Professor Marc Brackett is one of the world’s most recognised experts in the science and psychology of emotion. He is the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, professor in the Child Study Center at Yale, and author of the best-selling book, Permission to Feel. Marc has raised over $100 million in grant funding and published 175 scholarly articles on the role of emotional intelligence in learning, decision making, creativity, relationships, physical and mental health, and workplace performance.
Marc is the lead developer of RULER, an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning (SEL) that has been adopted by over 5,000 schools across the globe, improving the lives of millions of children and adults. He is featured regularly in popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Good Morning America, and The Today Show and serves on the board of directors for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the nonprofit that founded the SEL field alongside program board for the Mental Health Coalition, founded by Kenneth Cole and the Rare Beauty Mental Health Council, founded by Selena Gomez.
Marc has been the keynote speaker at over 700 conferences around the world, including the White House, U.S. Departments of Education and Defence, Surgeon General’s office, New York Times, Aspen Institute, the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and dozens of fortune 500 companies. Marc regularly consults with large companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft on best practices for integrating the principles of emotional intelligence into training and product design and is co-founder of Oji Life Lab, a corporate learning firm that develops innovative digital learning systems for emotional intelligence. In 2022, with Pinterest co-founder Ben Silbermann, Marc and his team co-created HowWeFeel, a free Apple award- winning app designed to teach emotion skills and enhance well-being.
In this interview I speak to Professor Marc Brackett, one of the world’s foremost experts in the science and psychology of emotion. Marc is the founding director of the Yale Centre for Emotional Intelligence, and author of the international best-selling book, Permission to Feel. In this powerful discussion, Marc helps us to understand how we should see our emotions as information, and the tools to recognise, understand, label, express and regulate our emotions.
Q: Why don’t we see emotions as information (noting, of course, that we should!)?
[Marc Brackett]: I think this goes into the history of psychology; for example, 100 years ago, we couldn’t even measure what an emotion is. It’s something in your head and in your brain, and we were always used to measuring behaviour, not people’s psychological experiences. So just from that alone, it became less important because it wasn’t observable behaviour, as if what people are thinking and feeling doesn’t matter—which is obviously crazy; it does matter. And then I think also that from a historical perspective, we used to see emotions as weak. I think it’s because when we think about feelings, we don’t think about joy and contentment; we think about anger, anxiety, and depression. And even then, most people think of those as bad feelings that we want to ignore, suppress, or deny. So when people are having emotions, they think of them as being emotional—meaning hysterical, not capable of functioning or being logical. And so emotional intelligence says no, that’s incorrect.
Q: How does this impact our understanding of others around us?
[Marc Brackett]: So the information is gathered from our own experiences, meaning I’m feeling this way, I want to achieve this goal. Is that feeling going to be helpful or unhelpful in achieving that goal? For example, I do a lot of public speaking. I’m not always in the mood to give the speech, and sometimes I feel anxious about the audience. So I have to ask myself, “Marc, how are you feeling?” I’m a little nervous about this one. Okay, well, why? Okay, now I know. Alright. So how do you want to feel? I want to feel empowered, I want to feel inspired. Alright, what do you need to do to put yourself into that frame of mind, to get up on that stage and be that way? And so that’s the work. It’s awareness that leads to regulation—that’s why it’s information. Because it’s giving us information about how we’re feeling and what we need to do about those feelings. When I’m looking at your facial expressions, I get signals—like either you’re interested or you’re bored. Either you want me to keep going or not. And that’s data for me. Because if I notice a shift in the way you’re engaging with me while I’m speaking, I could either use that information, or I could keep going and going and going, and then lose my audience, which is you.
Q: What does it really mean to recognise our emotions?
[Marc Brackett]: The first step of recognizing emotions is really paying attention to the signals in your body and mind. Do I, when I wake up in the morning, without even using language, feel like getting out of bed? Do I have the energy to do the things I have to do that day? That’s what we call in psychology our core affective experience. And so that’s the beginning of recognizing other people’s emotions or our own emotions.
