Health and women's multigummies because I'm interested in sleep, Gut health and women's multi gummies. So I thought that that was what I wanted to try. And when they asked me, that's what I focused on. And so they've got sleep gummies that really are just so nice to help you fall asleep at night. They've got melatonin to help you actually fall asleep and stay asleep. And then l theanine and botanical extracts to calm your mind for a restful night. And, and it's like a good strawberry flavor before bed, so it gives you a little treat. They also have gut health gummies, so they have like a probiotic to keep your gut and immune system supported. And lastly, they have the women's multi gummies that just simplify your routine because, oh my gosh, there's so much that we're supposed to have. And they have theirs packed with essential vitamins like A, C, D, E, B, zincs, It's a multitasking gummy that helps fill in the gaps in your diet. So let's do wellness on your terms, whatever that looks and feels like for you. Find us at Walmart or Target near you or go to ollie.com that's o l l y.com of course these statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. I want to tell you about Ynab Y N A B. It's a really game changing app that helps you do what you want to do with the money that you have. And you'll create a flexible plan for your money through the simple practice of giving every dollar a job. So it keeps you focused on the life that you want, the things that you're hoping for. You can cover your mortgage, fund your child's college without sacrificing date night or a fun vacation. With Ynab. You just stop wondering where your money goes. Like it's not just on Starbucks. And then all of a sudden the end of the month comes and you're down hundreds of dollars. You really start to decide where it will take you. 92% of users report feeling less money stress since starting to use Ynab. And the Average YNAB user saves 6, $600 in their first two months and 6,000 in their first year. So listeners of Raising Good Humans can claim an exclusive three month free trial. There's no credit card required. You just go to www.ynab.com humans. That's www.ynab.com humans. When it comes to personal finance, YNAB has your back. Www.ynab.com humans. Can you talk about like, because you're not going to say in the, in the heat of the moment when your child is having this moment of whatever they're going through, you're probably not going to talk about how useful that motion is. So what is a concrete tool in the moment? And then what is a concrete tool later, before and sort of baked into the household? This is a giant question, by the way, that I'm casually throwing out. Can you just summarize your point?

[B]

No pressure here. Well, so let me, let me just riff up with this a little bit because there are a couple of things you could do. And as you know, there are no one size fits all solutions here, which is another message that I hope people find really liberating. Yes, no one size fits all solutions. Meditation and mindfulness don't work for you. Not A problem. Don't beat yourself up about it. They do work for you. Great. There are dozens of tools out there, and the challenge is to figure out what are the tools that work best for you and your kids. And that's going to be. There's going to be a bit of trial and error with that. But what do you do in the heat of the moment, your kids spiraling? Let me tell you a story about my. One of my daughters when she was experiencing a totally normal anxious response to a school assignment. And it was the first one. It's the first time she ever had experienced this. She. She just started a new school and the demands were higher than she was used to. She had a lot on her plate. And I remember going into her bedroom one evening and she was. She was getting worked up. What. What. You know, And I, I instantly, to your previous point, like, transformed into protector. What's wrong? What happened? And she starts to tell me, like, I don't know. It's like my, my body, my stomach is making these feelings and, and. And I'm. And I. I can't stop thinking about this. And I'm really. I don't know what's happening. She never actually experienced that kind of anxiety before. So it was a foreign. And what I did in that moment is I reframe the experience for her. And I think that is an opportunity that all parents have with their kids when they're struggling. And so I said, sweetie, there's nothing wrong with you. Your body is doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing. You've got a really important test coming up, and your body is basically telling you you need to study, you need to buckle down and attend to the material, basically review it. And once I gave her that reframe, all of the mystery surrounding what was happening to her went away. And now she's actually thinking about this response as a good thing. Sometimes we go to the gym and it's painful, or it's often very painful for me. And I wish that were the case because I was doing exceptionally hard things, but I'm not. But it's still painful. But I reframe that. I think about. I know this is really good for me, and I continue to do it. We can give our kids that same reframe on their negative experiences, and that can be powerful. So that's one thing you can do. Another thing, of course you can do is give your kids the tools. Like, talk to them about these tools, put them on their radar so that when they're in the Heat of the moment, struggling. There are things they can do right away. They don't have to wait for you to reframe things. I think about this whole space of managing emotions and being mentally fit or emotionally fit. It's not unlike physical fitness in the following sense. When you go to the gym. So do you go to the gym? What do you like to do? To exercise? Why don't you, why don't you tell me?

