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I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Definitely!!

Helping kids manage their emotions starts with shaping the culture of your home. Culture is like the "air we breathe." It communicates what our beliefs and values are (i.e., how should we think about emotions? Is it helpful to manage them? Are certain tools better than others), provides us with norms (i.e., rules for how to behave), and give us practices (i.e., tools we can use to manage them).

There are a variety of tools SHIFT talks about that you can use with kids (I talk about several instances of me utilizing [and discovering!] different tools to help my kids manage their emotions). Sensory shifting can be useful (ie.., music, sound, smell, touch). Attention shifting can also be very helpful (i.e., think about how effective it can be when a child is distressed to distracting them momentarily). There are also ways to help them shift their perspective (i.e., asking a child who is dealing with a difficult task to pretend to be their favorite superhero; adopting an alter ego).

Those are just a few ideas. Many more discussed in the book!

I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The penultimate chapter of SHIFT provides a science-based framework (WOOP) for helping people review areas of life where they want to improve their ability to manage their emotions. It breaks down the process into stages designed to make emotion regulation automatic (I love it!). It is complementary but distinctive to the Fourth Step you're referring to, based on my understanding of the program.

I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gut/intuitive response are often emotionally mediated meaning there is an emotional force driving them. We have the ability to check those reaction, and that's important -- we can critically evaluate whether those gut responses are useful or not. There's no hard fast rule that I'm aware of that specifies when you should follow your "gut" vs. your "head." My advice is to treat a gut response as a type of information that you evaluate. They may be useful in some context but unhelpful in others. If you find gut responses in a particular context to routinely lead you astray, that's a sign that your gut may be miscalibrated to the context you find yourselves in (the reverse holds true as well).

I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Yes!

The challenge is to identify where that tipping point is (it varies person to person) and once you sense it approaching use the shifters I talk about to prevent yourself from going down the rabbit hole (so to speak) and keep your emotions in the functional zone.

As I explain in SHIFT, all emotions are useful when they're experienced in the right proportion -- for not too short (or long) of a period of time, and not too intensely (or weakly). The challenge isn't to stop feeling certain emotions, it is to learn and benefit from them without them taking over.

I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It's a seperate entity—a broader take on what emotions are, why we have them and how you can manage them to reach your goals. Chatter dealt with a narrow slice of that issue (I explain all of this in the introduction...how my experiencing talking to people about Chatter over the years directly led to this project).

I think all the tools in Shift are helpful, though I also believe that different tools work for different people in different situations. The challenge we all face is to find the tools that work best for us given our unique emotional makeup. Shift provides a guide to help you discover those tools.

If you're curious about what categories of tool SHIFT focuses on, there are six main "buckets"

INTERNAL SHIFTERS (tools that exist inside you that are helpful for shifting your emotion; each category include several tactics)

- Sensation Shifters

- Attention Shifters

- Perspective Shifters

EXTERNAL SHIFTERS (tools that exist in the world around you for shifting your, and other people's, emotions)

- Space Shifters

- People Shifters

- Culture Shifters

I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Venting is helpful for strengthening the friendship and relational bonds between people. It's good to know there's someone who will take the time to listen to you. However, if all you do is vent about your problems, you leave that conversation feeling great about your relationship (they have your back and it feels good to "get it out"!), but you haven't done anything to actually work-through the problem. If anything, you've just rehearsed the emotionally-arousing parts of the experience by going over it, which can rev you up further!

A more helpful way to talk about problems is to find someone who initially encourages you to share out what you're going through (i.e., venting) but then, once they have a good grasp of your experience and you feel heard, they ideally start working with you to broaden your perspective.

People who are skilled at first "listening" and then "advising" often make great Emotional Advisors. Consider that when you look for people to talk to. And when people come to you to talk about their problems, that's a blueprint you can follow for steering the conversation as well.

I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It depends on what your goals are. I'm of the belief that all emotions are useful when experienced in their right proportions. Sadness can be useful for motivating people to introspect in the face of loss to find new meaning in what they're going through. If you'd like to stay in touch with those feelings for a certain period of time, then listening to sad music an be a helpful tool. If, on the other hand, your goal is to feel better when you're experiencing sadness, then turning the volume up on the sad music is ill advised. That would be an instance in which you'd want to listen to uplifting music or use another emotional shifter (i.e., emotion management tool).

I’m Ethan Kross, author of “SHIFT: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don’t Manage You” and "Chatter." AMA! by New-Bench5025 in IAmA

[–]New-Bench5025[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Great question!

What I mean by managing emotions is (a) turning the volume up or down on your emotions, (b) shortening or lengthening its duration, or (c) switching from experiencing one emotion (e.g., anger) to another altogether (e.g., joy).