Emotional Agility Through Difficult Times with Dr. Susan David & Jim Kwik

Welcome back, Kwik Brain. A question we get often in our private Facebook group of over 100,000 members now is this: how can you increase your emotional flexibility and your agility, especially during difficult times? And I'm excited today to have a very special guest, Dr. Susan David. Now, she's an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist, author of the Wall Street— the number one Wall Street Journal bestseller, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. Susan, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.

Oh no, this— I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time. And so we're talking, you and I, before we started recording, was talking about emotional agility. Why don't we define that for our listeners first?

Absolutely. So I'll give a very short example and then I'll give one that's a little bit longer. Emotional agility is basically the most critical skills that allow us to be healthy with ourselves. And why is this important? Because, of course, how we deal with our inner world drives everything. It drives how we love, how we live, how we parent, how we lead, and indeed how we come to difficult situations, complex situations, whether those are situations invoking, you know, pandemic or job loss or other issues that we may be facing in our lives. So emotional agility is basically these skills around psychological health. And if I have to give now a more far-reaching definition, it's really the ability to be able to be with yourself in ways that are healthy. And this involves curiosity. You know, why am I feeling what I'm feeling? Why are other people feeling what they're feeling? It involves compassion, because we live in a world that would have us always be hard on ourselves, always be hustling. And actually, what we know is that self-compassion is critical to being able to be effective in a sustained way in the world. And also courageous, because when we're taking risks, when we're taking on new opportunities, when we're having conversations that feel difficult, Or even when we are taking steps that are aligned with our values, but that feel uncomfortable, we need courage. And so these are core skills, and they are really, from a science-based perspective, absolutely essential to our effectiveness and our well-being.

So when you're talking about things like curiosity, compassion, courage, are these things that, from your research, that people could they could cultivate? I mean, this is something— is the opposite of having agility, like, rigidity?

Yes, yes. So firstly, absolutely, these skills can be cultivated. We all have every single day thousands of emotions and thoughts and even stories. You know, an emotion might be, I feel stressed, or I feel anxious or worried. A thought might be, I'm being undermined by this person. A story might be a story that was written on our mental chalkboards in grade 3 about who we are, whether we're creative, entrepreneurial, what kind of love we deserve, what kind of life we deserve. And these thoughts, emotions, and stories are normal. You know, contrary to all of the memes that you see on social media that talk about positive only and positive vibes only, in fact, it's normal to have difficult thoughts, emotions, and stories. So rigidity is when you basically get hooked or stuck in a thought-emotional story in a way that stops you from moving forward. So it's not the having of the thought-emotion story, it's that it stops you from moving forward in a way that's values-aligned. So for instance, I'm stressed, and so I bring my cell phone to the table, and now I'm not present with my family, and it's taking me away from my value of connectedness. or the story that I have says I don't really deserve to be successful, or I'm not creative. And so we don't put our hands up for those opportunities. So there's rigidity and there's agility. And of course, rigidity is something we see every single day. We're seeing it in politics, how people become very entrenched in their beliefs. But we also see it just in the way we Navigate our focus on being right, you know, when we're in an argument or even the way we buy into these stories.

So how would you explain to somebody where this— where does this rigidity come from of these thoughts or emotions, these stories? Why are people so stuck, whether it's in politics or, you know, a certain point of view? People, they clamp down and they want to validate what they know. Is it difficult to be flexible? Can people stretch like they do their physical muscles? Can they—

