Susan David (1)Reseñas

Susan Davis Professor of Woman’s Health RN Breakfast 07:09:23

A book about self-management: being aware of and coming to terms with difficult emotions and moving ahead in spite of them. You'll learn:
• The difference between "emotional rigidity" and "emotional agility", and how you get stuck or "hooked" to unproductive feelings, behaviors and patterns.
• How to get unstuck or unhooked in 4 steps: Show up to your feeilngs, Step out to see the big picture, Walk your why by focusing on core values and long-term goals, and Move on through tiny steps and continual improvement.
• How to apply emotional agility at the workplace, and raise emotionally agile children.
Book summary at: https://readingraphics.com/book-summary-emotional-agility/

Ever since I learned that emotional intelligence wasn't really self-help-book-selling-gimmick (even if it is), I've done a fair bit of reading on the subject, along with seminars, discussions, etc. So I saw this book, added it to the queue, and finally got to it five weeks ago. It's not a long read...I just picked up and read 20 (true story!) other books since I started it. It didn't hold my attention and I can't recommend it... nothing new here. And it wasn't until yesterday that I found out from the review thread that the book was based on a Harvard Business Review article. I won't link that here...it's not hard to find... but it is a good summary of what you'll find in this inflation of it. As is this:

...emotional agility is not about controlling your thoughts or forcing yourself into thinking more positively. Because research also shows that trying to get people to change their thoughts from, say, the negative (“I’m going to screw up this presentation”) to the positive (“You’ll see—I’ll ace it”), usually doesn’t work, and can actually be counterproductive. Emotional agility is about loosening up, calming down, and living with more intention. It’s about choosing how you’ll respond to your emotional warning system.

Ms. David told a story about running away as five year old: "So I did what any obedient five-year-old runaway who was not allowed to step into the street would do: I walked around the block. Again, and again, and again." You might recognize that because I did; I’ve heard and read it before... an old anecdote. Maybe it did happen to her. And she kept dropping references to Kahneman, Goleman, Gladwell and even Jim Collins (of Good to Great semi-fame.) Credibility drops with me for each of those (Gladwell is a serial aggregator who is good at picking cherries; Collin's notable book was nicely exposed by Philip Rosenzweig in The Halo Effect). And when she brought up Richard Thaler and the Cass Sunstein's book Nudge which "show[s] how to influence other people’s behavior through carefully designed choices, or what they called 'choice architecture.'... I read the book and less than impressed. People need/want to be managed?? Well, the FNC crowd sure seems to. Still, Ms. David makes a good point with

As with these two characters, whose accounts of events can’t be entirely trusted, our own internal narrator may be biased, confused, or even engaged in willful self-justification or deception. Even worse, it will not shut up. You may be able to stop yourself from sharing every thought that pops into your head, but stopping yourself from having those thoughts in the first place? Good luck.

Yep. And another good point:

Walking your why” is the art of living by your own personal set of values—the beliefs and behaviors that you hold dear and that give you meaning and satisfaction. Identifying and acting on the values that are truly your own—not those imposed on you by others; not what you think you should care about, but what you genuinely do care about—is the crucial next step of fostering emotional agility.

A few other selected notes:
[On the hooks we fall for] "Monkey mind" is a term from meditation used to describe that incessant internal chatterbox that can leap from one topic to the next like a monkey swinging from tree to tree.
She has narrowed the classification of the internal conversation to “ chatterbox”… it may be a continuous discontinuous narration that doesn’t fit her repeating descriptions of “chatter”

[On bottling up emotions] The problem with bottling is that ignoring troubling emotions doesn’t get at the root of whatever is causing them. [...] This is what happens when we bottle. Trying to keep things at a stiff arm’s length can be exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, that we often drop the load
She describes the bottling as pushing the problem forward. When I bottle, I don’t push it forward; rather it gets closed behind doors, only to sometimes pop out at (always) the wrong times. Again, she seems to deal with a particular type of problem. What about compartmentalization?

[on a study where some were given an article on happiness, some not, and then both watched film clips and had to classify them] Placing too high a value on happiness increased their expectations for how things “should be,” and thus set them up for disappointment.
This is in line with just having a capacity for higher expectations regardless of being primed.

