Why am I passionate about this?

Emotions, we’ve all been told, are less than: less than logic, or spirituality, or anything else, really. Yet no matter how smart, spiritual, or talented people are, they can be brought to their knees by an emotion they don’t understand. Emotions have been thrown into the shadow, yet in the shadow lives immense power, so I dedicated my life to finding the power in the emotional realm. It’s been a magnificent adventure because our emotions contain genius, and they’re a part of everything we think and everything we do. Emotions aren’t less than anything; emotions are everything, and I’m so glad that they’ve welcomed me into their world.


I wrote

The Language of Emotions

By Karla McLaren,

Book cover of The Language of Emotions

What is my book about?

This is the book I needed as a child, as a young woman healing from severe trauma, and as deeply…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling

Karla McLaren Why did I love this book?

We all do emotional labor, but most of us don’t get paid for it. Hell, most of us don’t even get noticed for it! The Managed Heart brings this labor out of the shadows, and it’s a life-changing book. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild developed the concept of emotional labor, which is the labor we do to manage our own emotions and the emotions of others in the context of our work. 

Emotional labor is crucial, but it’s nearly always unacknowledged, unsupported, and treated as something you should already know how to do – for free! This book helps you observe the hidden world of emotional labor and develop your own approach to this vital form of work.

By Arlie Russell Hochschild,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Managed Heart as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In private life, we try to induce or suppress love, envy, and anger through deep acting or "emotion work", just as we manage our outer expressions of feeling through surface acting. In trying to bridge a gap between what we feel and what we "ought" to feel, we take guidance from "feeling rules" about what is owing to others in a given situation. Based on our private mutual understandings of feeling rules, we make a "gift exchange" of acts of emotion management. We bow to each other not simply from the waist, but from the heart. But what occurs when…


Book cover of The Happiness Myth: The Historical Antidote to What Isn't Working Today

Karla McLaren Why did I love this book?

We live with so many toxic myths about happiness, and many of these myths come from books about happiness! The Happiness Myth steps up to defend happiness from all the nonsense. It’s a rollicking and often-hilarious tour through the history of human happiness, full of surprises and strange-but-true ideas to ponder. 

Historian and poet Jennifer Michael Hecht challenges our current certainties in this irreverent and well-researched exploration of what our ancestors (and we!) need to live happy lives. She’s a wonderful and witty person to spend time with, and she’ll help you become more intelligent about the true and everlasting nature of human happiness. Happy now?

By Jennifer Michael Hecht,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Happiness Myth as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Historian Jennifer Michael Hecht looks at contemporary happiness advice, explains why much of it doesn't work, and why it drives us crazy and makes us miserable. Using a social/pop-culture look at the world, she begins her inquiry through the lens of today's most oft perused paths towards attaining happiness - money, mood-managing drugs, knowledge, celebration, and bodies - and then reveals unsuspected insights about how these approaches have faired throughout history. With a new-found historical perspective, Hecht liberates us from the scolding, quasi-scientific messages that insist there's only one way to care for our minds and bodies. Rich with anecdotes…


Book cover of The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence

Karla McLaren Why did I love this book?

Fear is not the problem! Fear arises to help you deal with the problem! Gavin de Becker is a security expert who declares that fear doesn’t get in our way at all. In fact, fear contains the instincts and intuition that help us stay safe in the world.

Using stories from real cases and his own life, de Becker shows us how fear works to keep us safe – and how avoiding or ignoring fear is always a very bad idea. The Gift of Fear will help you connect to the essential intelligence in your fear, and it will help you become safer, more intuitive, and more aware of the world around you. Essential reading.

By Gavin de Becker,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Gift of Fear as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this empowering book, Gavin de Becker, the man Oprah Winfrey calls the US' leading expert on violent behaviour, shows you how to spot even subtle signs of danger - before it's too late. Shattering the myth that most violent acts are unpredictable, de Becker, whose clients include top Hollywood stars and government agencies, offers specific ways to protect yourself and those you love, including: how to act when approached by a stranger; when you should fear someone close to you; what to do if you are being stalked; how to uncover the source of anonymous threats or phone calls;…


Book cover of How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain

Karla McLaren Why did I love this book?