Absolutely, absolutely. So there are a couple of reasons that we know people become rigid. The first is that we have many norms within our culture that actually stop our ability to be flexible with ourselves and flexible in the world. And an example of this is when we have something that says, just be positive, just be happy. In order to be successful, you've just got to think positive and go for it. And what that often does is it leads people into a situation with themselves when they're experiencing struggle or when they're having a bad day, they start hustling with themselves. So they say, oh, I shouldn't feel this. At least I've got a job. I shouldn't be feeling upset about what's going on in the workplace. They push their difficult emotions aside. They try not to think about it, almost in the service of forced positivity or just getting on with it. And what this can do is it can stop us from saying, what are my emotions telling me? If I am feeling guilty, that guilt might be a signpost that I need more presence with my children and I don't have enough of it. Or if I'm feeling bored, that boredom might be a signpost that I need greater levels of learning. And when we push aside our difficult emotions in the service of this narrative that I've got to just be positive in order to be successful, actually it stops us from being flexible. So that's one reason. Another reason is that we know that when people have huge amounts of information coming at them, that this information actually leads us to become stressed and anxious. And so what you have very often is a perceptual closing. What is it that I know? What is the belief that I'm going to hold on to? And we've all experienced this. We've all had the situation where we might have a fight with someone we love, and we become so stuck on the idea of I am right and that person's wrong. And what we're often forgetting to ask ourselves is the much more important question, which is, if the gods of right came down and said, you know, you are right, you are right, you are right, you still have the choice about how do you want to act, who do you want to be in this moment.

Right.

But we get hooked on being right. And so these skills of emotional agility are skills that absolutely in very practical ways can be cultivated. And I can give you some examples of them in practice if that would be helpful.

Yeah, I'm fascinated. I'm going to deconstruct this a little bit. When somebody wants to be right, they're not asking themselves. They're asking maybe— they're asking, what do I need to say or what do I need to do? But not necessarily the intent matters. Like, who should I be? What's my outcome here? And then they can employ a level of curiosity. Or level of— or even what you were saying before, you know, when, when they lack self-compassion and they're not kind with themselves just because they're having a bad day and they feel guilty for feeling bad. And maybe these emotions you're saying are signals or these signposts that there's something to learn here as opposed to suppressing it. Yes.

Yes.

You know, what's really interesting is when you look at people trying to suppress difficult emotions, It's a little bit like, I speak about this in my TED Talk, this delicious piece of chocolate cake in the refrigerator. The more you try not to think about it, the more you think about it.

And there's a—

So, you know, yeah, there's this amplification effect. So we might think we're in control of difficult emotions when we deny, ignore, or suppress them, but in fact, they control us. And so you find this rigidity, and what it does is it takes you away from being values aligned. It takes you away from, you know, you become so focused on being right in the argument, or you're anxious about difficult feedback that you need to give someone, and so you avoid that difficult feedback. Whereas actually, if you were more curious about that emotion and you said, you know, well, I feel rage here, What is this rage signposting to me about my values, about what I care about? If you feel rage when you watch the news, that rage might be a signpost that you value equity and fairness. If you feel guilt as a parent, the guilt might be signposting that you value presence and connectedness. If you feel lonely because you are Zooming, you know, 24/7, But actually you're missing connection. And you can be lonely in a crowd. You can be lonely with a partner that you've been living with for 10 years.

And so that loneliness, if we just face into that emotion with a bit of compassion and we said to ourselves, this is tough, you know, instead of pushing it aside, this is tough.

I feel lonely.

what is this loneliness signposting to me about what I care about? That loneliness might be signposting that you need more intimacy and connection.

Mm.

And so, you know, one of the ways we become rigid is when we have ideas that emotions are somehow soft or weak or shouldn't be there. You know, that in strong people, that emotions are a signpost of weakness. Actually, you know, Charles Darwin described how our emotions are functional. Our emotions help us to adapt. So what I would encourage is when people feel something difficult, to actually ask yourself WTF. And what I mean is, what the funk? What is the function of the emotion? What is this emotion trying to tell me is important to me right now? Not so that I'm living by that emotion. Not, you know, if my emotion is telling me that like I'm upset with my boss or with a colleague, it doesn't mean I need to have it out with my boss or my colleague. Our emotions are data.

Mm-hmm.

They're not directives. So, you know, if you can face into your emotion and say, what is this data that my emotions are signposting? that can bring me closer towards creating the business that I want or the life that I want or the love that I want. That is the power then of being able to bring the best of yourself forward.