[A]

Well, I don't like to exercise, but I do do it.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. And you're not alone. Yeah, you're not alone.

[A]

I'm still waiting to like, like it. But I am currently in that, you know, lifting weights phase of life.

[B]

And so let me ask you a couple of questions about your whole repertoire there, if I may. Is that, is that fair?

[A]

It's very fair.

[B]

Okay, so first time you go to the gym, start doing weight training. Like step one, you've got to learn how to use the dumbbells and the different machines. Right. So you learn about how to do the different exercises, and some of those you pick up pretty quickly, and some of those takes a little bit more time. Fair to say that's all accurate?

[A]

Totally.

[B]

Okay, step two, now you've got to start figuring out how to cobble together these different exercises to help you meet the specific goals that you have, right?

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And that might change, actually, like maybe even day to day, week to week, month to month, you might mix it up. Right. One exercise stops giving you the gains you need, you layer something else in. Emotional fitness works the same way. Step one, we simply need to learn what the tools are, and we don't actually get that kind of step by step instruction nowadays in schools. I think in homes, we try to give our kids tools, but we only know so much because we ourselves have only been taught so much. But as you know, like, scientists have discovered lots of tools. And so step one, familiarize yourself. What are those tools? And then step two, now let's start figuring out what tools to cobble together to help us meet our goals. So with my kids, I've got to be really careful with my kids, actually, and how I talk about this because. And I'd be curious to hear if this is similar to your own experience. Right?

[A]

Definitely. Tricky.

[B]

Yeah. On the one hand, like, this is the one topic I know a reasonable amount about. Right. How to manage your emotional life. But of course, when I enter the home with my children, I know nothing. Right. I have no credibility whatsoever. And, and so, you know, I've gotta be, I've gotta Be kind of smart about how I get this information to them. And so the way I typically do it is I will. I'll try to get it on their radar without directing it to them. So at dinner, I might have a conversation about something I just happened to learn, like, with the whole family. I'm not targeting someone, but. But like music. As an example, a couple of years ago, I became enamored by the power of our senses to impact our emotions really very easily, like, effortlessly and powerfully. And this should come as no surprise to anyone who's listening. Of course, there are studies in which you ask people, if we focus on, let's say, music, why do you listen to music? Almost 100% of people will say, I like the way it makes me feel. But then if you look at what people do when they're struggling, anxious, angry, Sad, only, like, 10 to 30% will strategically play certain songs to lift them out of the mood they're in and shift them into another state altogether. And it's really powerful. And I. Ever since I came across that data, I now have, like, certain playlists to push me in different emotional directions, and I'll avail myself of that. So I'll just, like, bring this up at the dinner table. Do you guys. Why do you listen to music? Did you know that it can really, like, shift people's emotions around? And so over time, I've done that with a few different kinds of tools. And I've noticed that my kids will never, ever admit that they've learned these tools from me, but when they have struggled. So one of my kids likes to dive. And diving can be an opportunity to really work yourself up, because you're often waiting to go on the platform, and then you go on a really high platform. It's scary.

[A]

I'm already. My whole entire nervous system just shifted.

[B]