This is a serious WTF book! Lisa Feldman Barrett is upending the entire study of emotions, hooray! Left and right brain? Nope, we don’t have two brains, and the hemispheres aren’t all that different. Lizard brain and the 3-part or triune brain? Nope! Lizard brains are just as “evolved” as ours, and our emotions don’t live in just one area of the brain.

Reading facial expressions of emotions? Nope! Humans are actually terrible at reading emotions from the face. Are there universal emotions? Nope! Is the amygdala the seat of fear or emotions in general? Nope! How Emotions Work will prompt you to say WTF? a bunch of times, but it will also teach you more about yourself and how to work with your emotions and your “body budget,” yes!

By Lisa Feldman Barrett,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked How Emotions Are Made as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Preeminent psychologist Lisa Barrett lays out how the brain constructs emotions in a way that could revolutionize psychology, health care, the legal system, and our understanding of the human mind.
“Fascinating . . . A thought-provoking journey into emotion science.”—The Wall Street Journal
“A singular book, remarkable for the freshness of its ideas and the boldness and clarity with which they are presented.”—Scientific American
“A brilliant and original book on the science of emotion, by the deepest thinker about this topic since Darwin.”—Daniel Gilbert, best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness
The science of emotion is in the midst of a…


Book cover of Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature

Karla McLaren Why did I love this book?

Hatred is one of the most destructive emotions there is – if you have no skills for hatred, that is. If you can do your shadow work (which psychoanalyst Carl Jung developed to help you work with the lost, forbidden, and projected parts of yourself) you can perform astounding feats of self-awareness, integration, healing, and evolution.

This essential book contains 65 essays on the shadow – where to find it, how to understand it in yourself and others, and how to do the shadow work that can help you find the gold in even the most troubling, dislocated, and incomplete areas of your psyche. Bonus: when you know how to do your shadow work, you’ll become more whole, and you’ll be a much easier person to live with!

By Connie Zweig, Jeremiah Abrams,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Meeting the Shadow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The author offers exploration of self and practical guidance dealing with the dark side of personality based on Jung's concept of "shadow," or the forbidden and unacceptable feelings and behaviors each of us experience.


Explore my book 😀

The Language of Emotions

By Karla McLaren,

Book cover of The Language of Emotions

What is my book about?

This is the book I needed as a child, as a young woman healing from severe trauma, and as deeply emotive person in an emotionally baffled culture. Our learned distrust and even hatred of emotions creates ignorance and suffering that is entirely unnecessary, and in this book, I dive into the gorgeous and brilliant waters of the emotions in order to retrieve what has been taken from us. 

Strangely, this is the first book ever to focus on all seventeen emotions in terms of how they work, why they arise, and how you can learn to work with, befriend, and embrace all of them. It’s an owner’s manual for human social life and interior life, and it’s a love letter to the emotions. And hell yeah, it’s badass.

You might also like...

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

Book cover of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

Rona Simmons Author Of No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I come by my interest in history and the years before, during, and after the Second World War honestly. For one thing, both my father and my father-in-law served as pilots in the war, my father a P-38 pilot in North Africa and my father-in-law a B-17 bomber pilot in England. Their histories connect me with a period I think we can still almost reach with our fingertips and one that has had a momentous impact on our lives today. I have taken that interest and passion to discover and write true life stories of the war—focusing on the untold and unheard stories often of the “Average Joe.”

Rona's book list on World War II featuring the average Joe

What is my book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on any other single day of the war.

The narrative of No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident while focusing its attention on ordinary individuals—clerks, radio operators, cooks, sailors, machinist mates, riflemen, and pilots and their air crews. All were men who chose to serve their country and soon found themselves in a terrifying and otherworldly place.

No Average Day reveals the vastness of the war as it reaches past the beaches in…

No Average Day: The 24 Hours of October 24, 1944

By Rona Simmons,

What is this book about?

October 24, 1944, is not a day of national remembrance. Yet, more Americans serving in World War II perished on that day than on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, or on June 6, 1944, when the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, or on any other single day of the war. In its telling of the events of October 24, No Average Day proceeds hour by hour and incident by incident. The book begins with Army Private First-Class Paul Miller's pre-dawn demise in the Sendai #6B Japanese prisoner of war camp. It concludes with the death…


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