I love that so much, that emotions are data. They're not directives. And it's interesting because sometimes there's a taboo around these conversations, especially in the world of social media, where people feel like They have to— they're comparing themselves to everybody else. We were talking about mental health before we started recording. And it's so interesting that some people view emotional or mental pain as somehow less traumatic than physical pain, that it's more common. But it's certainly more common and also harder to bear. It's easier to say, like, my stomach hurts, my head hurts, my knee hurts, rather than to say my heart or my spirit feels broken.

Yeah.

And these frequent attempts to hide or suppress this internal pain, you really could increase the burden. And when you lean into curiosity or courage or compassion and you build those, then you could actually— you could thrive in difficult times. And then you get your agency.

It's so powerful. In fact, if we look at even before the pandemic, the World Health Organization was telling us that depression was the single leading cause of disability globally, outstripping cancer. outstripping heart disease. And really, you know, we need to ask ourselves as a society, you know, what is the gut punch that is being delivered to us now, and how can we step into that experience with greater levels of wisdom? And one of the ways that we do this is by recognizing that whole healthy people are not people who fight about how they feel, but rather they enter into compassion with themselves. And compassion is not something that we often talk about. We're much more likely to talk about hustling than compassion. But, you know, and it's because compassion is often seen as being letting yourself off the hook or being weak or being lazy. But we know, we know that when people experience something that's difficult, the project doesn't go well, or they've been let down by someone, or they're just feeling otherwise, that people who show up to themselves with greater levels of compassion are actually more honest with themselves, more likely to be motivated, because what they're doing is they're creating a space inside themselves that says, you know, I've got my own back.

Yeah.

And when you know you've got your own back, that allows you, just like the little child who's a toddler in a restaurant running off, looking back to see that his caregivers are there, and then giggling and exploring more. We know that when there is someone who is looking out for us, it allows us to explore and take risks, and that someone can and should also be ourselves. And it doesn't matter whether we are the CEO or whether we can't get out of bed this morning.

Yeah.

That person is about looking after yourself. And self-compassion is difficult. And so one of the first things that we're often doing with self-compassion is just thinking about, you know, if the child inside of me was experiencing this difficult thing, would I yell at them and tell them that they're weak and that they can't hack it? Or would I take them in my arms and love them? And that's really powerful.

It is.

You know, we see this daily with our students because we have so much data with students from around the world going through, for example, a speed reading program. And we have a book a week, and I encourage everybody to get Susan's book, Emotional Agility, as one of your books a week that you read. It's sometimes— we notice like after 5 or 6 days of practicing, sometimes they'll miss a day, and then people will— someone say they're so upset at themselves, and, you know, they missed this, they weren't able to practice. And then it's interesting because our other students will step up and support that person saying, that's okay, you're human. We're, you know, it's very difficult times. This is unprecedented. And so, you know, part of self-love and self-care could also be looking in the mirror and, uh, and falling in love with that person that's been through so much, but it's still standing and acknowledging how far you've come. And I noticed that people who have that point of view or their perspective, they're more likely to follow through on the course. And get the results because they're kind with themselves.

There's— and it's so powerful. It's, it's just such a kind of powerful experience. You know, one of the— although I talk about this work from the perspective of my research at, uh, you know, at Harvard Medical School and, and beyond in terms of doing emotions research, um, part of my work really is born out of my experience as a child I grew up as a white South African in apartheid South Africa, and it was a community that was committed to not seeing the other person. And I recall a little bit later on, when I was around 15 years old, my father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I remember going and saying goodbye to him on a Friday. We knew that he was going to die. And on the Monday, I went back to school because my mother had said to me, you know, with great intentions, we just need to keep a routine. And I recall, you know, going from like May to July to November, and people would say to me, how are you doing? And I would say, I'm okay, I'm okay. You know, we become the masters of being okay. And social media would have us believe that we are and should be the masters of being okay.

Right.

