Role of Emotions

Reflections on Inside Out 2

By Dr Paul Ekman

I had the privilege of serving as a scientific advisor to the first Inside Out movie and the pleasure of seeing the sequel last week along with family and friends. After the first movie came out, I wrote a Parents’ Guide and after enjoying the sequel, was inspired to write a few reflections.

The sequel of Inside Out includes the same emotion characters (joy, sadness, anger, disgust and fear) we got to know in the first installation, with the addition of a few new characters as Riley enters puberty.

Moving into adolescence

The onset of adolescence is depicted in the film by a demolition team. While this humorous metaphor captures the bold and sometimes unpredictable changes that occur in puberty, it is also important to note that adolescence does not “tear down” the emotional structures in place of childhood, though it certainly adds layers of complexity and emotional development for teenagers.

New emotion characters

The new emotions that make an appearance are: anxiety, embarrassment, envy and ennui. We also get a sneak peek at nostalgia, though the running joke is that it is not yet their time to appear. 

Anxiety

In Inside Out 2, the addition of anxiety plays an important role as a key character in the movie, and is introduced as a kind of “companion” character to fear. There is a line in the movie acknowledging the similarities between the characters, in which anxiety explains that fear’s role is to protect Riley from dangers that are seen, and that anxiety’s role is to protect Riley from dangers that are unseen. Anxiety focuses on future projections of possible failures, in the attempt to prepare and steer Riley in the direction of success and accomplishment. While many emotion scientists (myself included) wouldn’t distinguish anxiety as a separate emotion distinct from the larger family of fear-based emotions, creating a new character highlighting  anxiety adds to the storyline and takeaways from the film. 

Finding ways to embrace and temper anxiety, rather than let it solely “run the show” provides a powerful climax and denouement to the story. With the significant increase among teenagers of anxiety and depression, the character of anxiety provides a window into the intense period of self-consciousness and desire to be included in adolescence which underpins all of anxiety’s machinations for control. While in the movie we see this play out in real-time friendships, the social lives of many teens is played out largely online. We can feel the same intensity of emotions when worried about our social connections in person or online. 

Embarrassment

Embarrassment makes its entrance in the moments of the newly heightened self-consciousness often paired with adolescence. Embarrassment develops as we become more aware of our increasingly complex social norms and expectations and we try to find our ways of “fitting in” within it. This process is often highlighted during adolescence, a period of development marked by a growing sense of identity formation. Interestingly embarrassment also exhibits the most empathy and understanding for the exiled emotions, as a ‘self conscious’ embarrassment is tightly tied to our impression of others around us. While not scientifically tied to empathy, embarrassment shows a greater perspective taking than the rest of the newly joined puberty emotions.

Envy

Envy also plays an important role in a developing “sense of self” and “sense of place” within social structures, as the character reflects on the qualities and characteristics of others seen as valuable and desirable and tries to position Riley advantageously. Envy is shown to be connected with contempt. It is the upward/inflated comparison of another as better or having more, instead of disgust which is a downward/diminishing comparison of another being toxic. It could have been meaningful to consider contempt, which is where our negative social judgments often reside. Contempt is a feeling of superiority towards others, a judgment of being better or “one up”. Contempt and envy are likely an emotion intensified by social media which creates a perfect platform for persistent upward and downward comparison with friends and strangers.

Ennui

Ennui is an interesting addition, as it is also not considered to be a distinct emotion by many emotion scientists, though the value added to the storyline is clear. Ennui is a French word used to describe weariness, dissatisfaction, or boredom- states which are often experienced by teens, and sometimes confusing or frustrating to their parents. The character provides numerous moments of humor throughout the film, as Riley oscillates between anxious moments of overcompensating and ennui moments of  trying to “play it cool”. Ennui has obvious ties to contempt, described above, which I have often felt is a very teenage emotion. Many teens feel a sense of withering superiority towards their parents which can lead to the ennui (“no one understands and I can’t be bothered”) behavior seen in the film.

Sense of self

The movie also explores the expansion of core beliefs and sense of self, mirroring the growing complexity of identity formation and self reflection key in the developmental stages of adolescence and into adulthood. As with the first film, there is a meaningful, though scientifically inaccurate, portrayal of what is sometimes referred to in psychotherapy as our “internal working model” of self. Joy, as in the first movie, is trying to selectively curate the memories and ideas that constitute who Riley is, to be only the positive side of herself. Anxiety finds this “totally positive” view naive and hopelessly uncool, a social poison for Riley entering highschool. Anxiety attempts to create a new socially savvy working model but it is too self-centered and turns aggressive. Both Joy and Anxiety fail when they try to overly curate a sense of self. All of us (our most charismatic, empathic, as well as annoying and cringeworthy moments) are part of an ongoing narrative understanding of the fullness of who we are. 

More to explore

I can hope that Inside Out 3 could include compassion. While it is not exactly an emotion, it is a meaningful strategy for us to more fully embrace all of our emotions. Compassion meditations with our difficult emotions can help us see that ALL of us are in the same boat when it comes to our difficult emotions- and that we can be the friendly loving presence we offer to others when feeling stressed, sad, or overwhelmed. Cultivating Emotional Balance, a training I co-created with Alan Wallace and which has been led by my daughter Eve Ekman is another resource for deepening our understanding of emotions through mapping individual emotion experience and applying mindfulness to our experience. Some of these tools are also available through the Atlas of Emotion website

All in all, it was a joy to watch and feel along with Inside Out 2.

If you haven’t already, check out the original A Parents’ Guide to Disney-Pixar’s Inside Out.

Paul Ekman is a well-known psychologist and co-discoverer of micro expressions. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2009. He has worked with many government agencies, domestic and abroad. Dr. Ekman has compiled over 50 years of his research to create comprehensive training tools to read the hidden emotions of those around you.