And then I’m in a room—I do teaching—so sometimes I walk into a room and nobody is interested in what I have to say. Or I walk in and people are bright-eyed and cheery-faced and can’t wait to meet me. And so that’s recognition. It’s saying, alright, if they’re all making strange facial expressions, approach with caution. If they’re smiling and seem really eager to learn and to meet me, it’s safe; keep going. That’s at the core of recognizing.
We tend to go deeper with that in terms of specific facial expressions, body language, and vocal tone. And I think what’s important to know there is that we often make a lot of mistakes when we’re reading other people’s emotions because we bring in our own cultural values, our own belief systems, and we oftentimes project emotions onto people as opposed to really knowing how they’re feeling. And that’s an important piece of the work, which is: be a curious explorer of other people’s emotions. Don’t approach people as if you know how they’re feeling.
Q: What does it mean to understand our emotions?
[Marc Brackett]: Understanding emotion is really understanding the causes and the consequences of our own and other people’s emotions. The way I like to think about it is that we have an emotion categorization for a reason. We have feelings that describe experiences. So anger is about injustice, disappointment is about unmet expectations, and when you feel pride, it’s because you’ve achieved some kind of goal you’ve been working hard for.
So let’s use anger as an example because I think it’s a good one—perceived injustice. Now, we are from different cultures, we have different upbringings, and so the things that might make you feel angry might not make me feel angry. That’s where the understanding piece is so important because we have to talk about global themes. We have to agree that anger is about injustice, but we also have to agree that what I see as an injustice and what you see as an injustice could be different.
And on top of that, my hope is that we will have empathy for each other, so that I’ll be curious about what makes you feel the way you do, and you’ll be curious about what makes me feel the way I do, so that we can have rich conversations and be good friends and support each other.
Q: Is this why labelling our emotions is so important?
[Marc Brackett]: …when we have the vocabulary to describe our feelings, we can create a mental model in our brains around our experiences. I’m feeling anxious because I’m uncertain about the outcome. I’m feeling overwhelmed because I feel like I have no place to breathe and I’m just saturated with my feelings. No, I’m actually stressed because I have too many demands and not enough resources. And so, A) that’s a very high level of self-awareness, and so when I’m really clear about what I’m feeling, I can create a better plan for how to deal with my feelings. But also, I can communicate them as a kid or as a partner. And honestly, what I found in my research is that people will say things like “I’m depressed.” It’s like, are you really depressed? I used to work as a clinician at a psychiatric hospital. Depression is depression. Despair is despair. Disappointment is disappointment, and I think it’s important for us to have that emotional granularity. Because if I just walk around like the world is right now, “I’m anxious, I’m anxious,” but I have a hard time believing that everyone is that anxious. I think it’s because we don’t have granularity in our understanding of emotions, and so we’re not communicating our true experiences accurately.
Q: How can we best communicate and express our emotions?
[Marc Brackett]: …this is a big one because it goes back to the title of my book, Permission to Feel, which asks whether we feel like we have permission to have our feelings and to communicate those feelings. I think there are a number of factors that contribute to our comfort level and confidence in expressing our emotions, which is the ruler.
One is: Do I trust you with my feelings? Do I think that you’re going to be a listener who is non-judgmental, or do I think you’re going to judge me—”Marc is weak because he’s anxious,” or “Marc is a man and he’s feeling sad; dudes don’t feel sad.” So if I think you’re going to judge me for my feelings, I’m going to be much more guarded about whether or not I express them.
The other piece is: Do I think that you’re going to be supportive? Do I think that if I share with you that I’m really going through a rough time right now, I have any confidence in the advice you might give me or the support you might provide? And so, if I don’t trust you and I don’t feel like you’re going to be helpful, guess what? I’m not telling you how I’m feeling. And so I think that’s a big deal in culture right now.
And then also, my own feelings about my feelings. So we have what we call meta-feelings, meaning that if I’m feeling afraid because, for example, I was bullied badly as a kid, and so I was afraid, and then I had a lot of shame because I felt terrible about myself and other people made me feel bad about who I was. And so if I’m embarrassed as a boy because I’m being bullied and I’m afraid, that embarrassment will probably impact whether or not I tell somebody to get the support that I would need. Does that resonate with you?
Q: It does, but how do we then find the balance of when and how to communicate and express our emotions?
