Dealing with Feelings: A Conversation With Dr. Marc Brackett

Many of us grew up hearing, “Don’t cry, you’re fine” or “Stop overreacting!” Now, we want to raise our kids differently… but how? Dr. Becky sits down with Dr. Marc Brackett, founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, to talk about his powerful personal story and research. They discuss understanding emotions as data, validating kids’ feelings without overindulging them, and building emotional literacy for the whole family.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  After my first baby was born, I treated my own recovery like a complete afterthought. If the baby needed something, I showed up immediately. If I needed something, well, it would wait. But research shows that when parents have the support they need, they're better able to care for their children. Taking care of yourself isn't separate from parenting. It's a huge part of parenting. That's why I love Frida's mission to prepare women for the realities of pregnancy, postpartum, recovery, and feeding. Frida creates solutions for the moments that often catch moms off guard. The Postpartum Essentials Kit and Breastfeeding Survival Kit help women feel more prepared for those early weeks of motherhood. Be motherhood prepared and shop Frida at Amazon, Target, and Walmart today.

• 0:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Today I'm talking with Dr. Mark Brackett. Mark is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. He's the author of Permission to Feel, and he's the author of his brand new book, Dealing with Feeling. Dr. Brackett has developed a framework that helps kids, parents, and educators build emotional literacy, skills for recognizing, naming, and working with emotions in ways that help us thrive and get in touch with our capability. I've known Mark for a while, and he is one of my favorite people to talk with. So you are really in for a treat. I think you'll think about emotions in a different way. You'll think about coping in a different way, and without a doubt, you'll end with practical strategies

• 1:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  you can use today. I'm Dr. Becky, and this is Good Inside. We'll be back right after this.

• 1:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere, or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year, leaving your own space empty, you can list

• 2:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. Here's a question parents ask me all the time. How can I help my kid take ownership of their routine? I love this question because owning a routine is such a good way for kids to build independence and confidence. It's why I'm excited to tell you about Yodo, the screen-free audio player for kids. In the mornings, your kid can wake up with Yodo's alarm clock. When your kid gets home from school, Yodo has focus tracks, audiobooks, music, and learning content. One of my kids really likes to write and record their own

• 3:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  stories with the make your own cards. Then at night, your kid can build a wind down routine with Yodo's toothbrush timer, white noise, and nightlight. With the right sounds, stories, and a bit of structure, thanks to Yodo, mornings feel more manageable, homework time feels calmer, and winding down before bed becomes something kids can run themselves, making the whole school year feel a little easier for everyone. Use the code DRBECKY15 for 15% off your order at Yodoplay.com. New customers only, ends October 31st. Terms apply. Offer valid on select products only.

• 3:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So happy to have you here today.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 3:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So many things I want to talk about, but let's just start with you and kind of what brings you to this work. So you spent your whole career basically studying emotions, right? And as parents, emotions are at the center of our lives. Parents' emotions, kids' emotions, emotions about in-laws, there's a lot of emotions. I just want to know what really drew you to this work in the first place.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Well, since we're talking with a parenting expert,

• 4:14Speaker 01

  I'll be frank, I just feel like my emotional life was kind of robbed from me as a kid. I had terrible abuse in my childhood and a lot of bullying, and just felt like there was no place to go with my feelings. So what did I do? I ate them, I cried them, I banged my head them, I did everything that you would call unhealthy to deal with them.

• 4:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And just before we continue, because I know that probably that led into so much research, and you really like took that and turned it into a whole journey. All those things you were naming, I just have to say, were incredibly adaptive things to figure out as a kid. Because emotions are, they're so powerful, you can't stop them. So if you don't have coping skills, or you don't have support, you gotta, gotta do something.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I left people in a very like dark place with that opening. But I am blessed also because I had an uncle who was my mother's brother. His name was Uncle Marvin, and he was a teacher by day and a bandleader by night in the Catskill Mountains, who happened to be writing a curriculum to teach kids about feelings. Who happened to live with us one summer at the right time, when I just shared what was happening, and totally transformed my life.

• 5:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  How old were you?

• 5:24Speaker 01

  I was 11.

• 5:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  He was with you the summer when you were 11?

• 5:28Speaker 01

  And it's just, everything changed because he asked me the simple question that guides my work, which is, "How are you feeling?" No one asked me that question. I think people were afraid to ask me how I was feeling.

• 5:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Did that feel really scary or really amazing at the time, or both?

• 5:45Speaker 01

  I think it felt relieving. Because I was trapped, and this person actually cared, and as I say, you know, gave me permission to feel.

• 5:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  The next time we talk, we're gonna do a full episode just on that. We're like not gonna talk about your research or book at all. Okay, but I told you we would talk about those things today, and I keep my word.

• 6:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So how did that? Shape a lot of your career and then can you talk a little about the research you've done around that too?

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Well, you know, so Uncle Marvin kind of saved my life. Things got better for me. I still, you know, you know, things still were difficult. You know, I wasn't sure who I was and what I was going to do with my life.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  And then when I got to college, I, you know, majored in psychology and I doubled majored in Spanish and criminal justice and had all these different interests. And then I was still like, what am I going to do with my life? And then I was in therapy and it was around 1994, 95. And all of a sudden this big book came out called Emotional Intelligence. And I was like, this is my uncle, like this, it wasn't my uncle wrote the book. It was Daniel Goldman, but I would devour that book because it just reminded me of all my experiences with my uncle. And he was a journalist, but I saw these two names that were like the theorish, the theoreticians and I called them both up and I said, I think I want to get my PhD and study with you.

• 7:11Speaker 01

  The long story short on that one, because you have a lot of parents who want their kids to go to great colleges. I got rejected from Yale, basically the-

• 7:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Home of your research now?

