Dr Susan David, Harvard Medical School psychologist, author
and consultant, says we need to apply “emotional agility”: a process of
“holding difficult emotions and thoughts loosely, facing them courageously and
compassionately, and then moving past them to ignite change in your life.”
In her TED talk, The gift and power of emotional courage,
David says the worst thing you can do is try to push down your annoying
feelings.
“When we push our difficult emotions aside, we fail to learn
from them and recognise those difficult emotions contain signposts to things
that we value, and if we can pay attention to the data we can adapt.”
David says the first step is to label our emotion, so we can
separate from it. She advises using the phrase, “I’m noticing that I’m
feeling…”, such as “I’m noticing that I’m feeling sad.”
“Research now shows that the radical acceptance of all of
our emotions – even the mess, difficult ones – is the cornerstone to
resilience, thriving, and true, authentic happiness.”
When feeling difficult emotions, follow this four-step
process from Dr Susan David:
1. Show Up: Face your thoughts or feelings with curiosity
and acceptance.
2. Step Out: Label your emotions so you can detach from
them. See them for what they are, simply emotions, not who you are.
3. Walk Your Why: Use your core values to decide what to do
about the emotion. For example, if you value fairness, you may choose to have a
difficult conversation, rather than avoiding it because doing so reflects
fairness to the individual, yourself and those around you.
4. Move On: In moving forward, make small, purposeful
adjustments to align your mindset, motivation and habits with your core values.
Make sure that these tweaks are connected to who you want to be in your life.