[Marc Brackett]: …so that’s part of self-awareness and discernment, and I think the word “discernment” is an important word here because I have to discern: A) the person that I’m communicating with. Are they someone who can handle what I’m going to share with them? Are they going to be supportive? Are they going to freak out and be judgmental? But then I also have to be self-aware. Marc, you’re at work, and you can’t spend three hours talking about your feelings. You have to get your work done. And so part of it is understanding the self—the work of the self—where you have to manage your feelings and strategies so that you can be productive, because life is about—we have to work, or most of us do.
And so what I’m getting at here is there’s the self-discernment piece of: “Am I a burden right now? Am I not working on myself to be better and deal with my feelings so that I don’t have to burden the world around me?” And that’s tricky because some people need more help than other people, and I want to acknowledge that; some people have serious mental health issues. At the same time, the world around us has not had an emotional education, and so people don’t know how to say or how to necessarily communicate or provide that level of support, because they don’t know. And so my hope is that the next generation, who will all have been educated in emotions both for the self and for others, will find greater balance in that space.
Q: Are you worried about how many people seem to connect their sense of identity with their emotional state?
[Marc Brackett]: That’s an important question and an important point, because by definition, emotions are experiences—they’re not traits. And so there are traits; like, some of us are more neurotic than other people, myself included. But my proclivity to experience feelings more frequently than other people—certain feelings—doesn’t mean that has to drive everything I do in life. I can become more self-aware about my tendency to be a bit more mercurial and then apply strategies to that.
So firstly, emotions are short-lived experiences. It’s not going to be helpful when we label ourselves as emotions or make them part of our identity, because it creates what researchers call a fixed mindset. And what that means specifically is that it’s not malleable. This is kind of like how my father had a fixed mindset about his anger. He would say, “Son, this is the way I deal with my anger; you’re going to have to learn how to deal with it.” And I would be like, as a scientist later in life, “So that means A) you’re not willing to learn anything, or B) change anything about yourself.” That’s an easy way out, and that fixed mindset doesn’t lead to the best outcomes for people.
Having a more growth mindset around your emotions—saying, “You know what, I just haven’t learned how to label my feelings accurately; I just haven’t learned research-based strategies that I can practice and apply to regulate my emotions yet”—and so that is really the factor in terms of providing that growth mindset to there’s opportunity here for me to change.
Q: What is the power and importance of emotional regulation?
[Marc Brackett]: So firstly, we haven’t learned how to regulate because no one told us. And I think it goes back to the fixed mindset—that people have confused their temperament and their personality for emotional intelligence. “I’m just emotional. This is who I am.” A lot of people say that. No, that’s your tendency. It doesn’t mean you have to give it all that much power. You can shift your feeling—not that all feelings need to be shifted.
And I think, very importantly, another issue with emotional regulation is that people think of it as being controlled, like, “I don’t want to be controlled.” My perspective on that is definitional issues. So my definition is very simple: it’s learning how to use your emotions wisely to achieve goals, to have better relationships, to have well-being, and to have good mental health. And so when we think about, “Oh, I have to learn to use my emotions wisely to achieve an outcome,” we start realizing, “Oh, okay, so maybe this feeling at this time is not the best for this goal, so that means I need to go from this feeling to a different feeling.” And then all of a sudden, it becomes more like a game. I actually like to think of it as a creativity game.
“Okay, Marc, you’re feeling sluggish today, but you made a commitment to working out. So are you going to let your sluggishness interfere with your goals of being in better physical shape? No. So get your ass out of bed, do a few jumping jacks, go outside, look at the sun, get some fresh air, and go do your workout.” Just because you’re feeling sluggish doesn’t mean you can’t do your workout. Just like, just because you’re having an amazing day and are feeling really happy and excited, but you get a phone call that some close friend of yours lost their parent—it’s not that you have to get rid of your happiness. You just have to put it in a bit of a parking lot to then show your empathy and compassion, and then you can go back to that. But people don’t see it as that strategic. They think of it as either “I was born with it” or not.
Q: What about the quite nebulous concept of happiness?