• 7:21Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I didn't have the test scores and the grade point averages to get in or like the pedigree and the experience, but I went to the University of New Hampshire and then got my job at Yale later. The joke, by the way, just as a quick aside was at my tenure party, the president of Yale, who was the person who rejected me as a student, he's like, you know, and you've done just amazing work and we're so proud of you. I'm like, I want to remind you that you rejected me.

• 7:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Hundred percent.

• 7:48Speaker 01

  But I think that's an important piece too.

• 7:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 7:50Speaker 01

  In terms of emotion regulation, which is my research, you know, not, not everything happens when you want it to happen. And in my research, what I find is that if you don't have the strategies to deal with those feelings, oftentimes your dreams don't come true.

• 8:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Those feelings, if we just even use your story as context, I don't know, disappointment.

• 8:10Speaker 01

  Disappointment, anxiety, frustration, overwhelm.

• 8:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Embarrassment for some people, right?

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Shame.

• 8:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Shame.

• 8:17Speaker 01

  You know, um, yeah, they're all there. And I think that's one thing that's really interesting for me because I was not the- I didn't come from a family that was very into education. And so, and I have two brothers and we all have doctorates. So we're always like, we were together last weekend and we, every time we get together, we're always like, how did we end up all becoming doctors? And, um, but you know, I study and I work with people who all have perfect SAT scores. They all have amazing grade point averages. They all play instruments I never heard of. They all have traveled the countries I didn't know were ever on the map, all to get into this place, you know?

• 9:00Speaker 01

  And, uh, and the assumption I had when I was a young professor was everyone's going to be successful because gosh, look at that, look at the credentials. And now after 23 years, I've seen otherwise.

• 9:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, I don't know if this will take us off on a tangent. It'll be like a side quest. We'll come back to the main quest. Um, but I, I have three kids and one of my kids especially, it just, things come really easily. Like I, someone told me this term, like he's like a life natural, like he's been here before, right? And people are surprised when I say that that's the kid I worry the most about.

• 9:35Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 9:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Versus another one of my kids had major speech delays, like had to work so hard. Things definitely don't come as easily. And I think about the grittiness and resilience and, and also how much that child has to build self-worth inside out. Because there's no opportunity to build it based on all of the accolades, right? And I just wonder if that's related to what you're talking about.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Well, what you're reminding me of is the research, which shows that, you know, for kids who are naturally kind of talented and skilled, we tend to praise them for that as opposed to praising for their effort. And the research is pretty clear that praising for like amazing job, you're so talented, you're so amazing, gosh, you hit that ball, you know?

• 10:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right.

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Doesn't actually help them develop resilience and skills. And then later on, I, I say this also, it's funny you brought this up because you would assume that a lot of my students would have a growth mindset. They don't. They only want the A. I always joke, I teach this course on emotional intelligence and I have like, you know, All these different experiences I want them to have, I want them to learn the skills and practice the skills. And they're like, what do we need to get the end of the test?

• 10:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 10:48Speaker 01

  Like, I want to memorize the correlation coefficient between, you know, I'm like, I don't remember the correlation, it's my own research.

• 10:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Seriously.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  That's not what this is about. This is about like, learning a set of skills that are going to help you in life.

• 11:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, you know, and you and I, I feel like whenever we talk, just go off each other all day long. This is going to be a 19 hour podcast. Listeners, it will not, just stay with us. But one of the things I always think about is, we can't develop skills for emotions we don't allow ourselves to have.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 11:19Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right? And we also just can't develop skills to manage emotions that we don't have. So if we think about if getting rejected when you applied to college, if, and it wasn't for you, but if that is your first experience with disappointment, ever, because you are so kind of quote, naturally talented, or maybe life has been made, you know, smoother for you, whatever it was, why would you have coping skills as an 18 year old that are any different than, I don't know, a six month old? You wouldn't.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  You wouldn't.

• 11:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You don't just, like, no one gifts them to you by age.

• 11:51Speaker 01

  Well, in my argument, which is based in my research, is that, you know, we weren't born that way. There is no area of your brain called emotion regulation. It is 100% learned. 100% learned. And my research shows, and I cover this in my book, which is that I studied thousands of people during the pandemic and after the pandemic, because I was really curious, because I struggled a lot dealing with my own feelings during the pandemic. I mean, my mother in law moved in, it was like a whole crazy thing. And I failed a lot. And I was, I go to bed at night, like, but Mark, you're the director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence. It's like, who cares? He's not very good at this right now. And I really took that to heart in terms of like, here I am as a researcher and an

• 12:34Speaker 01

  expert, but I was not doing well at it. And so I started studying people. And what I found among tens of thousands of people, only 10% of people said they had any education in emotions or emotion regulation at home, and like, 6 to 7% at school. So we have people who are, you know, running around without knowing or using these evidence-based skills.

• 12:58Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I think people, it's interesting, call them soft skills.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I was actually just talking to a university yesterday about kind of their education curriculum, and we were talking about like reversing that, like how helpful it is, how helpful is it to have amazing mathematical skills if you have no frustration tolerance?

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 13:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Not helpful. It's actually a precondition to use your cognitive skills. You and I, I know, we see this similarly. And so, yeah, I just think it's a really powerful thing to think about when your kids especially are younger. The times when they don't get invited to that birthday party, or don't make the soccer team. Or I always think about, you know, something that happened with one of my kids where they all got assigned in their grade, kind of these special projects. And some of these projects are like amazing and very cool opportunities. And some of them frankly are just like, I don't know, fairly mundane. And there's also the factor of whether you're with your like crew of friends, or whether you're with totally random kids. In the first year of these projects, my kid in that grade had no friends and got, I truly think, one of like the worst projects. Right?

