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Good Inside with Dr. BeckyDealing with Feelings: A Conversation With Dr. Marc Brackett
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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Practical emotional intelligence strategies for parents: permission, data, capability, compassion
- Dr. Marc Brackett shares how childhood abuse and bullying—and an uncle who asked “How are you feeling?”—led him to build evidence-based emotional intelligence frameworks centered on permission to feel.
- The conversation reframes emotions as neutral data that drive attention, decision-making, relationships, mental health, and performance, challenging the “positive vs. negative” emotion binary.
- They argue emotion regulation is 100% learned, note most people received little to no education in it (about 10% at home and 6–7% at school), and emphasize skill-building over quick fixes.
- Kennedy and Brackett contrast two unhelpful extremes in parenting (dismissal vs. feelings dictating reality) and propose a middle path: validate emotions while reinforcing capability and problem-solving.
- They address a current controversy that “self-awareness is self-indulgent,” clarifying that healthy emotional check-ins are brief and functional, and offer actionable practices like self-compassion, values-based “best self” cues, and an other-oriented mindset.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasEmotion regulation isn’t hardwired; it’s learned.
Brackett emphasizes there’s no dedicated brain area for “emotion regulation,” and his pandemic-era research suggests most people were never taught these skills—making explicit teaching and practice essential for parents and schools.
Stop trying to eliminate uncomfortable emotions; use them to meet goals.
The goal of regulation is not “bringing feelings to zero,” but using emotional information wisely (e.g., frustration signals unmet needs; anxiety can motivate preparation).
Permission to feel is often the first—and most overlooked—strategy.
Welcoming an emotion (“Hi, anxiety”) reduces the fight-or-flight spiral and opens the door to choosing a helpful next step, rather than suppressing or exploding.
The parenting sweet spot is: feelings matter, and capability remains intact.
They contrast dismissal (“suck it up”) with overaccommodation (“no school today”), and advocate brief curiosity + problem-solving while holding “I believe you, and I believe in you.”
Behavior is a clue, not the full story.
Statements like “I hate you” may mask shame, fear, or social pain; responding to the surface behavior alone can isolate kids and prevent effective support.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesI'll be frank, I just feel like my emotional life was kind of robbed from me as a kid.
— Dr. Marc Brackett
And it just, everything changed because he asked me the simple question that guides my work, which is, "How are you feeling?"
— Dr. Marc Brackett
There is no area of your brain called emotion regulation. It is 100% learned. 100% learned.
— Dr. Marc Brackett
The goal of emotion regulation is not to control your feelings, it's to learn how to use all of your emotions wisely to achieve a goal.
— Dr. Marc Brackett
People misunderstand behavior for emotion.
— Dr. Marc Brackett
SPEAKERS
Dr. Becky Kennedy
hostClinical psychologist and parenting expert; host of the Good Inside podcast.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