Yes, it's very hard for me as the spectator, too. It's like I have to regulate constantly when I'm in the. In the stands. And at one point, my daughter is going from one platform, which I had already thought was more than sufficiently high, probably about 2ft off the ground. But for me, that was sufficient, and she went to a much higher one. And, you know, in my head, I'm thinking, she's out of her mind. Why is she doing this? The school has a wonderful chess club. There's so many nicer ways to spend your time extracurricularly. But I. I say none of that. But I tell you this story because she started to get really, really concerned about moving up to the next level. And she had to actually. She went up. She came down, she went up. It. It was a process to actually fight the fear of going off the higher level. And she ultimately conquered the fear. And I was so proud of her. And I. I asked her what she did, and she then rattled off a few. She used a tool called distanced self talk that. That we've studied. And what that involves is trying to give yourself advice like you're talking to someone else. We all know it's easier to give advice to other people. Sometimes we don't give ourselves great advice. When you use your name or you to coach yourself. All right, Ethan, you've got this. It's like you're giving advice to someone else. So she did that in her head, and she then did a little ritual. We often talk about rituals as harmful, but in fact, they can be quite useful if they're not taken to an extreme. And so she would slap her hands against her thighs three times, and then she'd take a deep breath, and then she just did it. And this was exactly what we had talked about over several days at dinner. I put these different tools out there, and she kind of soaked it up. And so I think from a parenting point of view, there are lots of ways that we can intervene. There are going to be lots of times when your kids want you to intervene directly. Like, sometimes they come to us and they're struggling. And when that happens, you can reframe things for them. You can shift their attention, get them to distract by focusing on other things that might give them some opportunity to restore. You can turn on the music yourself, as I have done, to change the emotional temperature in the room. But then in other cases, you may see them struggling, and they may not ask you for help. And in those situations, you need to tread carefully, because we know that if you volunteer the support when it's not asked for, it can blow up in your face very much. But that doesn't mean you don't. That doesn't mean you can't help. You still can. You just want to be more tactful and indirect about how you get them those tools.

[A]

So you just so casually threw out distracting to restore. Yeah, so now we need to go.

[B]

Over that, because you clued into that one, huh? You were. I saw you. Yes, let's talk about that, because that's a really important topic.

[A]

That's a really important one. And also another very mixed message that parents get inundated with. No, distracting is, like, not good, because you need to really. Soak in all the feelings and really understand your emotions. And sometimes that's not true in the moment. So let's go over that.

[B]

Absolutely. So I call that the myth of avoidance. So we were both likely raised professionally in a tradition that linked avoidance with toxicity. You never avoid things. You always approach and work through things. This, this was the gospel when I was in graduate school. And turns out that it's not exactly true. In fact, it's wrong and it's more nuanced. And so let me break down the nuance. Chronic avoidance. When you have this rule, whenever something emotional happens, you're just going to suppress it, you're going to not think about it, do other things. This is not good. There's a wealth of evidence which shows that chronically avoiding things, that's the only thing you do. It is linked with bad outcomes. Also avoiding by doing dangerous, engaging in dangerous behaviors, drugs, risky sexual behaviors. Not good either. All right, now that we've gotten that out of the way, you don't have to choose between either approaching things all the time and bathing in the motion or avoiding all the time. You can be flexible and strategic. And it turns out there's a lot of benefits that come from being able to flexibly divert your attention or distract for a little bit and then come back to the problem later. I'll give you an example of this. In my own life, I sometimes, this may come as a shocker to you, but sometimes I screw up at home and I get in trouble with my partner. And I have learned over time my, my instinct, and this is true with kids too, my instinct is to immediately deal with the situation and fix it. But sometimes my partner or even my kids, they just need a little bit of time to cool down before they are receptive to my well intentioned attempts to fix the problem that I have caused. And so if I take some time away, like, you know, I dive into work for half a day or even a day, and then I come back to the situation later, I find, number one, the temperature has often come down quite a bit. And number two, we also have like a broader perspective that we can now work through this more, more reasonably. That's a, that's a tactic that works really, really well and that there is some distraction there, but it's functional. Right. Sometimes I will distract and then I realize there's not even anything to come back to.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because I had made such a big deal about something in the moment that the email came in or, you know, someone said something to me. But I realize, well, this is, this is I love you. Who cares? This is meaningless. And so one message of the book, another message of the book is, is just the importance of being flexible. One of the most frustrating questions I get is when I'm asked what is the one thing a parent should do to manage their emotions or help their kids? I can't answer that question because there is no one thing. There's no one size fits all size. How complicated are all of our emotional lives? They are amazingly rich and complex. Why would we think that there'd be one thing we could do to handle all of the different kinds of curve balls that we are presented with in life? Like there are not. So flexibility here is just a way of illustrating that point.

[A]

Well, I think it's also we're in another comment about the kind of era we're in for parenting where we just really want a simple answer. And I do think though that there is a lot of freedom in finding out that there isn't that one thing because it also removes your, like, sense that you didn't do the right one thing. There's a lot of options.