A Dictionary of Feelings and Needs: Feedback Project

Welcome to our journey of enriching this specialized dictionary which exists to guide the exploration and expression of the complex tapestry of human feelings and needs, particularly crafted to enhance empathy, emotional literacy, and relational harmony. One post at a time, we will delve into a specific entry, sharing the definition and four synonyms from the dictionary, as well as other contextual information about the particular feeling or need to promote open exploration. Our goal is to continuously improve the quality and accuracy of the entries, and to consider words that should be added or removed to provide a richer vocabulary for your emotional intelligence toolkit. Your feedback and insights are invaluable in shaping this dynamic dictionary. Share your thoughts and help us create a living resource that truly reflects our shared human experience.

Your feedback is invaluable. Please share your insights in the comments or email us at dictionary@empathyset.com.

Let’s build this emotional lexicon together!

Embracing Emotionality: Foundational Beliefs About Our Emotions

Emotions play a crucial role in our lives, shaping our experiences, decisions, and actions. By understanding and embracing our emotionality, we can lead more fulfilling and authentic lives. Here are some foundational beliefs about emotionality that highlight its importance:

  1. Human Beings Are Emotional and Emotions Are Part of an Open System Emotions are integral to our human experience. They are not isolated or static but part of an open system that interacts with our environment, thoughts, and behaviors. This interconnectedness means that our emotional responses are influenced by and influence the world around us.

  2. All Emotions Are Valid, Despite Our Labels of Negative and Positive Society often labels emotions as either negative or positive, but in reality, all emotions are valid and serve a purpose. Anger, sadness, joy, and fear all provide valuable information about our needs and experiences. By accepting all our emotions without judgment, we can better understand ourselves and others.

  3. Emotions Provide Vital Decision-Making Information Emotions are not just feelings to be ignored or suppressed; they are essential sources of information that guide our decision-making processes. Emotions alert us to what is important, what needs attention, and what actions we might consider taking. Ignoring our emotions can lead to poor decisions and missed opportunities for growth.

  4. Emotions Provide Energy for Action but Are Not the Same as Behavior While emotions can drive us to act, they are distinct from our behaviors. Recognizing this distinction allows us to harness the energy that emotions provide without being controlled by them. We can choose how to respond to our emotions in ways that are constructive and aligned with our values.

  5. Emotion Drives Reason More Than Reason Drives Emotion Contrary to the belief that reason should always prevail over emotion, research shows that our emotions often drive our reasoning processes. Emotions provide the context and urgency that shape our thoughts and decisions. By acknowledging this, we can better integrate our emotional and rational selves.

  6. We Can Choose How We Relate to Our Feelings While we may not always control our initial emotional responses, we can choose how we relate to and manage these feelings. Developing emotional intelligence and self-awareness helps us respond to our emotions in healthy and productive ways, fostering resilience and well-being.

  7. We Change When We Allow Ourselves to Feel Personal growth and transformation occur when we allow ourselves to fully experience and process our emotions. Suppressing or avoiding emotions can hinder our development and lead to emotional stagnation. Embracing our feelings, on the other hand, opens the door to healing, learning, and change.

In conclusion, understanding and embracing our emotionality is key to leading a balanced and fulfilling life. By recognizing the validity and importance of our emotions, we can use them as a guide to make better decisions, take meaningful actions, and foster personal growth.

What Inside Out 2 Reveals About the Diversity of Emotions

The new Pixar film explores adolescence by bringing its complicated feelings to life.

BY DEMOND HILL JR. | JUNE 18, 2024

In 2015, Inside Out hit theaters and soon became renowned for its creative and scientific brilliance. In the movie, nine-year-old girl Riley moves with her mother and father from Minnesota to San Francisco, which means she needs to navigate a new life–social, school, and home.

The emotion characters from Inside Out 2: Ennui, Anxiety, Embarrassment, Envy, Joy, Fear, Disgust, Anger, Sadness

Riley’s primary emotions become characters in the movie, each with their own personalities: Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust. The story largely takes place inside Riley’s head, in a place called Headquarters, where these emotions work together to help her to find her way in a new city–and to achieve a balanced emotional state.

Inside Out is more than just an animated film. It’s a thoughtful and profound exploration of the human emotional experience, highlighting the importance of all emotions, not just happiness, for one’s positive well-being. By creatively and empathetically portraying the inner workings of Riley’s mind, Inside Out reminds us that understanding and embracing our emotions while prioritizing positive relationships fosters a sense of safety and belonging despite the challenges we encounter.

This past Friday, Pixar released a sequel to Inside Out. In part two, Riley is now thirteen years old and she’s pushed into a new development stage, which brings to life new emotions inside of her: Anxiety, Ennui, Nostalgia, and Embarrassment, each one a complex character in its own right. She is changing. Her body is changing. Her mind is changing. Her social world is changing. As time passes and interactions unfold, her body or emotions keep the score and are reflected in her everyday behaviors. On her journey, Riley feels true pain, hurt, remorse, and, most importantly, grief—the grief of her past self–and the grace required to heal, along with the challenges of unconditionally loving the new self.

As many Greater Good readers already know, Pixar turned to the Greater Good Science Center and our faculty director (and my mentor), Dacher Ketlner, for help in grounding Inside Out and its sequel in the science of emotion. And indeed, science and art converge ever so gently in these two movies, reminding us of our innermost and outer (childlike) selves. But, when you look closer to the margins, major question is raised as a critical emotion science scholar: what does the new movie reveal about the science of our emotions, and what or who was left out of the film?

The beauty of emotion science on screen

While many scientists agree that emotions are universal and inherited, more and more scholars see how they are expressed as very social. These researchers study how our daily interactions with others shape our feelings, thoughts, and actions.

In the film, Riley’s emotions are influenced by her interactions with others and her social environment, like a hockey camp with high-school girls. Riley is shown to be easily influenced by the social expectations around her. The first Inside Out movie suggests that emotions are linked to past experiences, especially in how childhood experiences shape our understanding of feelings, ourselves, and the world.

In the new movie, Riley’s emotions intensify as she tries to maintain her relationships with her best friends while trying to impress a new group of friends. This storyline demonstrates how social expectations and norms affect our emotions and behavior as Riley shifts between the two groups.

The film emphasizes that emotions are key to communication, and her emotions help Riley build and repair relationships with her peers. Emotions/characters like Fear, Disgust, Anger, and Embarrassment act as signals to protect her in different situations, like pulling away after realizing she held her friend Val’s hand for too long. Inside Out 2 clearly shows that emotions are social and serve social functions, demonstrating that our interactions, cultural backgrounds, and everyday experiences shape our feelings.