• 13:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I did, and I do think about this, like I had, I didn't say this to him, but I have this like sick joy of like, okay, this is, like, this is where the stuff is made.

• 14:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Like, this is it. Because when he's older, he's probably not going to have special project week, but he's going to be disappointed, he's going to be left out, he's going to have FOMO, he's going to not get what he wants. And if he's not building these skills now, well, the stakes are only higher then.

• 14:22Speaker 01

  Agree. And it's developmental, as you know. And so what I needed, you know, in kindergarten was different what I need than what I needed in middle school than high school than now. I mean, I'm 55, I run a center at a university, you know, the world's in a weird place right now. Everybody's activated. And so the regulation strategies that I have to apply in my life now are not the same ones that I needed when I was five, or 10, or 15.

• 14:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm-hmm.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  And I think that's the beauty of the work. It's also what makes people afraid of it. It's why I think people are so obsessed with the quick fix. You know, there's like, what's the one strategy to help me deal with my feelings? I'm like, I don't have the answer for that. I'm sorry.

• 14:57Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I get that all the time, too.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I have one kid tantruming, another kid's drawing with Sharpie on the wall, a kid's screaming, "I hate you." What would you do? I was like, "I have no idea."

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know.

• 15:06Speaker 01

  You know, take a deep breath, and people think that's the answer for everything.

• 15:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Exactly.

• 15:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year, leaving your own space empty, you can list

• 15:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. Here's a question parents ask me all the time. How can I help my kid take ownership of their routine? I love this question because owning a routine is such a good way for kids to build independence and confidence. It's why I'm excited to tell you about Yodo, the screen-free audio player for kids. In the mornings, your kid can wake up with Yodo's alarm clock. When your kid gets home from school, Yodo has focus tracks, audiobooks, music, and learning content.

• 16:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  One of my kids really likes to write and record their own stories with the "make your own" cards. Then at night, your kid can build a wind-down routine with Yodo's toothbrush timer, white noise, and nightlight. With the right sounds, stories, and a bit of structure, thanks to Yodo, mornings feel more manageable. Homework time feels calmer, and winding down before bed becomes something kids can run themselves, making the whole school year feel a little easier for everyone. Use the code DRBECKY15 for 15% off your order at Yodoplay.com. New customers only. Ends October 31st. Terms apply. Offer valid on select products only.

• 17:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You talk about emotions as data.

• 17:25Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 17:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So just can you expand on that?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Emotions are signals. They tell us to approach or avoid. So I'm looking at your facial expression right now. I'm looking at your body language. I'm listening to the tone of your voice and it's telling me like, Mark, you're welcome here. Or Mark, like, I'm not interested in you. I'm getting the former, just so you know. But that's what emotions are for. They ensure our survival. They help us to thrive in life.

• 17:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  And I argue that emotions are information and there are five reasons why every parent, every leader, every teacher should care. The first is that emotions drive attention. So for example, if you were bored with me right now, well, I would dislike you a lot. But you know, it would just, it would be that there's something not going right. Just like something doesn't go right at home or in the classroom. And it's not a bad emotion. It just means that like, what's being presented to me doesn't click and my brain has decided to go someplace else.

• 18:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Mm hmm.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  The second is decision making. So I have tons of research and others' research, which shows that we think that we're like cold cognitive creatures that were like, I made this choice because of this reason. Hate to tell you this, but you know, for parents, like when you've been really upset with your kid and you've been like at the end of your rope and you're really pissed, and then you say that thing that you regretted. How many of you think you were like, in that moment, you're like, I hate my kid right now and I'm going to say something that's going to be mean and cruel? No. It's automatic. It comes out. And if you were, you know, intellectual about it, you would be like, why would I be doing this? It's not the way it works. The third is relationships. And so just think about it. You know, as I said, my facial expression, my body language, all

• 19:08Speaker 01

  sends messages. The fourth is mental health. And the last one, we spoke about already, which is about performance. If you don't have the skills to deal with your emotions, especially for people who are really creative, what I find in our research on creativity is that emotions fuel the creative process.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  But emotional intelligence and emotion regulation is what determines whether that process becomes a product.

• 19:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  There's so many things I want to double click on. But just this idea of emotions as data and information, I think is very different from how a lot of people think about emotions where there's like positive versus negative. Exactly. Which whenever I hear that, it's just an unhelpful binary. Because I think about a CEO of a company and someone bringing them information that would make them change a decision.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 19:58Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know if anyone thinks that's like negative information. That's useful information, right?

• 20:03Speaker 01

  All emotions are information.

• 20:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Exactly. And some are more uncomfortable than others, just like when you're going one direction on a plane flight and a pilot gets new information, like there's a new light going off or weather pattern they have to change. That's inconvenient, but I don't think anyone in the air is thinking that's negative information.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Let's ignore that feeling.

• 20:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, exactly. Let's just pay attention to the good stuff.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  Repress, deny, ignore.

• 20:28Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  No way. And so I think that in and of itself is life changing for people. Like there's no positive or negative feelings.

• 20:36Speaker 01

  We don't, emotions are data, information, as we said. And I think, you know, when it comes time to regulate our emotions, I think oftentimes people think that the goal is to get rid of negative emotions. And I just want to say very clearly that you can't get rid of your feelings first. I don't, where are they going to go? It's not like, you know, they come out of your head. I always thought that, by the way, for years before I really became knowledgeable about science, I was like, someone's going to go into my brain, they're going to carve out that area of my amygdala and my hippocampus, and I'm not going to feel that anxiety anymore. I haven't had that operation yet. And I also learned very clearly that my anxiety has actually helped me get to where I'm at.

