This week we wish to take another look at an episode from Brené Brown’s podcast, Unlocking Us. This episode is a discussion with Dr. Marc Brackett on emotional intelligence and the permission to feel.
https://brenebrown.com/podcast/dr-marc-brackett-and-brene-on-permission-to-feel
This episode also discusses Dr. Brackett’s new book on this topic.
The podcast begins by discussing how we don’t really expect or provide an honest answer to the question “How are you feeling?”. In our busy lives, we don’t want to spend time dealing with other people’s emotions.
Brené invites Dr. Brackett to describe the difference between emotions and feelings. However, Dr. Brackett notes that understanding the language of emotions is more important than the distinction in order to thrive. Having a word to label a feeling is useful in understanding both ourselves and others.
In response to this, Brené shares one of her research observations that people are much better at recognizing emotions in themselves than others. In support of this, Dr. Brackett notes how social-emotional learning is absent from school curriculum, despite being necessary skills.
In order to best understand why emotions matter to us, Dr. Brackett describes 5 uses. The first is in attentional capacity. Attention is made more difficult by emotions such as stress and anxiety, but is facilitated with calmer emotions. The second use is decision making. While we like to believe that we are rational decision makers, emotions inevitably sway many of our decisions to some extent. The third use of emotions is in relationships. In relationships, emotions are signals to approach or avoid. The fourth use is for physical and mental health. Our emotional environment not only affects our physical routines and health, but our mental state and conditions as well. Finally, emotions are used in performance and creativity. Emotional intelligence is a skill needed in the workforce, but failed to teach in schools.
Dr. Brackett then links this lack of emotional learning to a failure of many to reach their full potential, not because they do not have the ability to, but because they don’t have the ability to deal with the feelings that come from failure and negative feedback along the way. This learning should also occur in schools, as past this period it can be harder to learn emotional skills as unhelpful habits must be unlearnt.
Emotional intelligence is particularly important in positions of leadership. Having an emotionally intelligent manager can reduce burnout among employees, improve inspiration, reduce frustration, and increase ethical behaviour.
In this way we can be preventionists and not interventionists.
By developing appropriate emotional skills early on, we can reduce the need to deal with challenging intrapersonal and interpersonal situations later down the line.
To better understand emotional literacy, Dr. Brackett introduced the RULER system.
R – recognizing emotions in the self and others
U – understanding the causes and consequences of emotions
L – labelling emotions
E – expressing our emotions
R – regulating our emotions (increasing, decreasing, maintaining, and associated strategies)
Within this system, the R, U, and L give meaning to experience, while the E and R cover what we then do with these feelings. Worth consideration, factors such as culture and class may impact all these elements. For example, some cultures may discourage the expression of negative emotions such as rage and sadness.
Dr. Brackett also describes some barriers to each of these elements, which we recommend listening to the full podcast episode for.
Importantly, regulation does not mean NOT feeling. It involves being with the feeling without letting it have power over you. Maladaptive strategies such as emotional suppression does not mean the emotion goes away – rather it is pushed unprocessed into another part of our body and may return again at an unhelpful time. This is similar to what we learnt from Dr. Gabor Maté on processing anger and rage in a previous blog post.
This episode of Unlocking Us also discusses what Dr. Brackett terms ‘meta-emotion’, or feelings about our feelings. For example, someone may feel embarrassed about being anxious in a particular situation. This adds a layer of complexity, but taking a step back to pause and reflect can help us untangle the source of this.
Ultimately, Dr. Brackett stresses that the first step will always be giving yourself the permission to feel. There are no bad emotions. Each have their use, and when appropriately experienced and regulated are vital to the human experience.
So let yourself feel.
Wishing you a wonderful week,
TCS Team
Image credit: https://unsplash.com/@tengyart
