Dealing with Feelings: A Conversation With Dr. Marc Brackett

27:41Shoulders, arms, legs, face last. All right, here we go. You can also ask your kid which sunscreen they'd like to use. I love that Pipette offers mineral spray, lotion, and stick sunscreen. And it's made with squalene, which helps keep skin moisturized so it doesn't have that dry, chalky feeling that kids often push back on. I'll even ask my kids to put sunscreen on me. Here's the reframe. Sunscreen doesn't have to be a power struggle. It's a chance for your kid to have some agency. You can get 15 % off Pipette's full line of SPF products with the code GOODINSIDESPF at pipettebaby.com. One thing I notice with parents all the time, and honestly with myself too, is how often we all just feel depleted.

28:23I mean, parenting asks a lot of us. We're making decisions all day, navigating big feelings, and keeping everything moving. It's draining. I want to tell you something I do that both helps me stay hydrated, but honestly also feels like a form of self-care. I always have an Element drink mix in my bag. Instead of just carrying snacks from my kids, I go to this when it's 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 8 a.m., and I'm tired and it's something for me that helps me feel taken care of and honestly makes me feel better. Element is a zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix that helps support hydration without the sugar and artificial ingredients you'll find in so many sports drinks.

29:02It is truly part of my daily routine, and it makes a difference. If you want to try it, Element is offering a free eight-count sample pack of their most popular flavors with any purchase. Just go to drinkelement.com slash goodinside.

29:20So a couple things for further defense of Mark Brackett. I'm a big Mark Brackett fan. Okay, so I think there are extremes. and what often happens when we have one extreme and we reject it is people immediately go to the other extremes they're rarely the right answer right the right answer is usually something more nuanced in the middle and it is becoming increasingly hard to hold multiplicity and nuance right which probably relates to this kind of claim you know self-awareness is self-indulgence i think we used to have a world of kind of kids feelings who cares who cares yeah get your act together, move on.

29:58Kids feelings don't matter. And I do think not your work. There has been a misunderstanding and an overcorrection to the other extreme. Yes. Where one extreme is kids feelings don't matter. The other extreme is kids feelings dictate reality or dictate what the whole family does. So now we've gone from feelings not matter to feelings overpowering everything else. They're both unhelpful extremes. And I think what you're saying, which is my perspective too, teaching kids how to manage their feelings is in the service of making them more capable. Correct. I mean, you can't always get what you want.

30:37Exactly. When you're a kid or when you're an adult. Yes. And frustration tolerance is important. Delayed gratification is important. All these things are important. But self-awareness is really important. Yes. Because if you don't know how you're feeling as a kid, especially like I was a kid who was, I didn't have language. Nobody taught me the words. I was trapped with my feelings and I didn't feel safe and comfortable talking about them. And as we know, especially for kids, they shouldn't worry alone. Yeah. You should not worry alone. No. And just because - Aloneness is the enemy. Exactly. And so by sharing what you're feeling and being clear about it, because another big thing, just going back to this whole thing, is that people misunderstand behavior for emotion.

31:22So I come in, I hate you and I don't wanna go to school tomorrow. And all of a sudden the parents triggered and they say things like, who do you think you were talking to me that way? Stop being so angry. When in my case, it was that the kid spit on me on the bus and I'm feeling such deep shame and fear that I don't wanna go to school tomorrow. But I've only learned because daddy's a tough guy to yell, scream and say, I hate school and I hate you. But then I get sent to my room because I'm engaging in bad behavior that, you know, in that instance, my mother was not really skilled at co-regulating.

31:55And so the best thing to do is trigger, get out of my face. And there I was, you know, ruminating in my room about my fear of going to school tomorrow when no one knew how I felt. And if they really knew how I felt, they probably would have had a better intervention. Well, no, I'm so sorry that happened to you. I mean that. Yeah. I mean, thank you for sharing. I'm glad I supplemented it into a career of teaching this stuff. Me too, for everyone's sake. And sorry, that happened in the first place. And maybe actually, I think it would be helpful to take that example because it's so common, right?

32:29Let's just start with the words. Some version of I hate you or even just I'm not going to school today, right? Okay. I think it might be helpful to outline. We could play around together. Yeah. A version of my kids' feelings don't matter. a version of my kids feelings dictate reality and what the whole family or what they do and then kind of where do kids feelings matter and where can we help our kids access their capability yeah which which extreme do you want to take first well first i have to say the feelings always matter yes those always matter the first example i think is sort of like the dismissing like i um and what What I found in my research, by the way, which is relevant to your community, is that the number one reason why parents don't ask their kids about their feelings is fear.