[B]

We have a lot of options. And you know, just because there's not one thing doesn't mean sometimes it can't be simple. Sometimes emotion, managing our emotions and helping our kids can be really simple and straightforward. And sometimes it takes a lot more effort and that's okay too. Recognizing that there's different kinds of situations that require different kinds of responses.

[A]

Yeah. And you know, I want to take back what I said about simple because it's actually mostly simple in terms of the actions that we can take. It's just more the answer isn't a one size fits all, but kind of every one of them. Like if you did list some more tools, which you have listed some, and I want you to just keep on going, they're not like no earth shattering and they're so effective.

[B]

That's right, yeah. I mean, what I love about this science in this space is so much hard work and complexity has gone into the identification of these tools. What I mean by that is you've got, you know, dozens and dozens of scientists who've devoted their lives to carefully testing how these strategies work in different situations and, and for different populations. But at the end of the day, the take homes are really, really clear and actionable. And that's a really great message because that is not always the case with, with science. And so, yeah, so let's talk about some of the tools. So I like to talk about this all as Shifting. We're shifting our emotions or someone else's. What does that mean? Reducing or increasing the intensity of an emotion or making it last for a longer or shorter period of time. So you're shifting that emotion in different directions where you want it to go. I may not want to be super intensely anxious. And for a really long period of time, I may want to rein it in and not have it last as long. On the flip side, when it comes to experiencing an emotion like happiness or pride, I may want to maximize that experience, really like bathe in it for a while. So shift its intensity up and make it last longer. So that's what shifting is about. And there are lots of ways you can shift. So a couple of things you could do on your own. Activate your senses. Your senses are super powerful ways of automatically shifting your emotions. The effects tend not to be super long lasting, but they are a powerful kick in the butt, which is often. Can feel really good and. And is often like the first step for then doing something else. So how might you use your senses? We talked about music and music is an interesting one. If I could just harp on it for a few more seconds. I think a lot of people recognize there's certain songs that are going to make them feel more excited and filled with joy and others that are going to make them feel calmer. There is this curious phenomenon that when we are sad, as an example, we tend to not go for Journey or help me out here, Uppity music, Outcast or I'm being.

[A]

I love that you said Journey as happy music. Oh yeah.

[B]

Don't stop. Don't believe in. It's, you know, that's my happiness. Yeah, not the. Not maybe not open arms, but push us in a different direction. But in any case, like, there's lots of music we could go to to make us feel better, but when we're sad, we tend to reflexively choose sad music. So have you ever had that experience? You're feeling kind of glum and you just go for Chicago or Adele, the saddest you. So. So to the extent that there's some functionality to experiencing sadness, that's not necessarily a bad thing. And if you're. If you're wondering how on earth could it ever be good for you to be sad, here's the quick lowdown on that. We experience sadness when there's some kind of challenge to our worldview that we can't. We can't actually fix the situation. So you've just been rejected, you've lost someone you love, you've been fired. You've got to change. There's no fixing that. You can't bring back the person who just went away. You can't get the job back. Now you've got to do the really hard cognitive work of making new meaning out of your life. That's not easy. So you've got this emotion that helps you do it. So when you experience sadness tends, you tend to slow down. Physiologically, you're somewhat motivated to withdraw and introspect. Turn inward to start now. Re reframing things. And so if listening to some sad music is going to perpetuate that emotion, maybe that's fine. But if you don't want to feel sad, don't listen to more sad music. Right. If you don't want to feel sad, go in the opposite direction, turn on, don't stop believing or whatever it is that makes you happy. So that's music. Few other examples.

[A]

I need to keep talking about music. I'm not ready to let this go.

[B]

Okay. Bring it. Keep it coming.

[A]

Because especially with the thing about teenagers, like, when I think about even my own adolescence, like, if I had a breakup, there was a breakup, like music at the time, it was Walkman.

[B]

I had one too. I had. I had a Walkman.

[A]

But like, I remember what. I still remember the songs that I would listen to to just sort of be sad and take a long walk.

[B]

Air Supply, probably. Yeah.

[A]

I mean, it wasn't Not Air Supply. And so. And I. And sometimes I would even sit and just cry listening to sad music purposefully. But then. And I look at my teenagers now and I, you know, like, I know when they need to listen to their sad music that there is something adaptive about it for a time. But when is there like too much duration? And is there a point at which it's like, okay, I'm going to. I'm going to give this this much time or this much music in time. And then I'm. My strategy is to put on Queen or something Queens.

