How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay: Book Review of Big Feelings

Throughout the week that Roe v. Wade was overturned, our executive coaching clients shared that they were angry, sad, overwhelmed, worn down, or didn’t know how to feel anymore. These senior level professionals communicated that the last few years felt so heavy and turbulent, they didn’t know how to show up to work some days—let alone lead a team. Workplaces and traditional career growth weren’t designed for the intense level of emotional processing we’ve collectively experienced these past 2 years.

Enter Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy’s newest book: Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay. Through personal stories, scientific research, and fun graphics, each chapter explores an emotion—uncertainty, anger, burnout, comparison, perfectionism, despair, and grief—and walks through strategies for turning “big feelings” into manageable ones.

Big Feelings addresses 4 areas that are also trending concepts in our executive coaching practice.

1. Take the emotion out of the emotion

Emotions are hard, but they’re not inherently good or bad. At a young age you’re taught to assign a value judgement to an emotion. Be happy! (Good emotion.) Don’t be sad! (Bad emotion.) In reality, your feelings are here to serve you. For example, anger can fuel you to advocate for what matters and regret can provide you with insight into what brings you meaning and fulfillment.

2. Be specific

Specificity is required to navigate difficult emotions—it allows you to talk about emotions in a less emotional way. This is why we guide our coaching clients to notice and name their feelings. Fosselin and West Duffy reinforce this approach with a goal to normalize “big feeling” conversations and cite research that identifying feelings improves well-being, physical health, and life satisfaction.

3. Reframe emotions to remove their destructive power

Naming your emotions helps you uncover deeper insights about your feelings, allowing you reframe them to learn and move forward. For example, if you’re envious of a colleague’s promotion, pinpoint what emotions lie behind the promotion envy. Are you envious of your colleague’s newfound visibility, prestige, influence, recognition, or financial position? What are you really craving? Your envy is likely not about the promotion itself. Diving deeper reveals which elements surrounding the promotion are important to you. This reframe allows you to chart your own course to achieve the goals that matter to you, not to your colleague. Similarly, you can use the emotion of regret as an internal compass—when you move beyond the pain of regret, it can help you craft future decisions.

4. Being perfect isn’t the goal

Perfectionism doesn’t make you feel perfect—it makes you feel inadequate. Poke holes in your perfectionist self-talk, recognize procrastination and avoidance as perfectionist tendencies, and strive to move away from all-or-none-thinking. (Tip: Notice when you find yourself gravitating to words like “always” and “never.”) 

Big feelings and difficult emotions are not abnormal. Through naming and reframing, you can emerge with new insights and wisdom. You don’t need to go it alone. Partner with an executive coach to get there faster and with greater results. Book your initial consultation with CloseCohen today.