August 28, 2025 • 55 mins
This week, Scott sits down with Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of Dealing with Feelings: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want. Together, they explore why so many of us struggle to manage our emotions and what we can do about it. Dr. Brackett explains the importance of co-regulation, self-compassion, and learning to work with our feelings rather than against them. As he reminds us, nearly every experience in our lives—good or bad—is shaped by how we respond emotionally. This conversation is full of practical wisdom and science-backed tools to help you better understand your inner world and harness the power of emotions for growth, resilience, and joy.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was going to schools to try to teach kids
these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or
I get students, you know, who would be like, it's
easier to punt someone in the face. And what I
realized was there was a missing link. And the missing
link goes back to this being one's best self or motivation.
(00:22):
And so when you think about emotion regulation, like, you're
not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more
effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome
as a result of it, if it's going to be
beneficial to you, because it's easier to say, like like
you go blank yourself, right, it's easy. It's easy to
(00:43):
just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to
suppress to seeing a colleague who's bothering you, and just
like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier,
denials easier, Drinking is easier, yelling, Screaming is easy but
complex problem solving. Meditating, you know, takes effort.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore
the depths of human potential. Today we have doctor Mark
Brackett on the show Doctor Brackett is the founding director
of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of
multiple books, including his most recent book, Dealing with Feeling,
Use your Emotions to create the life you want. In
(01:31):
this important conversation, we discuss why we have so much
trouble dealing with our feelings, the importance of coregulation, and
why having grace for ourselves matters so much. As doctor
Brackett says in his book, virtually everything that has ever
happened in your life, good, bad, happy, sad, frustrating, satisfying, joyous, discouraging,
depressing was influenced by how you responded to your emotions,
(01:54):
how you dealt with your feelings. In this chat, Mark
gives you some tips to sort that out. So, without
further ado, I'll bring you doctor Mark Bracket, Doctor Mark Bracket,
Welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Thank you. I was almost gonna say that's my name,
don't wear it out.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
But I just I don't know if this younger generation
would know what that means. I like it. How are you? Man?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
You know, I'm good. I'm just a little overwhelmed. But
other than that, you know, just kind of like I
decided to listen to some advice, which is in my
chronic state of overwhelm. I just stay focused on what
matters most of me and kind of like put my
head down and do the work. And it helps.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, it does help. Do you get over Do you
tend to get more overwhelmed cognitively or emotionally?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I would say both, yeah, because I just have a
lot on my plate and then I get worked. I
get worked up about it emotionally, and then I'm like,
why am I doing this in myself? This is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, and you do do a lot of it to yourself.
It's you know, like you chose to live this life,
and you chose to sign up for helping so many people.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, I mean there's a choice, right, you know, you
got My theory is you've got one life to live.
I feel like I've been put on this earth for
this purpose, and I'm going to do the best I
can during this time and then hopefully there'll be other
people to take it over.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I love it. Well, tell me what is the purpose?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Oh, you're really pushing now already. I think it's you know,
if I were to say what the real goal of
my work is, it's to make sure that people have
the skills they need to navigate their lives. I mean,
that's very broad. I think that one of the most
important skills, as you know from my new book, is
emotion regulation. And if I had to, if I had
(04:00):
a pinpoint any of the kind of social and emotional
skills that are the most valuable, I think, if you
can't deal with your own emotions and you can't help
other people deal with theirs, life is going to be difficult,
no matter how good looking you are, no matter how
rich you are or what position you have.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, I loved your new book. I thought it was
your best one.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That's kind of I think this one's your magnum opus.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I guess we'll see. But if if there's another one,
the next one that could be even better. But no,
this one was really great and helped me a lot
as well with my own emotional regulation. My printer just
started and I have no idea what it's going to
be printing right now. That's weird. It's just like random
randomly printing things. Okay, okay, we'll see what comes out.
(04:51):
But anyway, what is emotion regulation? You know, there's a
lot of debate in the field about how that term
should be defined. Yeah, I think this.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I have a formula that I created to help me
and others kind of think about it, which is not
the definition. But I'll just share that with you first,
which is that emotion regulation is a set of goals
and strategies. So we have goals for emotion regulation. I
want to feel less angry, I want to feel more contentment,
(05:23):
and that it's a function of the emotion you're feeling.
So what goals and strategies I use will depend upon
if I'm angry, if I'm sad, if I'm happy, or
if I'm frustrated. So it's the emotion the person that
I am. So you know, I tend to be on
the neurotic side. I tend to be introverted. I'm Jewish
(05:48):
in terms of background, so my culture and comes all
into play. And then the context, you know, right here
on this webinar or this podcast with you, versus giving
a presentation, versus being in a shopping mall m hm.
And so yeah, yeah, it sounds like flexibility is named
the game. There it is, And so my my real
(06:12):
definition of it, Let's see if you can get if
I can get this right, you know, being pressed is
that emotion regulation is the thoughts and actions that we
use to prevent, reduce, initiate, maintain, or enhance emotions h
(06:38):
for a purpose to have well being, to make good decisions,
to have and maintain healthy relationships, and achieve goals.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, I like it. And a lot of this you
you talk about is in the service of realizing your
best self or your best selves. And let's see that
as a common theme. Thought that was cool. That was
a little uh connection to my own work and self actualization.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, I thought a lot about that. And one of
my visions for this is that the that when we
have an identity as someone who is skilled at dealing
with emotion, that it just changes the way we operate
(07:26):
in the world. And and if I can have this
mindset like Mark, you're like, you're like the feelings master,
which is what one of my things called me from
among the courses, And I don't like that term so much,
but I said, well, what about if the best versions
of ourselves were people who were highly skilled that emotion regulation,
(07:47):
what would be different in the world around us? And
I think a lot would be different. I think if
people had that mindset. Government policies would be different, leadership
would be different, warranting would be different, friendships would be different,
et cetera. Oh wow, I mean yeah, very far far
reaching implications. It does seem like we're living in a
(08:10):
society right now where no one's regulating their emotions and
when they talk to each other in particular, you know,
emotional regular is not just something that you do solitary, right, No.
And I think that's a big piece of what I discovered,
you know, in my work, which is that we tend
to be so self focused, you know, in America, especially
(08:31):
like self control, you know. And yes, if I'm trying
to lose weight, I need to have self control not
to eat the doughnut, of course, that's part of it.
But honestly, you know, we're in relationships most of our lives,
whether it's a relationship with ourselves or our partners, or
(08:52):
our parents, or our colleagues or you know whatever. And
you know, if you really think about it, emotions for
the most part are coregulated. And so you know, I always,
you know, when I give speeches, like you do, give
speeches a lot, I often, you know, use my own
work of course, and I'm like, how are you feeling?
(09:12):
And people are all over the place in terms of
how they're feeling, and I say, well, what's your strategy
for getting the most out of the day? And of
course you get the basics. I'm going to breathe, right,
I'm going to drink water, I'm going to drink coffee.
I'm going to get up and stand up, I'm going
to move around the room. And I said, all, that's fine,
but is there anything missing from you know, your list
(09:34):
of strategies. And then of course people all doodle, I'm
going to crochet, you know, like people just come up
with lots of things that they're going to do to maintain,
you know, themselves, And then I push and push and push,
and eventually someone will say, well, maybe I won't need
to regulate if you're a good presenter. And I think
(09:54):
there's a lot to that that our jobs, you know,
as people who get stage and present stuff, is to
create an emotional experience that keeps people engaged. Just like
it's unfair to the kid in the classroom whose teacher
says focus when the content is boring and the delivery
(10:16):
is worse.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, and taking responsibility as a teacher is a big
one because it's very easy to blame the kids these days.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Or parents too.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, that's true, that's very true. Yeah you you you
always put me into this zen state with your presentations.
Very calm, you calm me down. You strike me as
someone very calm. Is what is your inner life? Like? Mark?
Does it match that word perception?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
It's like fifty to fifty for me. Okay, I'm you know,
I'm either I'm never really like mister happy dappy, just
not in my genetics for what reason, you know, Like
I'm trying to have a little more like joy and excitement,
but it's not like a natural tendency for me. I'm
(11:08):
also not someone who is like a pessimist or who
like feels depression or despair a lot. But I am
someone who is wound up and I worry, and I
worry about why I worry. I even joke that I
worry about why I worry about why I worry.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Very neurotic and.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I don't have that much to worry about. But like
my grandfather, who is very neurotic, is in my ear
saying like you laugh now, you cry later, and uh,
And so I've worked on that but you know, I
tend to have a you know, a high startle reflex,
and so I'm aware of it, and you know, I
(11:51):
check in a lot and I have a lot of strategy.
I'm lucky that I am. I really do practice what
I preach.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, for the most part, you do. I really like
your approach of a lot of people talk about self
compassion in the field. But used a word that stopped
me in my tracks when I got to it. You said, grace,
show yourself. Grace quote the ability to stop ourselves from
reacting in ways we later regret. I've never really thought
(12:18):
of that as having grace to ourselves, but totally in retrospect,
it's like, wow, yeah, that's really what that is. I
really liked that. Mark. Where did how did that? How
did you come up with that?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I just thought about it. You know, well, you know,
in religious practices we say grace and it has a
meaning to it, and I think that we have to
have forgiveness and grace. Like we are imperfect people. We're
going to get triggered. We all want control, We want,
you know, so many things, and life doesn't go the way.
(12:52):
You know. It's funny because as I was thinking about
like the work that I do in terms of regulation
and at the highest level, Right, what do we want?
We want to control everything? Like I was thinking I'm
so controlling. I realized, like I want to know how
fast people walk with me. I want to control how
people write articles with me. I want to control you know,
(13:17):
what TV show we watch or not watch. I mean,
it's crazy in the end, like secretly, I just want
everything to go exactly what I'm sure I mean. I
can't be alone in that, huh And okay, yeah, God,
are you not that way?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
No, no, no, I was going to say, that's not my
perception of you. But but yeah, I don't see you
as a very controlling person.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
But no, it's not that I'm I don't express it
to people as much, but in my brain, like I'm
thinking to myself things like I really wanted to work
out this way. I want this to happen this way.