I wasn't okay. And it took someone, it took a teacher who said, you know, write, tell the truth, write like no one is reading. And it was this invitation to show up to myself that was so powerful. And for all of, you know, our listeners, it doesn't matter what our goal is, what it is we're trying to do, when we show up to ourselves and say, this is the experience that I'm having and be compassionate with it. But showing up doesn't end there. It's also about saying, how can I learn from this emotion? What is this emotion trying to tell me? You know, is this something that I need to step into, even if it's uncomfortable? Because that's how I actually break through. So there are different components of emotional agility, which is why at the beginning I talk about this idea about Curiosity, compassion, but also the courage to take values-connected steps.

So for all our listeners here, and you actually had a number of takeaways in this conversation, what would you recommend? What are the steps you would recommend when people are under stress or they're facing a dilemma or some kind of decision or some kind of challenge? What are some of the things that you would recommend that they do to be able to be more emotionally agile?

Such a beautiful question. Such a beautiful question. So the first is, no matter what it is, don't fight it. What you're feeling is what you're feeling. It doesn't mean that that feeling is right or wrong. It just means that's what you're feeling. So show up to yourself. And earlier on in the talk, I spoke about how— or in the conversation, I spoke about how our emotions are data, not directives. You know, what I mean by this is, imagine my son is really frustrated with his baby sister. I can show up to his emotion with compassion and with curiosity. It doesn't mean that I'm endorsing his idea that he gets to give her away to the first stranger he sees in a shopping mall. Okay, we own our emotions. They don't own us. So the first is show up to your emotions. A second part is We want to notice our emotions with compassion, but we don't want them to be driving us. And so in my book Emotional Agility, I talk about very practical ways that we can do this. And I'll give you a quick example, which is often people use very big labels to describe what they're feeling. You know, I'm stressed is the most common one.

True.

But there's a world of difference between stress and disappointment, stress and loneliness, stress, and that gnawing feeling of I'm in the wrong job or the wrong career. What we know is that when people, instead of saying I'm stressed, they actually try to get more granular with their emotions. So this is called emotion granularity, and what you're basically doing is saying, I'm calling this thing stress, but what are 2 other options here? What we know is that when people label their emotions more accurately, It allows us to understand the cause of that emotion and also what we should be doing in relation to it. So it actually activates what's called the readiness potential in our brains. Another quick example of how people can show up to their emotions but not be driven by their emotions is think about how we often describe our feelings. We say, I am sad. I am angry. What are you doing? You are basically saying, I am— all of me, 100% of me is defined by this emotion. But you are not your emotion. You are more than your emotion. You are your wisdom, your values, your intention, who you want to be in the moment. So one very powerful way we can start creating space between us and our emotions so that they're data, not directives, Is by noticing the thought, the emotion, the story for what it is. I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad. I'm noticing that this is my I'm not good enough story. Basically what you're doing is you're noticing your thoughts, your emotions, your stories for what they are— thoughts, emotions, stories. They're not fact. And then the third thing, Jim, that I would say is think about what is your emotion signposting. Beneath our most difficult emotions are signposts to the things that you care about. So imagine you've got a piece of paper and you write that difficult emotion on the one side of the paper. You know, grief, loneliness, anger, frustration, anxiety, whatever it is. Now, Probably what the typical advice, you know, in a let's all be happy world would be, turn the piece of paper over and now try be positive. What I'm going to do is I'm going to say no, turn the piece of paper over and ask yourself, what value is that emotion signposting? Grief is often love that's looking for a home. Grief is often looking for, you know, remember me, think of me, bring photographs out of me, you know, connect with me. Grief is often love looking for home. Loneliness is often yearning for intimacy and connection. Boredom, as I've mentioned earlier, is signpost often that we're looking for learning and growth. There's— these emotions are powerful. And it's these emotions that when we come to them now, instead of coming rigidly in the wrong or right or yes or no, we're now wise and we're stepping into the moment with wisdom and with compassion and with curiosity. And that is so powerful because we are able then to center ourselves in a complex world by knowing who we are and what our values are and how we can bring ourselves, you know, in a grounded way when everything else seems to be shifting beneath us.

So with that compassion and that courage and that curiosity, there's— then it takes away the judgment that we have on ourselves.

