What is the main message of Permission to Feel?

Permission to Feel helps us navigate our emotions and understand that they are valid and valuable.

How long does it take to read Permission to Feel?

The reading time for Permission to Feel varies, but the Blinkist summary can be read in just 15 minutes.

Is Permission to Feel a good book? Is it worth reading?

Permission to Feel is worth reading as it provides valuable insights into emotional intelligence and the impact it has on our lives.

Who is the author of Permission to Feel?

Permission to Feel was written by Marc Brackett.

Permission to Feel Summary of Key Ideas and Review

Name: Permission to Feel
Rating: 4.6 (246 reviews)
Author: Marc Brackett

Introduction

What’s in it for me? Befriend your difficult emotions and learn how to harness them for good.

Have you ever had the experience of flying off the handle without knowing why? Do you often find yourself feeling exhausted or gloomy?

Emotions influence every aspect of our lives, from our relationships to our decision-making abilities. Yet even the most intelligent of us lack vital skills in recognizing and regulating our own emotions.

A lot of us have been taught to push our feelings away, making it difficult to express how we feel. We compulsively ask others how they’re doing but don’t connect long enough to listen or give an honest answer when asked the same question.

But suppressing our emotions has serious consequences. Our feelings become magnified and distorted, which can lead to chronic stress and depression, as well as negatively affect our physical health.

The good news is that all of us can learn how to identify – and deal with – our emotions. This makes them our allies instead of enemies, arming us with vital information about ourselves and the world.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how to become an emotion scientist;
how bad behavior can be a cry for help; and
why emotional intelligence has been dismissed by scientists for so long.

Key idea 1 of 9

Learning to identify and accept his emotions transformed the author’s life.

As little kids, we freely express our emotions. But as we get older, many of us are told to toughen up and push those feelings away – with terrible results for our well-being.

The author, Professor Marc Brackett, is very familiar with that experience. As a young boy, he was in constant emotional pain. He was bullied at school and sexually abused by a neighbor who was a family friend. To make matters worse, his community socially ostracized him when the abuse was discovered.

Struggling with their own problems, his parents couldn’t provide any support – his mother was an alcoholic, and his father was always enraged. They had no idea how to deal with their own emotions, let alone his.

The key message here is: Learning to identify and accept his emotions transformed the author’s life.

Like generations before him, Marc learned to push his feelings down, hoping to make them disappear. He was so successful that he became completely numb.

But ignoring his emotions only made them stronger – and even more toxic. It affected his behavior. He did badly in school, fought with his parents, and was generally surly and misbehaved. Most people found him unpleasant and avoided him, or punished him. But nobody stopped to question why he was acting out. Until, in the author’s own words, “a miracle took place.” This miracle came in the form of his uncle Marvin.

Marvin was a teacher. Unlike other adults in Marc’s life, he really took the time to listen. He showed Marc that he valued his company. One day, he asked him a seemingly simple question: “How are you feeling?” No one had asked him that before – especially not someone who really wanted to know the answer. Suddenly, all of Marc’s sadness, loneliness, and anger flooded out of him. He sobbed and released his feelings for the first time.

With this life-changing moment, the author opened a window to his feelings; now he could finally start learning how to deal with them. Despite being painful, releasing all those years of bottled-up emotions allowed him to start connecting with himself. Thus began his journey of healing and a career dedicated to helping others deal with their emotions.

Key idea 2 of 9

Emotions help us know ourselves and how to navigate the world.

We often hear people talk about whether to follow their head – their rational reasoning – or their heart, which is their emotional reasoning. But this idea that emotions and thoughts aren’t already connected is completely misguided. In fact, emotions affect every aspect of how we think. They shape how we make decisions, how well we can concentrate, and even what we think about.

The key message here is: Emotions help us know ourselves and how to navigate the world.

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Key idea 3 of 9

Befriending our negative emotions will allow us to harness them for positive outcomes.

Who wants to feel depressed or irritable? No one! That’s why we usually hide difficult emotions with a smile. But suppressing emotions can lead to chronic stress, which has disastrous consequences on our bodies.

Extreme stress keeps the body in survival mode, making it suspend longer-term “building and repair” projects that strengthen our bodies.

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Key idea 4 of 9

Humans aren’t born with emotion skills, but we can all learn to become emotion scientists.

Say we want to get good at something like tennis or computer programming; we understand that those skills won’t just come naturally. But it seems surprising that we actually have to practice what the author calls “emotion skills” to develop our emotional intelligence. After all, we’ve had feelings ever since the day we were born. Shouldn’t we be experts by now?

Here’s the thing. We aren’t born with emotional intelligence. While some people may be naturally compassionate or sensitive, it doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to navigate their own emotions. Also, emotional intelligence isn’t linked to a person’s IQ. In fact, people with high IQs often struggle with understanding their own, and other people’s, emotions.

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Key idea 5 of 9

The RULER curriculum asks us to start gathering information by Recognizing and Understanding emotions.

Imagine your teenage child comes home from school furious and combative. She tells you that she hates you, she hates school, and she hates everything about her stupid, crummy life. Then she stomps upstairs and slams the door to her bedroom.

Her behavior is designed to push you away. She’s practically begging for a fight. But if you give in and start shouting back, you’ll miss a vital opportunity to find out what’s actually going on. What’s made your daughter feel so enraged? Where is this sudden hostility coming from? It may not seem like it, but her behavior is flagging an urgent cry for help.

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Key idea 6 of 9

Labeling strong emotions with accuracy and specificity makes them less scary.

What would happen if your Starbucks barista asked how you were doing, and you replied honestly? Imagine you told him that, actually, you’re experiencing a sense of simmering anxiety and deep grief tinged with hopelessness?

The next time you went for your frappuccino, chances are he would smile nervously before scuttling away. The reality is, even though we ask people how they're doing, we don't really want to know. And our limited vocabulary for our own emotions makes it difficult to describe them beyond “Fine,” “Busy,” or just “OK.”

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Key idea 7 of 9

Expressing and Regulating our emotions will allow us to manage situations that trigger us.

Babies are screaming balls of emotion. Even without words, they let us know exactly what they need. If they weren't able to boldly demand food, warmth, and touch, they simply wouldn't survive.

But as we grow up our emotional needs become more complex – and so does our ability to express them. We may have language and a much larger vocabulary than a baby. But we also have the ability to hide our feelings.

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Key idea 8 of 9

Regulating our own emotions helps us teach our children how to deal with theirs.

After teaching an emotion seminar for parents, the author was approached by a woman seeking advice. She was very worried about her son, who threw things out of anger and didn't regulate his emotions. She asked if she should take him to a psychologist. After providing a few strategies, the author was shocked to discover that the son was only eleven months old!

We often have wildly unrealistic expectations of how children should process emotions. When they're very young, children feel things with extreme intensity. But they have no control over what they're feeling, nor any way of regulating their emotions.

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Key idea 9 of 9

Using the RULER curriculum can cause an emotion revolution in our schools and workplaces.

Imagine schools equipped with teachers who have the time and training to engage with their students. Or companies that are booming with motivated employees who feel safe to collaborate freely.

We know that emotion skills help us on a personal level and in the home. But that’s just the start. Applying these skills in our schools and workplaces can transform how we learn, teach, and lead as a society.

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