I want that, Like I can map out everything. Not
everything happens the way we want it to happen. Most
(14:01):
things don't. And so you know, if I could control
policies that are being put in place right now that
are affecting children's healthy development, I would do it. And
I'm trying to do that, but I don't have that
much power, and so I try to find the people
(14:22):
I can talk to about it with. I try to
do my peace in the world to help people, and
I feel like the relationship piece comes in second. So
it's like control the world not necessarily really going to happen,
build healthy relationships, to have that camaraderie, to have that
ability to connect with people, I can do something about that.
(14:43):
And when that's not around, like last week, I was
in London doing something and you know, everything could have
you know, not everything went wrong with my flights, and
I'm like, I can't call my mother. She's not alive anymore.
You know, I was going to call my partner. It
was you know, the timing of the day was right,
and I'm just like, Mark, this is it, Like this
(15:04):
is your life right, and you know what, you have
to edit a whole manuscript. You have all the time
of the world to do that right now. And so
it's like shift thinking, do something productive. Shift thinking, do
something productive. And so it's like change the world. Build relationships,
are like take control of it for your in your mind.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, well you could have called me buddy.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
At your four o'clock in the morning. I'm not sure
you would have wanted that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Okay, fair enough? No, no you, I mean you you
You've got all the skills within you. And I think
that a big part of your message is that we
all do you know you don't have to be the
emotion master to learn these skills? Is that right?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Well, none of us is and born that way. You know,
it was joke, what do you gaga? Got it wrong?
We weren't born that way. Everything is learned. And I'm
going to say that with like with strength. None of
us is born with a toolbox to regulate our emotions.
(16:16):
And so, unfortunately for I think many of us, we
had not good role models. You know, I didn't have
good role models. My father had terrible anger and was
very justsregulated, and when I saw his you know, piercing
eyes and his pressed lips and the red in his face,
it was like hell is going to happen now. And
(16:37):
my mother was always terrified and anxious and locking herself
in her room and having a breakdown as they called
it back in the eighties. And so like what did
I learn? I learned to be very reactive with my
anger and to be neurotic and shut down with my anxiety.
And then you know, when it was like eighteen, I
(17:01):
started studying Marshall. At fifteen, I started studying martial arts
and I went to this like meditation kind of class,
and I was like, oh my god, there's another way.
There are people who can still their mind. There are
people who don't react in this way. And then you know,
I had my uncle who was my mentor, and then
I you know, studied psychology and then I was like,
(17:23):
oh my god, there are like real things that you
can do in your mind and with other people that
can help you manage life's ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Okay, so does this relate to the idea of coregulation.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
A coregulation is a is a big process, and I
think that's where it starts. It starts with the top
what is it? So Koger And at the simplest level,
coregulation is the back and forth between two people, usually
a mom and a baby or dad and a baby
when they're when you know, at birth, where the baby's
crying and the mom comes in or the dad comes
(18:01):
in to sue the baby, whether it's little lullabies or
a little you know, air shaking, rocking, you know, cuddling,
and the goal is to kind of balance each other's
nervous systems. Now it looks different as adults. You know,
if I'm talking with you and you're like Mark and
(18:22):
I'm having a rough day. If I say, you know, Scott,
get over it, move on, like what are you so
worried about? Not the most not the kindest form of coregulation, right,
or interpersonal regulation. But if I say, hey, you know,
let's talk about it. You know, you feel like going
for a walk, you want to go for a cup
(18:43):
of coffee, you know, no judgment here, just like let
it go, you know, whatever you want to say. And
then if I wouldn't say I have a feeling about it,
I'd be like, oh my gosh, really that's what he's
worrying about. But judgment doesn't really help, right, And so
it's sort of like just being curious and supportive. And
I think this is why the coregulation has to come
(19:05):
from someone who's skilled it self regulation, because a if
I have the strategies, like I know about the breathing exercises,
I know the cognitive strategies, I know the social support strategies,
and I know you as a person. You know you're
also neurotically young or not, or introverted or extroverted or
whatever it is. I can then kind of like think
(19:26):
to myself, let me make this offering and see if
Scott feels like trying that strategy. You know, if I
know you're a nature person, I'm going to be like,
get out of your apartment and go for a walk.
Let's go, come on, let's go to the park. You know.
If I know that you are someone who likes zen
and meditation, I'm going to be like, let's, you know,
(19:48):
let's go do some breathing exercises together. If I know
you're someone who likes to chat, it's like, let's go
for a coffee and talk about things that we're passionate about.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Hill, I want to take a moment to make a
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(20:24):
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(20:47):
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(21:11):
That's Center for Human Potential dot com slash s a c. Hey,
now back to the show. Wow. Co regulation. Yeah, that's
a really important skill and it does do. It does
highlight the fact that self regulation just doesn't operate in
our own head. There's something that emerges, there's like a
(21:31):
regulation that emerges.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
And I think what happens is that a lot of
people are afraid of it because I think they have
to be the KNOWA I don't have to know exactly
what you need. I have to have, you know, a
breadth of strategies because then I could like pull from
them to offer them. But I think that the ultimate
form is the relationship that we have and how I
(21:53):
connect with you. And just sometimes, by the way, the
mere presence of someone is a deact evader dia divater. Yeah,
I mean that My uncle Marvin was that for me.
M hm, when I'm in his presence. When I won,
I was in his presence, everything seemed to be okay.
(22:15):
It was amazing to me, whereas there are other people
in my life that when I'm in their presence I
feel completely on edge, uncomfortable, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Hopefully that's not me.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
No, you're not one of those.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Uh you know, I know, I know what you mean.
Some some people feel like, uh, like I've like I've
entered a black hole. Uh, there's like nothing I'm getting.
There's nothing, there's no aliveness of the of the there's
no mutuality. Does it. Can you resonate with that at all?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah? There's something about it. And so you know, in
my research I talk about feelings mentors m hm. And
there are characteristics of these mentors. They're non judgmental, they're
good listeners, and they show empathy and compassion. And a
lot of people approach people with a lot of judgment,
(23:15):
with no compassion and terrible listening skills. And those are
the people we tend to like. When I'm around those people,
I just don't feel like I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I can't be my true self. That's yeah, there it is,
you're not seen.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, And what I find in my research, this is
now cross cultural, by the way, about thirty thousand people
in my research study at this point, is it only
a third of people feel like they had someone like
that in their lives when they were growing up. Two
thirds of people feel like that person was absent from
(23:53):
their development.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Wow. That's really sad. Wow, I we're all kind of
fucked up.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I'm not gonna I won't use that term, but I
it's in part you're right, not wrong, which is that
way have to operationally define it.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, what's what's his name? Nathaniel Brandon, who wrote a
lot about self esteem. He talked a lot about how
a lack of psychological visibility that's the phrase he used
in childhood really helps really contributes to the development of
low self esteem as adults. He linked, He linked those
(24:36):
things very much. So there's something there that's true. I
like that. Yeah, me too, And well, low self esteem
really is an uncertain self esteem. You're not sure who
are you really? You know? And well, my what's my worth?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
What's my purpose and value in this world? And related
to that, Scott, I found in my research that people
who have the mentors growing up have about twenty percent
higher purpose and meaning in life as adults.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Really, Yeah, you found that data. You found that in
your own data. Yeah, and it's been replicated. This is
like seventy different samples that I've used, and I would say,
stop showing off. Ninety percent of those samples it's replicated. Wow.
I mean that's a really big effect. That's a big
(25:29):
effect size it is, I imagine given the you know, the
sample numbers. Holy cow. Okay, So there's really something really
important there and profound. I thought, maybe we can go
through some of the skills sure that people could use.
You have a four step solution since stop strategize succeed.
(25:57):
This is your meta moment method. You need to talk
a little bit about that method.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So yeah, So years ago, I have a colleague. Her
name is Robin Stern. She's also a psychologist, and she's
an expert at gaslighting. Sure a gaslight effect, but she
doesn't do she's not a guest letter. She just helps
people who have been gas split. And she's a clinical psychologist.
(26:22):
I'm a research psychologist with some clinical training, but I
really focus on research. And she would see patients for
years and like teach them strategies and they wouldn't use them,
or they'd say that's amazing. They try it once, it
would fail, and then they wouldn't do it again. I
was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills,
(26:43):
and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students,
you know, who would be like, it's easier to punt
someone in the face. And what I realized was there
was a missing link. And the missing link goes back
to this being one best self or motivation. And so
(27:04):
when you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going
to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to
use unless you think there's a good outcome as a
result of it, if it's going to be beneficial to you,
because it's easy to say, like like you go blank yourself, right,
it's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer.
(27:25):
It's easy to ignore, to suppress to seeing a colleague
who's bothering you, and just like walk the other way.
Avoidance is easier, Ignoring is easier, denials easier, drinking is easier, Yelling,
Screaming is easy, but complex problem solving. Meditating, you know,
(27:45):
takes effort, and so you have to realize, like, oh,
I'm going to benefit from this, and so what we
decided to do was play around. We've played around them
with this for years. Was a model to help people
will see the value of emotion regulation. And so the
first steps you got to know you're having a feeling, right,
(28:07):
You got to be aware that something there is a
sensation in your body and your mind, that someone has
said something or whatever happened in the world that is
activating you in some way or form or another. And
we all have triggers, you know, I mean every one
of us. Does you know, For example, one of my
big things because of where I work and actually you
(28:28):
were there, so you know this too. We met when
you were my teaching a fellow.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Look at that cool you've grown up. The uh is entitlement,
you know, and so like I come from very humble,
blue collar roots. My father was in your commision repairman.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
My mom had.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Various jobs as a secretary of different things. And here
I am at this university where, you know, I get
students who are like Professor Brackett. I've got a question,
but you know, I'm not really sure you're going to
note the answer. And you know, my internal self in
my brain is like, I may not know the answer,
but I'm going to grade your paper. You know. My
(29:10):
point is that it's like activating for me. And I
want to say something like who you know? Who raised you?
You know, I want to really go back at these kids.
