I have an odd place that I like to visit when I’m unsettled: the Stop & Shop grocery store in my town.
The whole experience calms me — the ’80s tunes, the holiday décor (always on display two holidays in advance) and the new flavors of potato chips.
My loved ones are aware of my little quirk. Sometimes when I call my best friend after a bad day, she’ll say, “You know where you need to go.”
There are lots of ways to deal with the ups and downs of daily life, Marc Brackett, the founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, told me. He’s developed a framework called RULER — recognize, understand, label, express and regulate — and it’s used in over 5,000 schools nationwide.
In his new book, “Dealing With Feeling: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You Want,” he explains the process. You’ll notice the emphasis on self-awareness. That’s on purpose, he said: “If you don’t know what you’re feeling, it’s hard to know what to do with your feelings.”
You can move through the steps pretty quickly, Dr. Brackett said, and they will get easier with practice. I asked him to take me through them.
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