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Pushkin hay

0:20

Slight Changers Maya. Here an

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1:01

Okay, I hope you enjoyed the episode.

1:14

Emotions are tools that are

1:16

useful, all of them, even the

1:18

negative ones. So many of

1:20

us, I think, strive to live lives

1:22

free of all negative emotion. I think this is

1:24

both impossible and

1:27

also undesirable.

1:29

Ethan Cross is a professor of psychology

1:31

at the University of Michigan. He

1:34

says we shouldn't see emotions as good

1:36

or bad. They're valuable signals,

1:39

but when they become too intense and

1:41

start to take over our lives. We can

1:43

learn to turn down the volume.

1:45

I think it's so easy for us to

1:48

look at someone as a kid or an adult

1:50

and say things like, oh, you're

1:53

terrible at self control, you have no self control.

1:55

But evidence suggests that this

1:58

is malleable. This can change.

2:01

If you're not good at managing your emotions,

2:04

now you can actually get better.

2:10

On today's show, how to Escape

2:12

an Emotional Spiral,

2:17

I'm Maya Schunker, a scientist who

2:19

studies human behavior, and this

2:21

is a slight change of plans, a show

2:23

about who we are and who we become in

2:26

the face of a big change.

2:36

Last time Ethan was on the show, we talked about

2:39

our inner voice and how to manage

2:41

it when it gets a bit too critical. Today,

2:44

he joins me for an in depth conversation

2:46

about our emotions. Ethan

2:49

says, emotions are information. We

2:51

may not like feeling envy, but it can

2:53

push us to work harder or signal

2:56

to us what we really want in life. Sadness

2:59

can slow us down and invite support

3:01

from others. Regret can

3:03

help us learn from our mistakes. All

3:06

of these emotions are useful, but sometimes

3:08

the emotions can overwhelm. Us

3:11

Ethan's new book is a guide for managing

3:13

that overwhelm. It's called Shift,

3:16

Managing your emotions so they don't

3:18

manage you. He explores

3:20

what we can do when emotions become more harmful

3:23

than helpful. We started

3:25

off our conversation by talking about how

3:27

we can learn to tell the difference.

3:30

When your emotions are interfering

3:33

with your ability to live

3:36

the life you want to live. Right,

3:38

they're getting in the way of you achieving your

3:41

goals rather than actually helping

3:43

you achieve your goals. That's

3:45

an indication that some regulation

3:48

is needed. Let's be concrete about

3:50

this. So when anxiety is getting

3:53

me to work hard on something that is

3:55

coming up, and then like

3:57

actually putting in the work, my anxiety goes

3:59

down, that's anxiety working really

4:02

well. Anxiety not working well

4:04

is when the anxiety is so high

4:06

that I can't actually even sit down

4:09

to get the work done, or even when I

4:11

do start doing the work to prepare, the

4:13

anxiety sticks with me in ways that are

4:15

interfering with my sleep and putting me on edge.

4:18

That's a kind of miscalibration.

4:20

The emotional response is

4:22

out of sync with the situation.

4:25

That I'm in Yeah, I'm thinking of another example,

4:27

which is, you know, when we feel just

4:29

indignation at injustice

4:31

for example, right, we might ask ourselves, is

4:34

that indignation and anger motivating

4:36

us to do something about it? Or are

4:38

we feeling so oppressed by

4:41

that negativity that we are we're stuck in

4:43

bed right, like we're unable to act.

4:46

So that's another context where that would be relevant.

4:48

It's a perfect example.

4:50

Well, the good news is that in those

4:52

instances where our emotions

4:55

are overwhelming us, when they're counterproductive,

4:58

when they're eroding our well being, we

5:00

do have this ability for regulation. So

5:03

let's start with what you mean by emotion

5:05

regulation.

5:06

So emotion regulation quite simply

5:09

is the capacity to turn the

5:11

volume up or down on the

5:13

emotions we're experiencing, lengthen

5:16

or shorten their duration, and

5:19

in some cases, switch from one emotional

5:21

response to an entirely different one.

