'Wholehearted living: Avoid Toxic Positivity and Rethink our beliefs around Emotions.'
Showing up to our Emotions. Adam Grant & Susan David.
Hello, Dear Reader! Welcome to our new Carer Mentor community members!
I’m Victoria. You can read why I’m publishing Carer Mentor here: Who Started Carer Mentor and Why?
Can we live courageously and wholeheartedly, despite the discomfort, fear and doubt we associate with ‘bad feelings’?
There are seven basic emotions: joy, anger, sadness, fear, surprise, contempt, and disgust1 2. Five are uncomfortable, but they’ve helped us survive through evolution. This means that even difficult emotions serve a purpose that we must decode, understand and act on rather than avoid them. However, many of us deflect or disguise negative feelings instead of facing them3. By embracing these emotions, we open ourselves up to a world of personal growth, freedom4 and understanding- wholehearted living.
Prompts for reflection - how can we:
Rethink the belief that certain emotions are inherently good or bad.
Avoid forced positivity and instead practice genuine optimism.
Pay more attention to the emotion of guilt as a signal of dissonance between self and values.
Below are two podcasts and two articles from Adam Grant and Susan David to help us reflect on our relationship with our emotions.
As perfectly imperfect humans, we can only try our best in any situation. Can we control our emotions? What is our brain trying to tell us?
Personal Reflection
I’ve been through a myriad of seismic events and emotions, especially in 2019-2021 when we cared for my father at home to his death and then through my mother’s cancer therapy. Inner critical thoughts, frustrations, anger, guilt, and hurt were just some of the emotions I went through on an almost daily basis. Grief can start long before someone dies. Somehow, some of the time, I could consciously navigate dark moments. Lots of other times, I had to endure it all.
Being kind to myself and employing some of what I knew helped me move forward. Looking back, I can see that the seismic events of those years, the amplitude, intensity, and impact of the emotions, were more significant than anything I’d felt before. Now, I appreciate how I LIVED more within the space these big pendulum swings created. It was an unimaginable experience, an intense, hyper-vigilant life. I have no regrets, but it's not something I’d want to relive.
I recommend learning more about emotional agility and being curiously mindful of your emotions. Learning how to navigate forward felt healthier than trying and failing to numb the discomfort.
1. Adam Grant’s Article: ‘Beyond toxic positivity’ (February 11th, 2024)
2. ‘ReThinking’ podcast with Adam Grant ‘Overcoming toxic positivity with Susan David’ (January 23, 2024)
‘You don’t always decide what you feel, but you do own how you react to those feelings.’ - Susan David
In her bestselling book and TED Talk, Harvard Medical School psychologist Susan David examines the skills involved in emotional agility. She and Adam go deep on this topic, discussing the risks of judging and suppressing unwanted emotions — and effective techniques for managing them. They explore why optimism is not essential to well-being and how to overcome pressure to be positive. And they reveal how paying attention to what you feel can reveal what you value. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at TED
About Adam Grant:
Adam Grant is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of five books that have sold millions of copies and been translated into 45 languages–most recently Think Again. His TED talks on givers and takers, original thinking, and overcoming languishing have more than 30 million views, and he hosts the TED podcasts Re:Thinking and WorkLife. He’s a former magician and Junior Olympic springboard diver, and lives in Philly with his wife Allison and their three kids.
3. Dr Susan David’s Podcast ‘Checking In’
Many of us are witnessing a tyranny of positivity right now—with calls to “find the silver lining” and “stay positive” amidst a global pandemic. But we are wired to feel negative at times. Contrary to what our culture tells us, accepting our negative emotions can have tangible and powerful benefits. Learn how to rethink happiness and positivity as paramount goals, and how to effectively cope with negative emotions.
4. Article by Dr Susan David: Fighting versus Feeling (May 9, 2021)
‘One way for us to be with our difficult emotions is with what I call “’a gentle noticing.” For example, “I’m noticing that I’m feeling really depleted. I’m noticing my grief. I’m noticing my sadness or my loneliness.”’ - Susan David.
When we notice our inner world with compassion and gentleness, we’re no longer fighting against our emotional experiences. We are able to just be with them. And when you can just be with your emotions, your gentle acceptance defangs that difficulty or challenge a little bit, allowing you to take the next brave step towards what matters most.
Free downloadable resources on Susan David’s website
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Other articles to consider as you explore your emotions:
Ekman P. (1999). “Basic emotions,” in Handbook of Cognition and Emotion, eds Dalgleish T., Power M. J. (New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons Ltd; ), 45–60. [Google Scholar]
Barrett LF. The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2017 Jan 1;12(1):1-23. doi: 10.1093/scan/nsw154. Erratum in: Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. 2017 Nov 1;12(11):1833. PMID: 27798257; PMCID: PMC5390700.
David, S. (2016). Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life. New York: Avery/Penguin Random House.
Frankl, Viktor E. (Viktor Emil), 1905-1997, author. (1962). Man's search for meaning : an introduction to logotherapy. Boston :Beacon Press,
Such an important message. All of our emotions are messengers, calling attention to what needs tending in our lives. Thanks for the shout out to my article Victoria.
Oh I love those illustrations from Susan David! Those are definitely going to come in handy. Thank you for sharing.