There are also sociological perspectives on emotions. In the early 1980s, sociologists focused on feelings and emotions, exploring their role in human motivation and social structures. Many argue that emotions are inherited and biological but still shaped by historical, social, and political contexts. Although Inside Out 2 doesn’t explicitly follow this sociological view, it aligns with Arlie Hochschild’s “Emotional Labor” and “Feeling Rules” concepts.

Emotional Labor is about managing feelings and behaviors to show certain emotions publicly, often to fit in or be accepted. Feeling Rules are social guidelines that tell us how and when to feel certain emotions, varying across different contexts. In the film, Riley adjusts her emotions to get positive reactions from others, and she follows social-feeling rules, which increases her anxiety.

That concept is rarely applied to children, but my own “Emotion as Play” research examines how young African American people use Emotional Labor and Feeling Rules. Watching the film, I realized that emotional labor is like a weight people carry, and they need social, emotional, and physical effort to manage it. Riley’s struggles with moving into different spheres and fitting into them show how these pressures build up over time, affecting her deeply. In this way, Inside Out 2 highlights that adolescence is a critical time when mental health issues often become more noticeable and intense.

The scientific power of the humanities

Inside Out 2 is such a beautiful display of science and art. It opens our minds to possibilities and reminds us of how central emotions are to our humanity. However, the film missed a vital opportunity to bring to light the real stars of the show, who seemed to have been pushed out on the margins. Just where are Love, Grace, and Empathy?

While some argue that love is not an emotion in the strictest scientific sense, both science and the humanities have long considered Love–along with Grace, and Empathy–as crucial to the development of communities of wellness. By using research from the humanities, we can see how they appear in the film and how they could help build families and communities that focus on mental health and well-being. Inside Out 2 hints at these deeper connections and helps us to understand what they reveal about ourselves and each other–and they led me to reflect on how the movie highlights certain concepts from science and the humanities

A Critical Love Ethic: This is a conception of love that requires truth, understanding, and acceptance. Through her various moments, Riley was forced to sit with herself–as she spent time tossing and turning in her bed alone, her mind working, her emotions intense. It seemed like the only thing that freed her from herself and the expectation of her environment was love from her best friends Bree (of African descent) and Grace (of Asian descent). These two possess what thinkers like bell hooks, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison refer to as a Critical Love Ethic.

As bell hooks outlines, Riley is suffering from the oppressive forces of societal expectation or pressure that led to the distortion of her sense of self and, most importantly, her connection to herself. Critical Love Ethic is a counter-cultural idea that argues for collective resistance to the social norms, feelings rules, and social expectations that lead to the suppression of emotions to help create a society of human flourishing. A Critical Love Ethic equates love with strength, courage, and truth, which was displayed beautifully by both Bree and Grace as they, through the power of love, bridge differences and provide Riley the reassurance to feel safe but held accountable for her behavior without further embarrassment.

Although I yearned for love throughout the film, I found my moments and rejoiced in it because I had the chance to witness young people practice a Critical Love Ethic. Integrating love into children’s or youth films is not a superficial act but a radical act of care, compassion, and belonging that will have the power to change the world around us for all.

Grace Abundance: Grace is a multifaceted concept that encompasses love, gentleness, and a sense of inner peace and disrupts traditional definitions. In many eyes, Grace is something we all need to show others and show ourselves as the world around us gets faster and more complex. Many of us have the weight of the world on our shoulders–with stress compounding and trauma continuing to increase, taking a tremendous toll on our mental health. We are sometimes hardest on ourselves –when we do not meet expectations and deadlines or show up as our best selves. Grace is the ability to slow down, get grounded, and speak life into the nooks and crannies of your imperfections–because for others, your imperfections are beautiful, too.

Riley needs some Grace (literally and emotionally) in her life to ease the weight she carries trying to be all the things all at once. But, as marginalized groups have always done due to the realities of an unjust world, we rely on unique, often not spoken or understood emotions to uplift and, at times, resist in order to thrive. Riley’s best friends extend Grace to her, reminding her that their love is unwavering, that their care is unconditional, and that it will simply be okay. It seems to me that Inside Out 2 missed an opportunity in not explicitly naming and making space for Grace in Riley’s story.

Empathetic Desires: Empathy is the ability to understand why someone feels the way they do, why they are doing the things they do, and how that is informed by who they are as an entire person (e.g., identity, lived experiences, upbringing). Empathy requires sensitivity to the world, a desire for a deep sense of connection, and acknowledgment that other people are different from you and have different feelings.

When individuals truly understand and feel what someone else is going through, they are more likely to offer support, comfort, or assistance. This compassionate response is fundamental in nurturing and sustaining personal and professional relationships. Riley, through her ups and downs, is extended empathy by those around her, even those who she is trying to impress, like her new friend Val, who was a simultaneous source of anxiety and comfort.

Despite Riley’s awkward and quirky behavior, Val is gentle to her, comforts her, celebrates her, and cares for her. She simply wants Riley to be herself and not conform to the expectations that are both explicit and implicit. In the end, Inside Out 2 reminds me of James Baldwin’s liberating words in The Fire Next Time: “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”

Demond Hill Jr.

Demond Hill Jr. is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on the mental health and emotional well-being of Black children and youth, their families, and communities.

© 2024 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Five Practices for a Healthier Emotional Life

Source: ChatGPT

Five Practices for a Healthier Emotional Life

Inside Out 2 teaches that all emotions are useful, the difficult ones included. So how do we accept and work with our feelings?

BY LAINIE ROWELL | JUNE 13, 2024

The much-anticipated sequel Inside Out 2 premieres in theaters, making it a perfect time to revisit the science behind the original 2015 Pixar hit that brought psychological research into the public eye and emphasized the importance of embracing all emotions.

I recently talked with Dacher Keltner, one of the world’s foremost emotion scientists, the cofounder and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, and the scientific consultant for the first Inside Out. His collaboration with Pixar brought the science of emotion to the public in an engaging and impactful way.

