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Emotional Agility by Susan David

Most people who come to therapy are seeking, in part, help with emotional regulation. Some have that as their primary goal. For others, it's an aspect of how they are wanting to cope with the challenge that brought them to therapy.

Why This Book is Helpful

Susan David was a clinical psychologist through most of her career before becoming a corporate trainer. At one point, she wrote an artical in the Harvard Business Review titled Emotional Agility where she discussed her thoughts about how to be more competent in working with challenging emotions. That article became one of the most read and downloaded articles on the platform which caused her to write an entire book on the topic.

David's book provides the reader with skills to work effectively with emotions. It does this by helping us have a greater understanding of the emotional and cognitive cascade of feelings and thoughts that rapidly happen after we get triggered or hooked by an experience.

When we get hooked by an experience, David explains that we quickly go from the initial perception to related thoughts and reactions that often don't serve us well. Often we quickly cascade into negative or ineffective reactions.

Why Be More Emotionally Agile?

When we get hooked into negative emotional reactions to challenges in our lives, it diminishes the quality of our relationships, our work, our enjoyment of life. Working on our emotional agility opens us up to living a more enlivening life with more positive outcomes.

Check out Emotional Agility by Susan David here.