[on a study] In each study, Pennebaker found that the people who wrote about emotionally charged episodes experienced a marked increase in their physical and mental well-being. They were happier, less depressed, and less anxious.
I find this incongruous (and just because I don't buy it, doesn't mean it isn't true). How is that possible? Writing is even more permanent than thinking and it concretizes the significance, affords it a central platform and forces further rehashing. This is an old argument I have against "therapy".

(She even said herself ) "Still, I was skeptical of Pennebaker’s results, which seemed too good to be true." She buys it now, though.

Ho hum. So I have been reading this book for a week on and off. It was an alright book. It was a pleasant and comforting read. It just lacked any memorable punch to it that makes it a worthwhile read.

I enjoyed this well thought out and presented four step idea for rising to the emotional challenges that life sends our way. By applying the authors four steps: Showing Up; Stepping Out; Walking Your Way; and Moving on, we can go from where we are hooked by difficult situations to thriving. The visual reminders of the steps at the beginning of each chanter were helpful and the stories gleaned from the authors own experience as well as her research and consulting work, contained a lot of useful information. I received an ARC of this book through Goodreads First Reads Giveaways.

I actually bought a copy of this new book to read because I have had decades of experience in the EQ (Emotional Quotient) field. I found it to be well-written - and the author has a quiz you can take online to help you better understand where you are on the spectrum!

Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life is written by psychologist Dr. Susan David, and was recommended to me by Chris at Breathe Underwater. I was quite impressed with this book. Normally when I’m reading a book I intend to review I take notes as I’m reading of the points that stand out for me. I ended up with several pages of notes for this book, because there was a lot that resonated with me.

The book is written with a casual tone that makes it feel like an easy conversation. Research findings and terms from the field of psychology were explained in an accessible way. The concepts presented resemble the fundamentals of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), which I was already familiar with. Books in this genre can sometimes run the gamut from “out there” to boringly obvious, but this falls into that happy little place of common sense but insightful.

The author presents emotions as something that serve a useful purpose and help us to survive and thrive. Emotional agility involves responding to those emotions with clear judgment, and opening up a space between feeling and reacting that allows us to make reasoned decisions. The author identifies four key steps in gaining emotional agility:

showing up: facing thoughts, emotions, and behaviours
stepping out: being able to detach from and observe thoughts and emotions
walking your why: making choices based on core values and goals
moving on: making small tweaks influenced by values, and finding balance on the teeter-totter between challenge and competence
David identifies several common “hooks” that move us from facts to judgment, generating an autopilot response. These sounded oh so familiar to me. The hooks included blaming thoughts for one’s behaviour, “monkey-mindedness” (anticipatory thoughts turning into mock conversations predicting expected negative events), assumptions based on past negative circumstances, and wrongheaded righteousness (cutting off your nose to spite your face). She also describes two problematic responses to stress, which are often earned early in life: bottling things up, and brooding. I am most definitely a monkey-minded brooder.

The author challenges the idea that people should try to be happy and paste on a smile all the time. She points out that fakes smiles are actually not the same as genuine smiles; fake smiles don’t produce the contraction of certain muscles around the eyes that are not under voluntary control. Emotions that are thought of as negative actually serve constructive purposes, and David argues that trying to suppress them is counterproductive.

David explains the benefits of mindfulness. She encourages us to clearly identify our personal values, as all too often we tend to get swept up by social contagion into mindless decision-making. She also talked about motivation and how to achieve habit change.

In the teeter totter between over-competence (being excessively comfortable) and over-challenging/overwhelming ourselves, David suggest that we aim for being “whelmed”. She warned against “dead people goals”, i.e. goals like “not being anxious” that a dead person could achieve. She suggested that while grit and perseverance can be useful, emotional agility also involves knowing when to give up and move on.

There are chapters specifically devoted to emotional agility at work and raising emotionally agile kids While she made some good points in the chapter about work, there were a few things that didn’t quite ring true for me; in particular, she suggested that people should speak up about organizational issues rather than staying quiet. I’ve worked in organizations that actively attacked employees that raised concerns about the status quo, so I’m just not buying this suggestion.

David concludes the book with a series of suggestions on how to be emotionally agile, including accepting yourself with compassion, welcoming your inner experience, accepting that love & hurt and success & failure are inexorably intertwined, and releasing narratives that no longer serve you. While these suggestions may not be easy, they provide some useful areas to work on.

