During my sabbatical semester in the Spring of 2023, I decided to submit a book proposal as one of my major sabbatical projects.
Why write a book, when I already write academic articles? Well, the proposal was to write a popular press book for regular people, not an academic book. There is so much good science out there on how emotions work, and how to regulate emotions both effectively and adaptively (and no, these are not the same thing). Yet, much of the science is behind a paywall, or even if it is publicly available it’s full of jargon and confusing statistics. Or even if the science relatively easy to follow, it’s hard to figure out how to actually apply the science to emotional well-being.
My book is intended to address all of those problems, by sharing the science in a straightforward, easy-to-read manner, and with lots of tips for applying the information to yourself. It’s not a self-help book exactly, but it’s not NOT a self-help book either. My hope is that reading it will give people thoughts and insights about their own emotions, and thus will be helpful to the self. But it’s not trying to fix a problem–because emotions aren’t problems to be fixed!
The metaphor of the book is that emotions are messages, designed to give us information. Yet, because unpleasant emotions like anger, fear, sadness, jealousy, guilt, shame, disappointment, and anxiety (among others) are, well, unpleasant, people try to stuff them down, push them away, or ignore them. This makes sense in many ways, because feeling these feelings is not fun, and the emotions seem pointless, like junk mail. You throw away junk mail, right? You delete the spam e-mails that drop into your inbox?
But.
Remember in the first Harry Potter movie (or book) when Harry gets a letter inviting him to attend Hogwarts and his awful uncle tries to rip up, burn, and destroy the letters? The letters just keep coming, and more of them arrive until the house is flooded with letters (and probably with owl droppings too if you really think about it). Emotions are similar–if you push them away or ignore them, they’ll just come back stronger. Because emotions are messages that want to be received. They are messages that can guide you to your values, because feelings only occur when something matters. The trick is figuring out what matters, and getting the message of the emotion without letting the message take over your life.
I’m really proud of this book and I hope you’ll read it! The book is available now at the American Psychological Association. Or via Amazon. If you read it, consider writing a review, or sending me an email to tell me what you think!
Recent Comments