And of course I'm the professor of emotional intelligence. So
I stop, take my breath and I think, Mark, how
would the best version of yourself respond to this? How
(29:31):
would the feelings master? How would you know the director
of the Center for freaking Emotional Intelligence use the information widely?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
What wouldn't Mark Brackett do? Yeah, W W M B.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
D and It's amazing though, when you can lower the
temperature and shift your mindset to this kind of superhero
self or direct yourself or whatever that self is for you,
you come up with a lot at our ideas. And
so usually, like when I have that entitlement issue, I
(30:05):
just say things like I'm really curious what made you
ask the question that way? And then all of a
sudden like, oh, you know, I'm not being retaliatory, but
I'm being curious and I'm being firm, okay. And I
find it works well for my own family life because
(30:26):
I'm in a good marriage and I have a husband
we've been together for thirty years, but he's an artist.
I'm an academic, and we don't have a lot in common,
and so I'm mister like director, producer, like you know,
I like things in order. I'm very I have a
calendar that's perfectly organized, and I live an artist who
(30:48):
doesn't operate that way. And so I'm practicing this a
lot because it's like I have an expectation that this
person has the same brain as I do, and it's
not that way. And again going back to control, like
if it were the way I'd like it to be,
you'd do this when I say you do it, and
we'd have this accomplished and blah blah blah blah blah.
(31:11):
And it doesn't always work out that way. So I
used to just like lose it, and then I decided, like, first, Mark,
you have no control over this guy's brain. This is
the way he operates. And you wouldn't be attracted to
someone who was like you anyway, because you can't even
stand yourself.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
That's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
And there's a lot of benefits to having this creative partner.
And so before you enter the door today, before you
come home and enter into the chaos or not, how
are you going to show up? And I activate Mark
the Feelings master mentor before I walk in the house,
(31:55):
and then no matter what expectation was it met or
whatever happens, I'm able to manage it and not always.
I'm not perfect. Just but my point is here that
it's a step like that that you're What we're talking
about here is that you notice what's going on. You
can be preventative too improactive about it. You take that
(32:15):
breath to deactivate your system, you see your best self,
and then you can strategize and act in a way
that aligns with your values to achieve a great outcome.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So I really really like that. And my question is,
can your strategy? Can you decide the best strategy for
you is to is to not be so calm? I
just I find that that whenever people talk about their
best self, they it's just always goes back to like
(32:49):
kindness and all the fucking boring shit. Ye know, I'm joking,
but I agree with you. No, No, it's like you
never hear someone say like I just want to play
Devil's advocate for a second. It's okay, And this might
not be my best self coming out right now, and
I may I love that mark. But but but I
but there's a part of me that really values and
(33:10):
thinks that my my part of my best self is honesty. Yeah,
and there's so much bullshit in this world, and I
don't think every single thing has to be kindness, every
free I don't know, by the way, And I want
to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, I want to
hear your thoughts on that. So sometimes truth So you
would say you can always integrate truth and kindness, you
(33:33):
would say something like that, probably like you you would
say you never have to sacrifice kindness in the in
the service of truth. Is that? Is that what you
would say? I agree, I do believe that. Okay, I
don't think you have Maybe it depends how you define
the word kindness. Well, I don't think you have to
pummel someone to get your message across and so sure,
(33:57):
and I think that you know, if you are someone,
for example, in our society right now at present, if
you are a minority status, life is tougher for you.
And I don't think that telling someone who is being
who is a victim of racism to like be calm
(34:19):
is the right thing.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I think that's that's an injustice right there. I think
we have to support people and being assertive and really
being clear like what you said is not cool. And
I think sometimes our best selves, you know, stands up
for ourselves and stands up for other people. When I
(34:40):
witness and it done this, I try my best to
not be like, everything's okay. Now, let's see it's not okay,
Like what you said is not cool.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Now.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
I don't have to punch you in the face and
tell you to go blank yourself, but I do have
to say it with a lot of clarity. You know, listen,
that's that's not cool. It's not working right now. And
what you just said really was inappropriate and unhelpful and
I needed to stop.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Really you talking about my point?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Now I can act from that. Did it worked? Work?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That was good? That was good. No, I I do
hear what you're saying, and I and I think I'm
making it a little bit of a different point, you know,
because not everything's about injustice, and justice is one example,
and yeah, and that's it's a good example for sure. Yeah,
I've been practicing the art of yes end lately, the
improv thing, and because I'm working on a project right now,
Second City Improv and we're trying to like create world
(35:37):
peace through yes ending. So definitely, So yes, that was
that was a really good example. But you know, sometimes
people say things that aren't true and if you if
you point out what the truth is, it hurts their feelings.
And so you know, what do you do about that?
(35:59):
You know, situation?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Well, I get this is that the big box that
just opened? And so it's worth talking about. I think
it is. And I think that's the ultimate form of
masterful coregulation.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Oh that's cool, And.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
So I think what's interesting, you know, is in friendships
and relationships. So you know, I have I have different
friends for different purposes, you know, like like and you
know when I one of the things that I find
difficult just to be since we're talking frankly here, you know,
(36:36):
is that I've been blessed in my career. I feel
very lucky to have like the ability to write a
book and write two books and you know, run around
talking about it and lead a center at the university.
But not everybody's happy for me, you know. And I
know a lot of people socially that you know, in
the society that like right now would like to like
(36:58):
take me down really really, Oh there's there is either
there's like in people I'm sure have experienced. It's people
who envy you or people who just think, like what
you do is like not the right thing. I'm brainwashing people.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
There's such a force for good, mark.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You know, but some people think I'm a social engineer.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
That recurred to me.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, But my point about that is especially in close
relationships mm hmm, like if you can have an honest conversation,
I mean I think just that's my brain is going
in terms of like romantic relationships now, like some people's
couples ships like fall apart because the sex is not
(37:45):
as good as it used to be, you know, the
you can't share, you know, the news that you feel
you know you want to share about maybe you're whatever,
something positive happened, but you feel like if you talk
about that too much, your partners can feel bad about
themselves because they haven't achieved their thing. And I think
if we can't find ways to have open communication with
(38:10):
people around the feelings that we're having, Like if I
have a close, like a really good friend who you know,
I had a really close friend when my father died,
she called my assistant and she said, I need you
to go into Mark's office and tell him I love him.
Now I thought that was weird. I'm like, this is
(38:33):
a friend of mine for like thirty years, you're calling
my assistant to tell her to tell me that you
love me. Like and so, because of my relationship with
a person, because I was comfortable, you know, in terms
of how I could communicate it, I just picked up
the phone and I said, hey, blank, blank, you know,
like you got to be kidding me, you know, Like,
(38:54):
and she's like, I just didn't want to bother you.
I figured that you're in the height of the moment
with your father just passing. I don't want to. I
just want you to know that I cared, and I said,
you know me better than that, like, come on, we
are close enough that you could just say, like put
Mark on the phone. Yeah, And she's like, you know,
you're right, and she was with my own insecurity. I
just didn't know what to say to you at that moment.
I was felt safer and more comfortable, and I said, understandable.
(39:17):
But I think the point of this kind of when
I'm sharing with you is that the coregulation piece is
not about you in this scenario where my father has
died and I'm feeling lost. It's about getting out of
your own comfort zone to understand and figure out what
are the what are the needs of the other person,
(39:39):
and how can I be most supportive to them, not
necessarily what's most comfortable for you in that moment.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I think that it's really valuable to think that through
before you open your mouth about something. Is it going
to be worth it?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
You know if I and I know i' that was
really sensible. You know, you talk a lot about being
in alignment with your best self. And that was my
favorite chapter was the best self chapter was my response
true to my best self. Did it help me achieve
my relationship goals? Or do I need more practice with
the strategy? Perhaps I need to replace the strategy with
a more helpful one.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Man like, if you're constantly, if you're constantly getting in
touch with that, I can see really good things happening
in your life. I think there's a certain level of
mindfulness required to do that so you don't get called
in kind of this automatic mode, right.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
There is and I think this is why you know.
Just what happened in terms of this book was that
the pandemic hit, as we all know, and I thought, Mark,
like we have like you have the feelings mentor you
know you're going to be great at this. And I
did terrible for the first few months. I got really
(40:59):
overwhelmed scared, which is justifiable.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It was a weird moment. My relationship suffered. I started
eating really unhealthy, I stopped exercising.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I was kind of like, ah, and.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Then people were like I had guys calling me saying
like I can't I can't believe I have to work
from home on my my kid's tech coordinator. I'm my Now,
I'm like with my wife all day long, I'm you know,
I'm not used to that. I'm with my partner with
you know, like people just became people really lost it.
And then I started doing all this research on like, well,
what would you have hope to have known how to do?
(41:32):
And that's kind of where this book came from. And
what I realized in terms of emotion regulation is that,
you know, we tend to think of it as like
one thing, you take a deep breath, but like, you know,
I could take a deep breath and then I have
even more clarity why I hate you?
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Right, and so like it's a.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Necessary but insufficient strategy, and so I think we get
caught up in like everybody takes a deep breath, and yes,
breathing helps, but it's not it's not the be all,
end all. And then there's cognitive strategies, but sometimes I
can I try and Mark take the high road. Mark
take the high road, and I don't take the high road.
(42:19):
Then there's relationship strategies. There's you know, being with people
that lift you up, helping you know, having a sounding board,
like can you just give me some thoughts or ideas
about this, But then there's a whole bunch of other stuff,
like you know, I call your emotion regulation budget, which
is you know, your sleep, your nutrition, and your physical activity,
(42:42):
because that's more preventative. I know that, I know that
when I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm more
irritable in the morning. When I do this activity, my
all my neurochemicals are different and I'm a kinder, easier person.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
You know, it just is what it is.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And so my point of telling you all this is
that and obviously you have to kind of get into
the depths of how to do all these things which
you can learn about, but like they're all needed and
sometimes you use all of them to do with one emotion. Right,
So at the airport when the flight attendant, you know,
the person on the intercom says, like, we thought we
(43:25):
were going to take off tonight, but we're not. Sorry everybody,
And you want to go like become a lunatic. First
you take a deep breath, then you make a phone call.
I'm going to miss the talk. Then I'm supposed to
give tomorrow, and you then you're like, I can't believe this.
This is my reputation mistake. And then you call someone
else to say, like, what do you think I should do?
