uncle_dunc's review

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funny informative inspiring lighthearted reflective slow-paced

4.5

Honestly a huge eye opener. I read it over the course of a 24 hr guard shift, it was so good. I want to read it again but slower,  taking notes, and participating in the exercises next time. Everyone could benefit from this book. 2 years later and I still think about things I read from it. 

ksamaine95's review against another edition

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informative inspiring medium-paced

4.5

kimball_hansen's review against another edition

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4.0

Great book! Towards the end there were some great bits on parenting, too. Except the author seemed to be a proponent of walking out on your marriage. Not cool.

To start off: Emotional Agility is being flexible with thoughts and feelings so you can respond optimally to everyday situations. The opposite is emotional rigidity – or being a stiff. Emotional Agility is about making your own choices on how to behave regardless of what other people want you to do.

A good tip the author recommended was to write for 20 minutes about emotional experiences in the past week, month, or year. You can keep or throw out the journal when you’re done but the point is that you begin to step out from your experience to gai perspective of it.

To be emotionally agile:
1) Show up
2) Step out
3) Work your why
4) Moving on.

Once our minds slip in default mode (autopilot) it takes a great deal of flexibility to override that state.

The Four Common Hooks:
1) Thought Blaming. “I thought he was going to be mad so I didn’t tell him.” When you start thought blaming, there’s not enough space between stimulus and response for you to exercise real choice. Thoughts in isolation do not cause real behavior.
2) Monkey Mindedness. The chatterbox that goes from one topic to the next. Forecasting and planning responses in your own mind. The brain needs neutral space for creative solutions.
3) Old Outgrown Ideas. Your past still affects you today.
4) (It appears I didn’t write this one down.)

There are seven basic emotions: Joy, anger, sadness, fear, surprise, contempt, and disgust. Look at how many positive ones there are vs negative.

Recognizing that you have to play the hand your dealt is often the first step towards showing yourself more warmth, kindness, and forgiveness.

Self-compassion involves looking at your life from an outsider’s perspective. Lacking self-compassion is being overly confident.

It’s faster and easier to follow what we see rather than work it out ourselves; this is both good and bad.

You’re 30% more likely to make an inflight purchase if the guy next to you does.

Instead of asking whether a thing is right or wrong, ask how it relates to your life. When you know what you do care about, you can be free from the things you don’t care about.

Courage isn’t the fear of walking but walking despite fear. I love this.

The more you make choices that are towards your values the more effective, vital, and meaningful your life will be.

Values are like riding a bike; you can only stay balances when you’re in motion. This kinda reminds of how faith without works is dead.

Making hard choices can be liberating because it helps you define who you are.

The ability to form value-connected habits not only makes our good intentions durable, but it also frees up our mental resources for other tasks as well.

The degree to which something is easy to understand is another proxy in our brains for safety and comfort.

The most agile and adept response to an unattainable goal is goal adjustment.

Demotivation for work decreases motivation for everything else. Maybe this is why I’ve been slacking on my updating my Goodreads or taking my Private Pilot’s Exam or doing anything which is good and decent in this life.

Secure attachment is the stabilizer of a child’s emotional life right into middle school and adolescence.

By helping your child learn to label the emotion, gain perspective, and put distance between the impulse and the action, you’re reinforcing the idea that they don’t need to restrain their feelings. They do sometimes need to restrain their behavior, though. This is stepping out, unhooking, and keeps our toughest emotion from getting the best of us.

Minimize external rewards for peeing in the potty or good grades. They shouldn’t be bribed to do basic tasks. People are less happy when they act out of external rewards.

orchidd's review against another edition

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medium-paced

1.75

could’ve done without the implicit assumption that losing weight and excelling under capitalism are main goals of the reader

tbala's review against another edition

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4.0

There is so much to be discovered about one's emotions and how they connect to life. Read this book and truly understand what it means to connect to oneself!

morr_books's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

3.0

lidia_0g's review against another edition

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informative medium-paced

4.5

bee_sib's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective fast-paced

3.5

alissa_doucet's review

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3.0

3.5

storyshory's review

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informative inspiring

4.75