I would say this book is well worth a read. Besides being consistent with ACT, there is some overlap with principles of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT), and I think there are useful points that would apply across a variety of mental health conditions. Two thumbs up for this book!

This review was first published on Mental Health @ Home
https://mentalhealthathome.org/2018/04/06/book-review-emotional-agility/

It took me 10 months to finish this book. Clearly not a good sign. The information is really good, but something about the writing just put me to sleep.

I'll add more later.

I had a hard time getting through this book, to be honest. Self-help books aren't usually in my wheelhouse, but this one found a home on my shelf. I definitely appreciated the wording used in the book. Rather than making the reader feel like what they were experiencing or feeling was wrong, and trying to correct these "errors," the author focuses on helping the reader realize that yes, these feelings are valid, and take the next steps to make a change.

One of the most helpful books on the application of neuroplasticity findings I've read. It's short (200 pages), extremely well written and organized, and I enjoyed the author's credibility and rigor in citing the science, as well as her wry sense of humor and ability to seamlessly weave in stories. I appreciate most her focus on self-acceptance and choice, rather than labeling thoughts and feelings "errors" or "deceptive." Far less dualistic, more empowering.

An exploration of the theme of "emotional agility."

The author relies upon her own experience and her work as a psychologist to discuss the role of emotions in our lives and how we can manage them effectively.

She speaks of how most people find themselves "hooked": they remain "stuck" in a given emotional state. They listen too much to the voices in their heads that bring them down; they look at themselves according to negative self-talk; they still ruminate over bad experiences and feelings of the past. She speaks of how we address emotions: we tend to bottle or brood, either suppressing emotion or giving full vent to them. She identifies the primary emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, disgust, anger, contempt, surprise), and notes how only one is truly "positive," and asks whether the rest exist to provide benefits even if uncomfortable.

She then provides a discussion of healthy practices that help a person go from being emotionally hooked and stuck to more agile and thriving: to show up (to show compassion to yourself, to be willing to do things as opposed to forced to do them, and to be willing to learn from one's emotional reactions), step out (be willing to consider what you are feeling and why, figure out their functions, learn from your reactions, and be mindful), walk your why (make decisions which allow you to live according to your values), and move on (find the small changes to be made in thought, feeling, and action, know how far you can go, challenge yourself, do what can be done). From here the author speaks about how to manifest emotional agility at work and with children.

The perspective is excellent and useful. The author finds what is commendable about a lot of leadership attitude promotion and other such fads but points out their negatives (i.e. avoidance is the enemy of the good and great, not good as enemy of great; grit is great until it is misdirected to seek to accomplish what cannot feasibly be accomplished, etc.). She pinpoints a lot of the difficulties people have in terms of living in healthy ways and the ways we allow emotions to saddle us with negativity.

Worth consideration.

I'm not a fan of self help books but it was interesting enough in small bites.

The author of Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life, is Susan David, the CEO of consulting company called Evidence Based Psychology. Her book came into my life at a good time, as I have been feeling stuck a lot lately. The concept of the internal chatterbox struck a chord for me – it’s nice to have a label for it, as it helps me articulate the concept to others. I really valued the author’s examples, and found them to be applicable and relatable to everyday life. I especially enjoyed the statements at the end of the last chapter. They’re almost like little mantras you can take with you. I recommend this book for Generation X, as that’s the demographic I think would be most helped by the concepts in the book.

Life isn't perfect and would be boring if it were. Live. Life is going to have stress, hurt feelings, mistakes will be made. Use this book to help create your life the way you really want it to be. Open up to accepting some challenges that may end in failure. Use emotional agility to break from a negative self-image, anxiety, depression. "Emotional agility is a process that allows you to be in the moment...not ignoring difficult emotions and thoughts...but..facing them courageously.

I received this book from Early Reviewers and wasn't sure what to expect since the topic and the approach is so varied. I was hoping for something different than many of the books current popular on mindfulness and being present but didn't get a clear sense that the information provided was really that different. I have yet to put. In action some of the suggestions so I can't say if her approach is effective or not. Regardless, we can all use the help and even one new way of looking at yourself or others or one new habit is always worth the read.

Pros: David’s writing is clear, concise and fluid, making this an easy and pleasant read. She describes tons of research/studies/experiments, which are not only fascinating, but provide solid and persuasive backup for her points. Even a few anecdotes from David’s own life were included to give the book a personal touch.