5:23

I use the term that you know, the title of my book

5:25

is shift. It's about shifting up

5:28

or down, long or shorter, or

5:30

to a different response altogether. And I find it

5:33

kind of beautiful that on the one hand,

5:35

we evolve to experience all

5:37

of these different emotions, but

5:39

also this remarkable set of

5:42

capabilities to rain them in.

5:45

So what is the research show, I mean, other

5:47

than like intuitively feeling like it

5:49

would be a very good thing to better regulate

5:51

our emotions, what does the research show

5:54

about the well being outcomes

5:56

associated with better emotion regulation?

5:59

So you have goals?

6:01

What are your goals in life? Are they

6:03

to think and perform well, to

6:06

have good relationships, to be healthy.

6:08

If you can.

6:09

Manage your emotions, they're going to help

6:11

you achieve all of those goals. And that's what the research

6:13

supports. So people who are better

6:15

at managing their emotions, they tend

6:18

to do better at school. They can delay

6:20

gratification longer, which is often important

6:22

when you're studying for things.

6:24

They have improved.

6:25

Relationships with other people because they can manage

6:27

their emotions, which are often triggered by others, more

6:30

effectively, and so they don't end up

6:32

having as much friction in their relationships.

6:34

So really, this is a

6:36

kind of master aptitude that

6:39

should benefit people across the board.

6:42

There's this one study that you reference in your book

6:44

Ethan from the nineteen seventies, and

6:46

I'm wondering if you can talk about it a bit. It looked

6:48

at emotion regulation in

6:51

people over a long period

6:53

of time.

6:54

So basically a cohort

6:57

of newborns were followed

7:00

over the course of their lives and every

7:03

few years with their ability to manage

7:05

their emotions. Their self control

7:07

capacity was assess by putting

7:10

them through a series of tasks and having other people

7:12

rap their capacity. And

7:14

then the researchers patiently waited

7:17

and just every few years they kept on checking

7:19

in on this group of participants

7:22

to see how they were doing across the board, from

7:25

their health to their achievement

7:27

levels at school.

7:28

And in life.

7:30

And what they found that was notable

7:32

were a couple of things. Number One,

7:34

the ability to manage one's emotions

7:37

early on in life predicted

7:39

a lot about how the

7:41

kids fared once they got older.

7:43

So kids who were adept at.

7:45

Managing their emotions earlier on they advanced

7:47

further in their careers. They saved more money,

7:50

they planned more for retirement, they were physically

7:52

healthier, and perhaps for

7:55

me most mind blowingly, yes,

7:57

that is a phrase. They're like.

8:00

Brain scans showed that their brains

8:03

and other full body scans

8:05

and their organs actually aged

8:07

more slowly, so across the

8:09

board, this capacity to manage

8:11

one's emotions is predicting

8:13

really positive outcomes.

8:14

Later on in life.

8:16

But the other really important finding in

8:18

that study was that it wasn't

8:21

the case that if

8:23

you were a young kid and you

8:25

were bad at self control, you were consistently

8:28

bad at And the reason I love that finding

8:30

is because I think it's so easy

8:32

for us to look at someone as

8:35

a kid or an adult and say things like, oh,

8:38

you're terrible at self control, you have no self

8:40

control? Oh, absolutely right, and we make these

8:43

blanket judgments about how people fare.

8:45

But what the finding suggests, along

8:47

with a slew of other evidence, is that this

8:50

is malleable. This can change.

8:53

If you're not good at managing your emotions,

8:55

now you can actually get better.

8:57

How do you get better, I would argue

9:00

it's by familiarizing yourself

9:02

with the tools that are out there and then

9:04

start practicing them in your lives.

9:06

It's such a hopeful message embedded in this

9:08

study, right, which is that for those

9:11

who struggle with emotion regulation, or

9:13

for those parents who see their kids struggling with

9:15

emotion regulation, there's hope for

9:17

us all. So that's very exciting.

