Mark: Have you ever been asked, "How are you?" and replied "Fine," when what you really meant was "overwhelmed," "anxious," or even "devastated"? Michelle: All the time. It’s the standard social contract, right? You ask, I say fine, we move on. No one gets hurt. Mark: Exactly. But what if that small, polite lie is part of a much bigger problem—a collective denial of our own feelings that's fueling burnout, anxiety, and disconnection in our society? The author of today's book, Marc Brackett, argues that we've all been raised to be "emotion judges" instead of "emotion scientists," and it's costing us everything. Michelle: And that's a powerful distinction. A judge passes sentence—'this feeling is bad,' 'that one is weak.' A scientist just observes, gathers data, and seeks to understand. Today, we're exploring Brackett's book, Permission to Feel. It's a guide to making that very shift, from judging our emotions to understanding them. Mark: And we're going to tackle it from three angles. First, we'll uncover the staggering, hidden cost of our collective emotional silence. Michelle: Then, we'll unpack the practical, five-step toolkit for becoming an "emotion scientist" of your own inner world. Mark: And finally, we'll see how applying these skills can fundamentally transform our most important relationships at home and at work. This isn't just about feeling good; it's about getting smart with our feelings.

Michelle: So Mark, let's start with that cost. The book opens with some pretty alarming statistics. This isn't just a personal, 'I feel bad today' problem, is it? Mark: Not at all. It’s a societal crisis hiding in plain sight. Brackett lays out the data: anxiety disorders affect 25% of teenagers. Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Over half of all US employees are disengaged at work, costing businesses billions. And globally, negative feelings like worry, sadness, and anger are up 27% in the last decade. These aren't isolated issues; he argues they are symptoms of the same core problem: we have systematically devalued and suppressed our emotional lives. Michelle: It’s like we’re all running on an operating system with a critical bug, and we just keep trying to restart the computer instead of fixing the code. The bug is our inability to process emotion. Mark: Precisely. And for the author, this isn't just academic. He grounds this huge societal problem in his own deeply personal story. He describes a childhood in the 1970s filled with fear and anxiety. He was bullied relentlessly at school, and at home, his parents, though loving, were completely unequipped to handle his emotions—or their own. He was even sexually abused by a family friend. He felt completely alone, unseen, and unheard. He calls it entering 'emotional lockdown.' Michelle: A term that I think so many people can relate to. That feeling of just shutting down because it's too much to handle and there's no one to talk to. Mark: And he stayed in that lockdown for years, until one day his Uncle Marvin, a teacher who was different from the rest of the family, sat him down in the backyard, looked him in the eye, and asked a simple, life-altering question: "Marc, how are you feeling?" Michelle: And that was it? That was the key? Mark: That was the key. He said for the first time, someone gave him the permission to feel. He just broke down and let it all out. That one question from one caring adult changed the entire trajectory of his life and set him on the path to becoming one of the world's leading researchers on this very topic. Michelle: The power of that question is immense. It cuts through the noise. It’s the opposite of the advice so many of us got growing up, which was basically, "suck it up." Mark: Right! And that’s the paradox, isn't it? We're told to 'suck it up,' but the feelings don't disappear; they just go underground and fester. What Brackett is suggesting is that we need to learn how to un-suck it. To let the feelings out into the open where we can actually deal with them. Michelle: I love that framing. It’s not about wallowing; it’s about processing. It’s emotional hygiene. Mark: And it’s a skill that even the most hardened people can learn. He tells this amazing story about training a group of school administrators. One principal was incredibly skeptical, a real tough-guy type. He thought all this 'feelings talk' was a waste of time. But after two days of the training, the principal came up to Brackett and said, "I realize now that I didn't know what I didn't know. The language of feelings was foreign to me." And then he said, "So, thank you for giving me the permission to feel." Michelle: Wow. That’s a transformation. It shows that this isn't about being 'soft.' It's about being aware. It’s a form of intelligence that we’ve ignored for far too long.