Cons: A lot of the topics in the book were ones I’d already read about from other psychology sources (college textbooks and psych. articles). While it’s great to consolidate all relevant topics into one self-help book, it wasn’t as “new” or “eye opening” as I had hoped. I also feel like this is more of an idea book than a practical book. A lot of ideas are presented, but there isn’t really instruction on how to apply the ideas. (Maybe she could have ended each chapter with strategies or worksheets to provide more guidance.) There was one instance in the book where she broke down an example of a concept into smaller, step-by-step pieces to explain it better. I would have liked to have seen more of that.

Bottom Line: I don’t regret reading this book since it was interesting, but I don’t feel like it’s helped me much and I’m not inspired to go around recommending it to other people. Maybe self-help books just aren’t for me.

Note: I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I had a difficult time at first with this book. It started out "uneven" - not an smooth flow of ideas. But as I kept going, I read a section that seemed to address my own emotional "stuckness" problem. That kept me going. I'm glad I did. Most of the books I've read lately tell me it's simple to just "think positive" and be thankful. That's supposedly how you can turn your life around. I've been trying to follow that advice and with only some success. There still seemed to be something missing. Susan David's approach shows why it doesn't help to smother distressing feelings and stress with positive affirmations. She gives advice on how to recognize emotional roadblocks and negative setbacks so we can learn from them and see our options for moving past them. These lessons help us understand who we are and where we've been. We learn how to stop reacting to our feelings and habits.. The author shows us how to adjust the way we see things. I especially liked the chapter on "Making Choices". Stressing about stress compounds the problem. What we need to do is adjust our relationship to it. Emotional Agility is about getting on with life. It's a very helpful book.

I can't say enough good about Emotional Agility. It is sad to realize that in this day of plenty so many people suffer from depression and anxiety. Emotional Agility is full of wisdom for these woes. Susan David walks us through ways to dance your way through troubles. Don't think it's another of those dry textbook self-help books, though; David shares lots of wonderful stories that make her ideas more real and more clear.

A note about these newly posted non-link reviews.

As regular readers of this space no doubt know, I get a book to review from the LibraryThing.com “Early Reviewer” program pretty much every month. However, as opposed to what's implied in the program's name, it's a fairly rare occurrence that the books are actually early, as in pre-publication … I guess the LTER program is seen by most publishers as a way to get a bit of a bump in visibility well after the book is out there (even if they're sending out ARCs – advance review copies). This one, however, is not due out for another month yet.

Of course, one of the downsides of reviewing an ARC is that it's frequently “unfinished”, with assorted bits and pieces noted as “TK” (“to come”). Also, one of the standard notes to the reviewer is to not quote from these as the copy may change between the ARC and the final release version … which also goes for notes on the graphics (I almost bitched about an ARC of one of Gary Vaynerchuk's books for crappy looking images when reviewing it, but the publisher fortunately sent along a copy of the beautifully-illustrated publication version before I got that posted). I bring this up because there is a lot of what I'm hoping are “place holding” rough graphic pages here that are probably going to be much nicer looking in the actual hardcover when it appears next month.

Anyway, I seem to be on a roll of getting semi “self-help” books from the LTER “Almighty Algorithm” (nice to know it cares), and so I wasn't overly surprised to find that I was going to be receiving Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life by Susan David, PhD. This is set up in something of a flowchart (with an arrow-line that runs through the book between chapters) for a “system” of moving from a starting point of being “Hooked” to an ending state of “Thriving”. While I can't exactly duplicate how this lays out in the book, here's the general idea:

Hooked ==>
Showing Up ==>
Stepping Out ==>
Walking Your Why ==>
Moving On ==>
Thriving

… each step of which involves assorted other elements. The term “hooked” here relates to the idea of a “hook” in a movie … a narrative in our head that serves to explain, rightly or wrongly, our experiences … once we get into one of these “hooks”, we start bending all other aspects of reality to fit with that narrative. The author provides several very interesting examples of automatic responses, such as filling in the missing word in “Mary had a little _____” … pretty much every English speaker is going to stick “lamb” (and not, say, “velociraptor”) in that blank, but we have automatic responses to situations in our life which are as predictable as that – if unhelpful, and ultimately not “reality based” – but are things which got plugged in at some point and have become our default response. She also presents some fascinating research on some brain science, like the relation of words to shapes, with sounds and outlines being perceived across cultural and linguistic boundaries with as many as 98% of people studied associating the same sounds (words?) with the same (sharp or bulbous) images … and then relating this to the ability to process metaphors (“sharp” cheese, “loud” shirt, etc.), which appears to take place in the angular gyrus of the brain (damage to which will render people unable to make sense of metaphors, and which is 8x larger in humans than other primates).

