Susan David: Emotional Agility

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Tami Simon

Religion, Religion & Spirituality

4.6 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 11 September 2018

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Susan David is a psychologist teaching at Harvard Medical School, cofounder of the Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital, and the bestselling author of Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon talks with Susan about modern society's attitudes toward emotion—specifically our tendency to label certain feelings as good or bad, and the dysfunctional behaviors that arise as a result. Susan explains that a much healthier approach is to identify "bad" emotions as "tough" or "difficult," allowing us to examine them in a granular way that helps in processing them. Tami and Susan discuss how this informed method of dealing with emotions can be taught to children, which is especially important for learning not to bottle or brood upon unpleasant feelings. Finally, Susan draws upon a story from her adolescence to illustrate why emotional honesty is paramount for living a fulfilled life and why forced positivity never works out in the long run. (66 minutes) Tami's Takeaway: I loved hearing from a Harvard professor that "chasing happiness just doesn't work." It certainly hasn't worked for me. Instead, she teaches how rewarding it can be to orient ourselves towards fulfillment and living a life that is meaningful. And then in some strange, unexpected way, happiness dawns. My two favorite quotes from this interview are: "Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life," and "Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility."

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This program is brought to you by sounds true.com.
0:04.0	At sounds true.com you can find hundreds of downloadable audio
0:08.0	learning programs, plus books, music, videos, and online courses, and events.
0:14.3	At sounds true.com, we think of ourselves
0:17.2	as a trusted partner on the spiritual journey,
0:20.2	offering diverse, in-depth, and life-changing wisdom.
0:24.0	Sounds True.com, many voices, one journey. You're listening to insights at the edge. Today my guest is Susan David.
0:44.7	Susan David is an award-winning psychologist on the faculty of Harvard Medical
0:49.7	School, co-founder and co-director of the Institute of Co-Coching at McLean Hospital and CEO of
0:57.4	Evidence-based Psychology, a boutique business consultancy. She's the author of the number one Wall Street Journal best-selling book,
1:06.2	Emotional Agility.
1:08.8	Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in work in life.
1:14.4	I'm so happy to have Susan David as a guest on insights at the edge
1:19.1	because I think the topic she addresses,
1:22.0	emotional agility, is such an important topic in our time,
1:27.8	how we become fluid and learn to embrace
1:32.0	every emotional experience that we have.
1:35.0	In this episode of Insight to The Edge,
1:38.0	Susan and I spoke about not labeling emotions as negative, but the value instead of describing them as tough or difficult and how we can work skillfully with tough emotions without bottling or brooding.
1:55.0	We talked about the importance of getting granular with our emotions,
2:00.0	what Susan calls emotional granularity and how this ability to accurately articulate
2:08.1	our emotional experience allows us to relate to ourselves and others more meaningfully.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Tami Simon, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Tami Simon and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.