It's the 10% happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello everybody how we doing. My guest today argues quite convincingly in my opinion that most of us get about

as much education on regulating our emotions as a five-year-old. The general message from the culture is that the best strategy is to

stifle your emotions, suppress them. But research shows that that move just makes

the emotions stronger at the level of your brain. And then many of us turn to coping mechanisms such as doom scrolling, overeating,

gambling, and booze.

Again, we resort to this stuff because we are so rarely taught how to metabolize our emotions and self-sooth in a healthy way.

We're going to talk about some smart strategies for doing this today with Emma Sepula,

PhD, she's a psychologist and research scientist with an expertise in the science of

happiness emotional intelligence and social connection. She's the science director

at Stanford University's Center for Compassion and Altrism, Research and Education, and she also teaches executives

at the Yale School of Management.

She's been on this show before to discuss her book The Happiness Track, and today she is back to discuss her new book which is called Sovereign

which is really a full and research-backed plan for and these are my words not

hers getting your shit together in every possible sphere.

In this conversation we talk about what she means by that term sovereign, we talk about the

neuroscience of emotion regulation, the science of intuition, and how to work with it when you're a critical

thinker how our past can unconsciously bind us the impact of trauma the latest

evidence for the benefits of meditation and how to cultivate what

scientists now call positive relational energy.

Ama Sepula coming up.

But first time for some BSP, blatant self-promotion.

There are still, I believe, a few more tickets available for the meditation party retreat

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