9:20

There is this notion out there and is quite

9:23

prevalent that it is very

9:25

important, actually crucial for

9:28

us to quote feel our feelings

9:30

right, to sit in them and marinate

9:32

in them, and if we avoid them, we're actually

9:34

doing a disservice because those negative emotions

9:37

will rear their ugly head in the future

9:39

with even more forcefulness, like

9:41

with the vengeance. Right for the sake of

9:43

everyone listening, please please

9:45

please tell us what the science says.

9:48

Well, there's this widespread assumption,

9:50

and I bought into this hook line

9:52

and sinker for a very long time that

9:55

when you're experiencing something bad,

9:58

you should just deal with it right

10:00

then and there, approach it, work

10:02

through your feelings. That was a message

10:04

that was taught to me growing up in my

10:06

family. That was a common message

10:08

that was delivered. And then when I got to grad school,

10:11

there's lots of research which showed that chronically

10:14

avoiding things is bad. And

10:17

the research on chronic avoidance is

10:19

rock solid. So if your coping

10:21

tactic is to across the

10:23

board, just avoid thinking

10:25

about any kind of negative thing that

10:28

happens to you and just distract

10:30

endlessly and sometimes even do it with

10:32

illicit substances or other unhealthy

10:35

behaviors. That doesn't predict good things.

10:38

But what is missing from the way we often

10:40

talk about this concept of avoidance

10:43

is you don't have to pick

10:45

between only approaching

10:47

or only avoiding. You can actually

10:49

be flexible and strategic

10:52

and shift back and forth with whether

10:54

you focus on something that's bothering you and

10:57

whether you take some time away. And it turns out

10:59

research shows that being flexible in

11:01

that manner can be very helpful.

11:04

So sometimes strategically

11:07

avoiding a problem for a certain period

11:09

of time can be useful.

11:11

And I'll give you a couple of examples of how that might work.

11:14

So, first of all, sometimes when we get triggered

11:16

by an emotion, it feels so amazingly

11:19

big and we just want

11:21

to dive in. But if we take some time away from

11:23

it and then you come back to the problem

11:25

several hours later or even a day later, time

11:28

has taken the steam out of the emotional

11:30

response. And this is a

11:33

well known finding that as time

11:35

goes on, the intensity of our emotions fade.

11:37

That's true of most of our emotional responses.

11:39

They get triggered, they jack up in their intensity,

11:41

and then as time goes on, the intensity goes down.

11:44

So if you take some time

11:46

away by avoiding strategically

11:48

and then return you're coming back to

11:50

the problem and it's not

11:52

as intense and it's a lot easier to work

11:55

with as a result. One of

11:57

my favorite studies that demonstrates

12:00

how being strategic in this way,

12:02

being able to both approach and avoid

12:04

emotions can be useful, was done

12:06

by a psychologist named George Bonano who

12:09

who was working at Teachers

12:11

College at Columbia right

12:13

around the time that the nine to eleven attacks

12:15

occurred. And what he did

12:17

is, in the immediate aftermath of those attacks, he was

12:20

really curious about what are

12:22

the factors that allow people to be resilient

12:24

in the face of a collective

12:26

tragedy. And so what he did is he brought participants

12:29

into the lab who were living in New York City, and

12:31

he had them engage in a task where

12:34

on some trials they were explicitly

12:36

told to express

12:38

their emotions powerfully, so

12:41

really immerse yourself in them in

12:43

a certain sense and just show them to someone else.

12:45

And on other trials they were told to

12:47

suppress their emotions, so really

12:49

conceal these things, try to push them away

12:52

to the point that no one else can even see that you're

12:54

experiencing these things, and then he

12:56

tracked those participants over time

12:59

to see how they fared

13:02

emotionally. And what he found is that the

13:04

participants who fared best,

13:06

the participants who showed the most resilience

13:09

in the face of the attacks, where

13:12

the participants who were able

13:14

to both express their

13:16

emotions when they were asked to do so and

13:19

suppress their emotions when they were asked to do so.