[Marc Brackett]: Happiness is good, let’s call it. Our bodies feel good when we’re happy; our brains feel good when we’re happy. But to put an overemphasis and overvalue on happiness is where it gets dangerous, because life is going to be filled with a range of emotions. So if you think that the times when you’re not happy are bad times, I think that’s when the problems start happening.
And so my recommendation is for people to give themselves permission to feel all emotions. Because firstly, I don’t know about you, but when I’m around people who are always happy, I go crazy. And then people who are always calm and content—it’s like, you’re a little boring; can we get a little energy here? People who are down and disappointed all the time—it’s tough to be around that. And then the people who are angry or anxious all the time—it’s unsettling.
So I like to help people realize that there are going to be times when you’re angry or anxious; there are going to be times when you’re sad and disappointed or maybe even depressed. There are going to be times when you’re calm and content; there are going to be times when you’re happy and excited or proud. And let’s figure out the balance that works best for our well-being.
Because I think the goal is well-being, not happiness. The goal is kind of a sense of satisfaction with my life, and that’s a journey that we have to go on. There are months where I’m in the gloom more than I’d like to be, and I want to find out what do I need—social support? Do I need to take a few days off? Do I need more exercise? Do I need to stop ruminating about the thing that’s making me go crazy?
And that gets into the regulation strategy piece, where I feel we are bankrupt in our society. I don’t think that we spend any time teaching people really well-established, evidence-based strategies to regulate emotions. And importantly, they have to be taught, practiced, evaluated, and refined across our development.
Q: What are the things in our lives which can really positively (or negatively) impact our emotional wellbeing?
[Marc Brackett]: Well, I think, A), we should be aware that our sleep, our nutrition, and our physical activity really impact how we feel and our ability to implement good strategies. That’s just critical. I think our mindsets are really important. We have to give ourselves and everyone we love—and even the people we don’t love that much—permission to feel. We have to know how to breathe properly, calm our systems down, and be more tranquil, relaxed, and deactivated. Because when we’re completely triggered and activated, our brains don’t function that well to make good decisions. We need cognitive strategies.
I would say that if I were to put my money on this, our largest problem is that our negative self-views make our lives difficult. And we are in desperate need for early interventions—not to help people be grandiose about themselves; we don’t want a bunch of narcissists running around—but we want people with a healthy ego, which means that the world needs to be a more compassionate place for people. Because unfortunately, a lot of us have been gaslighted in our lives. We know there are a lot of power issues and judgment going on in our society, and either you’re too fat or you’re too skinny, too tall or too short, too dark or too light—whatever it is. And people say things to make us feel bad about ourselves, and we have no one helping us to decipher that information. And then, all of a sudden, we start believing them.
And so my hope is that early on, we’re helping children especially to be really aware of the messages that are being sent to them, and developing their capacity to say, “Hey, wait a minute, that’s not cool. I don’t want to hear that. Don’t talk to me that way. You don’t have the right to define my reality.” That also means that we need to figure out how to teach the people who are saying these mean or cruel things to be more self-aware and compassionate.
Q: Can understanding our emotions help us take the temperature down in wider society?
[Marc Brackett]: I think that we never want to minimize anyone’s lived experience, because people who have marginalized identities—whether it’s people of colour, LGBTQIA youth, or others—their experience of the world is unfortunately often quite different because of the way they’re treated. This is where it becomes tricky in terms of acceptance of emotions. I don’t want to judge the feeling of anger that I have because of the way I’m being treated—it’s a real feeling, and I should feel angry based on that injustice—but also, it can’t be my sole responsibility to regulate it, because that’s putting me in an oppressor’s state. So it’s also the job of humanity to understand the condition they’ve created for me and to stop behaving the way they’re behaving.
Q: What do you hope your legacy will be?
[Marc Brackett]: I don’t have that—I like to minimize my ego involvement. What I’m most concerned about in terms of the future of the work that I and my centre do is that I have a moral obligation to continue the research and the support. So what I’m hoping is that I will cultivate a generation of people who work at our centre, who want to carry this forward. And not only in our centre but in communities, because we have 5,000 schools across the world. We’ve got millions of children who are learning this. And so my fear is that if I get run over by a bus, the whole thing crumbles. So I’m always thinking about the systems that need to be created for the work to have lasting results and longevity.