• 21:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Because I worry about the things that I care about.

• 21:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yep.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  And if I reframe it that way. Anxiety is no longer a negative emotion. It actually is motivating.

• 21:27Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes. That's actually so many different ways of explaining nervous feelings to my kids. They have really latched on to this idea of like nervous means I care.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 21:39Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And it then becomes this like empowering.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 21:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, yeah, I do care about this test, so it makes sense that I'm nervous about it.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Exactly. I think the rule that I've created, which is a simple rule to help people, is that if you have a particular emotion for a really long period of time, and it's intense and your coping ability, you know, is you're struggling with that, that's when you need to regulate. But for the most part, you know, I argue, and my research supports this by the way, that the first strategy for healthy regulation is permission to feel.

• 22:11Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  It's saying, you know what? Okay, hi anxiety, welcome today. That's just a different attitude about it. It's a mindset shift as opposed to, oh my God, I'm anxious.

• 22:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 22:21Speaker 01

  Just a little, do you think, just feel it like, oh my God, I'm anxious versus, hi anxiety, welcome.

• 22:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. It is, and I find personifying it to be so useful. Like there are friends we have that are a little pesky. Like, we love them, but like, they're a little annoying, but we can't, can't make them. They're just at the dinner party. And like, if you ignore them or try to make them go away, they usually get noisier. And they try to get our attention in more dramatic ways. Now, I have a question, because what I've seen, and I'm curious what you've seen, you know, from your research and also just from students, is there more of an inclination now than years ago to kind of quote, bring uncomfortable emotions to a zero than there used to be?

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that we, you know, have, I got into a place where people, uh, this, I was asked the other day about like, what does it mean to be emotional? And I said, like, just throw that term out. It has no meaning. It's ridiculous. And, uh, and then people, I think, are so uncomfortable being uncomfortable that they'd rather either suppress or deny, or people just want to figure out a way like, what do you need? What do you need right now? None of that is helpful. And that's why I really feel strongly about teaching people buckets of strategies to deal with their emotions and permission to feel is one bucket. But believe it or not, as you probably know, because we talked about what we were having

• 23:44Speaker 01

  for lunch earlier, and I just say this because what you eat and how well you sleep and the physical activity you get are really highly correlated with your ability to regulate. With parents, what I find is that in the mornings, they say, I'm trying to be my best self, but I just can't, I'm just like irritable and I'm, you know, I set a goal to be my best self as a mom and then I fail the first thing in the morning. And I say, well, how much sleep did you get? Oh, I had a terrible night's sleep. Oh, so your best self is possible, but you're not thinking about what's behind it that's getting in the way.

• 24:19Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  And the point, I think of all this is that people are trying to get rid of their feelings as opposed to use their feelings to achieve their goals. And the work I really, what I strive to help people understand is that the goal of emotion regulation is not to control your feelings, it's to learn how to use all of your emotions wisely to achieve a goal.

• 24:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I think that's exactly right. And I think a good example is like, I notice I'm really frustrated with my kids, I'm snapping. And instead of the spiral of like, I'm a monster, I'm a horrible parent, or, you know, other people would find this easier than I do. Like, okay, I'm frustrated, like, what's going on for me? Have I done anything for myself on the weekend? You know, and then that information, that frustration could actually help me if I can recognize it, permission to feel frustrated, that's happening. Okay, maybe I should carve out making this up 45 minutes for myself or ask my partner to do more, right? It would give me that information if I listened to it.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  One thing I wanted, I was thinking about coming here today and given, you know, the people that you reach and kind of there's a, there's a big controversy right now out there. And it's one that's driving me crazy, which is that being self-aware is self-indulgent. And people are arguing like against my work, saying things like, you know, you're causing kids to be so reflective that it's causing them to ruminate and become depressed even and creating more mental illness. And I just want to, I have to talk about that with you for a moment.

• 25:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Please, let's do it.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Because it's driving me crazy.

• 25:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 01

  Because people think that doing the work that we do in schools or with families is about talking about feelings all day long. Like, none of us want to talk about our feelings all day long. It's not even appropriate. No. You know, there's a point where it's like, no, we're at school, we're doing work. Yes, I want it. You can check in in the morning to see how you're feeling. Do you need a strategy to help you get through the morning? And then maybe at the end of the day, a couple of times, just like you as a parent, you wake up, you're going to meet with me to do this podcast and you're going to check in like, am I in a good mood? Am I in a bad mood? Like, what's, you know, am I in the right place for this interview? If not, what's my strategy for getting to the right place? Yep. But do you see how like, that takes 20 seconds? Yes. It's not just like prolonged, you know, bathing in your feelings. I just want people to understand. We have to clear it up.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  That this is about self-awareness as a pathway to creating the life that you need and want. Yeah. And, um, and it's not about indulgence.

• 26:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year, leaving your own space empty, you can list

• 27:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. Here's a question parents ask me all the time. How can I help my kid take ownership of their routine? I love this question because owning a routine is such a good way for kids to build independence and confidence. It's why I'm excited to tell you about Yodo, the screen-free audio player for kids. In the mornings, your kid can wake up with Yodo's alarm clock. When your kid gets home from school, Yodo has focus tracks, audiobooks, music, and learning content.

• 28:20Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  One of my kids really likes to write and record their own stories with the "make your own" cards. Then at night, your kid can build a wind-down routine with Yodo's toothbrush timer, white noise, and nightlight. With the right sounds, stories, and a bit of structure, thanks to Yodo, mornings feel more manageable. Homework time feels calmer, and winding down before bed becomes something kids can run themselves, making the whole school year feel a little easier for everyone. Use the code DRBECKY15 for 15% off your order at Yodoplay.com. New customers only. Ends October 31st. Terms apply. Offer valid on select products only.

