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Big feelings : how to be okay when things are not okay

by Liz Fosslien

152.4 /Fosslien
Nonfiction, Health, Self Help

We all experience unwieldy feelings. But between our emotion-phobic society and the debilitating uncertainty of modern times, we usually don't know how to talk about what we're going through, much less handle it. Over the past year, Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy’s online community has laughed and cried about productivity guilt, pandemic anxiety, and Zoom fatigue. Now, Big Feelings addresses anyone intimidated by oversized feelings they can't predict or control, offering the tools to understand what's really going on, find comfort, and face the future with a sense of newfound agency. Weaving surprising science with personal stories and original illustrations, each chapter examines one uncomfortable feeling—like envy, burnout, and anxiety—and lays out strategies for turning big emotions into manageable ones. You’ll learn: • How to end the cycle of intrusive thoughts brought on by regret, and instead use this feeling as a compass for making decisions • How to identify what’s behind your anger and communicate it productively, without putting people on the defensive • Why we might be suffering from perfectionism even if we feel far from perfect, and how to detach your self-worth from what you do Big Feelings helps us understand that difficult emotions are not abnormal, and that we can emerge from them with a deeper sense of meaning. We can’t stop emotions from bubbling up, but we can learn how to make peace with them.

Alright, so I'm only through the introduction, but what drew me to this book is the title itself: Big Feelings. I've heard this term used within the mental health field as well as with children trying to learn what their emotions are telling them. I am already finding it useful. Seeing a mood chart anyone can draw on their own, and reading that one cannot deal with big feelings until they unpack them, makes me look forward to delving in to the triggers they discuss. The simple and relatable illustrations also describe what words cant. Looking forward to digging in. -Melody