Shift Quotes

“Disrupting a cascade of negative emotions by distracting is only one way you can use your cognitive control system.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Being able to alter the trajectory of your emotional response by speeding it up, slowing it down, or changing its intensity is called emotion regulation.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“No matter how painful and overwhelming our emotions can sometimes be, it is essential to remember that we evolved our capacity to experience them for a reason: They help us navigate the world, which is why all emotions are functional, even the ones we don’t like.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Cognitive control helps us manage our emotions to solve problems, stay safe, and develop close bonds with others.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“The neural pathways that are responsible for cognitive control are found mostly in the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that sits directly behind your forehead and acts as a headquarters for complex thinking. Out of all the animals in the world ours is the most developed.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Let me explain. I once heard Jonathan Cohen, a Princeton neuroscientist, talk about how many animals scratch as a matter of course; it’s a sensory response that we’re born with. But not all animals that itch can suppress their immediate desire to scratch to achieve a longer-term goal. This capacity, which is often referred to as cognitive control, allows us to modulate automatic responses, think abstractly, divert our attention, and alternate our thinking between different priorities.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Triggers, of course, will be unique and personal for each of us—what sets me off will often be completely different from what presses your emotional buttons—and we can’t control them any more than we can control any other aspect of the world around us.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“There are things you can control and things you can’t. Emotions are both.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“we all possess the capacity to improve.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Emotions aren’t good or bad; they are just information. There is an essential place in our lives for anger, sadness, guilt, grief, and a host of other “negative” emotions when they’re experienced in the right proportions. The absolutist view that to live your best life, you need to rid yourself of negativity is a dangerous myth. Each of our emotions, however unpleasant in the moment, contains a powerful wisdom, shaped by evolution and experience.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“The truth is that feelings are simply the part of an emotional experience that we are aware of. And we are conscious of feelings in ways that we are not always conscious of in other aspects of our emotional experience (for example, an instinctive frown or shifting hormone levels). Feelings are like the “fever” of an emotional response, the conscious readout of what’s going on behind the scenes.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“How we think about our circumstances shapes the emotions we experience; then those emotions reverberate back to influence how we think.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Emotion” is an umbrella term that describes a loosely coordinated response that includes what we feel, think, and experience in our bodies in response to events we judge to be meaningful.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Emotions are responses to experiences you have in the world, or that you imagine happening, that are meaningful to you; they’re instruments to help you respond to the situation.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“He knows that success, in this moment or any, is not about turning his emotions off; it’s about understanding how to use emotions skillfully without letting them completely take over. And that’s a critically important insight because experiencing emotions for humans is like breathing air: Our emotions are both unavoidable and crucial to our survival.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“It starts with understanding what I call the major emotional “shifters” that we all have inside us. We can harness our senses to automatically shift our emotions. We can deploy our attention strategically in ways that help us conquer our greatest fears and savor our most joyous experiences.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“People talked about having parents and bosses who brushed their feelings aside.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“Why is a crooked letter” was one of her favorite rejoinders.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“We’re also at the mercy of automatic thoughts that pop up outside our control. If you’ve ever experienced a dark or strange thought that seemingly came out of nowhere and caused you distress, you’re familiar with this phenomenon; it’s a common one.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You

“When you can fix what’s wrong—break up with the unfaithful partner or leave the demoralizing job—recasting the negative emotions into positive ones can prolong suffering.”
― Ethan Kross, Shift: Managing Your Emotions--So They Don't Manage You