13:22

So it was being really good at both of these skills

13:24

that predicted the most success.

13:26

Yeah, and one of the things I've

13:28

read in Banano's research is he says, you

13:31

know, it's not strictly necessary for every

13:33

person to have to quote work

13:35

through their grief. For example. Right, there are

13:37

studies showing that those who show more

13:40

positive emotions following a

13:42

traumatic experience actually show better

13:44

long term outcomes. And I like

13:46

this research overall because there's

13:49

this broader lesson that emerges

13:51

from it, which is there is no one size

13:54

fits all approach to emotional well being

13:56

or to processing difficult situations.

13:59

And I do feel like there

14:01

is so much judgment

14:03

of ourselves and of others in terms

14:06

of how they process challenging events. Right.

14:08

I've I've been in situations where

14:10

someone did seem very avoidant, and it was like

14:13

you're a little alarmed. You're like, oh no, what's

14:15

going to happen. This is going to be terrible. They

14:17

actually turned out fine.

14:19

I cannot reinforce enough the message

14:22

that you just articulated, Maya, there

14:24

are no one sized solutions when it comes

14:26

to managing your emotional lives. Forget

14:29

avoidance. Let's take something even more innocuous.

14:32

Let's take like mindfulness or meditation. Lots

14:35

of people advocate that as

14:37

a solution as a panacea to our

14:39

emotional distress, and it helps tons of

14:41

people. And if that's you, great,

14:44

keep meditating, be mindful.

14:46

This is fantastic. But

14:48

I've also come across lots of people who

14:50

say this doesn't work for me, and they

14:52

actually feel bad, like, well, what's wrong with

14:54

me that this isn't helping me.

14:57

There's nothing wrong with you again, there's everything

14:59

right with you. You're a human being. There are

15:02

reasons we don't quite understand yet why

15:04

some people acclimate to some tools

15:06

more than others.

15:08

Yeah, no, I really this is very freeing. We're

15:11

so often met by prescriptions around

15:13

you know, how to do grief the right way, or

15:16

how to process anger. The

15:18

right way. And I love what you said about

15:20

mindfulness and meditation. Like I've

15:23

spent a total of ten minutes

15:26

during my time on planet Earth meditating

15:28

and like that is my max. Like I don't

15:30

think I'll ever be able to do it or commit to it.

15:32

It just doesn't work for me. A quick walk outside

15:35

has always been a better antidote, you know, for

15:37

whatever distress I'm feeling. So I

15:39

think that's a wonderful message.

15:41

We did this these two large studies.

15:43

This is research that just came out where

15:45

we track people during the

15:47

COVID nineteen pandemic, and

15:50

each day we measured people's

15:52

COVID anxiety and we also asked

15:54

them which of eighteen different tools

15:57

did you use to manage your emotions? And some

15:59

of them were healthy tools and

16:01

others were less healthy, like alcohol

16:04

usage, things like that. What we found

16:07

was Number One, on average,

16:10

people use between three and four tools each

16:12

day to manage your emotion, so it was seldom

16:14

the case that people just did one thing. Number

16:17

Two, there was remarkable

16:20

diversity in the combinations

16:23

of tools that people.

16:24

Used to manage their circumstances.

16:27

When I say remarkable, that is an understatement.

16:29

We were floored there

16:31

are no one size fits all solutions when it comes

16:33

to managing your emotional life. Just

16:36

embrace that, and I think you'll naturally look

16:38

for the tools and combinations

16:40

of tools that work best for you.

16:43

After the break, Ethan shares some of

16:46

these tools and explains why

16:48

your favorite perfume might be one of them.

16:53

We'll be back in a moment with a slight change

16:55

of plans.

17:09

We've been talking about how there's no one

17:11

size fits all approach, but there are tools

17:13

that we can be experimental with, right that everyone

17:16

who's listening can try out and see

17:18

how well they work in any given context.