• 29:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So, a couple things for further defense of Mark Brackett. You know, I'm a big Mark Brackett stan, fan. Okay, so I think there are extremes. And what often happens when we have one extreme and we reject it is people immediately go to the other extremes. They're rarely the right answer, right? The right answer is usually something more nuanced in the middle. And it is becoming increasingly hard to hold multiplicity and nuance, right? Which probably relates to this kind of claim, you know, self-awareness is self-indulgence. I think we used to have a world of kind of kids' feelings, who cares? Who cares? Get your act together, move on, kids' feelings don't matter. And I do think, not your work, there's been a misunderstanding and an overcorrection

• 29:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  to the other extreme. Where one extreme is kids' feelings don't matter, the other extreme is kids' feelings dictate reality, or dictate what the whole family does. So now we've gone from feelings not matter to feelings overpowering everything else. They're both unhelpful extremes.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 30:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think what you're saying, which is my perspective too, teaching kids how to manage their feelings is in the service of making them more capable.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  Correct. I mean, you can't always get what you want.

• 30:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Exactly.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  When you're a kid or when you're an adult.

• 30:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  And frustration tolerance is important, delayed gratification is important. All these things are important, but... The, uh, but self-awareness is really important.

• 30:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 30:31Speaker 01

  Because if you don't know how you're feeling, as a kid especially, like I was a kid who was, I didn't have language, nobody taught me the words. I was trapped with my feelings and I didn't feel safe and comfortable talking about them. And as we know, especially for kids, they shouldn't worry alone.

• 30:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 01

  You should not worry alone.

• 30:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  No.

• 30:49Speaker 01

  And

• 30:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Aloneness is the enemy.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so by sharing what you're feeling and being clear about it, because another big thing, just going back to this whole thing, is that people misunderstand behavior for emotion. So I come in, "I hate you and I don't want to go to school tomorrow." And all of a sudden, the parents triggered and they say things like, "Who do you think you are talking to me that way? You know, stop being so angry." When in my case, it was that the kid spit on me on the bus and I'm feeling such deep shame and fear that I don't want to go to school tomorrow. But I've only learned because daddy's a tough guy to yell, scream and say, "I hate school and I hate you." But then I get sent to my room because I'm engaging in bad behavior that, you know, in that instance, my mother was not really skilled at co-regulating.

• 31:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  And so the best thing to do is trigger, get out of my face. And there I was, you know, ruminating in my room about my fear of going to school tomorrow when no one knew how I felt. And if they really knew how I felt, they probably would have had a better intervention.

• 31:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, no, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I mean that.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:55Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And thank you for sharing.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  I'm glad I've supplemented it into a career of teaching this stuff.

• 31:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Me too, for everyone's sake. And sorry that happened in the first place. Um, and maybe actually, I think it would be helpful to take that example because it's so common, right? Which, let's just start with the word, some version of "I hate you" or even just, "I'm not going to school today."

• 32:14Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right? Okay. I think it might be helpful to outline, we could play around together.

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  A version of, "My kids' feelings don't matter." A version of, "My kids' feelings dictate reality and what the whole family or what they do."

• 32:25Speaker 01

  I love that idea.

• 32:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And then kind of, where do kids' feelings matter? And where can we help our kids access their capability?

• 32:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Which, which extreme do you want to take first?

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Well, first I have to say, the feelings always matter.

• 32:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes. Things always matter.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  The first example, I think, is sort of like the dismissing, like I, um, and what I found in my research, by the way, which is relevant to your community, is that the number one reason why parents don't ask their kids about their feelings is fear.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  And it's fear from multiple perspectives, but the primary one is that they are afraid of not knowing what to do.

• 33:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And so what do you do when you don't know what to do? You go to automatic habitual former ways that you learn things, which is my mother's way of like, I'm going to my room and you're going to your room and we're not talking. That's the extreme, right? That's like suck it up. You know, you're on your own kiddo.

• 33:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yep.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  Doesn't usually help.

• 33:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right. And I think that's what a lot of kind of parents tell me like, well, that's how my parents would have handled it, you know, growing up, you're going to school, stop being ridiculous. You're being dramatic.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You're gonna make me late for my job. I'm gonna get fired, gonna have no money. I don't know, just like some litany.

• 33:39Speaker 01

  I mean, there's no relationship there. That's like.

• 33:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's right. There's no relationship. And in some ways in that moment, you also have no curiosity. Your curiosity is shut down. I have no curiosity about what's underneath. Maybe the problem isn't my kid saying they're not going to school. Maybe that's just represented representative of some bigger problem they're actually struggling with.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Behavior, you know, there's a symptom.

• 34:02Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes. So that's one extreme.

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:04Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What's the other extreme that you also want to make sure you're like, this is not what I'm talking about.

• 34:09Speaker 01

  Oh, my God, honey, what went wrong? Oh, my God, I can't handle this. Oh, my goodness, let's, we have to, you know, let my God, let's go, let's, you know, that kind of over dramatic reaction.

• 34:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think another version of that is, okay, let's sit on the couch, we cancel our plans, you're not going to school today, we're gonna talk about how you feel for the next eight hours instead, right?

• 34:29Speaker 01

  Actually, you reminded me of something. I wrote, I wrote this op ed and I decided not to submit it after the last election, when a school here in New York City wrote a note saying that if the kids were not up to it, they didn't have to come to school.

• 34:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  After the election, yeah.

