Permission to Feel: Unlocking the Power of Emotions to Help Our Kids, Ourselves, and Our Society Thrive

By learning to “identify, express, and harness our feelings, even the most challenging ones, we can use those emotions to help us create positive, satisfying lives,” says Marc Brackett’s best-selling book, Permission to Feel.

Marc Brackett is a professor in Yale University’s Child Study Center and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. In his 25 years as an emotion scientist, he has developed a blueprint for understanding our emotions and using them wisely so that they help, rather than hinder, our success and well-being.

The core of his approach is a legacy from his childhood, from an astute uncle who gave him permission to feel. He was the first adult who managed to see Marc, listen to him, and recognize the suffering, bullying, and abuse he’d endured. And that was the beginning of Marc’s awareness that what he was going through was temporary. He wasn’t alone, he wasn’t stuck on a timeline, and he wasn’t “wrong” to feel scared, isolated, and angry. Now, best of all, he could do something about it.

Too many children and adults are suffering; they are ashamed of their feelings and emotionally unskilled, but they don’t have to be.

Permission to Feel is available national booksellers. Learn more about the book and Dr. Brackett on the Marc Brackett, PhD website.

Listen to  podcast in which Brené Brown talks with March Brackett about emotional intelligence (EQ) and why it is now more important than ever to understand what it is and how it can help both adults and children better understand themselves, their surroundings, and each other.