17:20

So let's start by digging

17:22

into some techniques

17:25

that we can use to strategically

17:27

shift our attention away from

17:29

our negative emotions. Yeah.

17:31

So, I think it's helpful to have

17:34

a few different categories of

17:36

tools so that you can know on the

17:38

fly where to look when you're struggling

17:41

with an emotion and want to ring them in.

17:42

And so in the book, I.

17:43

Provide three categories of tools that are

17:45

things you can do on your own inside you.

17:48

Those are internal shifters, and

17:50

then there are things outside of us that I call external

17:52

shifters. For internal shifters,

17:55

one category, or what I call sensory

17:57

shifters. Our senses are

18:00

remarkably efficient tools

18:02

for pushing our emotions around.

18:04

And we all know.

18:05

This intuitively because

18:08

we've experienced some triggered

18:10

in response to sensory experiences

18:12

throughout our lives. But we often

18:14

fail to activate these sensory shifters

18:17

strategically when we need them.

18:19

So let me zoom in on one of my favorite

18:21

sensory shifters.

18:23

Music.

18:25

In one study, participants were asked,

18:27

why do you listen to music? Almost everyone

18:29

in the study ninety six or ninety seven percent

18:31

of participants. So, I like to listen to music

18:33

because I like the way it makes me feel.

18:36

It's an emotional experience. But then,

18:38

we've done studies where we ask people

18:40

to think about the last time they were angry, anxious,

18:43

or sad, and you said, what did you

18:45

do when you had those emotions and you tried to

18:47

rain them in? Only between ten

18:50

and thirty percent of participants report going

18:52

to music to push their emotions

18:54

in a particular direction.

18:55

You mean being proactive about it, proactive

18:58

and strategic, and like, I've listened to music

19:00

my entire life.

19:01

MC hammer, you can't touch this. This is like

19:03

my first cassette followed

19:06

by Madonna The Immacuate Collection.

19:08

Let the judgment of my music tastes begin now.

19:10

I was just going to say, I'm really enjoying this.

19:12

Yes, yes, it gets worse, Yeah, don't

19:15

worry. But I've loved music. I've listened

19:17

to it throughout my life. And yet have

19:20

I been strategic about

19:23

putting on certain songs to

19:25

push my emotions in different directions when I've

19:27

struggled with things Until recently,

19:30

The answer to that question is no. But now

19:32

that I'm aware of this, it's on my radar, I'm

19:34

incredibly strategic about it. I have a

19:37

playlist designed to amplify

19:40

emotional responses like get me revved up

19:42

when I want to feel that way. I also have songs

19:44

that I go to that calm me down

19:46

and take the edge off. Music

19:49

is such a powerful to One more example of

19:51

this is sent We

19:53

are spritsing ourselves with

19:56

these chemicals to manipulate

19:58

the way other people feel about

20:00

us and the way we feel about ourselves all the time.

20:02

I was just in an airport yesterday,

20:04

I was traveling internationally, and I

20:07

walk through the duty free shop. That's

20:09

not a duty free shop. That's an emotion regulation

20:12

store. Right, there's like perfumes

20:14

and colognes all over the place.

20:16

Why are we wearing those? Why

20:18

is it that some hotels,

20:21

when you walk in there, they smell so unbelievably

20:24

good you never want to leave. It's

20:27

because they are harnessing what

20:29

we know about senses and emotion regulation.

20:31

They're piping certain sense through

20:34

their ventilation system to make

20:36

the place smell great.

20:39

So once you're aware of this stuff,

20:42

now you've got access to tools to

20:44

push your emotions around right in

20:46

the heat of the moment, and they work really,

20:48

really fast.

20:50

I also love music, and it's occurring

20:52

to me in this moment that I too, have

20:54

never strategically

20:57

turned music on to shift my emotions.

21:00

What are your thoughts on finding music

21:02

that is congruent with our emotional state

21:05

versus music that's incongruate. So

21:07

if I'm feeling like, really

21:09

really sad, don't I just want to play adele.