• 34:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I was like, that is not emotional intelligence. You have to go to school. Period. I mean, you have to learn how to, life does not go always in the direction that you want it to go.

• 34:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think what collapses in that example, and in my example, is there's emotions mattering with the collapse of capability.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 35:05Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I think as a parent, I always say like, so much of dealing with kids distress and anxiety is holding two things at once as a parent. I believe you and I believe in you.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And, and if we lose the I believe in you part.

• 35:18Speaker 01

  A hundred percent.

• 35:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  It's, it's, it's really, it's also really overwhelming and feels dangerous for a kid because they're like, well, I'm overwhelmed by this. My parent is overwhelmed by this. Like where do I start and you end?

• 35:29Speaker 01

  But what you're doing there is you're instilling a growth mindset in, in terms of

• 35:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's right.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  And around emotion regulation in particular. So if your kid is like doing a climbing thing and they're, oh my thing, I'm going to fall. You're like, honey, I'm watching you and I understand that you're feeling afraid. I would be afraid too. It's a little scary the first time, but I know you can do this. And so I'm going to stand there. I'm going to watch you. I'm even going to coach you a little bit. But I just know that you're going to be able to do this. I got, I got you.

• 35:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That second part, the and I know, I often visualize, you know, I need to see a more capable version of my kid than they can access themselves in that moment. Because if I can't see that for them, like they, they're not going to get that from me.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 36:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And so, okay, so what's in the middle? So we have a kid. I'm not going to school today. Right? So let's say we're like, okay, not doing the two extremes.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's like, honey, tell me what happened. What's going on? And it's not this four hour conversation. It's really getting to know the experience. You know, honey, I did notice that your facial expression was different today. So my hunch is that maybe something happened at school yesterday? Can we chat about it? And then you're in learning mode. But the learning mode is not to then say, well, like you should, you know, suck it up or like, oh my God. The learning mode is to help engage in problem solving mode. I have something, a new research finding that you're going to love. So in my research, when I've interviewed now, I'm going to say 15,000 people about their childhoods,

• 36:56Speaker 01

  about the people who created the conditions for them to kind of thrive, there are three characteristics.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  The verse is nonjudgmental. And as we know, people, I think, most of us don't judge from the moment we came out of our mother's womb, just to be blunt. You know, like, you're not smart enough, you're not, you're too dark, you're too light, you're too tall, you're too short, your nose is too big, you know, whatever it is, it's like, it's just endlessly judged. And people say, I just want to be around someone who doesn't judge me. Please, don't judge me. The second is the listening piece. Can you just listen, please? Don't jump in all the time, just listen. And the third is compassion. Now, importantly, what I want to say about this is that in the thousands of people that I've studied, no one ever says that the person who created the best conditions

• 37:48Speaker 01

  for them when they were young was smart or a problem solver. I find that incredible. Because I don't think people are looking for other people to fix them. I think people are looking for people to create the conditions for them to thrive and to ask them good questions so they can develop the critical thinking skills to then problem solve for themselves. And I don't think that we create the conditions for that as much as we should. And by the way, only one third of 15,000 people that I studied said they had someone like that when they were born.

• 38:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm unable to snap. We could talk about that later, but I've never wanted to snap. I really felt the urge to snap. Yeah, I was showing off, but, okay.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  You can cope.

• 38:35Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, I can cope. I can, I can do hard things.

• 38:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't know about you, but by the time September rolls around, I am ready for cozy season. That's when I start thinking about Thanksgiving plans and travel that allows me to spend quality time with my family. I'm thinking board games, changing leaves, maybe even a living room with a fireplace where we can read our books together. Maybe you're the kind of family that loves an adventure and wants a cabin in the mountains somewhere. Or maybe you're dreading the end of summer and need to look forward to staying at a home on the beach with a view of the ocean. Or maybe you love to cook, so you want to stay in a home with your dream kitchen. Wherever your travel plans take you, it's the perfect time to get a little reset together as a family before the holiday season and craziness begins. But here's something you may not have considered. If you're planning to go away this year, leaving your own space

• 39:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  empty, you can list it on Airbnb while you're away to give another family some quality time in a home away from home. You get to make use of your space and you can earn some extra income to put toward your family's future travel plans. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.com/host. Here's a question parents ask me all the time. How can I help my kid take ownership of their routine? I love this question because owning a routine is such a good way for kids to build independence and confidence. It's why I'm excited to tell you about Yodo, the screen-free audio player for kids. In the mornings, your kid can wake up with Yodo's alarm clock. When your kid gets home from school, Yodo has focus tracks, audiobooks, music, and learning content. One of my kids

• 40:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  really likes to write and record their own stories with the make your own cards. Then at night, your kid can build a wind down routine with Yodo's toothbrush timer, white noise, and nightlight. With the right sounds, stories, and a bit of structure, thanks to Yodo, mornings feel more manageable. Homework time feels calmer, and winding down before bed becomes something kids can run themselves, making the whole school year feel a little easier for everyone. Use the code DRBECKY15 for 15% off your order at Yodoplay.com. New customers only, ends October 31. Terms apply. Offer valid on select products only.

• 40:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, no one's saying the adult that really helped the most is smart or a problem solver and how, you know, we don't really want to be fixed. The other part of that, that I think is so powerful for parents to remember is when you see your kid As being able to be capable, as being able to be resilient.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 41:09Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You set up conditions for them to access that in them.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 41:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Every time we say to our kids, like, let me do that for you, or I'll fix this, whether it's literally opening the Play-Doh jar, or it's you weren't invited to that birthday party, I'm just gonna create a slumber party for you on that same date, we're gonna invite more people, and it's gonna be more fun, we're actually saying to our kids, I don't think you are capable of coping with this.