[B]

Okay. I mean, a really good one.

[A]

Every. Every band we've mentioned has dated this conversation.

[B]

Like, it's terrible. It's awful. It's awful. Going to have to break out the T. Swift. Yeah, yeah. And some of the more contemporary stuff.

[A]

Now for a quick break so I can tell you about my sponsors. Oh, my gosh. I have the coolest thing to share with you as one of my sponsors. It's called Irestore. And I just cannot tell you how cool this is. It's this hair regrowth solution. It's Got an FDA cleared laser cap that is designed to fight thinning hair and hair loss with clinically proven results. So there are 282 lasers and LEDs delivering light therapy to your scalp. So basically, you're giving yourself a spa day for your follicles. It's cold, you want to stay inside. You want to binge, watch your favorite show and settle into a cozy blanket and then just put the eye restore elite on your head. It's lightweight, it's completely painless. So you could just relax and know that you're giving your scalp a little tlc. I have to say this was one of my most exciting products to get because, look, you might have started with glorious thick hair, but as we get older, as we have kids, as just hormones start shifting, it thins out. So why not have this awesome way of feeling a little bit more taken care of? And now is the perfect time to treat yourself. For a limited time only, our listeners get $625 off their iRestore Elite when you use the code humans@irestore laser.com that's $625 off your irestore [e-mail] with promo code humans so you can support our show, tell them we sent you and get a huge discount. Hair loss is frustrating, but you don't have to fight it alone. Thanks to Irestore. Okay, I want to tell you about Molly Suds because I happen to love this brand. Molly Suds is a brand that's really helpful when you want to create a safe environment at home and just makes it really easy for you. So I don't know if you all know this, but a lot of laundry detergents contain terrible additives that can do harm, especially when you have sensitive skin. And so you can ditch those nasty chemicals and switch, switch to Molly Suds. And I love it because Molly Suds laundry detergent is free from formaldehyde and synthetic dyes and artificial fragrances and all the harmful chemicals that frankly bother me because I just have sensitive skin but also make me feel just not good about putting it in my household. And Molly says it's cruelty free, vegan and leaping bunny certified and it's made in the usa. So now you can just get Molly Suds. They've launched at Target so you can grab it on your next shopping trip or you can order it now with my exclusive URL to get 20% off all Molly Suds products. So for this fantastic deal, go to mollysuds.com humans and use the code humans at checkout. Again. For 20% off, go to M O L L Y S S s u d s.com humans and use the Code Humans at checkout.

[B]

I wish I could tell you and everyone who's listening exactly how much time they should spend experiencing a certain negative emotion before they're ready to move on. I cannot and I don't know any scientist who can. This is, this, I'm sorry, I wish I could. This is really such an individual difference. And I think the question that you want to ask yourself and the question you want to get your kids to ask themselves is when is the emotion they're experiencing no longer? It's no longer serving them well and actually undermining them. We have goals for how we want to live our lives. And are these emotions you're experiencing, are they beginning to undermine your goals like for how you want to feel and what you want to do? Or does it just feel right to sit in this emotional state for a little while longer because it is serving you well? Sometimes like, you know, we could shift to anger. You know, anger tends to be less long lasting than, than sadness. But sometimes people want to see for a little bit and then you don't want them to endlessly seed. But, but, but honoring that, honoring that is really important. There's some wonderful research that breaks down the time course of people's emotional responses. And essentially what happens is in phase one, we have these social and emotional needs. We often want to just experience these emotions. We often want to talk about them too and share them with others so that we feel validated for what we're experiencing. It's a tsunami of a response that is happening within you when you experience a strong emotion. It feels good to know that there's nothing wrong with you when that is happening. Right. That makes sense. So that's often why normalizing things is so powerful. By normalizing me explaining there's nothing wrong with you, I would feel the same way. Right. That feels good after a while. After that emotional sharing happens, then we tend to shift into this problem solving phase. All right, well now let's try to get through this emotional response. But that differs for everyone.

[A]

So what we can do maybe is just sort of observe. And if you have multiple kids, like different temperaments and our own, maybe we learn over time kind of, and how our partners go through this, how consistent is it? Like, is this something that I can kind of get to know about my kids versus, you know, like each of them and how much time they need before I Help them shift.