Should I try to do it virtually? Do I just whatever?
(43:48):
And then you need to make a plan like where
am I staying tonight? And then when your way to
the hotel room, you start yelling at yourself and you say, Mark, like,
this is your life right now. Look, you're gonna go
watch you can get to watch TV tonight, you know.
And it's like a whole bunch of stuff you've done
to deal with the procation or the anger. Does that
(44:09):
make sense?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah, it totally makes sense. I mean,
your your book has so many great strategies for dealing
with that kind of stuff. And not only that, but
just being mindful of this gap you have between where
you are now and your best self and where you
want to be. You have these fill in the blanks
which I really like. I want to see myself with
(44:31):
someone who is I want other people to know me
as someone who's what is your role? A lot of
that speaks to the value of identity. And I know
that was your point when you were talking about the Master,
the emotion Master, even though you hated it. It was
still something nice you said about having that as part
of your identity, and I really, you know, I want
(44:51):
that to be part of my identity too. It's like
someone who can emotionally regulate, you know, and can almost,
I want to say, handle any situation. My worst fear
happened a couple months ago before I moved back to
New York. Every single day in my building in Santa Monica,
my my I would fear getting stuck in the elevator.
(45:16):
It's a really tiny elevator. And I would even like
time I have to stop watch and I would time
it going up and down until I know that was fine.
Everything was fine, you know, ten seconds, I know I'll
be out, you know. And the day before I moved back,
I walk in the elevator. It closes and doesn't move,
and I'm like, are you kidding me? I was like,
are you kidding me? The day before, you know, this
(45:39):
is like my worst fear, and uh yeah, I surprisingly
was calm, like, I mean, I didn't see that coming.
But sometimes sometimes you really don't know just how how
much you can handle something until you actually.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Were experience capable. I think then most people think we
are yeah, but you're bringing up in a good point,
which is that if you have, you know, if you're
nervous about, for example, getting the elevator because you think
it might break down, or let's say you're in public
speaking challenge or whatever it could be you're nervous about
if you're a teacher going into the meeting with the
(46:13):
parent who's going to like be rate you for their
kids bad grades, or a colleague who's got to go
give a kid another colleague feedback. There's a lot of
that we can do to be prepared for that. Yeah,
you know, it's like kind of the if then work.
(46:33):
You know, how am I going to feel when I'm
in that meeting with my You know, I remember years
ago I had to give someone very difficult feedback about
the quality of their writing, you know, as a professor, Right,
this is what you know, I remember writing all those papers.
You had an advisor, right, that was probably particular or
you know or not. I have. I'm pretty particular, especially
(46:58):
around like grammar, Like it really drives me, like you're
getting a PhD and like just grammatical mistakes. You got
to be kidding me. So how do you show kindness there?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Mark?
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Well, it's tough.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I take my breath, so you so you see my
point earlier?
Speaker 1 (47:16):
No, but I do. I don't you know. I could
take the red pen and be like this is a
piece of crap and this is the worst thing I've
ever read, and you should go get a job, you know,
blah blah blah, and like like I'm going to feel
like crap afterwards. They're going to hate me. They're going
to go get a job somewhere and tell everybody that
was a jerk. Like I don't want that, And so
how can I be like show my disappointment and frustration
(47:37):
a way that motivates the person to want to work
harder and be more careful. I think that's that's why
we're in this profession as psychologist, to help people, not
to make people feel worse about themselves. And I think
you do need to give people a wake up call.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
And I have been there. Yeah, But so how do
you do it? Don't leave us on the edge of
our seed? How did you What I.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Would say, and I can tell you you know, is
that you know, I read your paper and I have
to say I was just really disappointed. There were quite
a lot of typos and a lot of grammatical mistakes.
And I'm not sure if you were in a rush.
I'm not sure if it's just something that you're not picking.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Up on you run drugs, but it's possible.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Who knows, But it's just not acceptable, Like you have
to realize that you know, this is you know, we're
trying to publish these papers in top tier journals and
you know the expectation is that you do you need
someone to prove read before you hand it in to
me to review whatever you need to do. It's going
to be important for you moving forward to make sure
(48:45):
that this is written in a way that is, you know,
with a few typos and grammatical errors as possible.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
And that's kind because you didn't. Why is that kind?
It's kind because you didn't and throw them out. You
still gave them a second chance. You still showed them
that they have redemption qualities. You know.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
It's a great it's like kind of giving people. It's like,
you know, instilling a growth mindset in their writing skilled.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Right right, because you you're like, I know you can
do better.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
You know, or I'm hopeful you can do better. I
don't know necessarily, but I have a feeling that something
went wrong in this draft. For the love of God,
I hope you do better exactly, for the love of
your career.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
But Mark, what if they do it like five more times?
I mean, is there enough?
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Then? Then does that's honesty too? You've gotten this feedback
multiple times. It's clear there's you know, something missing and
unfortunately your brain half your brain, what's that half your
brain might be missing? See, that's where you don't go.
You just know that that one be kind, that one
(49:58):
be kind you know, right, might not be your strength.
Area ray might not be your strength. This might not
And unfortunately that's like the bulk of what this is
what we're doing here. But you say, I'm going to
quote you. You say, you don't need to say what's
on your mind. It's not going to have a positive effect.
(50:18):
You want this person to be on your side. You
don't want to alienate him or put him on the defensive.
How do you want this moment to turn out? Your
best self needs to step up and make that happen.
This is a very common theme in your book. It's
not just about individual self regulation, but so much of
your book is about well in a way, it's regulating
(50:40):
yourself in a way that helps regulate others. Yeah, to
have an optimal social outcome, it is, and I think
people need scripts for that. And that's one of what
I did in this book which I haven't done before,
which is I would have a call like a friend
(51:00):
of mine's going through a divorce and it's like, I'm
freaking out, and I think I want to go back
to my husband because you know, I'd rather be miserable
but with somebody than alone, and like blah blah blah
blah blah. And instead of saying like you got to
be freaking kidding me, like you're going to go back
to that, like do you remember what you talked to
me about like three months ago in which you hated
(51:21):
this relationship, instead I would say things like I'm curious
what's going on right now for you that makes you
want to do that? Or I would say things like
can you just remind me about why you decided not
to stay with this person? And the would go on
and on, and I'd be like, wow, like that's a lot.
(51:42):
Do you know what are you thinking now? Oh my god,
thank you for making me do that, because why the
hell would I want to go back to that? And
so it's like helping the person discover for themselves as
opposed to being the.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
No or the teller. Oh, I like that. That's like
being a good coach.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
It is a coach. It's coaching.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yea, yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
That's is But I think people need Like people don't know.
Parents don't know how to do that. A lot partners
don't know how to do it. And I felt the
need to really like I would even ask permission for
a few people. Do you mind if I record this?
Because it's like hard you remember all the little nuances
and the way you in the ways that you kind
of like go back and forth with people. But and
(52:26):
the point is that it you know, it's effortful, like
I said, but the end result is that it builds
trust that build a healthy relationship as opposed to alienate
someone you know.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Et cetera. For sure, it's in line with my own
definition of healthy authenticity as yeah, say, you know, saying
saying things, acting in integrity and ways that show growth
of relationships and your whole self. That's a rough, rough,
rough summary of how I define healthy authenticity. But I definitely, yeah,
(52:59):
it's definitely, And your book is very much in line
with you know, my main recent book, Rise Above, and
the ideas of overcoming a victim mindset and empowering yourself.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
I agree. I think that part of it, you know,
is a lot of you know, when I interviewed you
about your book and when we talked about it is
I was just actually in London giving a speech and
one of the first questions that someone came up to
me about was about trauma, you know, and adverse child
(53:30):
experiences and you know, what do you do in terms
of that and regulation? And you know, I said, the
goal in life is to grow, not to be stuck.
And so if someone is constantly reminding themselves about their
abuse or their trauma, but not seeking alternative ways to
(53:54):
think about their lives and grow, like, from my perspective,
that is the most unhelpful thing. And I think it's
our obligation to help people grow out of those experiences
as opposed to live in them their whole lives. Now,
as you know, I was sexually abused as a kid
for five years. I know what it's like to be
(54:14):
traumatized and to have memories of horrific things happening to you.
But I chose, you know, and it's taking me a lifetime.
But I don't identify as a victim. I don't I
don't even identify as someone who had terrible experiences, who
has learned from those experiences, and who will do everything
(54:36):
you can to not you know, to help people develop
the skills they need to never get themselves into that position,
or to have the courage to talk about it, etc.
And to me, that's really the only way.
Speaker 2 (54:52):
To go beautiful. Well, I found your book so masterful,
and I'm glad you wrote a book for adults, so
thank you, thank you for you know, you could have
kept written about children and the rest of your life.
And then I'm like, how's this helping me? And you've
helped so many adults with this book, and you still
(55:13):
do have a chapter on children, couple chapters. So let
me end with this great quote from your book. You say,
virtually everything that has ever happened in your life, good, bad, happy, sad, frustrating, satisfying, julious, discouraging, depressing,
was influenced by how you responded to your emotions, how
you dealt with your feelings. Congratulations on truly masterful book
(55:36):
and how to deal with your feelings? A book that
I will return again and again, and I will be
teaching in my course in the fall. I've seen some
things I want to put in some of my lectures,
So thank you so much, Mark, Professor, Professor, doctor doctor Brackett.
And yeah, I wish you all the best in the
book tour.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
All right, Thanks Scott,
I was going to schools to try to teach kids
these skills, and I get eye rolling from teachers or
I get students, you know, who would be like, it's
easier to punt someone in the face. And what I
realized was there was a missing link. And the missing
link goes back to this being one's best self or motivation.