• 41:31Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 41:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Which is the mirror of they take in.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  And so you're bringing up another piece of research, which I just remembered, which is the second factor is time, that nobody has the patience to like, let their kids figure it out, they just wanna get it done for them.

• 41:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I know.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  It's like, you know what, honey, just do that, let, you know, move on, like, just, just go say, go say you're sorry, go apologize, and it's, you know, saying you're sorry doesn't really mean anything, as we know, and so, just, like, we just want it to be done so we can go back to our phones, or, you know, or do something else, and people don't have the patience to be present.

• 42:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, I've been talking about this a lot, and it's resonating, because I think it goes to what you're saying, that the most underutilized parenting strategy in a hard moment is doing nothing.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:16Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right, and I tell people, you should think about doing nothing with a capital D and a capital N, because then you won't think, I'm just doing nothing, no, no, you are choosing doing nothing, it's like a very hard strategy to use in 2025.

• 42:29Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You wait and you trust, and the apology is such an interesting one, because I have a kid who, if in the moment, you say, like, are you gonna say sorry, I mean, shut down completely, but if you wait and trust and do nothing, the authentic apology that comes from him is the best apology I've ever heard from a kid.

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But you have to, you actually have to trust yourself and your kid more than you trust that exact moment, which is hard.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  It is, and I find another piece of this is the role modeling.

• 43:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Is, you know, I joke about this, but my mom had a phrase, this is a 1970s phrase, probably, where whenever things would go wrong, she'd say, ah, I'm gonna have a breakdown. And I caught myself a couple of years ago on a flight and I was like overwhelmed and somebody's like, "You're doing okay?" I'm like, "I'm having a breakdown." And it's, you know, I picked it up. And so we're picking up the strategies, obviously, that our parents or everyone is showing us. Yeah. And so, you know, if you're not, and this is the, I think this is where the explicit versus the implicit learning happens. Whereas if we're modeling healthy self-talk, if we're modeling healthy reaching out for support, you know, I give an example a lot

• 43:44Speaker 01

  with, because, you know, in my research, by the way, and my hunch is that you got a lot of moms who listen, we gotta get more dads on this. My, my goal, you know, for this new journey with my book, Dealing with Feeling, is to get more dads involved because I have found that only 3% of people think of their father as the person who gave them permission to feel. 3%. That's a, that's a very, I mean, to me, it's an alarming statistic that no one sees their father as the person who gave them that permission to feel. And so the, um, the point of me telling you this is people think this is like such hard

• 44:24Speaker 01

  work to be a good role model, but imagine this. I'm daddy and I had a really rough day at work, like just a rough day at work. Like I got into a fight with a colleague and I'm irritable and I come home and you're there as my daughter and you're like, "Daddy, I wanna play. Daddy, I wanna play." And daddy is like not in the mood to play. And so what my father would have done would be like, you know, "Honey, get out of my face, you know, or go to your room, or go watch television, or, you know, go get a snack." But what if it looked a little different? What if it was, "Honey, I recognize you wanna play and I just wanna let you know daddy had a really rough day at work." Actually, what happened is I said something that was not kind to one of my friends at work and I feel terrible about it. And I need a little bit of time to just think about what I'm

• 45:08Speaker 01

  gonna say to him tomorrow. And if it's okay with you, I wanna be with you, but now's not the best time. I just need a few minutes to just sort of settle and think about it. And then when I come back, uh, we'll go take that walk or we're gonna play that game. So what did I do there? A, daddy has strong feelings. B, daddy's okay sharing those feelings. C, daddy's reflective.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  D. Daddy problem solves and thinks about like solutions.

• 45:35Speaker 01

  E. Daddy sometimes needs a little space to, you know, reflect and think through things. All that happened in a matter of a minute.

• 45:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 45:42Speaker 01

  But people don't think that that's the right thing to do for some reason. Or they don't think that actually saying it out loud to their kid is actually teaching them.

• 45:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, I think there's also confusion. I'm not supposed to cry in front of my kids. I'm not supposed to put my emotions on to my kids. Yet putting your emotions on to your kid ironically probably comes from not managing or verbalizing your emotions. So they do kind of almost come out of your head and they come out onto other people. And you're really talking about regulating out loud.

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Exactly. Actually, you reminded me of a, you know, I do so much public speaking that I get these people come up to me. And so a lot of dads come up to me afterwards like, dude, you're vulnerable. And I'm like, yeah, but it took me, you know, I was 49 by the time I was like public with my whole life story. So, you know, it takes time for people. Don't worry. But, you know, and I share a lot about the terrible bullying that I had. And this one dad came up to me and he said, you know, Mark, I could never share what you shared with us if it were me to my kid. And I said, well, tell me why. And he said, well, my kid would think I was weak.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  And I said, can we just pause for a minute and just chat? And I said, well,

• 47:00Speaker 01

  what if your kid was being bullied right now? How do you think that approach, you know, would help or not help your kid? And then the guy started crying with me and he's like, yeah, you know, it just, I just never really learned, you know, this vulnerability thing, this sharing, you know, my, what happened to me as a kid. I just never learned it and I've been stuck with not expressing it for 40 years or 30 years and I just don't. I don't have the skill and it goes back to again, the skill.

• 47:25Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  The skill and the truth is anytime we do something new and anytime we do something new, that's completely different than all the generations before us. It's going to actually feel scary because our body is doing something for the very first time. It's unknown. It's going to be awkward. And so I, I think that's such an important piece of it. Okay, I'm going to talk about the rough day I had and just name that and say, I need space because I'm feeling frustrated and I need a little time. When your body starts, I don't know, having a racing heart at the thought of doing that, I feel like our brain tries to make sense of that by saying, I shouldn't do that. But actually, your brain can make sense of it differently. I've never done this before. Of course, my heart is racing. That's not a sign I'm doing something wrong. It's a sign I'm doing something new.