33:16And it's fear from multiple perspectives. But the primary one is that they are afraid of not knowing what to do. Yeah. And so what do you do when you don't know what to do? you go to automatic habitual former ways that you learn things, which is my mother's way of like, I'm going to my room and you're going to your room and we're not talking. That's the extreme, right? That's like, suck it up. You know, you're on your own kiddo. Yep. Doesn't usually help. Right. And I think that's what a lot of kind of parents tell me like, well, that's how my parents would have handled it. You know, growing up, you're going to school, stop being ridiculous.

33:52You're being dramatic. You're going to make me late for my job. I'm going to get fired. We're going to have no money. I don't know. It was just like some litany. I mean, there's no relationship there. That's like, that's right. There's no relationship. And in some ways in that moment, you also have no curiosity. Your curiosity is shut down. I have no curiosity about what's underneath. Maybe the problem isn't my kid saying they're not going to school. Maybe that's just represented, representative of some bigger problem. They're actually struggling with. The behavior, you know, there's, there's a symptom.

34:21Yes. So that's one extreme. Yeah. What's the other extreme that you also want to make sure you're like, this is not what I'm talking about. Oh my God, honey, what went wrong? Oh my God. I can't handle this. Oh my goodness. Let's, we have to, you know, let my God, let's go. Let's, you know, like that kind of overdramatic reaction. And I think another version of that is, okay, let's sit on the couch and cancel our plans. You're not going to school today. We're going to talk about how you feel for the next eight hours instead. Right. And actually you're reminding me of something. I wrote this op-ed and I decided not to submit it after the last election when a school here in New York City wrote a note saying that if the kids were not up to it, they didn't have to come to school.

35:03After the election, yes. Yeah. And I was like, that is not emotional intelligence. You have to go to school. Period. I mean, you have to learn how to, life does not go always in the direction that you want it to go. And I think what collapses in that example and in my example is there's emotions mattering with the collapse of capability. And I think as a parent, I always say like so much of dealing with kids' distress and anxiety is holding two things at once as a parent. I believe you and I believe in you. Yes. And if we lose the I believe in you part. A hundred percent. It's also really overwhelming and feels dangerous for a kid because they're like, well, I'm overwhelmed by this.

35:43My parent is overwhelmed. Like, where do I start and you end? But what you're doing there is you're instilling a growth mindset in terms of that. And around emotion regulation in particular. So if your kid is like doing a climbing thing and they're, oh, I think I'm going to fall. You're like, honey, I'm watching you. And I understand that you're feeling afraid. I would be afraid too. It's a little scary the first time, but I know you can do this. And so I'm going to stand there. I'm going to watch you. I'm even going to coach you a little bit. But I just know that you're going to be able to do this.

36:12I got you. That second part, the and I know, I often visualize, you know, I need to see a more capable version of my kid than they can access themselves in that moment. Because if I can't see that for them, like they're not going to get that from me. And so, okay, so what's in the middle? So we have a kid. I'm not going to school today. Right? So let's say we're like, okay, not doing the two extremes. Yeah. It's like, honey, tell me what happened. What's going on? And it's not this four hour conversation. conversation it's really getting to know the experience you know honey i did notice that your facial expression was different today so my hunch is that maybe something happened at school yesterday can we chat about it and then you're in learning mode but the learning mode is not to then say well like you should you know suck it up or like oh my god the learning mode is to help engage in problem solving mode i have something that a new research finding that you're gonna love so in my research when i've interviewed now i'm gonna say 15 000 people about their childhoods about the people who created the conditions for them to kind of thrive there are three characteristics the verse is non-judgmental and as we know people i think most of us felt judged from the moment we came out of our mother's womb just to be blunt you know like you're not smart enough.

37:35You're too dark. You're too light. You're too tall. You're too short. Your nose is too big. You know, whatever it is, it's like, it's just endlessly judged. And people will say, I just want to be around someone who doesn't judge me. Please don't judge me. The second is the listening piece. Can you just listen, please? Don't jump in all the time. Just listen. And the third is compassion. Now, importantly, what I want to say about this is that in the thousands of people that I've studied, no one ever says that the person who created the best conditions for them when they were young was smart or a problem solver.