[B]

Absolutely, absolutely. And I mean I have learned this about my wife, I've learned it about my kids and I think they've probably learned it about me too. I tend to recover pretty quick. Although I do have some hotspots where I need more time and they know when that happens to give me some more time. And I think we learn this without even trying to learn it or I think in some ways that's part of what you know, when we talk about being socially and emotionally intelligent, it's cluing into the trajectory of our partners and kids and colleagues emotional responses and taking that information into account when we try to decide how to help them best. I know sometimes if my wife is upset, the best thing I can do is go over and just like put my hand on her shoulder or give her a hug. That by the way is another powerful sensory shifter. We call that affectionate but not creepy touch.

[A]

And is that the scientific.

[B]

Yes, that's my scientific labeling for it. Yeah. Well, it's actually, it's interesting because there's research which shows that if an affectionate embrace is, is wanted, right. It, it elicits a powerful regulatory response. There's a release of stress fighting chemicals. You're reminded people love you at a, you know, conscious level. It's a really powerful tool. I'll remind everyone that touch is the first sense to develop. It develops when you're in the womb. And what's the first thing we do with our kids when they're born into this world? It's skin to skin contact. But I remember being so jealous of my wife because she was getting all the action with our daughters when they were born. Deservedly so. But like I wanted part of that experience too. It was so deeply, deeply emotional. We continue to benefit from that kind of tactile response, that affectionate touch. But if you don't want the touch, I. E. It's creepy, you don't get the benefits.

[A]

So that's why there's no don't force a bear hug.

[B]

Don't force it. And you know, some people are more receptive to touch than others as well. There's variability here too. But, but, but yeah, sometimes I know like that's the best way to intervene initially and I'm going to come back to it and maybe I'll offer some thoughts and later on once, once things have simmered down. So I think being really sensitive to what the time course of your kids and partners emotional responses are can be very, very helpful.

[A]

You know, we, I find it so fascinating that the time course of negative emotions really panics, usually. But we never look at positive emotions and think, this one's gonna last a lifetime, right? Like, yeah, you're never looking at your kids laughing or just being happy and just thinking, like, this is gonna go on forever. This is great. In fact, we know it's fleeting, we know to soak it in. But with negative emotions, I wish there could be a reminder button that those two are fleeting, and so the duration is not going to be a lifetime.

[B]

Well, let me give you one of my favorite tools. This is not my only tool, but it's one of my personal ones that does exactly what you've just described. And it's super simple to use. It is called mental time travel. And what it involves doing is when you find yourself getting really worked up about something or work down in the case of sadness, simply ask yourself, how are you going to feel about this next week, next month, next year, in 10 years? What that does is it makes accessible an idea that you've experienced probably millions and millions of times throughout your life, but you're not thinking about it in the heat of the moment. And that idea is that as awful as what I'm going through is right now, it's going to get better because it's going to fade. You have lived through a lifetime of emotional experiences. Without exaggerating, probably tens of millions of emotional things have happened to you in your life, right? Like a lot. 90% of our waking hours are spent experiencing some kind of emotion. Most of those emotions have come, but as time has gone on, they have eventually waned. There are sometimes exceptions to that rule, but for the great majority of our emotional experiences, they follow that time course. We lose sight of that when we're in the heat of the moment. And sometimes it feels like this is never going to end. So when you jump into this mental time travel machine and you just ask yourself, how am I going to feel about it tomorrow, next month, next week, when I'm dead? It powerfully puts into perspective what you're going through, and it turns the volume on the emotion down. You could do this for yourself, you can also do it for your kids. And so that's a way of reframing things that can be quite useful.

[A]

Okay, I know that we have to wrap up, but I would love if you could just answer this. Are emotions ever dangerous?

[B]

Yes, absolutely. Without question, they are dangerous when they are activated out of proportion, either typically in the context of negative emotions, way too intensely and way too long. When that occurs, we need to manage them. But if you're asking me are there specific emotions that we should never have. No, because all emotions I believe serve. Have some functionality are useful when their experience in the right proportion. So I wasn't sure which way you were asking.

[A]

No, I think.

[B]

Which part of that were you targeting?