(00:22):
And so when you think about emotion regulation, like, you're
not going to choose an adaptive strategy which is more
effortful to use unless you think there's a good outcome
as a result of it, if it's going to be
beneficial to you, because it's easier to say, like like
you go blank yourself, right, it's easy. It's easy to
(00:43):
just drink the extra beer. It's easy to ignore, to
suppress to seeing a colleague who's bothering you, and just
like walk the other way. Avoidance is easier. Ignoring is easier,
denials easier, Drinking is easier, yelling, Screaming is easy but
complex problem solving. Meditating, you know, takes effort.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Hello and welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we explore
the depths of human potential. Today we have doctor Mark
Brackett on the show Doctor Brackett is the founding director
of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and author of
multiple books, including his most recent book, Dealing with Feeling,
Use your Emotions to create the life you want. In
(01:31):
this important conversation, we discuss why we have so much
trouble dealing with our feelings, the importance of coregulation, and
why having grace for ourselves matters so much. As doctor
Brackett says in his book, virtually everything that has ever
happened in your life, good, bad, happy, sad, frustrating, satisfying, joyous, discouraging,
depressing was influenced by how you responded to your emotions,
(01:54):
how you dealt with your feelings. In this chat, Mark
gives you some tips to sort that out. So, without
further ado, I'll bring you doctor Mark Bracket, Doctor Mark Bracket,
Welcome to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Thank you. I was almost gonna say that's my name,
don't wear it out.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
But I just I don't know if this younger generation
would know what that means. I like it. How are you? Man?
Speaker 1 (02:23):
You know, I'm good. I'm just a little overwhelmed. But
other than that, you know, just kind of like I
decided to listen to some advice, which is in my
chronic state of overwhelm. I just stay focused on what
matters most of me and kind of like put my
head down and do the work. And it helps.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Yeah, it does help. Do you get over Do you
tend to get more overwhelmed cognitively or emotionally?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I would say both, yeah, because I just have a
lot on my plate and then I get worked. I
get worked up about it emotionally, and then I'm like,
why am I doing this in myself? This is ridiculous.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Yes, and you do do a lot of it to yourself.
It's you know, like you chose to live this life,
and you chose to sign up for helping so many people.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Yeah, I mean there's a choice, right, you know, you
got My theory is you've got one life to live.
I feel like I've been put on this earth for
this purpose, and I'm going to do the best I
can during this time and then hopefully there'll be other
people to take it over.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
I love it. Well, tell me what is the purpose?
Speaker 1 (03:38):
Oh, you're really pushing now already. I think it's you know,
if I were to say what the real goal of
my work is, it's to make sure that people have
the skills they need to navigate their lives. I mean,
that's very broad. I think that one of the most
important skills, as you know from my new book, is
emotion regulation. And if I had to, if I had
(04:00):
a pinpoint any of the kind of social and emotional
skills that are the most valuable, I think, if you
can't deal with your own emotions and you can't help
other people deal with theirs, life is going to be difficult,
no matter how good looking you are, no matter how
rich you are or what position you have.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, I loved your new book. I thought it was
your best one.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
That's kind of I think this one's your magnum opus.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Oh, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
I guess we'll see. But if if there's another one,
the next one that could be even better. But no,
this one was really great and helped me a lot
as well with my own emotional regulation. My printer just
started and I have no idea what it's going to
be printing right now. That's weird. It's just like random
randomly printing things. Okay, okay, we'll see what comes out.
(04:51):
But anyway, what is emotion regulation? You know, there's a
lot of debate in the field about how that term
should be defined. Yeah, I think this.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
I have a formula that I created to help me
and others kind of think about it, which is not
the definition. But I'll just share that with you first,
which is that emotion regulation is a set of goals
and strategies. So we have goals for emotion regulation. I
want to feel less angry, I want to feel more contentment,
(05:23):
and that it's a function of the emotion you're feeling.
So what goals and strategies I use will depend upon
if I'm angry, if I'm sad, if I'm happy, or
if I'm frustrated. So it's the emotion the person that
I am. So you know, I tend to be on
the neurotic side. I tend to be introverted. I'm Jewish
(05:48):
in terms of background, so my culture and comes all
into play. And then the context, you know, right here
on this webinar or this podcast with you, versus giving
a presentation, versus being in a shopping mall m hm.
And so yeah, yeah, it sounds like flexibility is named
the game. There it is, And so my my real
(06:12):
definition of it, Let's see if you can get if
I can get this right, you know, being pressed is
that emotion regulation is the thoughts and actions that we
use to prevent, reduce, initiate, maintain, or enhance emotions h
(06:38):
for a purpose to have well being, to make good decisions,
to have and maintain healthy relationships, and achieve goals.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Well, I like it. And a lot of this you
you talk about is in the service of realizing your
best self or your best selves. And let's see that
as a common theme. Thought that was cool. That was
a little uh connection to my own work and self actualization.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, I thought a lot about that. And one of
my visions for this is that the that when we
have an identity as someone who is skilled at dealing
with emotion, that it just changes the way we operate
(07:26):
in the world. And and if I can have this
mindset like Mark, you're like, you're like the feelings master,
which is what one of my things called me from
among the courses, And I don't like that term so much,
but I said, well, what about if the best versions
of ourselves were people who were highly skilled that emotion regulation,
(07:47):
what would be different in the world around us? And
I think a lot would be different. I think if
people had that mindset. Government policies would be different, leadership
would be different, warranting would be different, friendships would be different,
et cetera. Oh wow, I mean yeah, very far far
reaching implications. It does seem like we're living in a
(08:10):
society right now where no one's regulating their emotions and
when they talk to each other in particular, you know,
emotional regular is not just something that you do solitary, right, No.
And I think that's a big piece of what I discovered,
you know, in my work, which is that we tend
to be so self focused, you know, in America, especially
(08:31):
like self control, you know. And yes, if I'm trying
to lose weight, I need to have self control not
to eat the doughnut, of course, that's part of it.
But honestly, you know, we're in relationships most of our lives,
whether it's a relationship with ourselves or our partners, or
(08:52):
our parents, or our colleagues or you know whatever. And
you know, if you really think about it, emotions for
the most part are coregulated. And so you know, I always,
you know, when I give speeches, like you do, give
speeches a lot, I often, you know, use my own
work of course, and I'm like, how are you feeling?
(09:12):
And people are all over the place in terms of
how they're feeling, and I say, well, what's your strategy
for getting the most out of the day? And of
course you get the basics. I'm going to breathe, right,
I'm going to drink water, I'm going to drink coffee.
I'm going to get up and stand up, I'm going
to move around the room. And I said, all, that's fine,
but is there anything missing from you know, your list
(09:34):
of strategies. And then of course people all doodle, I'm
going to crochet, you know, like people just come up
with lots of things that they're going to do to maintain,
you know, themselves, And then I push and push and push,
and eventually someone will say, well, maybe I won't need
to regulate if you're a good presenter. And I think
(09:54):
there's a lot to that that our jobs, you know,
as people who get stage and present stuff, is to
create an emotional experience that keeps people engaged. Just like
it's unfair to the kid in the classroom whose teacher
says focus when the content is boring and the delivery
(10:16):
is worse.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
Yeah, and taking responsibility as a teacher is a big
one because it's very easy to blame the kids these days.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
Or parents too.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah, that's true, that's very true. Yeah you you you
always put me into this zen state with your presentations.
Very calm, you calm me down. You strike me as
someone very calm. Is what is your inner life? Like? Mark?
Does it match that word perception?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
It's like fifty to fifty for me. Okay, I'm you know,
I'm either I'm never really like mister happy dappy, just
not in my genetics for what reason, you know, Like
I'm trying to have a little more like joy and excitement,
but it's not like a natural tendency for me. I'm
(11:08):
also not someone who is like a pessimist or who
like feels depression or despair a lot. But I am
someone who is wound up and I worry, and I
worry about why I worry. I even joke that I
worry about why I worry about why I worry.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Very neurotic and.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I don't have that much to worry about. But like
my grandfather, who is very neurotic, is in my ear
saying like you laugh now, you cry later, and uh,
And so I've worked on that but you know, I
tend to have a you know, a high startle reflex,
and so I'm aware of it, and you know, I
(11:51):
check in a lot and I have a lot of strategy.
I'm lucky that I am. I really do practice what
I preach.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Yeah, for the most part, you do. I really like
your approach of a lot of people talk about self
compassion in the field. But used a word that stopped
me in my tracks when I got to it. You said, grace,
show yourself. Grace quote the ability to stop ourselves from
reacting in ways we later regret. I've never really thought
(12:18):
of that as having grace to ourselves, but totally in retrospect,
it's like, wow, yeah, that's really what that is. I
really liked that. Mark. Where did how did that? How
did you come up with that?
Speaker 1 (12:30):
I just thought about it. You know, well, you know,
in religious practices we say grace and it has a
meaning to it, and I think that we have to
have forgiveness and grace. Like we are imperfect people. We're
going to get triggered. We all want control, We want,
you know, so many things, and life doesn't go the way.
(12:52):
You know. It's funny because as I was thinking about
like the work that I do in terms of regulation
and at the highest level, Right, what do we want?
We want to control everything? Like I was thinking I'm
so controlling. I realized, like I want to know how
fast people walk with me. I want to control how
people write articles with me. I want to control you know,
(13:17):
what TV show we watch or not watch. I mean,
it's crazy in the end, like secretly, I just want
everything to go exactly what I'm sure I mean. I
can't be alone in that, huh And okay, yeah, God,
are you not that way?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
No, no, no, I was going to say, that's not my
perception of you. But but yeah, I don't see you
as a very controlling person.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
But no, it's not that I'm I don't express it
to people as much, but in my brain, like I'm
thinking to myself things like I really wanted to work
out this way. I want this to happen this way.
I want that, Like I can map out everything. Not
everything happens the way we want it to happen. Most
(14:01):
things don't. And so you know, if I could control
policies that are being put in place right now that
are affecting children's healthy development, I would do it. And
I'm trying to do that, but I don't have that
much power, and so I try to find the people
(14:22):
I can talk to about it with. I try to
do my peace in the world to help people, and
I feel like the relationship piece comes in second. So
it's like control the world not necessarily really going to happen,
build healthy relationships, to have that camaraderie, to have that
ability to connect with people, I can do something about that.
(14:43):
And when that's not around, like last week, I was
in London doing something and you know, everything could have
you know, not everything went wrong with my flights, and
I'm like, I can't call my mother. She's not alive anymore.