It's—

being a human is tough. You know, being a human is tough. Like, there's no recipe. There's no one way to be. And when we keep listening to the voices of everyone else telling us what we should believe and who we should be and what kind of car we should drive and what kind of book we should write, and it's like there's never— you know, social comparison is one of the most toxic psychological experiences that we can have as human beings. And how do we protect ourselves from it? We protect ourselves from it by saying, what is the heartbeat of my why? What are my values? Who do I want to be in the world? And how can I bring that front of mind? And we know that this protects us in really powerful ways.

Yeah, especially now. I think we all, you know, what resonates— and I get truth bumps just hearing you talk— it's, I call them truth bumps, not goosebumps. But we all need somebody to encourage us, to help unleash courage in us, to be able to educate us, to challenge us, to cheerlead for us. And also, if we haven't found that person yet, be that person for somebody else and also be that person for ourselves most of all.

Yeah. I mean, you use the word encourage, you know, and what is encourage? Encourage is an emotion, but of course embedded in the word encourage is courage, is the word courage. And, you know, I recall actually 10 years before my father died, before we knew that he had cancer, I went through as a 5-year-old a fear of death. Many children at around the age of 5 years old become aware of their own mortality. And I remember going into my parents' room and I would basically lie between the two of them through these very long, dark nights. And I would say to my father, promise me you'll never die. Promise me you'll never die. And my father could have tried to build some forced, false, toxic positive buffer between me and reality. He could have said things like, Oh, don't worry. Everything's going to be OK. I'm going to be around for long. He could have said those things, but he didn't. He said to me, Susie, we all die. It's normal to be scared. And that was so powerful because what I understood that he was saying to me in those long, dark nights is courage is not an absence of fear. beautiful and whole and hearty in the world is not about not having difficult emotions, never being sad, never being angry, never being anxious. Courage is not an absence of fear. Courage is fear walking. Courage is about being able to notice what it is you are feeling with curiosity and with compassion, and to do the same for others. and to take values-connected steps even when it's difficult.

Amazing. Susan, thank you so much for your time today. On behalf of all our listeners, how can people find out more about your work?

Thank you. I'm so grateful to be speaking, and just your calmness and your beauty in asking these questions, I'm so grateful. There are 3 key ways if people are interested in finding out more. The first is my book, which you mentioned. It's called Emotional Agility. And that is, you know, contains a lot of what I describe. The second is my TED Talk. It's called The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage. And then the third, which is very practical and a lot of people just love, is I've got a free emotional agility quiz at susandavid.com/learn. About 140,000 people have taken that. And it asks questions about your values, the way you think about your emotions. It's very quick, but it gives you a free 10-page report. And so any one of those are useful avenues if people have connected with these ideas.

Astonishing. I would challenge— and we'll actually put all the links in our show notes as well, as we often do, at jimkwik.com/notes, to your TED Talk, to your book, and also to your assessment as well. And I would challenge everyone to take a step right now, just to take a screenshot of this episode in whatever form you're watching, whether it's in Stitcher, it's on Spotify, it's on YouTube, iTunes, wherever it is, and tag us both on social media and share one thing you learned in this conversation. I believe when you learn with the intention of teaching somebody else, then you learn it better and you get to learn it twice. So share with your fans, your followers, your family, your friends. And that's one way of integrating it more, you know, inside of your being. So again, take a screenshot, tag us both on social media, post it. I'll repost, as I often do, some of my favorites. And I'll actually send a copy— I have multiple copies of your book— I'll send a copy to one of our listeners just as a thank you for playing along with us. Susan, thank you so much for sharing your time and your talent with us. And, you know, we need— we all need more people to step in into this, into this better version, you know, of ourselves. And we're all on this quest. And if you, you know, we keep on going along and we're still figuring out until we get to be introduced to that person.

Yeah, I think that's so wonderful. And thank you so much. And I do, I think that right now, you know, life is asking of all of us, you know, even in the midst of this challenge, who do you want to be? And such a powerful question for us to inquire of in ourselves. So thank you for having me on. I so appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

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