This is the 10% happier podcast.

I'm Dan Harris.

Hey, hey, everybody.

We're doing a rerun today.

This is one of my favorite conversations of 2021.

And in case you missed it, I thought you might want to hear it.

I've often joked that as a man who is reasonably far along on the barbarian spectrum, emotions

have not always been the most appetizing subject for conversation.

However, as I've learned the hard way, and repeatedly, emotions are there, whether you

want to look at them or not.

And if you choose the path of denial or compartmentalization, you will inevitably be owned

by those neglected and overlooked emotions.

But what are emotions anyway?

What's the difference between emotions and feelings?

Why did we evolve to have emotions in the first place?

And what does science say about how we can manage emotions skillfully rather than being

yanked around by them all the time?

My guest today in this rerun is at the forefront of understanding all of these questions.

From a scientific standpoint, she is Dr. Lisa Feldman-Barritt, a university distinguished

professor of psychology at Northeastern University with appointments at Harvard Medical

School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where my mom used to work, shout out to the

MGH.

...