There are four most common hooks: “Thought Blaming”, “Monkey Mindedness”, “Old, Outgrown Ideas”, and “Wrongheaded Righteousness” … which are pretty much what they suggest. There is the sense (although I don't think that the author outright says this) that these are nearly as hard-wired as the sound/shape patterns noted above. She moves from defining these to looking at how we attempt to “unhook”, and offers up a 3-question quiz (with 3 options each) which shows how one typically tries to unhook … one set of responses indicate that you're a “bottler”, which means you “try to unhook by pushing emotions to the side and getting on with things”, and another indicates a “brooder”, who is likely to “stew in their misery, endlessly stirring the pot around, and around, and around”. Not surprisingly, there is a definite gender disparity between these, with the “bottlers” typically being male, and the “brooders” typically being female.

One of the things she brings in at this point – which certainly got my curmudgeonly attention – is the benefit of negative moods … “The paradox of happiness is that deliberately striving for it is fundamentally incompatible with the nature of happiness itself.” (which reminds me of a phase an associate of mine was going through where he was constantly trying to force happiness, which was really irritating to everybody else around him) … which is followed up with sections on “Good News About Bad Moods”, and “The Upside of Anger”.

There was a third option in that brief survey, and those who selected that other option were “being present”, which is the topic of the the first step of the process here … “Showing Up”. This step is broken into three elements: “Practice Self-Compassion”, “Choose Willingness”, and “Learn from Thoughts and Emotions”. In the first of these the author goes into quite a lot of detail contrasting guilt from shame … “Guilt is the feeling of burden and regret that comes from knowing you've failed or done wrong.”, while “Shame casts one not as a human being who did a bad thing, but as a human being who is bad.”, with the difference being “self-compassion”. Interestingly, she notes that criminal recidivism rates are higher for those who exhibit shame over those whose equivalent emotion is a sense of guilt. The “willingness” is largely framed here in terms of cravings – that if you are willing to accept the fact of a craving, you are more likely to avoid it, rather than struggling with the whole concept (sort of like the A.A. idea of “not drinking today”). In the “learning” part, she introduces a question: “What the func?”, a shorthand for “What is the function of this emotion?”, the analysis of which can reveal a lot of deeper realities hidden beneath the external levels of things like anger.

The next step is, well, “Stepping Out”, which includes sub-elements of “Notice with Curiosity and Courage”, “Create the Space in Between”, and “Let Go”. One piece of this that I (predictably) found of interest was the research of James Pennebaker where:

In each study … the people who wrote about emotionally charged episodes experienced a marked increase in their physical and mental well-being. They were happier, less depressed, and less anxious. …”

… which reminded me of the “morning pages” discipline (see here or here). She relates this to a project with a group of 100 senior engineers who got down-sized late in their careers, a third did a writing discipline like this, a third did a more neutral writing assignment, and a third didn't write … “the degree of change between them was astonishing … the men who had delved into how they truly felt were three times more likely to have been reemployed than those in the control groups”! Referring to a wider study of similar situations she notes: “by dissolving the entanglement that had built up between their impulses and their action so they could see their experience in context, and from a broader perspective, they flourished despite it all.”. She also offers up some techniques for “becoming more mindful”, and shows an interesting “perception” quirk, where context determines meaning … how (written out differently than here) A B C and 12 13 14 can have exactly the same lines being seen as “B” in one and “13” in the other.

The next step, “Walking Your Why”, just has one part: “Choice Points: Make Towards Moves” … both of which are sort of “huh?” to my ear … the former is defined as “the art of living by your own personal set of values – the beliefs and behaviors that you hold dear and that give you meaning and satisfaction.”, while the latter comes to bear in the face of a matrix of influences that enables the environment (culture) to make decision for us, ranging from “social proof” situations (buying stuff because those around us are buying) to “dangerous groupthink” … “The more you choose moves that are toward your values, the more vital, effective, and meaningful your life is likely to become.”