His message to the creators of Inside Out was that what we often label as negative emotions—such as sadness, anger, and fear—are not just inevitable parts of being human but are essential to our emotional and psychological health. “All of the emotions have their purpose,” says Keltner. “Even an emotion like envy can lead you to good things if you use it in the right way and don’t hurt people.”

Sadness, anger, and fear connect us deeply with others, foster empathy, and serve as crucial alerts in our lives. Rather than suppress these feelings, argues Keltner, we should acknowledge and manage them. In some contexts, we may even want to lean into these emotions. For example, we might want to leverage an emotion such as anger in competitive settings like sports or an academic debate.

Keltner’s work continued with Inside Out 2, which explores more complex emotions such as anxiety. That’s timely, given that 30–40% of young people are grappling with anxiety or depression. As the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Marc Brackett, explains, anxiety does serve a purpose, like all so-called negative emotions.

“Anxiety narrows our attention and improves our focus on details,” Brackett says. “It makes us anticipate what could go wrong. That may not seem like a feeling we’d welcome, but it’s a good frame of mind when we’re performing tasks involving numbers, such as finances.” Anxiety, while uncomfortable, prepares us for effective action by alerting us to potential dangers.

“The film arrives at a thesis that really you can find in all the great contemplative traditions, like Buddhist meditation, prayer, etc.: Be kind to yourself, be open and accepting of all human experiences,” says Keltner.

We need these emotions to guide us, serving as signals and signposts that help us stay safe—even alerting us when professional help may be necessary, especially when these intense and unpleasant feelings are pervasive and relentless.

Thus, embracing the full spectrum of emotions helps us understand their purpose and manage them effectively. According to Keltner, Brackett, and other emotion scientists, the goal isn’t to completely eliminate certain emotions but to regulate them so that we don’t have too many occurrences, can avoid overreaction, and don’t stay in those unpleasant emotions too long.

But how do we do that? Managing unpleasant emotions effectively involves more than just understanding them; it requires active engagement in practices that transform our relationship with these emotions. Here are insights and strategies I’ve gleaned from a few of my interviews with leading social scientists and my own exploration into the science.

Self-compassion: “The self-criticism that my students at Yale experience is just terrible,” says Laurie Santos of Yale University. She teaches that a better path to pursuing their goals and to motivating themselves could be through more self-compassion. She went on to share, “When they try it out, they start to realize . . . being kind to myself is actually pretty helpful and makes me procrastinate less and obviously makes me a lot happier.”

Strategy: Write a letter to yourself from a compassionate friend’s perspective. This form of psychological distancing has us using “you” and “your” and could look something like, “You’ve been pushing yourself really hard. Just a reminder that perfection isn’t the goal; progress is. Every step you take is bringing you closer to where you want to be. Keep going. You’re doing your best, and that’s enough.”

  • Self-Compassionate Letter

    Stop beating yourself up for flaws and mistakes

    Try It Now

Awe: Dacher Keltner describes awe as essential for mental and physical well-being. “There’s nothing better for you than a few minutes of awe,” claims Keltner. “It’s good for your immune system, it’s good for your heart, it’s good for your digestion, it’s good for your brain, it’s good for your sense of self, it’s good for your relationships.” This emphasizes how everyday encounters with awe can transform our lives.

Strategy: Everyday awe is attainable; we can use “awe outings” to appreciate the physical vastness and novelty in the world around us. Reflect on these transcendent moments to amplify their benefits and share the wonder with others to boost connectedness.

  • Awe Outing

    Find wonder and inspiration in the world outside

    Try It Now

Gratitude: Science reveals that gratitude can have an outsized, positive effect on well-being and relationships. Researcher Andrea Hussong suggests a practical approach to practicing gratitude focusing on “notice, think, feel, do”:

  • Notice the things in your life that you can be grateful for.

  • Think deeply about why you have been given this thing you value.

  • Reflect on how you feel about the gift you have been given.

  • What can you do to express appreciation?

The first three prompts are really about reflecting to experience gratitude, and the last prompt is a call to action to express gratitude.

Strategy: Gratitude journaling leads to better health and happiness, and there is no one way to do it. Consider using the “notice, think, feel, do” approach in your journaling to deepen the practice. We want to focus on depth over breadth and get specific on what we are grateful for. Possible topics include everyday things, family members, friends, health, coincidences, nature, experiences, tough times, places, or life lessons.

  • Gratitude Journal

    Count your blessings and enjoy better health and happiness

    Try It Now

Connection: Robert Waldinger’s research underscores the importance of maintaining robust social connections, which he calls “social fitness,” for both emotional and physical health. He shares, “‘Social fitness’ was a way to signal this is something you want to do every day, every week, small actions, just to keep in contact with the people you care about and to strengthen the connections you have with the people who are most important to you.” The power of our social bonds are not just about grand gestures, but more about the small, consistent acts of connection.

Strategy: Enhance social fitness by engaging in regular social activities, maintaining friendships, and participating in community events that cultivate strong interpersonal bonds. We can even make small talk with a stranger for social fitness.

  • Small Talk

    Strike up a brief conversation with a stranger to feel happier

    Try It Now

Kindness: “No one has ever become poor by giving,” Anne Frank famously noted, illustrating how prosocial behavior not only nurtures relationships but also plays a crucial role in our happiness. Performing acts of kindness mitigates stress and improves our mood, creating a cycle of positivity that strengthens our emotional resilience and enriches our social interactions.

Strategy: Even small acts of kindness can have a huge impact on the giver and the receiver. This could be anything from complimenting a coworker, helping a neighbor, or sending a thoughtful message to a friend. Capturing these acts in a journal can also magnify the positive results, making us more aware of our contributions to others’ happiness and our own.

  • Random Acts of Kindness

    How to feel happier by doing things for others

    Try It Now

These practices not only regulate emotions and reduce stress but also promote a greater sense of community. Keltner points out that “one of the fascinating things about the transcendent emotions—awe, compassion, gratitude, bliss, joy—is that they potentiate each other. And in a state of awe, what our studies show is people feel more generous, more cooperative, more humble, less self-focused. They’re more likely to see the humanity in other people.”

