The Marked Life Blog

Today I’m going to do something a little different and review a TED Talk which a friend was kind enough to send me last week.
Susan David is a psychologist, researcher, and professor at Harvard University. Through her research she has developed a set of “psychological skills critical to thriving in times of complexity and change” which she calls Emotional Agility. Her work is pertinent to us because it involves radical acceptance and gives direction on how to fully experience your emotions without letting them make life decisions for you. You’ll find the video of her TED Talk from 2017 below.

In case you don’t have time to listen to Susan’s TED Talk I’ll summarize it for you. Susan contrasts two different responses to emotion: emotional rigidity and emotional agility. Emotional rigidity involves responding to emotions we don’t want to feel by brooding on them, bottling them up, and/or false…