We all cycle through a range of emotions from day-to-day and hour-to-hour. You may feel anger and joy, all within a matter of minutes, but everyone has a predominant emotional state.

To understand this, check out the Emotion Escalator.™

If you were to circle the emotions you feel most often in any recent week, you would find they cluster around one or two steps on the Escalator. This is your predominant emotional state. Another way to think of it is as the mood you feel most often.

Here is the truth about your predominant emotional state: It is unlikely to take a giant leap forward in a short period of time.

So right now, in the middle of a pandemic, when people’s lives and livelihoods are being destroyed, when we are all lonely and worried, please take a moment to extend yourself a little grace. You won’t (and shouldn’t) always feel like life is filled with sunshine and roses and unicorns dancing on your front lawn.

Keep in mind, too, that your...

One of the biggest misconceptions about emotions is this: Negative emotions are bad.

The truth is, negative emotions aren't bad. We call them negative because they feel bad, but negative emotions are actually good. Anger is usually telling us that we deserve better. Sadness is often reminding us of people and things that are important to us. Fear is trying to alert us to danger and telling us to protect ourselves.

But sometimes, we need a break from negative emotions. Sometimes, even when our anger is justified, carrying it around is wrecking our day. Sometimes it causes us to snap at people who don't deserve it. And sometimes, even when we are in the midst of honoring and processing our anger, sadness, or fear, we just need a break from them for a little while.

Today, for Self-Care Sunday, why not make a list of your Instant Mood Shifters? Instant Mood Shifters are those things that make you feel better immediately. Watching a funny video, throwing the ball for the...

The most important habit you can develop to become more resilient is this: Practice resilience. 

Resilience isn’t really something that you are. It’s something that you do over and over again as a habit.

• Are you in the habit of paying attention to how people make you feel, and then spending time with people who make you feel good? 
• Are you in the habit of paying attention to how your mood changes depending on what you are focused on? 
• Are you in the habit of examining the thoughts that cause your emotions and choosing the most empowering thoughts that you have evidence for? 
• When you notice that you are upset about something, are you in the habit of asking yourself the most important question of all: “What do I need to feel better that is within my control?” 

We all move in and out of resilience cycles. Sometimes we feel empowered. Sometimes we feel disempowered. 

The difference is this: The people who make...

As early as preschool, people start asking children what they want to be when they grow up. And while there is certainly nothing wrong (and a lot right) with encouraging children to think about their futures and consider careers that might interest them, this question fails to convey several important things.

First, the question is asking about what career your child wants to have, but a job is only part of the story.

A better question might be—"Who do you want to be when you grow up?"—because it evokes thought about the myriad of components that factor into who we are as humans.

"Who do you want to be?" prompts thought about not just career, but also family, values, hobbies, lifestyle, and legacy. It starts a conversation about how your kids want to show up in the world, how they want to be perceived by others, and how they will try to balance all of the things that will matter to them.

The second and most important thing the question fails to convey is the process of...

You can’t do it all. You can’t home cook every meal, attend every sporting event, work a full-time job, read to your kids every night, teach them great manners, introduce them to next year’s vocab words, take them to museums, memorize facts about Greek mythology, and tell great stories.

• Are you really good at telling stories but not so great at roasting chicken?
• Are you funny but clueless about soccer and not super interested in learning? 
• Great at teaching but not so great at throwing birthday parties?
• The most fun at taking your kids...

We all want to raise children who have emotional intelligence, but despite the fact that we spend about 13,000 hours in school just to receive our high school diploma, most of us never learned the basics of emotional intelligence.

We learned that the capital of Illinois is Springfield, even though Chicago makes more sense. We learned how to make potato batteries, which has come in handy exactly zero times. And we learned about all the movers and shakers of the Renaissance, including but not limited to Francesco Petrarca, whose major accomplishment was writing a collection of poems about Laura, a woman he loved but could not be with.

Yet, most of us don’t know much about emotional intelligence, despite the fact that 100 percent of us will face obstacles, and despite the fact that resilience skills are necessary life skills.

(The same cannot be said of learning Hot Cross Buns on a recorder.)

In fact, if we are asked rudimentary questions about emotional intelligence, most of us...

Often, when our relationships end, we feel so awful and emotionally exhausted that extricating ourselves from the situation with a modicum of dignity intact is all we can muster.

However, we can turn even the worst relationships into valuable lessons if we "mine" them.

Mining a relationship is the process of considering what you learned from it and extracting the lessons you will use going forward.

Every relationship—whether it is with a friend, a partner, or a boss— gives us valuable information about who we are, what we value, and how we want our future relationships to be.

When we ask the right questions, we can find the value in even the worst relationships:

"How did the relationship make you feel emotionally, and how do you want to feel in future relationships?"

"Did that relationship bring out any behavior on your part that you would rather not repeat?"

"What needs were not getting met?"

"What values were not being lived?"

"What strengths were you not using in that...

Consider the messages that kids get about “controlling” their emotions …

• "Stop being so angry!”
• "Control yourself!”
• "Quit whining!”
• "There’s no reason to be so upset!”
• “Why are you so sad?!”

Before they can truly be in control of their emotions, though, kids need to learn something that most adults don’t even know ...

They need to know what causes their emotions.

Most of us think the situation causes an emotion. If we are bored, for instance, we think it is because we are stuck in our homes and forced to social distance.

But the truth is that it is not the situation that causes us to suffer. It is our thoughts about the situation that cause us to suffer.

Let me repeat that: Our thoughts cause our emotions.

For example, imagine that your friend snaps at you.

If you think, “Wow, my friend must be having a bad day. This situation is tough, and we are all having a hard time,” you will likely feel...

Instead of feeling guilty for snapping at your kids when you need them to HURRY, try this …

Communicate to them in advance about your need to be on time.

Say something like:

“I have a lot of things on my plate. Sometimes I feel anxious about getting places on time, and I worry that if I miss a deadline, the entire day will fall apart. Getting places on time helps me stay in control of all the balls I’m juggling. When I feel anxious about getting places on time, I tend to snap at the people slowing me down. That’s why I sometimes yell at you when I am trying to get you to move faster to get out of the house. I am working on staying calm. You can help me by getting dressed and out of the house quickly.”

Even if you do snap at them later (after all, most kids don’t exactly have a sense of urgency), you will feel better about how you have communicated with your children. And as they grow older, they will better understand you, and they will be more...