Every emotion, from joy to jealousy, sadness to satisfaction, has a purpose in our lives. As demonstrated in Inside Out and further explored in Inside Out 2, these emotions are not random but are essential components of our human experience, uniquely contributing to our personal growth and understanding.

Reflecting on the sequel, Keltner highlights a vital message: “I think [Inside Out 2] has a profoundly important message for our time about young people accepting themselves and valuing the right things, like friendship.” This insight underlines the significance of self-acceptance and the value of meaningful relationships in navigating today’s complex emotional landscapes.

Let’s actively engage with one of the strategies we’ve discussed—whether it’s taking awe outings, practicing positive self-talk, or strengthening social connections—and integrate it regularly into our lives. Learning from our emotions and applying these strategies, we can thrive, becoming more resilient and compassionate individually and collectively.

 © 2024 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

Lainie Rowell is a bestselling author, award-winning educator, and TEDx speaker. She is dedicated to human flourishing, focusing on community building, social-emotional learning, and honoring what makes each of us unique and dynamic through learner-driven design. She earned her degree in psychology and went on to earn postgraduate degrees in education. An international keynote speaker, Lainie has presented in 41 states as well as in dozens of countries across four continents. She is the author of Evolving with Gratitude and the lead author of Evolving Learner. Her latest, Bold Gratitude: The Journal Designed for You & By You, is an innovative and interactive gratitude journal that empowers individuals of all ages to embrace their unique preferences and express gratitude in their own way.

What are your Unfelts costing you?

“Jim, what are you feeling?” said the marriage counselor.

“I feel like my wife doesn’t get it,” replied our co-founder Jim Dethmer, then in his mid-20s.

A wry smile crossed the counselor’s face. He turned around, pulled a book from the shelf, and opened it to a page that listed various emotions.

“Jim,” he said, handing the book over, “From now on, whenever I ask you how you’re feeling, I’d like you to look at this page, find a feeling that matches your internal experience, and then say, ‘I feel that.’”

Sad. Anxious. Happy. Scared. Delighted. Peaceful.

This is emotional literacy: The ability to say “I feel,” followed by a feeling statement.

It sounds basic, but it’s something many of the leaders we coach never learned. Jim hadn’t.

When we first start working with leaders on this, they may only be able to distinguish “I feel good” and “I feel bad.”

The more literate they become, the more they can make accurate distinctions about their emotions and feelings.

From there, leaders can practice emotional intelligence, tap into the wisdom of their emotions, and make better decisions all around.

Why Your Feelings Matter in Leadership

While “leaving your feelings at the door” is common in workplaces, ignoring or suppressing feelings can have significant costs for leaders. Here are 7 ways not fully feeling your feelings can impact your leadership:

  1. Reduced Resilience: Leaders may find themselves less able to respond adaptively in challenging situations, as unprocessed emotions can cloud judgment and decision-making.

  2. Impaired Decision-Making: Emotional information is crucial for decision-making. Leaders who disconnect from their feelings may make choices that are misaligned with their values and the needs of their organization.

  3. Decreased Team Morale and Trust: Emotional transparency is crucial in building trust and intimacy within a team. Leaders who do not express their true feelings may struggle to form deep relationships with their team members, which are essential for creating a cohesive and supportive work environment.

  4. Stunted Personal and Professional Growth: Leaders who avoid certain emotions are likely to miss important insights and opportunities for development.

  5. Increased Stress and Burnout: Suppressing emotions can lead to chronic stress and eventually burnout, as the energy required to manage unexpressed emotions is taxing and unsustainable.

  6. Loss of Authenticity: When leaders do not fully feel their emotions, they miss out on the opportunity to be authentic. This can create a disconnect between their inner experiences and outward actions, leading to less genuine interactions with their teams and colleagues.

  7. Compromised Integrity: Fully feeling your feelings is one of the four pillars of integrity, necessary for full aliveness and energetic wholeness. Unfelt emotions can kink your energy flow, and create a sense of drag that keeps you from your full potential.

Developing Your Emotional Intelligence 

Understanding and working with your emotions is a powerful skill that can radically transform your leadership. It’s one of the fundamentals we teach all the leaders we coach. A good place to start is by reading (or revisiting) the most popular article we’ve ever written: The Cognitive Emotive Loop: What it is, Why it Keeps you Stuck, and How to Break Free.

Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, Erica Schreiber, from The Conscious Leadership Group,

The Conscious Leadership Group (CLG) is a consultancy founded by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman. We bring a radical new leadership conversation to the organizational world through coaching, consulting, forums, events, keynotes, and online resources.

On Fear and being Afraid

Source: Atlas of Emotions

 In my dictionary of Feelings and Needs, Afraid is defined as “a feeling of fear, dread, or apprehension in response to a perceived threat or impending danger.”

The following are listed as synonyms: Fearful, Apprehensive, Scared, Terrified

In this post, renown emotions expert Dr Paul Ekman provides further guidance on fear:

What is Fear?

Fear is one of the seven universal emotions experienced by everyone around the world. Fear arises with the threat of harm, either physical, emotional, or psychological, real or imagined. While traditionally considered a “negative” emotion, fear actually serves an important role in keeping us safe as it mobilizes us to cope with potential danger.

Feeling fear

The family of fearful experiences can be distinguished in terms of three factors:

  • Intensity: How severe is the harm that is threatened?

  • Timing: Is the harm immediate or impending?

  • Coping: What, if any, actions can be taken to reduce or eliminate the threat?

When we are able to cope with the threat, this lessens or removes the fear. Alternatively, when we are helpless to decrease the threat of harm, this intensifies the fear.

Fear can sometimes take place immediately following surprise and often oscillates with the experience of anger.

What makes us fearful

The universal trigger for fear is the threat of harm, real or imagined. This threat can be for our physical, emotional or psychological well-being. While there are certain things that trigger fear in most of us, we can learn to become afraid of nearly anything.

Common fear triggers:

  • Darkness or loss of visibility of surroundings

  • Heights and flying

  • Social interaction and/or rejection

  • Snakes, rodents, spiders and other animals

  • Death and dying

Moods and disorders

Persistent fear can sometimes be referred to as anxiety if we feel constantly worried without knowing why. The inability to identify the trigger prevents us from being able to remove ourselves, or the actual threat, from the situation.