21:12

Yeah, commiseration and someone understands

21:15

me. And so whether that's good or bad

21:17

depends on your goals. So if

21:19

we stick with sadness, I'm

21:21

a proponent of the idea that sadness is functional

21:24

in the right dosage. Right, my worldview

21:26

is challenged. I can't really fix what's

21:29

going on. I just lost my job or I just

21:31

lost someone I love. I've got to now reframe

21:33

how I think about myself in this world so

21:36

I can get back out there and persevere.

21:39

And so sadness helps me do that hard

21:42

cognitive work. And if

21:44

the music is going to facilitate

21:46

that, keep that emotion active to

21:48

help me do that rethinking and

21:50

reframing, that could well be a good

21:52

thing. Here's where that becomes

21:54

a problem. If you're feeling

21:57

sad and you don't want to feel

21:59

sad anymore, but you find

22:01

yourself listening to the music, then

22:04

the music is going to be counter to your goals.

22:06

And that's where you want to resist the temptation

22:08

to go to Adele and if

22:11

it's me, you go to Journey insteads

22:13

although it depends on the Journey song.

22:15

But right, right, do you mind

22:17

talking a bit about the neuroscience behind

22:19

the senses and why this

22:22

is such a powerful tool for us

22:24

to leverage.

22:25

Yeah, So your sensory apparatus

22:28

is linked to your

22:30

capacity to experience emotions

22:32

in the brain. In some cases the networks are

22:34

overlapping actually, and What

22:37

that means for our everyday

22:39

lives is different sensory

22:42

experiences can trigger emotions

22:45

automatically. They can trigger those emotional

22:47

experiences super super fast.

22:50

The reason why that's so important is sometimes

22:53

emotion regulation feels

22:55

like it's really really hard to do, and

22:58

it sometimes is hard to do. When we try

23:01

to, for example, reframe how we're thinking

23:03

about things. Sometimes that can be challenging,

23:05

like take a lot of effort. Sure, the sensory

23:08

ways of pushing our emotions around don't

23:11

have the same effortfulness.

23:13

There.

23:13

In fact, effort list to some degree,

23:15

and that's in part where their power

23:18

resides.

23:19

It's so funny that you talk about the

23:21

sensory stuff, though I don't know if you know this. So during my

23:23

postdoc and cognitive neuroscience, we

23:26

actually we took an old factometer,

23:28

which is this machine that delivers sense to people,

23:31

and we installed it in the fMRI

23:33

machine, so into the brain scanner, and as

23:36

people lay there and we're faced with decisions

23:38

and expressions of risk preferences and

23:40

whatnot, we fed them different sense,

23:43

right, like calming sense and

23:45

nostalgic sense and comfy cozy

23:47

sense like cookies or whatever. And we looked at how

23:50

that sensory information affected,

23:52

often outside of awareness, right, their willingness

23:55

to take risks, or their willingness to delay rewards

23:57

and things like that. So anyway, this is such a fascinating

23:59

topic.

24:01

I think we just don't appreciate

24:03

it enough. I mean, and there are simple things

24:06

you could do, think in sense. I mean, it's just once

24:08

you are alert to this link

24:10

between sensory experience and emotions, it

24:12

will change the way you view the world.

24:15

Like awareness of this gives

24:17

you agency to push it around.

24:19

So we talked about one internal shifter,

24:22

right, which is our senses. Any other

24:24

internal shifters that we should keep in mind.

24:27

Attention is another one. And this is what

24:29

attention refers to. Is you've got this spotlight

24:31

in your mind. It's where are you focusing

24:34

it. Sometimes you want to focus on the thing that's

24:36

bugging you because you want to work through it. Sometimes

24:38

you want to point it elsewhere, you want to get

24:41

a break. You have a distraction, then come back

24:43

to it. If it's a positive experience,

24:45

sometimes focusing on the source of positivity

24:47

can help you amplify that state. So

24:49

the key is you want to be flexible

24:52

in how you wield that attentional

24:54

spotlight. And then the final internal

24:57

shifter is what I call a perspective shifter.