The last of these steps is “Moving On”, which has two chapters, each with one multi-element part to it, first: “The Tiny Tweaks Principle” which includes “Tweak Mindsets”, “Tweak Motivations”, and “Tweak Habits”. I was interested to see in the “mindsets” section some research I'd read in other contexts (I don't recall where, or I'd toss in a link here), which involved planting the idea among a group of hotel maids that their daily activities “were, in fact, exercise” which met the surgeon general's daily recommendations … with no other changes, just having that one piece in their “mindset”, the test group had lost weight, lowered blood pressure, and improved body-fat ratios compared to the control group who had not been told that what they were doing (although having the same activities) was meeting those exercise levels. Similar examples with children being exposed to information of how the brain can grow and improve with study, and elderly subjects who had varying views on the aging process, showed that just a few cognitive factors could result in significant positive changes. In the “motivations” topic, the thrust is largely regarding activities that one “had to do” versus “wanted to do” … with the complication that “our baser instincts have a head start … according to brain imaging, when we're faced with a typical choice, basic attributes like taste are processed on average about 195 milliseconds earlier than health attributes”, meaning that the brain is likely to have made the decision that it wants that cupcake “well before willpower even enters the picture”. There's also some interesting research outlined in the “habits” section, where different signs (encouraging the same behavior) had different levels of effectiveness depending on their location in relation to the activity (i.e., taking the stairs), the author uses elements of this to present a number of suggestions on how to best develop the behaviors that one wants in various situations.

The second “Moving On” chapter features “The Teeter-Totter Principle”, which has the elements “Live at the Edge of Your Ability”, “Choose Courage over Comfort”, and “Opt for What Is Workable”. These hew pretty close to what you'd expect reading those sub-headings, and are presented with a fire-hose of references to well known sources as Bruce Springsteen, Jim Collins, Pierre de Fermat, Malcolm Gladwell, and many others … way too much stuff to try to summarize here … however the “teeter-totter” image is meant “to illustrate the idea of balance, the sweet spot in which challenge and mastery are in a state of creative tension” … with the further note that “emotional agility … involves moving towards clear, challenging, yet achievable goals that you pursue … because you want to, because they're important to you.”

Oddly, when the line reaches “Thriving”, it starts with an extensive look at “Emotional Agility at Work”, as in at one's business. This seemed to be a somewhat odd progression, but I could hardly argue that there's some seriously twisted thinking involved in current contexts:

The prevailing wisdom of today's business culture is that uncomfortable thoughts and feelings have no place at the office, and that employees, particularly leaders, should be either stoic or eternally optimistic. They must project confidence and damp down any powerful emotions bubbling up inside them, especially the negative ones. But as we've seen, this goes against basic biology. …

Dr. David has evidently done a lot of work with clients in the corporate sphere, and goes into a number of “case studies” here, looking at “hooks” that effect both individuals and groups. In a sub-section called “The Why of Work” there was another assertion which is very close to my own concerns:

… work provides far more than a meal ticket. It can give us a sense of identity and purpose, as well as a framework around which we organize our other activities and interests. Work can also bring substantial mental health benefits.

This is followed by a chapter on “Raising Emotionally Agile Children” which includes a few stories of the author's own parenting efforts, and walks through suggestions for various aspects of childhood development (how to think, caring, ways to coach your kids, etc.). The book ends with a visit to the classic The Velveteen Rabbit, and the concept of “becoming real” … I have always found that a serious tear-jerker, which made the close a bit of a gut-punch to me.

Anyway, Emotional Agility will be hitting the store shelves on September 6, but the on-line big boys have it for pre-order at a generous 36% off of cover. This is one of those books that could be “for all and sundry”, but that depends on how you feel about the self-help/personal-development niche. I'm glad to have read it (and have picked up a number of things to talk about with my therapist – to whom I suspect I'll be lending my copy), and think it's one of those that may end up being a long-time go-to book in the popular psychology category.



CMP.Ly/1

A link to my "real" review:
BTRIPP's review of Susan David, Phd's "Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life" (2361 words)

I have always enjoyed thinking about thinking, and so I found the book Emotional Agility to be a pleasant read. The author encourages us not to get stuck in destructive thought processes. Instead, we should create distance between ourselves and the thought, and treat the thought we are hooked on in a non-judgmental fashion as a piece of information about our emotional state.