While anxiety is a common experience for many people, it can be considered a disorder when it is recurrent, persistent, intense, and interferes with basic life tasks such as work and sleep.

Recognizing fear

The facial expression of fear is often confused with surprise. While both expressions show distinctly raised eyebrows, a fear expression's eyebrows are straighter and more horizontal whereas in surprise they are raised and curved. The upper eyelid is also lifted higher in fear than in surprise, exposing more sclera (white of the eye). Finally, the lips are tensed and stretched in fear but more open and slack in surprise.

Source: The Paul Ekman Group

Vocal expression of fear

When experiencing fear, one’s voice often has a higher pitch and more strained tone. One may also scream.

Sensations of fear

Common sensations include feeling cold and shortness of breath. It also may include sweating and trembling or tightening of muscles in the arms and legs.

Posture of fear

The posture of fear can either be one of mobilizing or immobilizing- freezing or moving away.

The function of fear

The universal function of fear is to avoid or reduce harm. Depending on what we have learned in the past about what can protect us in dangerous situations, we are capable of doing many things we wouldn’t typically be able, or willing, to do in order to stop the threat.

The immediate threat of harm focuses our attention, mobilizing us to cope with the danger. In this way, fear can actually save our lives by forcing us to react without having to think about it (e.g., jumping out of the way of a car coming at us). The evolutionary preset actions of fear include fight, flight and freezing.

Responding to fear in ourselves

While traditionally considered a “negative” emotion, fear actually serves an important role in keeping us safe. It can, however, also keep us feeling trapped and prevent us from doing things we’d like to. Whereas some people find fear nearly intolerable and avoid the emotion at all costs, others experience pleasure from feeling fear and seek it out (i.e., watching a horror film).

Responding to fear in others

It takes a well-developed capacity for compassion to respect, feel sympathetic toward, and patiently reassure someone who is afraid of something we are not afraid of (most of us dismiss such fears). We do not need to feel another person's fear to accept it and help them cope.

Paul Ekman is a well-known psychologist and co-discoverer of micro expressions. He was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME magazine in 2009. He has worked with many government agencies, domestic and abroad. Dr. Ekman has compiled over 50 years of his research to create comprehensive training tools to read the hidden emotions of those around you. You can read this article on his website here.

Four Ways We Avoid Our Feelings—and What to Do Instead

Avoiding our emotions is not good for our mental health. A psychologist explains how to break the habit and embrace your vulnerability.

BY SABDRA PARKER | MARCH 30, 2023

When was the last time you felt anxious, with your body braced and on edge? It could have been when your partner was late coming home and you couldn’t reach them on their cell, your computer crashed just before a deadline, your child had a full-on tantrum in the grocery store, or you were waiting on medical test results. In that moment, how did you respond?

Maybe you grabbed a bag of cheese puffs, or had a sudden impulse to tidy the kitchen, or found yourself online shopping for that incredibly useful cauliflower corer. Maybe you noticed your racing heart or shallow breathing and started to worry about having an illness. Perhaps you distracted yourself tackling 14 things on your to-do list. Or you had an irresistible urge to check your social media feeds or watch endless TikTok reels of dancing cats. Or maybe you started telling yourself threatening stories (“What if they’ve been in an accident?”; “There’s something wrong with me”; “I can’t cope”; “I shouldn’t be feeling this way”).

In my experience as a psychologist working with clients for 30 years, what is going on in these moments is we are escaping from our inner lives—and this happens when we are confronted with vulnerability. We are triggered by uncomfortable sensations in our bodies heralding emotions stirring beneath, and we do anything rather than face them.

Many kinds of suffering can arise from this. Indeed, research suggests people who avoid emotion tend to have higher pain levels, increased cardiovascular risk, and higher cancer rates, as well as increased depressionn, anxiety, and problems in relationships.

Instead of avoiding what we feel when we are vulnerable, we need to shift our approach. We need to slow down and truly feel our bodies, so we can soothe our nervous systems and access our underlying emotions. When I guide clients to do this, they are able to let go of the urgent need for certainty and control that leads to anxiety problems, release the self-criticism that leads to apathy and depression, and remain present with their vulnerability and benefit from the healthy power of emotion. And this is something you can learn to do, too.

How to recognize unrest

We are always vulnerable, with limited control over the things that matter to us. Maybe you want your brother to quit drinking or your kids to get along or your boss to stop being so critical, or you want to protect those you love from harm or you want an end to world hunger and climate change, or you want this magical moment where everyone is all together at Thanksgiving feeling so close and connected to last forever. Whether we want things we like to always stay the same, or we want things we don’t like to change, it is not entirely in our hands. And just when we are confronted with our vulnerability, a physical feeling disrupts us.

I call this “unrest”: our physical experience of vulnerability, announcing the ideal moment to tune in and spark our growth. And here is the predicament: Unrest causes nervous system activation—a knot in the stomach, braced muscles, shallow breathing, sweaty palms, faster heart rate—and the brain unconsciously interprets this as danger.

This is the moment we usually turn away—toward social media or eating or productivity—but we don’t have to. The first step in embracing our feelings is to differentiate unrest from fear and anxiety. This is not easy to do because unrest, anxiety, and fear activate the same area of the brain and feel identical in the body, despite serving very different functions.

You can recognize anxiety as the avoidant thing you do after unrest stirs you, when you are trying to distract yourself or fix the physical discomfort in your body. Anxiety lets us fantasize that we can control outcomes—the futile “if only” and “what if’s” we often linger upon. Unfortunately, our anxiety lies to us, amplifying (in my experience) our uncomfortable bodily sensations.

Fear, meanwhile, is the core emotion that warns us of immediate threat to life and limb, directing us to fight or flee. Quickened reactions, strengthened muscles, and enhanced lung capacity are lifesaving. In these instances, our physical reactions are not a problem; they are not too much or “stressful.”