25:00

The idea is, sometimes you can't

25:02

afford to look away

25:04

from something. You have to stare right at

25:06

it, and so we can also reframe it, think

25:09

differently about it.

25:11

And one key to doing that is.

25:12

This ability to step back and look at the bigger

25:15

picture, get some distance from

25:17

the problem. And once you get some distance, it's

25:19

often a lot easier to reframe

25:21

how we're thinking about things. It can be hard to reframe

25:25

when you're standing right in the middle of the

25:27

fire, so to speak. So there are lots

25:29

of different ways you could shift your perspective.

25:31

One of my favorites.

25:34

Not to say this is for everyone, that would

25:36

violate what I genuinely believe no one size

25:38

fits all solutions. But one tool that works for me is called

25:40

distance self talk. It's trying

25:43

to work through a problem, but

25:46

using my own name to try to think

25:48

it through rather than the first person. I so, all

25:50

right, Ethan, how are you going to manage the situation? That

25:52

gives me some mental space. It helps me think about

25:54

myself like I'm someone else, which

25:57

makes it easier for me to think more objectively

25:59

about the circumstance. Temporal

26:02

distancing is another tool that is

26:05

immediately accessible in my toolbag. So

26:07

another way to talk about this mental time travel.

26:10

If I'm struggling with a problem it feels really

26:12

big, I could jump into this time

26:15

travel machine and ask myself,

26:17

how am I going to feel about this five days from

26:19

now, five weeks from now, five years from now.

26:22

I know from a lifetime of experience is that

26:24

I experience lots of big emotions all the time,

26:27

but as time goes on, they wane in their intensity.

26:29

I forget about that when

26:31

I'm in the midst of something. So

26:33

those are the three internal shifters, sensation,

26:37

attention, and perspective.

26:40

The key is that these are like simple shifts

26:43

that we can engage, and they're like psychological

26:45

jiu jitsu moves that can alter

26:48

the trajectory of our emotional responses

26:50

ever so slightly. But that ever

26:52

so slightness, I would argue,

26:54

is sometimes all you need to get

26:57

back on track.

26:58

I love that. Okay, So we talked about these

27:00

internal shifters. What about

27:02

external shifters? So situations

27:04

in which we actually are capable of changing aspects

27:07

of our environment.

27:08

So other people can shift our emotions.

27:11

And when we find the right people to

27:13

talk to you about our emotions, people who are skilled

27:15

at both letting us express

27:17

our emotions if we want to, but also

27:19

helping us work through.

27:20

Them as well.

27:22

That's a really powerful asset

27:25

that we possess. One of my favorite findings

27:27

in social psychology is a great way to

27:29

make yourself feel better when you're not feeling

27:31

so good is to do something good for someone

27:33

else.

27:34

Helping others know my favorite insight,

27:37

Yeah.

27:37

Yeah, helps ourselves.

27:39

That's another way that other people can shift us.

27:42

You mentioned going.

27:43

Outside for a walk.

27:44

That's great, but there's some other powerful

27:48

space shifters out there that I don't think we

27:50

always have top of mind. We

27:53

often get attached to places.

27:56

I'm attached to the tea house where

27:58

I wrote my first book in ann Arbor. Every time I go

28:00

into that teahouse, I'm filled with a sense

28:02

of warmth and comfort. The

28:04

arboretum is another source of warmth

28:07

and comfort for me, and so whenever I visit those

28:09

places if I'm not feeling great, they make

28:11

me feel better. When my kids were

28:13

young and they get upset for any reason,

28:16

I remember them often saying and at the time. It was

28:18

just so curious to me. They just wanted to

28:20

go home. They wanted to go to their rooms. That

28:23

was a place that they were safely and

28:25

securely attached to. And so

28:28

think about the spaces in your environment

28:32

that provide you with a source of resilience.

28:34

We all have those safe places, but

28:37

what are they and do you actually strategically

28:39

visit them when you're struggling.