Mark: And that 'permission' is the first step. But once you have it, what do you do with it? This is where the book gets incredibly practical and introduces the idea of becoming an 'emotion scientist.' Michelle: I love that term because it immediately takes the judgment out of it. A scientist doesn't get mad at the data; they just observe it and try to understand what it means. And Brackett gives us a framework for doing just that with our emotions. It’s an acronym: RULER. Mark: Let’s break it down. The first R is for Recognizing emotion in yourself and others. It’s about pausing and checking in. Not just your thoughts, but your body. Is your jaw tight? Are your shoulders up by your ears? Are you feeling a pit in your stomach? Michelle: And recognizing it in others, too. Reading the non-verbal cues—the facial expressions, the body language, the tone of voice. The book makes the point that words can lie, but physical gestures rarely do. Mark: The U is for Understanding the cause. This is the detective work. Why am I feeling this way? What triggered this? It’s about peeling back the layers. You might feel angry, but the root cause could be disappointment or humiliation. Michelle: Which leads perfectly to L, for Labeling. This is about getting specific. Instead of just 'good' or 'bad,' or 'stressed,' can you find the precise word? Are you 'annoyed,' 'frustrated,' 'enraged'? Are you 'content,' 'joyful,' 'ecstatic'? The book has this fantastic quote: "If you can name it, you can tame it." Mark: That quote is backed by neuroscience! Studies show that when you put a precise label on a strong emotion, it actually reduces activity in the amygdala—the brain's alarm center—and increases activity in the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for regulation. Just naming the feeling gives you power over it. Michelle: It’s like turning on a light in a dark room. The scary monster you imagined is just a pile of laundry. And the book offers a great tool for this: the Mood Meter. It’s a simple grid. The horizontal axis is pleasantness, from low to high. The vertical axis is energy, from low to high. Mark: So the top right quadrant, high pleasantness and high energy, is yellow—that’s where you feel ecstatic, excited, joyful. The bottom right, high pleasantness but low energy, is green—that’s calm, serene, content. The bottom left, low pleasantness and low energy, is blue—that’s disappointment, sadness, despair. And the top left, low pleasantness but high energy, is red—that’s anger, anxiety, fear. Michelle: It’s a brilliant tool because it forces you to move beyond 'good' or 'bad' and get more granular. It helps you label with nuance. But then comes the 'E' for Expressing, and this is the real hurdle for most people, right? It's a co-skill. It's like tennis; you can't really do it alone. You need someone on the other side of the net who's willing to receive the ball. Mark: Absolutely. And that’s where so many of us get stuck. We're afraid of being judged, of burdening others, of being seen as weak. He shares a story about a student from the Parkland shooting who said, "I want to share how I feel with my mom, but she's under so much stress, I don't want to bother her." That's heartbreaking. Michelle: It is. And it leads to the final letter, R, for Regulating. This is what you do with the emotion once you’ve recognized, understood, labeled, and expressed it. And this is where most of us get it wrong. We skip the first four steps and jump straight to regulation, which usually means suppression or distraction. Mark: He’s clear that regulation isn’t about getting rid of the feeling. It’s about choosing a helpful response. It could be mindful breathing, taking a walk, reframing your thoughts, or even, yes, sometimes distracting yourself. But it’s a conscious choice made from a place of awareness, not a knee-jerk reaction from a place of avoidance. Michelle: It's a complete system. And when you see it laid out like that, you realize emotional intelligence isn't some mystical gift. It's a set of skills. It's a process you can learn and practice.

Michelle: Exactly. And that brings us to our final point: taking these skills out of the lab and into the messy reality of our lives—at home and at work. Because this isn't just an individual project. Mark: No, it’s about changing the emotional ecosystems we live in. And the book offers a powerful tool for families called the "Family Charter." It’s a collaborative document where the whole family agrees on how they want to feel in their home. Michelle: So it’s not just a list of rules, like 'clean your room.' It’s about feelings. Mark: Right. The family sits down and asks, "What are the top three or five feelings we want to experience here every day?" Maybe the answer is 'respected,' 'safe,' 'creative,' and 'loved.' Then, the next question is, "Okay, what behaviors will help us feel that way?" And just as importantly, "What behaviors get in the way?" It becomes a living agreement that everyone, parents and kids, can point to. Michelle: That’s revolutionary. It gives kids a voice in the emotional culture of their own home. Mark: It does! He tells this incredible story of a father who was a participant in one of his workshops. The dad admitted he had exploded at his six-year-old son, David, for bothering him during an argument with his wife. He sent the boy to his room, full of rage. The next morning, he found a note on the kitchen table. It was from his ten-year-old son, Jason, written to his little brother. It was a step-by-step guide for how David could manage his feelings, using the RULER skills Jason had learned at school. The note ended with, "P.S. I think we should create a Family Charter." Michelle: Oh, wow. The student becomes the teacher. That must have been a gut punch for the dad. Mark: A total gut punch. He said he realized in that moment that he and his wife had been terrible role models. That note from his ten-year-old son completely changed their family dynamic. They created the charter. Michelle: And that same principle applies directly to the workplace. It's about creating a 'Workplace Charter.' The book has this great story about a woman running a major nonprofit. She was brilliant at her job but was being emotionally crushed by the chairman of the board. He was dismissive, overbearing, and constantly made her second-guess herself. She was anxious, depressed, and ready to quit. Mark: A classic case of a toxic work environment. Michelle: Exactly. But instead of just quitting, she used a RULER strategy called the "Meta-Moment." It’s a four-step process: Sense the trigger, Stop and take a breath, See your 'best self'—the person you want to be in that moment—and then Strategize and act. She didn't just react. She paused, envisioned the calm, confident leader she wanted to be, and then scheduled a meeting with the chairman. Mark: That takes incredible courage. Michelle: It does. And in that meeting, she calmly expressed how his behavior made her feel and the impact it was having. She didn't accuse; she just stated her emotional reality. It completely changed their relationship. He had no idea he was having that effect. The book is full of data showing that supervisors with strong emotion skills have teams that are 50% more inspired and 40% less stressed. This isn't just 'nice-to-have' stuff; it's a core leadership competency.

Mark: So we've seen the crisis of emotional suppression, we've learned the RULER framework to become emotion scientists, and we've seen how it can transform our homes and workplaces. It’s a powerful arc from problem to solution to application. Michelle: It really is. It reframes emotional intelligence from a passive trait to an active, learnable skill set. It gives you a map and a compass for navigating your own inner world, which is a landscape most of us are forced to wander through without any guidance at all. Mark: It’s about moving from being a victim of your feelings to being the author of your emotional life. Michelle: I think that’s the perfect way to put it. The book ends with a call for an 'emotion revolution.' But maybe the revolution starts smaller. The next time someone asks you how you are, what if, instead of the automatic 'fine,' you took a moment to actually check in with yourself? And more importantly, the next time you ask someone else, what if you created the space to truly hear the answer? That simple shift might be the most revolutionary act of all.