If we are afraid of something in the future or the past—anticipating a dangerous possibility or recalling a past danger—we are experiencing anxiety, not fear. This is one of the hardest things for chronically anxious people to accept: that their worry is a story, a prediction, a possibility, but it is not danger.

Four ways we avoid our feelings

Becoming familiar with the ways you typically avoid and escape allows you to tune in even if you missed the initial call of unrest, letting you come home to the body, soothe unrest, and feel. Here is what to look out for.


This essay is adapted from Embracing Unrest: Harness Vulnerability to Tame Anxiety and Spark Growth (October 2022, 274 pages) with permission from Page Two Books.

Minimizing and distracting. We may brush off inner experience as “no big deal.” We might even feel our indifference to discomfort is strength, and there’s no point in feeling, especially when we cannot make outcomes bend to our will. We ignore and neglect our bodies’ signs of stress and may push through our limits until we risk exhaustion, burnout, depression, and physical illness.

For example, my client Aaron didn’t even realize how agitated and tense he was. His habit was to ignore his feelings and just push on at work, blaming himself when things went wrong. His sleep got worse and he became impatient with colleagues. He only started to seek help when his doctor insisted that his gastrointestinal problems were caused by stress.

Control and worry. Sophia came into my office for help with anxiety. “I am too uptight. I haven’t slept properly in years. I wake up at night and just can’t get back to sleep. . . . I get thinking about certain difficulties in my life and I can’t let go; my mind is like a dog with a bone.”

Sophia thought of herself as someone who was tuned in to her body. But the problem wasn’t a lack of attention, it was that she only checked in to “fix” the anxiety, to “make it go away.” Sophia was arguing with reality, feeling she should be a certain way and worrying in an effort to get control and certainty in a world that has neither.

Self-attack. If self-criticism is a deep-seated habit, you may have learned in childhood that your vulnerability leads to abandonment, after being left alone in moments of strong emotions. And so you tell yourself that if you tried harder or were smarter, a better person, more lovable or attractive or stronger or not as gullible or more patient or acted sooner…then things would go better. These lies create a harsh inner environment that can lead to flattened emotional experience, low self-worth, and potentially depression.

The emotional masquerade. If it looks like sadness and walks like sadness and talks like sadness, is it sadness? Nope. Sometimes other feelings are employed to remove you from pain. If anger was not OK in your childhood environment, you may get weepy and look sad when you get into an argument with your partner. If sadness was regarded as weak, you may appear angry and push people away when you feel sad. You may feel guilty when you feel angry toward someone you care about. These “faux feelings” can keep you stuck if you don’t access the emotions underneath.

How to embrace unrest

Embracing unrest is a journey for life, without a perfect endpoint. It’s about changing your way of being with yourself when you don’t feel good, so when unrest calls, you approach discomfort and access the power of your emotion. Below are two practices to help you rewire your brain to notice and soothe unrest.

1. What’s your ringtone? Like a telephone, unrest has a unique ringtone that lets us know it’s just for us. Our job is to learn our ringtone so we can quickly notice and respond to the call.

In a few sentences, jot down something that is troubling you. Let yourself be aware of the gap between what you want and your ultimate control over the outcome. Pick up your smartphone to video yourself as you describe your vulnerable situation. When you have described it fully, turn off the camera and play the video back.

Observe your body in the video. Be curious, and really “listen” for your ringtone. You have hundreds of muscles, and some will signal more intensely than others—you might notice tapping toes, holding your breath, a furrowed brow, fidgety fingers, or raised shoulders.

Play the video a few times to make sure you have caught all the signals of unrest that you can see. Try to identify your top three sensations of unrest.

2. Say “I DO.” This is a commitment to yourself, like a sacred wedding vow, to tune inward when you notice unrest.

Identify where you feel the sensation; locate it precisely, one place at a time—not just “My muscles are tense,” but which ones and where? Not just arms, but biceps versus triceps; not just tight chest, but where, how large an area?

Describe what you feel using words that capture the quality of your muscle tension and energy, such as:

  • bracing

  • constricted

  • tight

  • heavy

  • knotted

  • clenched

  • agitated

  • buzzing

  • fidgety

  • jittery

  • jumpy

  • fluttery

Observe one specific sensation with the intention of paying slow, deep attention. Ask yourself: “What does that feel like?” over and over.

  • If your answer is “tense,” then ask, “What does ‘tense’ feel like?”

  • If your answer is “like a shell,” then ask, “What does that shell feel like?”

Continue this process until you sense a slight release, perhaps a 20% reduction in tension, as your body registers your presence and is soothed. Rest there and feel proud of yourself.

Riding the wave of emotion

Once the body is soothed, we feel safe enough to allow space for the emotions that we have been avoiding. Having guided many clients through this process, I find that it goes something like this: Unrest heralds a moment of vulnerability; something you long for is not entirely in your hands. Your right shoulder grips and instead of ignoring it, you pause, paying careful attention to the tense muscles. After a moment of precise, warm interest, your muscles release and you feel your shoulder drop slightly. Your body registers your awareness and settles.

In that moment, your body understands that, whatever has activated the nervous system, there is no danger—because if there were, you would be focusing outward, not inward. Your body is freed from its prime directive to keep you safe. This safeness opens a channel within you that allows a wave of sadness to come through. This sadness is carrying you to a truth you have been avoiding.

Perhaps you realize you’re working so hard to get everything done but can’t do it alone. Maybe you wish you were more efficient and had more time and energy. But you are indeed only human. The sadness rises and a heavy pressure pulls on your sternum. You breathe into the discomfort as it crests and then ebbs. You find a space inside yourself where you matter. You accept yourself in your limits. You feel less alone, more capable of giving yourself patience and compassion. More able to ask for help.

You might be surprised by the vulnerable truths that emerge when you pay attention to your body:

  • “I really want this opportunity but can’t guarantee it, and that makes me mad and sad.”

  • “My body is tight because I’m facing longing and limits in our disagreement.”

  • “I value our relationship and want to speak my truth, but I can’t guarantee that my protest won’t threaten our bond.”

Getting in touch with your emotions like this can enhance your relationships and have profound mental health benefits. Research indicates that accessing emotion deepens our experience of life’s meaning, buffers stress, aids in decision making, and is a key factor in improved mental health. As well, experiencing emotion is growth-promoting, leading to higher levels of resilience and authenticity.