28:42

We've been talking about how helpful

28:44

emotion regulation can be and how it's

28:46

correlated with all sorts

28:48

of positive health benefits and better

28:50

outcomes for society. Even and

28:54

I say this as someone who with a very practical

28:56

orientation, sometimes

28:59

I feel like our emotional reactions

29:02

need not be evaluated based on whether

29:04

they have utility, right, like whether they lead

29:07

to some productive ends. Like sometimes we

29:10

just want to feel things for the sake of feeling them,

29:12

because it's vindicating, it's

29:14

therapeutic, there's some catharsis in it. I'm

29:17

thinking about the awful

29:20

atrocities that we've witnessed all

29:22

over the world in the last year. And you

29:24

know, Ethan, sometimes I just want to feel like really

29:28

insert expletive mad like

29:30

and you know, I just want to feel that and

29:32

So what do you say

29:35

to people like me in those circumstances where

29:38

we might feel powerless to change something, and

29:40

where having that strong negative reaction feels

29:44

necessary because it is just like the

29:46

most human response to have in the

29:48

face of that information.

29:51

One thing I think that is important is to

29:53

not overthink things too much when

29:56

it comes to our emotional lives and the

29:59

way you just describe that, I just want

30:01

to be angry for a while. If that's

30:03

your goal and you're capable of achieving it,

30:05

embrace it. If it ain't broke, don't

30:07

fix it. But if

30:10

you want to feel differently, you should

30:12

also know that there's

30:14

tremendous potential for you to do that.

30:16

There are lots of tools available for you

30:19

to rain those responses in or amplify

30:21

them if you so choose.

30:23

Yeah, it's almost like I'm seeding in that moment,

30:25

like this is not the most productive response

30:28

and it's actually serving no one to feel this way.

30:30

But I just given to that impulse,

30:32

because again, there's something cathartic

30:35

about having just embracing

30:39

human empathy, right Like when you feel

30:41

outraged on behalf of someone else, you know that's just

30:43

a rich part of the human experience.

30:45

I would say that's probably for you.

30:48

There's a you're in the functional zone

30:50

for a while. Experiencing those emotions

30:53

give yourself the permission to feel those emotions,

30:55

and that's a gift to yourself. Emotions,

30:58

all of them serve a function. You

31:01

know, if you experience negative emotions,

31:04

welcome to the human condition. This is a good

31:06

thing.

31:07

Hopefully listeners find that libera.

31:31

Hey, thanks so much for listening. And just

31:33

a reminder, I'm starting a newsletter.

31:35

I'm so excited to have another place to

31:37

connect with all of you, and I'll be sharing personal

31:40

updates and links to things that I'm interested

31:42

in and exciting new science, also

31:45

takeaways from conversations on this

31:47

show. It's totally free

31:49

and you can sign up using the link in our show

31:51

notes. Next

31:55

week on the show, why It's so

31:58

hard to stand up for what you believe in.

32:02

We have been so trained in compliance

32:04

from a young age, and we've become so socialized

32:07

to comply onto obey that

32:09

we don't have the skill set for defines. We don't

32:11

know how to do it, and so is that training

32:14

that's missing from all lives.

32:16

Psychologist Sunita Saw walks

32:18

us through the art and Science of Saying No,

32:21

That's next week on A Slight Change of Plans

32:23

See Again. A

32:26

Slight Change of Plans is created, written,

32:29

and executive produced by me Maya Shunker.

32:32

The Slight Change Family includes our showrunner

32:34

Tyler Green, our senior editor

32:36

Kate Parkinson Morgan, our producers

32:39

Britney Cronin and Megan Luvin, and

32:41

our sound engineer Erica Huang. Louis

32:44

Scara wrote our delightful theme song,

32:46

and Ginger Smith helped arrange the vocals.

32:49

A Slight Change of Plans is a production of

32:51

Pushkin Industries, so big thanks

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to everyone there, and of course a

32:56

very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.

32:58

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week.

33:10

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