You know, I was going to call my partner. It
was you know, the timing of the day was right,
and I'm just like, Mark, this is it, Like this
(15:04):
is your life right, and you know what, you have
to edit a whole manuscript. You have all the time
of the world to do that right now. And so
it's like shift thinking, do something productive. Shift thinking, do
something productive. And so it's like change the world. Build relationships,
are like take control of it for your in your mind.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
Yeah, well you could have called me buddy.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
At your four o'clock in the morning. I'm not sure
you would have wanted that.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Okay, fair enough? No, no you, I mean you you
You've got all the skills within you. And I think
that a big part of your message is that we
all do you know you don't have to be the
emotion master to learn these skills? Is that right?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Well, none of us is and born that way. You know,
it was joke, what do you gaga? Got it wrong?
We weren't born that way. Everything is learned. And I'm
going to say that with like with strength. None of
us is born with a toolbox to regulate our emotions.
(16:16):
And so, unfortunately for I think many of us, we
had not good role models. You know, I didn't have
good role models. My father had terrible anger and was
very justsregulated, and when I saw his you know, piercing
eyes and his pressed lips and the red in his face,
it was like hell is going to happen now. And
(16:37):
my mother was always terrified and anxious and locking herself
in her room and having a breakdown as they called
it back in the eighties. And so like what did
I learn? I learned to be very reactive with my
anger and to be neurotic and shut down with my anxiety.
And then you know, when it was like eighteen, I
(17:01):
started studying Marshall. At fifteen, I started studying martial arts
and I went to this like meditation kind of class,
and I was like, oh my god, there's another way.
There are people who can still their mind. There are
people who don't react in this way. And then you know,
I had my uncle who was my mentor, and then
I you know, studied psychology and then I was like,
(17:23):
oh my god, there are like real things that you
can do in your mind and with other people that
can help you manage life's ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
Okay, so does this relate to the idea of coregulation.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
A coregulation is a is a big process, and I
think that's where it starts. It starts with the top
what is it? So Koger And at the simplest level,
coregulation is the back and forth between two people, usually
a mom and a baby or dad and a baby
when they're when you know, at birth, where the baby's
crying and the mom comes in or the dad comes
(18:01):
in to sue the baby, whether it's little lullabies or
a little you know, air shaking, rocking, you know, cuddling,
and the goal is to kind of balance each other's
nervous systems. Now it looks different as adults. You know,
if I'm talking with you and you're like Mark and
(18:22):
I'm having a rough day. If I say, you know, Scott,
get over it, move on, like what are you so
worried about? Not the most not the kindest form of coregulation, right,
or interpersonal regulation. But if I say, hey, you know,
let's talk about it. You know, you feel like going
for a walk, you want to go for a cup
(18:43):
of coffee, you know, no judgment here, just like let
it go, you know, whatever you want to say. And
then if I wouldn't say I have a feeling about it,
I'd be like, oh my gosh, really that's what he's
worrying about. But judgment doesn't really help, right, And so
it's sort of like just being curious and supportive. And
I think this is why the coregulation has to come
(19:05):
from someone who's skilled it self regulation, because a if
I have the strategies, like I know about the breathing exercises,
I know the cognitive strategies, I know the social support strategies,
and I know you as a person. You know you're
also neurotically young or not, or introverted or extroverted or
whatever it is. I can then kind of like think
(19:26):
to myself, let me make this offering and see if
Scott feels like trying that strategy. You know, if I
know you're a nature person, I'm going to be like,
get out of your apartment and go for a walk.
Let's go, come on, let's go to the park. You know.
If I know that you are someone who likes zen
and meditation, I'm going to be like, let's, you know,
(19:48):
let's go do some breathing exercises together. If I know
you're someone who likes to chat, it's like, let's go
for a coffee and talk about things that we're passionate about.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Hill, I want to take a moment to make a
few important announcements that I'm really excited about. As you
all know, I'm committed to helping people self actualize. In
the service of that, I just had a new book
Comount called Rise Above Overcome a victim mindset, empower yourself
and realize your full potential. In this book, I offer
a science backed toolkit to help you overcome your living
(20:24):
beliefs and take control of your life. Are you tired
of feeling helpless? This book will offer you hope, not
by identifying with the worst things that have happened to you,
but by empowering you to tap into the best that
is within you. Rise Above is available wherever you get
your books. Are you a personal coach looking to take
your coaching to the next level. I'm also excited to
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(20:47):
day immersive experience for coaches is back by popular demand.
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more about the course and register by going to a
Center for Human Potential dot com slash s a c.
(21:11):
That's Center for Human Potential dot com slash s a c. Hey,
now back to the show. Wow. Co regulation. Yeah, that's
a really important skill and it does do. It does
highlight the fact that self regulation just doesn't operate in
our own head. There's something that emerges, there's like a
(21:31):
regulation that emerges.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
And I think what happens is that a lot of
people are afraid of it because I think they have
to be the KNOWA I don't have to know exactly
what you need. I have to have, you know, a
breadth of strategies because then I could like pull from
them to offer them. But I think that the ultimate
form is the relationship that we have and how I
(21:53):
connect with you. And just sometimes, by the way, the
mere presence of someone is a deact evader dia divater. Yeah,
I mean that My uncle Marvin was that for me.
M hm, when I'm in his presence. When I won,
I was in his presence, everything seemed to be okay.
(22:15):
It was amazing to me, whereas there are other people
in my life that when I'm in their presence I
feel completely on edge, uncomfortable, and yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Hopefully that's not me.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
No, you're not one of those.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
Uh you know, I know, I know what you mean.
Some some people feel like, uh, like I've like I've
entered a black hole. Uh, there's like nothing I'm getting.
There's nothing, there's no aliveness of the of the there's
no mutuality. Does it. Can you resonate with that at all?
Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah? There's something about it. And so you know, in
my research I talk about feelings mentors m hm. And
there are characteristics of these mentors. They're non judgmental, they're
good listeners, and they show empathy and compassion. And a
lot of people approach people with a lot of judgment,
(23:15):
with no compassion and terrible listening skills. And those are
the people we tend to like. When I'm around those people,
I just don't feel like I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I can't be my true self. That's yeah, there it is,
you're not seen.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah, And what I find in my research, this is
now cross cultural, by the way, about thirty thousand people
in my research study at this point, is it only
a third of people feel like they had someone like
that in their lives when they were growing up. Two
thirds of people feel like that person was absent from
(23:53):
their development.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Wow. That's really sad. Wow, I we're all kind of
fucked up.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I'm not gonna I won't use that term, but I
it's in part you're right, not wrong, which is that
way have to operationally define it.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Yeah, what's what's his name? Nathaniel Brandon, who wrote a
lot about self esteem. He talked a lot about how
a lack of psychological visibility that's the phrase he used
in childhood really helps really contributes to the development of
low self esteem as adults. He linked, He linked those
(24:36):
things very much. So there's something there that's true. I
like that. Yeah, me too, And well, low self esteem
really is an uncertain self esteem. You're not sure who
are you really? You know? And well, my what's my worth?
Speaker 1 (24:53):
What's my purpose and value in this world? And related
to that, Scott, I found in my research that people
who have the mentors growing up have about twenty percent
higher purpose and meaning in life as adults.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Really, Yeah, you found that data. You found that in
your own data. Yeah, and it's been replicated. This is
like seventy different samples that I've used, and I would say,
stop showing off. Ninety percent of those samples it's replicated. Wow.
I mean that's a really big effect. That's a big
(25:29):
effect size it is, I imagine given the you know, the
sample numbers. Holy cow. Okay, So there's really something really
important there and profound. I thought, maybe we can go
through some of the skills sure that people could use.
You have a four step solution since stop strategize succeed.
(25:57):
This is your meta moment method. You need to talk
a little bit about that method.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
So yeah, So years ago, I have a colleague. Her
name is Robin Stern. She's also a psychologist, and she's
an expert at gaslighting. Sure a gaslight effect, but she
doesn't do she's not a guest letter. She just helps
people who have been gas split. And she's a clinical psychologist.
(26:22):
I'm a research psychologist with some clinical training, but I
really focus on research. And she would see patients for
years and like teach them strategies and they wouldn't use them,
or they'd say that's amazing. They try it once, it
would fail, and then they wouldn't do it again. I
was going to schools to try to teach kids these skills,
(26:43):
and I get eye rolling from teachers or I get students,
you know, who would be like, it's easier to punt
someone in the face. And what I realized was there
was a missing link. And the missing link goes back
to this being one best self or motivation. And so
(27:04):
when you think about emotion regulation, like you're not going
to choose an adaptive strategy which is more effortful to
use unless you think there's a good outcome as a
result of it, if it's going to be beneficial to you,
because it's easy to say, like like you go blank yourself, right,
it's easy. It's easy to just drink the extra beer.
(27:25):
It's easy to ignore, to suppress to seeing a colleague
who's bothering you, and just like walk the other way.
Avoidance is easier, Ignoring is easier, denials easier, drinking is easier, Yelling,
Screaming is easy, but complex problem solving. Meditating, you know,
(27:45):
takes effort, and so you have to realize, like, oh,
I'm going to benefit from this, and so what we
decided to do was play around. We've played around them
with this for years. Was a model to help people
will see the value of emotion regulation. And so the
first steps you got to know you're having a feeling, right,
(28:07):
You got to be aware that something there is a
sensation in your body and your mind, that someone has
said something or whatever happened in the world that is
activating you in some way or form or another. And
we all have triggers, you know, I mean every one
of us. Does you know, For example, one of my
big things because of where I work and actually you
(28:28):
were there, so you know this too. We met when
you were my teaching a fellow.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
Look at that cool you've grown up. The uh is entitlement,
you know, and so like I come from very humble,
blue collar roots. My father was in your commision repairman.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
My mom had.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
Various jobs as a secretary of different things. And here
I am at this university where, you know, I get
students who are like Professor Brackett. I've got a question,
but you know, I'm not really sure you're going to
note the answer. And you know, my internal self in
my brain is like, I may not know the answer,
but I'm going to grade your paper. You know. My
(29:10):
point is that it's like activating for me. And I
want to say something like who you know? Who raised you?
You know, I want to really go back at these kids.