[A]

So I think those are both great things just for us to. To remember. One is the emotions themselves. There's like nothing off limits in terms of.

[B]

Nothing's off limits.

[A]

The human experience. So we as parents and humans don't need to worry that that moment of an emotion is going to cause damage. And separately the, the part that's the dangerous part that you're talking about is more just how do we, how do we get the emotion back sort of contained in a way that the behavior might like. The behavior that follows would be.

[B]

Yeah, cur. Curbed.

[A]

I don't know what the word is. You, you can say this.

[B]

That's a good word. I like that word. Well, here's how I think about it. And remind me to tell you about actually one way that I remind myself when it comes to my life and my kids life, how negative emotions can be really helpful to them. So I want to come back to that. But on the one hand, we evolve this beautiful ability to experience lots of different emotions. And those emotions, when they're not activated at the extremes, they give us an edge. They help us alert to our circumstances in particular ways that help us deal with those kinds of situations. But these emotions that we evolve to experience, they're tools, but they're kind of unwieldy tools. Right? They can easily be activated at the extremes. And when that happens, there can be some really serious consequences. So guess what? We also evolved this wonderful kit of tools that we can use to rein in those emotional responses. We can shift our senses, we can shift our attention on or away from them as we want. We could change the way we think about our circumstances. We can shift our perspective, we could change our physical environment to bring about certain kinds of emotional responses. And so we have these two resources. And the real challenge I think we all face is to figure out how to bring the right tools to bear to help us lead the emotional lives that we want to live. And that also, that's up to you. Like some people, they don't want to be too high or too low. Right. In terms of positivity and negativity, they're shooting for just equanimity across the board. Good for them. Not me. I'm a big fan of like going into the positivity. I deal with the negativity when it happens. I don't like to go too negative a little bit. I value. And then I'm trying to get back into positivity mode. That's going to. That emotional profile is going to differ for all of us. And the beauty is we have tools to give us the emotional experiences in life that we want. And the more we can avail ourselves of those tools ourselves and give our children the gift of those tools by sharing it with them, the better I think we will all be as a society. Now, I wanted to say one more thing. Can I give you the. The negative emotion thing?

[A]

Yes. I was just gonna remind you.

[B]

You're gonna remind me?

[A]

Everybody has to run and get shift. Because this book is just filled with all of this incredible. This is just such a great resource to be able to just build these muscles.

[B]

Yeah. And that is what it is about. It doesn't have to be super complicated. It is about simply learning. What are the exercises and how do they cobble together to help you meet your fitness goals? Emotional fitness goals. In other words, how do you use these tools to live the emotional life that you want to live? That is the opportunity here. That's what gets me so excited. That's why I'm talking faster now. And all this stuff.

[A]

Okay, so now tell us.

[B]

Okay, I'm gonna tell you. So let's talk about one of my least favorite experiences in the world. Physical pain. You know, ask any of the people I live with. I do not like physical pain, but I appreciate its significance. And. And so most people don't like physical pain. And I think some people sometimes may even wonder, like, oh, God, what would it be like to just never experience that state? That doesn't have to be a hypothetical, because we know what it is like to never experience physical pain. Because every year there are kids that are born into this world, and due to a genetic blip, they are incapable of experiencing physical pain. So their pain receptors don't operate properly. And as a result, they never have that experience. And you might wonder, well, God, their lives must be great. In fact, they're not. These are kids who end up dying younger than people who do have these receptors. Why? Because their hand gets stuck in the fire and they don't experience any sensation to pull the hand away, pull it out. They start scratching a mosquito bite, and there's no signal that tells them to stop. Right. And so it gets infected. So pain in the right proportions is really, really useful. Same principle applies to all of Our negative experiences. So if you have them at times, welcome to the human condition. We all do, and it's beautiful. What we need to work on is not allowing those negative experiences to. To metastasize and cloud our lives in ways that lead us to live lives that we don't want to live.

[A]

There was an episode of this show, Black Mirror. Is it called Black Mirror?

[B]

Yeah. That's some dark stuff you're watching.