38:12I find that incredible because I don't think people are looking for other people to fix them. I think people are looking for people to create the conditions for them to thrive and to ask them good questions so they can develop the critical thinking skills to then problem solve for themselves. And I don't think that we create the conditions for that as much as we should. And by the way, only one third of 15 ,000 people that I studied said they had someone like that when they're growing up. I don't know if I'm unable to snap. We could talk about that later, but I've never wanted to snap. I really felt the urge to snap.

38:49I knew it for you. Yeah. I was just showing off, but okay. You can cope. Yeah, I can I can. I can do hard things.

39:00One thing I notice with parents all the time, and honestly with myself too, is how often we all just feel depleted. I mean, parenting asks a lot of us. We're making decisions all day, navigating big feelings and keeping everything moving. It's draining. I want to tell you something I do that both helps me stay hydrated, but honestly also feels like a form of self-care. I always have an element drink mix in my bag. Instead of just carrying snacks for my kids, I go to this when it's 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 8 a.m. and I'm tired and it's something for me that helps me feel taken care of and honestly makes me feel better.

39:36Element is a zero-sugar electrolyte drink mix that helps support hydration without the sugar and artificial ingredients you'll find in so many sports drinks. It is truly part of my daily routine and it makes a difference. If you want to try it, Element is offering a free 8-count sample pack of their most popular flavors with any purchase. Just go to drinkelement.com slash goodinside. I'm not putting on sunscreen. You can't make me. Look, I get it. Your kid won't listen when you tell them SPF matters. That's why I'm excited to partner with Pipette to show how to use their sunscreen line to turn mom no into a moment of connection.

40:14Put yourself in your kid's shoes for a minute. Imagine you're excited to go outside and right before you walk out the door, someone starts putting their hands all over you. You wouldn't like it either. So here's the secret. Get your kid to participate. I'd start by telling my kid what's coming. All right, we're going to put on sunscreen in a minute. Here's the order. Shoulders, arms, legs, face last. All right, here we go. You can also ask your kid which sunscreen they'd like to use. I love that Pipette offers mineral spray, lotion, and stick sunscreen. And it's made with squalane, which helps keep skin moisturized so it doesn't have that dry, chalky feeling that kids often push back on.

40:52I'll even ask my kids to put sunscreen on me. Here's the reframe. Sunscreen doesn't have to be a power struggle. It's a chance for your kid to have some agency. You can get 15 % off Pipette's full line of SPF products with the code goodinsidespf at pipettebaby.com.

41:15You know, no one's saying the adult that really helped the most is smart or a problem solver. and how, you know, we don't really want to be fixed. The other part of that that I think is so powerful for parents to remember is when you see your kid as being able to be capable, as being able to be resilient, you set up conditions for them to access that in them. Correct. Every time we say to our kids, like, let me do that for you or I'll fix this, whether it's literally opening the Play-Doh jar or it's you weren't invited to that birthday party, I'm just going to create a slumber party for you on that same date.

41:50We're going to invite more people and it's going to be more fun. We're actually saying to our kids, I don't think you are capable of coping with this, which is the mirror of they take in. And so you're bringing up another piece of the research, which I just remembered, which is the second factor is time that nobody has the patience to like that. Let their kids figure it out. They just want to get it done for them. I know. It's like, you know what? Honey, just do that. Let me know. Move on. Like, just, just go say, go say you're sorry, go apologize. and it's you know saying you're sorry doesn't really mean anything as we know and so just like we just want it to be done so we can go back to our phones or you know or do something else and people don't have the patience to be present you know i've been talking about this a lot and it's resonating because i think it goes to what you're saying that the most underutilized parenting strategy in a hard moment is doing nothing yes right and i tell people you should think about doing nothing with a capital D and a capital N because then you won't think I'm just doing nothing no no you are choosing doing nothing it's like a very hard strategy to use in 2025 yes you wait and you trust and the apology is such an interesting one because I have a kid who if in the moment you say like are you gonna say sorry I mean shut down completely but if you wait and trust and do nothing the authentic apology that comes from him is the best apology I've ever heard from a kid.

43:13But you have to, you actually have to trust yourself and your kid more than you trust that exact moment, which is hard. It is. And I find another piece of this is the role modeling is, you know, I joke about this, but my mom had a phrase, this is the 1970s phrase, probably where whenever things would go wrong, she's like, I'm going to have a breakdown. And I caught myself a couple of years ago on a flight and I was like overwhelmed. And somebody I'm like, I'm having a breakdown. And it's, you know, I picked it up. And so we're picking up the strategies, obviously, that our parents are, everyone is showing us.