• 48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. And actually, now you're reminding me of another area of research of mine, which is kind of studying this concept of becoming the best version of yourself. And so it's an exercise that I think it's very helpful for parents to do, which is just to take a moment and imagine how you want to be seen and talked about and experienced. So if I were to ask you that, Dr. Becky, as a mom, think about the attributes of the mom that you want your kids to see, that you want your kids to experience.

• 48:42Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Present, connected, curious.

• 48:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Same team.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Nice. So present, curious, connected, same team. And so in the moment, when your kid is like getting under your skin, it's hard to show up as present, connected, et cetera. But what if tonight, before you walk into your apartment, you take a deep breath and you say, I've set a goal. I'm a mom who wants to be seen as connected, you know, as present, et cetera. And then kind of just visualize that as you walk through the door. Do you think that would?

• 49:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah, I think you're talking about the essence of re-grounding ourselves and our values.

• 49:26Speaker 01

  Exactly. And when we're, you know, with the world, when we're on social media, when we're running on the subways and we're coming home and we're hectic and we're thinking, oh, my gosh, I have this work to do yet. And I gotta make dinner and then I gotta put the kids to bed and I gotta do this problem solving for tomorrow, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then we get activated, those values and that version of ourself gets dismissed. And so it's a practice.

• 49:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes, it is. Just like yoga.

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 49:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Never ends, right?

• 49:51Speaker 01

  And I have, you know, I do a lot of work here in the city as you do. And I have a friend who's a principal of a school downtown and he takes the bus in from Brooklyn. He drives by the Empire, the Statue of Liberty. And he uses that as his method.

• 50:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  And he looks at the Statue of Liberty and he reminds himself of the principal he wants to be. You know, and then on the way home, as the parent he wants to be. Isn't that beautiful?

• 50:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Nothing like Lady Liberty to hold you accountable.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Love it.

• 50:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Never thought about Lady Liberty as my accountability buddy. But I might have to change my commute. I love that. If parents listening, you know, want to take what you're talking about and make a couple of small shifts or something that feels actionable, like what are your, what are your top go-tos?

• 50:35Speaker 01

  The top go-to is to just have a mindset that there's no such thing as about emotion. That, you know what? The feeling is a feeling. You could make it want to go away, but it's there for a reason because emotions come unbitten.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  I think the second is, and this is a big one for me because I grew up and I still have, my automatic go-to is self-criticism.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  And I can only remember being criticized. It's terrible. And I'm convinced that most of us have been gaslighted by people in our development and our childhoods. And we just start believing it. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one ever taught us to sift through. The way other people were talking about us. And then it metastasizes and it becomes your identity. And so I just want to encourage people to move from self criticism or other criticism to self compassion and other compassion. And that alone, I think, could make, you know, a huge difference. Yeah. I'll give you one more. Great. I got a hundred, but I'll give you my top three for today. I love top threes.

• 51:45Speaker 01

  My third one is, it might be surprising. It's to have an other orientation. I think that we have become such a me culture. I'm, I'm feeling this way and it's my thing. And I had this with, you know, during the pandemic, my mother in law got stuck with us for a variety of reasons because of, um, you know, the pandemic. She, she's from Panama and she couldn't go back. And it's like, it ruined my routine. You know, like I like to have coffee alone in the morning. I don't want to have coffee with my mother in law staring at me. And all I realized was after six months for me to realize is like, I'm a narcissist. Basically, it's like you're in my house and I'm feeling this way and I want to be alone. There's your self critical voice, Mark. Yeah, you're right.

• 52:28Speaker 01

  So thank you for the awareness. And then, you know, I came down one morning and I realized I had no curiosity about my mother in law. Here was an 81 year old woman who doesn't speak any English, who was stuck in America during a pandemic, who's like, dog is like, we're trying to figure out how to take care of her dog in Panama. And as soon as I stopped thinking about my feelings and I thought about her feelings, everything changed. Actually, our relationship changed dramatically. And so even when we're feeling unpleasant emotions as parents or as even children can do this, if we take a minute and think about like, who, who is suffering right now that I know? Like go into your phone and look for pictures of people. Oh my gosh, she just lost her husband or, you know, whatever it might be. This person's dog died.

• 53:13Speaker 01

  And just reach out to that person and show your love and support for them. What happens magically is that By you helping them, you feel better yourself.

• 53:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Tell everyone where they can find more from you. I know everyone will want that.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Well, my book is called Dealing with Feeling, which I'm very excited about. It's all evidence-based strategies to help everybody regulate their emotions more effectively. And the best place to learn more about me is just my website, which is my name, mark, bracket, M R C, B R A C K E T T dot com.

• 53:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Well, thank you. This hopefully is not the last time I have you right here.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 53:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And I love talking to you. And thank you for your very, very important work.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 53:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I know I really did. Things that are top of mind for me are that there's no bad feelings. This idea of positive and negative emotions. Let's throw that out and embrace what Dr. Brackett says. Emotions are data and all data is information. And we want to get information. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review it. Or if you're listening on Spotify or watching on YouTube, drop a comment. I read every single one. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground and place a hand on your heart.

• 54:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside. I'll see you soon.

• 54:53Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know that feeling when your brain is at full capacity? Right? I mean, you have a reminder from the dentist in your email, a birthday party invitation on the fridge, and your kid just texted you about a soccer game they forgot to mention until that moment, and you just cannot remember one more thing.

• 55:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 55:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 56:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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• 57:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

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