You are not meant to detach, numb out, avoid, and distract from the pain and beauty of life. You are meant to care deeply without clinging, controlling, or being overwhelmed. Your vulnerability is your strength, and it will grow you. Your emotions are the energy that will transform you and propel you toward your most rich and authentic life.

Sandra Parker, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and author of Embracing Unrest: Harness Vulnerability to Tame Anxiety and Spark Growth. She earned her doctoral degree at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, and is a member of the BC Psychological Association, Canadian Psychological Association, and Canadian Register of Health Service Providers in Psychology.

© 2023 The Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley

What are faux feelings and how can mediators can use them to get to the heart of the matter?

Mediators support people resolve conflict.

To do so, they need to work with emotions.

Yet, a lot of the time, the participants are not in touch with their emotions or feelings.

And are more in touch with their judgments of what the other participant did wrong.

So, when they think they are expressing their feelings, they are often revealing their judgments of the other.

I was once mediating an internal workplace conflict.

The manager and her subordinate had been friends when they worked together as peers.

She got the promotion to be the manager.

He thought someone else should have.

That was a year ago.

Now their relationship was strained.

They were in mediation.

She was sharing how he had always been so supportive of her, before the promotion.

No longer.

Now, it seemed, he was focused on second guessing and playing ‘gotcha’.

She bit her lip gently as the muscle at the end of her chin spasmed up involuntarily.

Barely perceptibly, she teared up.

And said:

“I felt betrayed!”

But is betrayed a feeling?

Some would say no.

That 'betrayed' is not a pure feeling but rather a faux feeling.

Faux feelings are also called non-feeling words.

The Asheville Center for Compassionate Communication says non-feeling words are words describing your judgment of "what others are doing to you."

They suggest that although the words feel or felt commonly precedes words like betrayed, they are not true feelings.

Rather, they are judgments of what the other has done wrong, and why they are to blame.

Other examples of faux feelings include attacked, bullied, blamed, belittled, discounted, left out, manipulated, provoked, put down and victimized.

The term faux, which suggests something is 'fake', is unfortunate as their expression provides a gateway into what is really going on emotionally.

It may not be the kindest expression, but it is often more honest.

More real.

Because, for every faux or non-feeling word, there are authentic feelings (not tainted by judgement), that point to needs not met, waiting for discovery.

So, for example, behind betrayal we often find anger, hurt and disappointment.

Suggesting the possible need for trust, dependability, honor, commitment and clarity in the relationship.

The ideal is that we express ourselves using words to describe what we noticed about our emotional sensations and the authentic feelings we associated, without judgment.

The reality, certainly in mediation, is that participants are not always capable of doing so.

And so, when they do use words like betrayed, consider seeing it as an opportunity to reframe the conversation away from judgment, and back to feelings and needs.

Here’s an image with some examples of ‘faux feelings’:

Returning to my mediation.

Using the wisdom, that behind judgments are valid feelings and needs, I was able to acknowledge the hurt and disappointment I'd seen on her face.

And through gentle probing, establish that she was angry too.

Importantly she was able to confirm her need to be able to depend on her subordinate, and restore trust.

All of this had a cathartic affect.

And contributed to a resolution that day.

So, I say yes to faux feelings.

And put them to good use.

To get to the heart of the matter.

By refocusing on feelings and needs.

To support a lasting resolution.

Differentiating Between Feelings And Faux Feelings

By John Kinyon

Feeling is awareness of inner bodily experience of sensations and emotions, versus thinking, such as “I feel like you don’t respect me,” or “I feel that you’re not listening.” Words commonly used for feelings often mix up thought and feeling (“faux feeling” language, e.g. “I feel judged, disrespected and unappreciated.”) Feelings relate to our perceptions of the world and the quality of our thinking. Feeling presence in our body and compassionately accepting our feelings creates inner connection and helps us process/integrate emotions.

The feelings and needs on this PDF Handout are suggestions only; this listing is neither complete nor definitive. It is intended as an aid to translating words that are often confused with feelings. These words imply that someone is doing something to you and generally connote wrongness or blame. To use this list, when somebody says “I’m feeling rejected,” you might translate this as: “Are you feeling scared because you have a need for inclusion?”

PDF Handout

John Kinyon has devoted his life and career to furthering human connection and cooperation around the world through empathic communication. John is co-creator of the Mediate Your Life (MYL) training program and company, based in the work of Nonviolent Communication/NVC (cnvc.org). 

More samples from the PDF file:

The Atlas of Emotions

In collaboration with the Dalai Lama, Drs. Paul and Eve Ekman created an online, interactive map of emotions to increase emotional awareness and compassion on a global front. 

The motivations behind this project are simple: we don't know what we don't know, and many of us don't know what we're feeling or why--we simply react! By expanding our understanding and use of greater emotional vocabularies, each of us will be better equipped to notice, learn from, and manage emotional triggers and responses.

The Atlas of Emotions is available for free to the public free as an online educational resource.

The Science of Emotions & Relationships | Huberman Lab Podcast #13

by Dr Andrew Huberman

In this episode, I discuss the biology of emotions and moods in the context of relationships. I focus on the science of how early infant-caregiver attachment, combined with adolescence and puberty shapes our adult patterns of attachment. I explain the three universal aspects of emotions, the reality of right-brain versus left-brain personalities, and how the roots of adult attachment are also grounded in specific aspects of puberty. I review what factors determine when puberty starts and ends, and the role of oxytocin and other chemicals in controlling how we perceive and remember others. As always, I refer to various practical tools including new tools for understanding and predicting our emotions before they occur, and neurochemicals that shape human connection.

Dr. Andrew Huberman is a neuroscientist and tenured professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. The podcast discusses neuroscience and science-based tools, including how our brain and its connections with the organs of our body control our perceptions, our behaviors, and our health, as well as existing and emerging tools for measuring and changing how our nervous system works. The podcast is frequently ranked in the top 15 of all podcasts globally and is often ranked #1 in the categories of Science, Education, and Health & Fitness.