43:52And so, you know, if you're not, and this is the, I think this is where the explicit versus the implicit learning happens. Whereas if we're modeling healthy self-talk, if we're modeling healthy reaching out for support, you know, I give an example a lot with, cause you know, in my research, by the way and i my hunch is that you got a lot of moms who listen we got to get more dads on this my my goal you know for this new journey with my book dealing with feeling is to get more dads involved because i have found that um only three percent of people think of their father as the person who gave them permission to feel three percent that's a it's a very i mean to me it's an alarming statistic that no one sees their father as the person who gave them that permission to feel.

44:42And so the point of me telling you this is people think this is like such hard work to be a good role model, but imagine this, I'm daddy and I had a really rough day at work, like just a rough day at work. Like I got into a fight with a colleague and I'm irritable and I come home and you're there as my daughter and you're like, daddy, I want to play, daddy, I want to play. and daddy is like not in the mode to play. And so what my father would have done would be like, you know, honey, get out of my face, you know, or go to your room or go watch television or, you know, go get a snack. But what if it looked a little different?

45:17What if it was, honey, I recognize you want to play. And I just want to let you know, daddy had a really rough day at work. Actually what happened is I said something that was not kind to one of my friends at work and I feel terrible about it. And I need a little bit of time to just think about what I'm going to say to him tomorrow. and if it's okay with you, I want to be with you, but now it's not the best time. I just need a few minutes to just kind of settle and think about it. And then when I come back, we'll go take that walk or we're going to play that game. So what did I do there? A, daddy has strong feelings.

45:50B, daddy's okay sharing those feelings. C, daddy's reflective. D, daddy problem solves and thinks about like solutions. E, daddy sometimes needs a little space to, you know, reflect and think through things. All that happened in a matter of a minute. Yeah. But people don't think that that's the right thing to do for some reason, or they don't think that actually saying it out loud to their kid is actually teaching them. You know, I think there's also confusion. I'm not supposed to cry in front of my kids. I'm not supposed to put my emotions onto my kids. Yet putting your emotions onto your kid, ironically, probably comes from not managing or verbalizing your emotions.

46:30So they do kind of almost come out of your head and they come out onto other people. And you're really talking about regulating out loud. Exactly. Actually, you reminded me of a, I have, you know, I do so much public speaking that I get these people come up to me. And so a lot of dads come up to me afterwards, like, dude, you're vulnerable. And I'm like, yeah, but it took me, you know, I was 49 by the time I was like public with my whole life story. So, you know, it takes time for people. Don't worry. but you know and I share a lot about the terrible bullying that I had and this one dad came up to me and he said you know Mark I could never share what you shared with us if it were me to my kid and I said well tell me why and he said well my kid would think I was weak and I said can we just pause for a minute and just chat and I said well what if your kid was being bullied right now.

47:27How do you think that approach, you know, would help or not help your kid? And then the guy started crying with me and he's like, yeah, you know, it just, I just never really learned, you know, this vulnerability thing, this sharing, you know, my, what happened to me as a kid, I just never learned it. And I've been stuck with not expressing it for 40 years or 30 years. And I just don't, I don't have the skill. And it goes back to, again, the skill. The skill and the truth is anytime we do something new and anytime we do something new that's completely different than all the generations before us, it's going to actually feel scary because our body is doing something for the very first time.

48:04It's unknown. It's going to be awkward. And so I think that's such an important piece of it. Okay, I'm going to talk about the rough day I had and just name that and say I need space because I'm feeling frustrated and I need a little time. When your body starts, I don't know, having a racing heart at the thought of doing that, I feel like our brain tries to make sense of that by saying, I shouldn't do that. But actually, your brain can make sense of it differently. I've never done this before. Of course, my heart is racing. That's not a sign I'm doing something wrong. It's a sign I'm doing something new.

48:32Yeah. And actually, now you're reminding me of another area of research of mine, which is kind of studying this concept of becoming the best version of yourself. And so it's an exercise that I think it's very helpful for parents to do, which is just to take a moment and imagine how you want to be seen and talked about and experienced. So if I would ask you that, Dr. Becky, as a mom, think about the attributes of the mom that you want your kids to see, that you want your kids to experience. Present, connected, curious. Yeah. Same team. Nice. So present, curious, connected, same team. And so in the moment when your kid is like getting under your skin, it's hard to show up as present, connected, et cetera.

