Susan David is a psychologist on faculty at Harvard Medical School. She’s also the co-founder and co-director of The Institute of Coaching at McLean Hospital and is CEO of Evidence-Based Psychology. Have you ever gotten hooked by a difficult emotion? In other words, have you ever felt compelled to act on a strong feeling without having any space to think about your action first? If so, you will find really helpful wisdom in this episode that you can take, apply today and live a more skillful, open-hearted life.

In this episode, Eric and Susan David discuss her book, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life

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Susan David and I Discuss How to Create Emotional Agility and …

• Her book, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life
• How emotions are a guidance system and aren’t good or bad
• Learning 
• That emotions can help us adapt and thrive
• The thinking “unless I’m happy all the time, something is wrong”
• Emotional agility is when we connect with our values and move forward in action
• Emotional rigidity is when we believe the negative voice in our head and are reactive or on autopilot
• How we get “hooked” when we accept our thoughts as facts
• Strategies for getting “unhooked” 
• Recognizing our patterns and being curious and compassionate about how we’re reacting
• Understanding that tough emotions are part of life
• Shifting thing from “I am ____ ” to “I notice that I’m feeling_____”
• Choice points:  do I move towards or away from my values?
• Our values are quality of action
• Social contagion describes how we catch other peoples’ behaviors and emotions
• The power of keeping our values front of mind
• A meaningful life comes with discomfort
• How our difficult emotions are signposts for our values
• Premature cognitive commitment is when we decide before we think

Susan David Links

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Susan David, check out these other episodes:

How to Handle Emotions with Hilary Jacobs Hendel

How to Cope with Big Feelings with Liz Fosslien