Emotional Agility and Courage. The importance of emotions in our personal and work lives has been recognized for decades. This has sometimes been misunderstood as a requirement for being "always positive." But the heart of the matter -well known by wise people for centuries- is the recognition and acceptance of the whole gamut of "positive" and "negative" emotions, not to be hastily judged as "good" or "bad": They show us how our life is going and how aligned are our actions and values. Being curious about our emotions and having a compassionate acknowledgement of them does not mean that we will get everything we want or that we will never make mistakes again. The brave acceptance of our emotions allows us to become more skillful when facing complex situations. For instance, an emotion commonly labeled as "negative" (such as anger or sadness) might signal that an important need for us is not being met; thus, we can make relevant decisions aligned with our values in order to satisfy it. Eventually, this attainment might generate further (positive) emotions. This link between emotional awareness and skillful action has been called "Emotional Agility". How used are you to this dynamics? Improving this set of skills might undoubtedly have a significant impact in more than one aspect of ​​your everyday life.

References:

• Susan David, Ph.D. (2018). The gift and power of emotional courage (Ted Talk). https://goo.gl/BWKGQw
• Susan David, Ph.D. (2016). Emotional Agility. Penguin Random House, UK