And of course I'm the professor of emotional intelligence. So
I stop, take my breath and I think, Mark, how
would the best version of yourself respond to this? How
(29:31):
would the feelings master? How would you know the director
of the Center for freaking Emotional Intelligence use the information widely?
Speaker 2 (29:39):
What wouldn't Mark Brackett do? Yeah, W W M B.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
D and It's amazing though, when you can lower the
temperature and shift your mindset to this kind of superhero
self or direct yourself or whatever that self is for you,
you come up with a lot at our ideas. And
so usually, like when I have that entitlement issue, I
(30:05):
just say things like I'm really curious what made you
ask the question that way? And then all of a
sudden like, oh, you know, I'm not being retaliatory, but
I'm being curious and I'm being firm, okay. And I
find it works well for my own family life because
(30:26):
I'm in a good marriage and I have a husband
we've been together for thirty years, but he's an artist.
I'm an academic, and we don't have a lot in common,
and so I'm mister like director, producer, like you know,
I like things in order. I'm very I have a
calendar that's perfectly organized, and I live an artist who
(30:48):
doesn't operate that way. And so I'm practicing this a
lot because it's like I have an expectation that this
person has the same brain as I do, and it's
not that way. And again going back to control, like
if it were the way I'd like it to be,
you'd do this when I say you do it, and
we'd have this accomplished and blah blah blah blah blah.
(31:11):
And it doesn't always work out that way. So I
used to just like lose it, and then I decided, like, first, Mark,
you have no control over this guy's brain. This is
the way he operates. And you wouldn't be attracted to
someone who was like you anyway, because you can't even
stand yourself.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
That's hilarious.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
And there's a lot of benefits to having this creative partner.
And so before you enter the door today, before you
come home and enter into the chaos or not, how
are you going to show up? And I activate Mark
the Feelings master mentor before I walk in the house,
(31:55):
and then no matter what expectation was it met or
whatever happens, I'm able to manage it and not always.
I'm not perfect. Just but my point is here that
it's a step like that that you're What we're talking
about here is that you notice what's going on. You
can be preventative too improactive about it. You take that
(32:15):
breath to deactivate your system, you see your best self,
and then you can strategize and act in a way
that aligns with your values to achieve a great outcome.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
So I really really like that. And my question is,
can your strategy? Can you decide the best strategy for
you is to is to not be so calm? I
just I find that that whenever people talk about their
best self, they it's just always goes back to like
(32:49):
kindness and all the fucking boring shit. Ye know, I'm joking,
but I agree with you. No, No, it's like you
never hear someone say like I just want to play
Devil's advocate for a second. It's okay, And this might
not be my best self coming out right now, and
I may I love that mark. But but but I
but there's a part of me that really values and
(33:10):
thinks that my my part of my best self is honesty. Yeah,
and there's so much bullshit in this world, and I
don't think every single thing has to be kindness, every
free I don't know, by the way, And I want
to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, I want to
hear your thoughts on that. So sometimes truth So you
would say you can always integrate truth and kindness, you
(33:33):
would say something like that, probably like you you would
say you never have to sacrifice kindness in the in
the service of truth. Is that? Is that what you
would say? I agree, I do believe that. Okay, I
don't think you have Maybe it depends how you define
the word kindness. Well, I don't think you have to
pummel someone to get your message across and so sure,
(33:57):
and I think that you know, if you are someone,
for example, in our society right now at present, if
you are a minority status, life is tougher for you.
And I don't think that telling someone who is being
who is a victim of racism to like be calm
(34:19):
is the right thing.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
I think that's that's an injustice right there. I think
we have to support people and being assertive and really
being clear like what you said is not cool. And
I think sometimes our best selves, you know, stands up
for ourselves and stands up for other people. When I
(34:40):
witness and it done this, I try my best to
not be like, everything's okay. Now, let's see it's not okay,
Like what you said is not cool.
Speaker 2 (34:49):
Now.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
I don't have to punch you in the face and
tell you to go blank yourself, but I do have
to say it with a lot of clarity. You know, listen,
that's that's not cool. It's not working right now. And
what you just said really was inappropriate and unhelpful and
I needed to stop.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
Really you talking about my point?
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Now I can act from that. Did it worked? Work?
Speaker 2 (35:14):
That was good? That was good. No, I I do
hear what you're saying, and I and I think I'm
making it a little bit of a different point, you know,
because not everything's about injustice, and justice is one example,
and yeah, and that's it's a good example for sure. Yeah,
I've been practicing the art of yes end lately, the
improv thing, and because I'm working on a project right now,
Second City Improv and we're trying to like create world
(35:37):
peace through yes ending. So definitely, So yes, that was
that was a really good example. But you know, sometimes
people say things that aren't true and if you if
you point out what the truth is, it hurts their feelings.
And so you know, what do you do about that?
(35:59):
You know, situation?
Speaker 1 (36:02):
Well, I get this is that the big box that
just opened? And so it's worth talking about. I think
it is. And I think that's the ultimate form of
masterful coregulation.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Oh that's cool, And.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
So I think what's interesting, you know, is in friendships
and relationships. So you know, I have I have different
friends for different purposes, you know, like like and you
know when I one of the things that I find
difficult just to be since we're talking frankly here, you know,
(36:36):
is that I've been blessed in my career. I feel
very lucky to have like the ability to write a
book and write two books and you know, run around
talking about it and lead a center at the university.
But not everybody's happy for me, you know. And I
know a lot of people socially that you know, in
the society that like right now would like to like
(36:58):
take me down really really, Oh there's there is either
there's like in people I'm sure have experienced. It's people
who envy you or people who just think, like what
you do is like not the right thing. I'm brainwashing people.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
There's such a force for good, mark.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
You know, but some people think I'm a social engineer.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
That recurred to me.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, But my point about that is especially in close
relationships mm hmm, like if you can have an honest conversation,
I mean I think just that's my brain is going
in terms of like romantic relationships now, like some people's
couples ships like fall apart because the sex is not
(37:45):
as good as it used to be, you know, the
you can't share, you know, the news that you feel
you know you want to share about maybe you're whatever,
something positive happened, but you feel like if you talk
about that too much, your partners can feel bad about
themselves because they haven't achieved their thing. And I think
if we can't find ways to have open communication with
(38:10):
people around the feelings that we're having, Like if I
have a close, like a really good friend who you know,
I had a really close friend when my father died,
she called my assistant and she said, I need you
to go into Mark's office and tell him I love him.
Now I thought that was weird. I'm like, this is
(38:33):
a friend of mine for like thirty years, you're calling
my assistant to tell her to tell me that you
love me. Like and so, because of my relationship with
a person, because I was comfortable, you know, in terms
of how I could communicate it, I just picked up
the phone and I said, hey, blank, blank, you know,
like you got to be kidding me, you know, Like,
(38:54):
and she's like, I just didn't want to bother you.
I figured that you're in the height of the moment
with your father just passing. I don't want to. I
just want you to know that I cared, and I said,
you know me better than that, like, come on, we
are close enough that you could just say, like put
Mark on the phone. Yeah, And she's like, you know,
you're right, and she was with my own insecurity. I
just didn't know what to say to you at that moment.
I was felt safer and more comfortable, and I said, understandable.
(39:17):
But I think the point of this kind of when
I'm sharing with you is that the coregulation piece is
not about you in this scenario where my father has
died and I'm feeling lost. It's about getting out of
your own comfort zone to understand and figure out what
are the what are the needs of the other person,
(39:39):
and how can I be most supportive to them, not
necessarily what's most comfortable for you in that moment.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
I think that it's really valuable to think that through
before you open your mouth about something. Is it going
to be worth it?
Speaker 1 (39:58):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (39:58):
You know if I and I know i' that was
really sensible. You know, you talk a lot about being
in alignment with your best self. And that was my
favorite chapter was the best self chapter was my response
true to my best self. Did it help me achieve
my relationship goals? Or do I need more practice with
the strategy? Perhaps I need to replace the strategy with
a more helpful one.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Man like, if you're constantly, if you're constantly getting in
touch with that, I can see really good things happening
in your life. I think there's a certain level of
mindfulness required to do that so you don't get called
in kind of this automatic mode, right.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
There is and I think this is why you know.
Just what happened in terms of this book was that
the pandemic hit, as we all know, and I thought, Mark,
like we have like you have the feelings mentor you
know you're going to be great at this. And I
did terrible for the first few months. I got really
(40:59):
overwhelmed scared, which is justifiable.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Right.
Speaker 1 (41:02):
It was a weird moment. My relationship suffered. I started
eating really unhealthy, I stopped exercising.
Speaker 2 (41:07):
I was kind of like, ah, and.
Speaker 1 (41:09):
Then people were like I had guys calling me saying
like I can't I can't believe I have to work
from home on my my kid's tech coordinator. I'm my Now,
I'm like with my wife all day long, I'm you know,
I'm not used to that. I'm with my partner with
you know, like people just became people really lost it.
And then I started doing all this research on like, well,
what would you have hope to have known how to do?
(41:32):
And that's kind of where this book came from. And
what I realized in terms of emotion regulation is that,
you know, we tend to think of it as like
one thing, you take a deep breath, but like, you know,
I could take a deep breath and then I have
even more clarity why I hate you?
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Right, and so like it's a.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Necessary but insufficient strategy, and so I think we get
caught up in like everybody takes a deep breath, and yes,
breathing helps, but it's not it's not the be all,
end all. And then there's cognitive strategies, but sometimes I
can I try and Mark take the high road. Mark
take the high road, and I don't take the high road.
(42:19):
Then there's relationship strategies. There's you know, being with people
that lift you up, helping you know, having a sounding board,
like can you just give me some thoughts or ideas
about this, But then there's a whole bunch of other stuff,
like you know, I call your emotion regulation budget, which
is you know, your sleep, your nutrition, and your physical activity,
(42:42):
because that's more preventative. I know that, I know that
when I don't get a good night's sleep, I'm more
irritable in the morning. When I do this activity, my
all my neurochemicals are different and I'm a kinder, easier person.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
You know, it just is what it is.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And so my point of telling you all this is
that and obviously you have to kind of get into
the depths of how to do all these things which
you can learn about, but like they're all needed and
sometimes you use all of them to do with one emotion. Right,
So at the airport when the flight attendant, you know,
the person on the intercom says, like, we thought we
(43:25):
were going to take off tonight, but we're not. Sorry everybody,
And you want to go like become a lunatic. First
you take a deep breath, then you make a phone call.
