Thinking books · Emotions & understanding people · Susan David, 2016

Emotional Agility — the big ideas

On working with difficult emotions rather than suppressing them or being led by them.

Free — no account needed to read

The big ideas

Both bottling and brooding fail, in opposite directions, and most people have a habitual one. Knowing which is yours is more useful than general advice.

Creating distance from a thought — "I am noticing the thought that I will fail" rather than "I will fail" — changes what it can do without arguing with it.

It routes difficult emotion back to values: a painful feeling usually points at something that matters, which makes it information rather than an obstacle.

Practise it — no need to have read it

Take a recurring difficult thought. Write it, then rewrite it as "I am noticing the thought that…". Then write what it suggests you value.

A hint: The reframe is not a trick to make it go away. It makes it examinable.

Where it shows up in real life

• Anxiety about a decision
• Recurring self-criticism
• Working out what you actually value

Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.