David gives real-life examples of how people get hooked into their thought patterns, and examples of how to unhook, which I felt brought clarity to how this information may apply to real-life issues. She also explained the adaptive value of some of our emotional states, for instance discussing how anger may make us less prone to confirmation bias.

Another gem of wisdom that stuck with me from this text: we tend to attribute the negative behaviors of others due to traits, while we attribute our own negative behaviors to circumstances (misinterpretation of intentions). I am in the field of dietetics and health promotion, so I also appreciated the discussion of the importance of being intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated. Also mentioned was the importance of switching your environment so that when your stress level is high, the healthy choice is the easiest. In today's hectic society, I am happy to embrace ideas that will help lower the allostatic load of our population, and this book was full of them.

My only criticism is that I felt there were not many new concepts for those of us who already have some foundation in this subject matter. However, I would highly recommend this quick read to beginners in this genre who are feeling emotionally stuck.

Susan David’s writings demonstrate a wealth of knowledge on the subject of better understanding your emotions and how to not let them control you. There are several point she made throughout the course of her presentation that I liked. The argument doesn’t mention, but supports works like Marsha Linehan’s concept of “Radical acceptance”. Susan’s comments are helpful in helping people better understand the importance of letting go. To not be caught up in the emotional traps that “hook” us in to not moving forward in our life we must accept before we move forward. I liked her comments on the idea that happiness is over rate and what is the healthy alternative. Her comment on self-comparison as the antidote for shame was well written and gets to the point of how to walk away from the emotion of shame. She taught me a new word when discussing the common issue with not being able to communicate emotion, Alexithymia. What I got was, perhaps some of the biggest barriers to treatment and change are not accepting and expressing. Despite spending little time on mindfulness and being in the moment, I like her explanation of the push of the past and the pull of the future. I also like comments about values being more related to quality not quantity. I liked her section on “Walking Your Why”.
It is clear that her years of experience in the field of mental health has developed into an extremely knowledgeable and helpful approach to dealing with emotions and getting people unstuck with issues that seem to plague their lives. Her including statistical research only further supported her view on the emotional dilemmas that keep us stuck and what we might do to get unstuck.
I was slightly disappointed in the case of using the evolution of monkeys/apes to discuss why men think or perform in certain ways. I will admit this is a pet peeve of mind, but the comments she makes are not supported by observatory facts as her other research she quotes. Such comments are purely hypothetical and does not deliver any value to her point as there are many hypothesis that could explain the same trait in the human condition. I also felt at times the writings on “Moving On” was at times to “pep talky”.
Having said that I felt the book would do any reader a great deal of benefit to read it. Her stories did a great job of illustrating points so the book was easy to understand and use. I felt the skills she taught are very helpful. If you are at a stuck point in your life. This would be a recommended book by me.

I had high hopes for this book, and the premise was very compelling. Unfortunately, I felt like the author got lost in examples and bullet points. The concept of emotional agility is a critical one, but I didn't feel like this book provided much help in achieving it. Still an interesting read, but without the substantive points I was hoping for.

This is an informative book about how to deal with one’s emotions in a positive and realistic manner. Susan David contradicts much of the simplistic advice found in popular literature. She avoids a grit-your-teeth-and-bear-it approach or, at the opposite spectrum, the smile-and-all-the-world-will-smile-with-you technique. Unfortunately, in an apparent attempt to write for a popular audience, David’s useful coaching gets lost amidst an abundance of trivial illustrations and distracting chatter.

Emotions happen. Acknowledge, accept and deal with them. While happiness is what is believed to be the ultimate goal for a healthy and well-adjusted life, the "pursuit of" part seems to be forgotten. This books reminds us that even negative emotions (within reason) are good for us and do not signal that we have failed. Embracing the imperfections that make us human is what will ensure we have the energy and resources to treat ourselves humanly.

It was a bit distracting at times, as it is filled with many pop culture references; if you're unfamiliar, you might get lost. While there are plenty of examples to make you understand the problem, there are few strategies that allow the growth towards emotional agility.

The core idea is pretty simple: put your emotions in perspective and handle them wisely.

Easier said that done! But this book explains it step by step, in a clear and engaging tone, using plenty of examples which I found familiar and relevant. I think it does a great diagnostic of situations, but found it lacking in practical solutions.

Overall, the style is similar to Malcolm Gladwell books (he is even quoted in the text), with all its goods and bads.