49:25But what if tonight before you walk into your apartment, you take a deep breath and you say, I've set a goal. I'm a mom who wants to be seen as connected, you know, as present, et cetera. and then kind of just visualize that as you walk through the door do you think that would yeah i think you're talking about the essence of re-grounding ourselves in our values exactly and when we're you know with the world when we're on social media when we're running on the subways and we're coming home and we're hectic and we're thinking oh my gosh i have this work to do yet and i got to make dinner and then i got to put the kids to bed and i got to do this problem solving for tomorrow blah blah blah blah blah and then we get activated those values and that version of ourself gets dismissed.

50:11And so it's a practice. Yes, it is. Just like yoga. Exactly. Never ends, right? And I have, you know, I do a lot of work here in the city as you do. And I have a friend who's a principal of a school downtown and he takes the bus in from Brooklyn and he drives by the Empire, the Statue of Liberty. And he uses that as his method. Yeah. And he looks at the Statue of Liberty and he reminds himself of the principal he wants to be, you know, and then on the way home as the parent he wants to be. Isn't that beautiful? Nothing like Lady Liberty to hold you accountable. Love it. Never thought about Lady Liberty as my accountability buddy, but I might have to change my commute.

50:46I love that. If parents listening, you know, want to take what you're talking about and make a couple small shifts or something that feels actionable, like what are your, what are your top go-tos? The top go-to is to just have a mindset that there's no such thing is about emotion. That, you know what? The feeling is a feeling. You could make it want to go away, but it's there for a reason because emotions come unbidden. I think the second is, and this is a big one for me because I grew up and I still have, my automatic go-to is self-criticism. and I can only remember being criticized. It's terrible.

51:33And I'm convinced that most of us have been gaslighted by people in our development, in our childhoods, and we just start believing it. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No one ever taught us to sift through the way other people were talking about us. And then it metastasizes and it becomes your identity. And so I just want to encourage people to move from self-criticism or other criticism to self-compassion and other compassion. And that alone, I think could make, you know, a huge difference. Yeah. I'll give you one more. Great. I got hundreds, but I'll give you my top three for today. I love top threes.

52:09My third one is, it might be surprising, it's to have an other orientation. I think that we have become such a me culture. I'm feeling this way and it's my thing. And I had this with, you know, during the pandemic, my mother-in-law got stuck with us for a variety of reasons because of, you know, the pandemic. She's from Panama and she couldn't go back. And it's like it ruined my routine. You know, like I like to have coffee alone in the morning. I don't want to have coffee with my mother-in-law staring at me. And all I realized was after this month for me to realize it's like, I'm a narcissist, basically.

52:46It's like, you're in my house and I'm feeling this way. And I want to be alone. There's your self-critical voice, Mark. Yeah, you're right. So thank you for the awareness. And then, you know, I came down one morning and I realized I had no curiosity about my mother-in-law. Here was an 81-year-old woman who doesn't speak any English, who is stuck in America during a pandemic, who's like, dog is like, we're trying to figure out how to take care of her dog in Panama. And as soon as I stopped thinking about my feelings and I thought about her feelings, everything changed. Actually, our relationship changed dramatically.

53:19And so even when we're feeling unpleasant emotions as parents or as even children can do this, if we take a minute and think about like, who is suffering right now that I know? Go into your phone and look for pictures of people. Oh my gosh, she just lost her husband or, you know, whatever it might be. This person's dog died. And just reach out to that person and show your love and support for them, what happens magically is that by you helping them, you feel better yourself. Tell everyone where they can find more from you. I know everyone will want that. Well, my book is called Dealing with Feeling, which I'm very excited about.

53:56It's all evidence-based strategies to help everybody regulate their emotions more effectively. And the best place to learn more about me is just my website, which is my name, mark bracket, M-A-R-C, B-R-A-C-K-E-T-T dot com. Well, thank you. This hopefully is not the last time I have you right here. Thank you. And I love talking to you and thank you for your very, very important work. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed that conversation. I know I really did. Things that are top of mind for me are that there's no bad feelings. This idea of positive and negative emotions. Let's throw that out and embrace what Dr.

54:31Brackett says. Emotions are data. And all data is information. And we want to get information. As always, if you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate and review it. Or if you're listening on Spotify or watching on YouTube, drop a comment. I read every single one. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground and place a hand on your heart. And let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside. I'll see you soon.

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