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These books sound so cool! Gonna have to add them to my list :) Thanks for sharing the wisdom as always, Victoria

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They are! So many discoveries and insights! Very welcome, as always, Zan! Take a look through the bookshop section on the homepage, you can get more ideas there ;-)

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May 20Liked by Victoria

The quote by Dr. Brené Brown made me think of how collectively we are struggling to understand the our world since the internet provides information in black or white sensationalist terms. And the fact that emotions are something we learn makes sense when you deal with someone with, say, autism, as I have as a teacher, or with students from a different generation. Trying to be empathic in those situations can be a real challenge. Then there's the (small) leap to learned behavior which is related to learned emotions or responses. But ultimately, I suppose it comes down to be self-aware enough to watch yourself and others during emotional times. Thanks, Victoria for this thought-provoking post.

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Exactly - you've highlighted several points I was thinking, too. I'll be sharing more of Dr Barrett's work, where she highlights that emotions are not binary definitions; they are extremely nuanced, and because they're constructed, each one is independent of another. The auto-reactions you've mentioned, the reflex is the essential learned auto-predictions of our brain to make us more efficient. This is why, I think Dr Barrett's work dovetails with Dr Susan David's so well because David, focuses on emotions as signposts / data that we need to hold lightly, observe and CHOOSE how to respond. If we can try to NOT auto-react we can reclaim for agency over emotional-reflex reactions that we may regret once the 30-90second chemical-emotional response is over in our bodies.....

As you can tell, all this resonates deeply because I've experienced navigating this way countless times as a caregiver

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