[A]

Yeah, I. It was so dark. It was an episode where the. There was a way that you could filter out negative experiences so that kids wouldn't be able to see them so nothing upsetting could happen in their lives. And what was so dark about it is that when the daughter in this particular family found out, because the. What. This is such a weird movie, I mean, TV show, but I guess they removed the. Whatever implant was in there that was blocking these. These potential triggers for negative emotions. So she saw for the first time in adolescence something that elicited negative emotions. And she, Her. Her rage and feelings were so big that she ended up like, well, it was very dark. Let's just say, oh, my goodness, someone was killed. But point being, it was. It was obviously a sci fi thing and it was making a statement about society and all of the things, but it doesn't.

[B]

It.

[A]

It made a point, you know, and it was very dark. But when we try to shield our kids from all of that. What. I'm. I'm translating what you said into a very dark television show of the world.

[B]

Where we don't experience. I know that there's going to be a spike in rentals on Netflix of Black Mirror after this episode. I can, I can see it happening. You're welcome. But no, no, but, you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself, like, no one is suggesting here. I'm not suggesting. I don't think you are either, that the negative experiences feel good. But what we're. What we're saying is. Well, I'll say what I'm saying is that you can benefit from experiences, and we benefit a lot from experiences sometimes that actually feel bad. And the feeling bad part of them makes them more useful sometimes, too, because they stick out and you remember them. Some of the most pivotal moments in my life, moments that have, like, changed the trajectory of my life have been negative experiences that, you know, times when I experienced some sadness and it led me to change the way I approach things or some anxiety that really led me to hunker down and focus and, you know, life might be. Life would be Very different. And I never experienced those emotions. I knew someone growing up. I had a relative who was so unbelievably talented at positively reframing things that they never allowed themselves to experience, or rarely, I should say, any negative feedback because they would just immediately dismiss it. Reframe, reframe, reframe. By any objective standard, things didn't work out very well for them.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

Sometimes those negative informations can be. Negative information can be useful.

[A]

And I think just worth saying, the reason why we can comfortably talk about how okay and important it is for kids to go through those is because they have that one adult caregiver in their life. Because you're listening. For whom they can have those, with whom they can have those experiences. Someone sitting by their side, someone's there for them. So that really does build resilience. We're not talking about, like, leaving kids in the dust and just being like, go be miserable by yourself for the rest of your life.

[B]

No, I mean, you being a strong source of resilience and safety for your kids is pivotal. It's tremendous. And the one thing we haven't talked about, of course, is culture. And parents shape the culture of the home. I mean, kids play a role too, but parents can be really deliberate about it. So what I mean by culture, Culture, it's the air we breathe. And it's totally relevant to how we manage our emotions and how we help other people manage their emotions. Because what is culture? It's our values and beliefs. Do you value experiencing different kinds of emotions? Do you value. Do you believe it's important to manage emotions? When do you think that's important? Giving your kids, like those values and beliefs, that's a key part of shaping the culture at home. Culture is also about practices, giving, giving the members of the culture tools to help them achieve the beliefs and values that the culture believes in. So, like, as a parent, I'm constantly talking about what is important. You know, in our family, we don't talk ugly to each other. You know, when I grew up, it was just a different culture. People cursed a lot in the household that I grew up in. No judgment to any other families that curse. But I didn't like it as a child, you know, having being called by an expletive every now and again. And so we just don't do it here. That just a decision I made for my family. It's a belief in value. We. We also have a belief that we make up when we get upset with one another pretty quickly. And so I've given them tools to help facilitate that. So as a parent, pushing these skills down to your kids, you have an opportunity here to shape their emotion regulatory lives. And I think that's a major responsibility we all have, and a lot of us just stumble through that. We operate off of intuition or life lessons that we derive from our parents, and that's great. But we also know we can. We can be guided by some science here to really kind of sizzle this culture, to really make it work for you and your kids. And I hope families find that useful.

[A]

It's such a. I'm smiling because I feel great wrapping up on such a. Like the note of what an opportunity this is. I just think what a cool opportunity it is for us to be able to put that in our household culture and what a gift that is, is. Everybody's struggling to figure out, like, what we can do, what was actually in our control. It's pretty cool.

[B]

I love that message because it is all in our control. We have a lot that we can do. So we are not just passive here. We can shape our own emotion regulation capacity and we can help our kids do the same for themselves. Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services.

[A]

Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products.

[B]

Or services referred to in this episode.