‘Shift' Review: Riding the Ocean of Emotion
Ethan Kross was close with his grandmother, but throughout his childhood in Brooklyn, N.Y., she rebuffed his questions about her harrowing escape from the Nazis during World War II. Once a year, however, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, she would speak at her synagogue, sobbing as she recounted the murders of her immediate family members in Poland and her own improbable survival.
Mr. Kross is a psychologist who directs the Emotion and Self Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan. He returns to his grandmother's story throughout 'Shift: Managing Your Emotions—So They Don't Manage You,' his lucid guide to emotion regulation. His grandmother was a typical Jewish bubbe the rest of the time, so growing up he was mystified by that annual display of anguish. 'Where did all that emotion go?' he asks. 'How did she manage to keep it locked up inside, and did she suffer for it?'
Conventional wisdom would posit that she must have: We're told to process our emotions, not push them down. But Mr. Kross frequently breaks with conventional wisdom. His conclusion is that instead of repressing her feelings, his grandmother was able 'to flexibly deploy her attention to what she'd endured.' That flexibility is at the heart of 'Shift.' Mr. Kross suggests that while we can't control which emotions are triggered within us, we can, with practice, control their trajectories. The goal is to consider the messages that fear, anger and anxiety are sending us before shifting to a more constructive emotional state.
Mr. Kross takes readers through recent research in the neuroscience of emotion, as well as a number of engaging case studies. And, with an amiable, can-do air, he offers a range of strategies to help manage emotions: They can be as simple as putting on a favorite song to alter your mood. 'No judgment, please,' he quips after revealing that he likes to sing along to Journey's 'Don't Stop Believin'.'
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