I'm going to miss the talk. Then I'm supposed to
give tomorrow, and you then you're like, I can't believe this.
This is my reputation mistake. And then you call someone
else to say, like, what do you think I should do?
Should I try to do it virtually? Do I just whatever?
(43:48):
And then you need to make a plan like where
am I staying tonight? And then when your way to
the hotel room, you start yelling at yourself and you say, Mark, like,
this is your life right now. Look, you're gonna go
watch you can get to watch TV tonight, you know.
And it's like a whole bunch of stuff you've done
to deal with the procation or the anger. Does that
(44:09):
make sense?
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Yeah? Oh yeah, yeah, it totally makes sense. I mean,
your your book has so many great strategies for dealing
with that kind of stuff. And not only that, but
just being mindful of this gap you have between where
you are now and your best self and where you
want to be. You have these fill in the blanks
which I really like. I want to see myself with
(44:31):
someone who is I want other people to know me
as someone who's what is your role? A lot of
that speaks to the value of identity. And I know
that was your point when you were talking about the Master,
the emotion Master, even though you hated it. It was
still something nice you said about having that as part
of your identity, and I really, you know, I want
(44:51):
that to be part of my identity too. It's like
someone who can emotionally regulate, you know, and can almost,
I want to say, handle any situation. My worst fear
happened a couple months ago before I moved back to
New York. Every single day in my building in Santa Monica,
my my I would fear getting stuck in the elevator.
(45:16):
It's a really tiny elevator. And I would even like
time I have to stop watch and I would time
it going up and down until I know that was fine.
Everything was fine, you know, ten seconds, I know I'll
be out, you know. And the day before I moved back,
I walk in the elevator. It closes and doesn't move,
and I'm like, are you kidding me? I was like,
are you kidding me? The day before, you know, this
(45:39):
is like my worst fear, and uh yeah, I surprisingly
was calm, like, I mean, I didn't see that coming.
But sometimes sometimes you really don't know just how how
much you can handle something until you actually.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Were experience capable. I think then most people think we
are yeah, but you're bringing up in a good point,
which is that if you have, you know, if you're
nervous about, for example, getting the elevator because you think
it might break down, or let's say you're in public
speaking challenge or whatever it could be you're nervous about
if you're a teacher going into the meeting with the
(46:13):
parent who's going to like be rate you for their
kids bad grades, or a colleague who's got to go
give a kid another colleague feedback. There's a lot of
that we can do to be prepared for that. Yeah,
you know, it's like kind of the if then work.
(46:33):
You know, how am I going to feel when I'm
in that meeting with my You know, I remember years
ago I had to give someone very difficult feedback about
the quality of their writing, you know, as a professor, Right,
this is what you know, I remember writing all those papers.
You had an advisor, right, that was probably particular or
you know or not. I have. I'm pretty particular, especially
(46:58):
around like grammar, Like it really drives me, like you're
getting a PhD and like just grammatical mistakes. You got
to be kidding me. So how do you show kindness there?
Speaker 2 (47:09):
Mark?
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Well, it's tough.
Speaker 2 (47:12):
I take my breath, so you so you see my
point earlier?
Speaker 1 (47:16):
No, but I do. I don't you know. I could
take the red pen and be like this is a
piece of crap and this is the worst thing I've
ever read, and you should go get a job, you know,
blah blah blah, and like like I'm going to feel
like crap afterwards. They're going to hate me. They're going
to go get a job somewhere and tell everybody that
was a jerk. Like I don't want that, And so
how can I be like show my disappointment and frustration
(47:37):
a way that motivates the person to want to work
harder and be more careful. I think that's that's why
we're in this profession as psychologist, to help people, not
to make people feel worse about themselves. And I think
you do need to give people a wake up call.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
And I have been there. Yeah, But so how do
you do it? Don't leave us on the edge of
our seed? How did you What I.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
Would say, and I can tell you you know, is
that you know, I read your paper and I have
to say I was just really disappointed. There were quite
a lot of typos and a lot of grammatical mistakes.
And I'm not sure if you were in a rush.
I'm not sure if it's just something that you're not picking.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
Up on you run drugs, but it's possible.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
Who knows, But it's just not acceptable, Like you have
to realize that you know, this is you know, we're
trying to publish these papers in top tier journals and
you know the expectation is that you do you need
someone to prove read before you hand it in to
me to review whatever you need to do. It's going
to be important for you moving forward to make sure
(48:45):
that this is written in a way that is, you know,
with a few typos and grammatical errors as possible.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
And that's kind because you didn't. Why is that kind?
It's kind because you didn't and throw them out. You
still gave them a second chance. You still showed them
that they have redemption qualities. You know.
Speaker 1 (49:09):
It's a great it's like kind of giving people. It's like,
you know, instilling a growth mindset in their writing skilled.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
Right right, because you you're like, I know you can
do better.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
You know, or I'm hopeful you can do better. I
don't know necessarily, but I have a feeling that something
went wrong in this draft. For the love of God,
I hope you do better exactly, for the love of
your career.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
But Mark, what if they do it like five more times?
I mean, is there enough?
Speaker 1 (49:37):
Then? Then does that's honesty too? You've gotten this feedback
multiple times. It's clear there's you know, something missing and
unfortunately your brain half your brain, what's that half your
brain might be missing? See, that's where you don't go.
You just know that that one be kind, that one
(49:58):
be kind you know, right, might not be your strength.
Area ray might not be your strength. This might not
And unfortunately that's like the bulk of what this is
what we're doing here. But you say, I'm going to
quote you. You say, you don't need to say what's
on your mind. It's not going to have a positive effect.
(50:18):
You want this person to be on your side. You
don't want to alienate him or put him on the defensive.
How do you want this moment to turn out? Your
best self needs to step up and make that happen.
This is a very common theme in your book. It's
not just about individual self regulation, but so much of
your book is about well in a way, it's regulating
(50:40):
yourself in a way that helps regulate others. Yeah, to
have an optimal social outcome, it is, and I think
people need scripts for that. And that's one of what
I did in this book which I haven't done before,
which is I would have a call like a friend
(51:00):
of mine's going through a divorce and it's like, I'm
freaking out, and I think I want to go back
to my husband because you know, I'd rather be miserable
but with somebody than alone, and like blah blah blah
blah blah. And instead of saying like you got to
be freaking kidding me, like you're going to go back
to that, like do you remember what you talked to
me about like three months ago in which you hated
(51:21):
this relationship, instead I would say things like I'm curious
what's going on right now for you that makes you
want to do that? Or I would say things like
can you just remind me about why you decided not
to stay with this person? And the would go on
and on, and I'd be like, wow, like that's a lot.
(51:42):
Do you know what are you thinking now? Oh my god,
thank you for making me do that, because why the
hell would I want to go back to that? And
so it's like helping the person discover for themselves as
opposed to being the.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
No or the teller. Oh, I like that. That's like
being a good coach.
Speaker 1 (51:58):
It is a coach. It's coaching.
Speaker 2 (51:59):
Yea, yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
That's is But I think people need Like people don't know.
Parents don't know how to do that. A lot partners
don't know how to do it. And I felt the
need to really like I would even ask permission for
a few people. Do you mind if I record this?
Because it's like hard you remember all the little nuances
and the way you in the ways that you kind
of like go back and forth with people. But and
(52:26):
the point is that it you know, it's effortful, like
I said, but the end result is that it builds
trust that build a healthy relationship as opposed to alienate
someone you know.
Speaker 2 (52:38):
Et cetera. For sure, it's in line with my own
definition of healthy authenticity as yeah, say, you know, saying
saying things, acting in integrity and ways that show growth
of relationships and your whole self. That's a rough, rough,
rough summary of how I define healthy authenticity. But I definitely, yeah,
(52:59):
it's definitely, And your book is very much in line
with you know, my main recent book, Rise Above, and
the ideas of overcoming a victim mindset and empowering yourself.
Speaker 1 (53:09):
I agree. I think that part of it, you know,
is a lot of you know, when I interviewed you
about your book and when we talked about it is
I was just actually in London giving a speech and
one of the first questions that someone came up to
me about was about trauma, you know, and adverse child
(53:30):
experiences and you know, what do you do in terms
of that and regulation? And you know, I said, the
goal in life is to grow, not to be stuck.
And so if someone is constantly reminding themselves about their
abuse or their trauma, but not seeking alternative ways to
(53:54):
think about their lives and grow, like, from my perspective,
that is the most unhelpful thing. And I think it's
our obligation to help people grow out of those experiences
as opposed to live in them their whole lives. Now,
as you know, I was sexually abused as a kid
for five years. I know what it's like to be
(54:14):
traumatized and to have memories of horrific things happening to you.
But I chose, you know, and it's taking me a lifetime.
But I don't identify as a victim. I don't I
don't even identify as someone who had terrible experiences, who
has learned from those experiences, and who will do everything
(54:36):
you can to not you know, to help people develop
the skills they need to never get themselves into that position,
or to have the courage to talk about it, etc.
And to me, that's really the only way.
Speaker 2 (54:52):
To go beautiful. Well, I found your book so masterful,
and I'm glad you wrote a book for adults, so
thank you, thank you for you know, you could have
kept written about children and the rest of your life.
And then I'm like, how's this helping me? And you've
helped so many adults with this book, and you still
(55:13):
do have a chapter on children, couple chapters. So let
me end with this great quote from your book. You say,
virtually everything that has ever happened in your life, good, bad, happy, sad, frustrating, satisfying, julious, discouraging, depressing,
was influenced by how you responded to your emotions, how
you dealt with your feelings. Congratulations on truly masterful book
(55:36):
and how to deal with your feelings? A book that
I will return again and again, and I will be
teaching in my course in the fall. I've seen some
things I want to put in some of my lectures,
So thank you so much, Mark, Professor, Professor, doctor doctor Brackett.
And yeah, I wish you all the best in the
book tour.
Speaker 1 (55:52):
All right, Thanks Scott,
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