Big Feelings

How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay

By: Liz Fosslien, Mollie West Duffy

Narrated by: Liz Fosslien, Mollie West Duffy

From the duo behind the bestselling book No Hard Feelings and the wildly popular @LizandMollie Instagram, an insightful and approachable illustrated guide to handling our most difficult emotions.

We all experience unwieldy feelings. But between our emotion-phobic society and the debilitating uncertainty of modern times, we usually don't know how to talk about what we're going through, much less handle it. Over the past year, Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy’s online community has laughed and cried about productivity guilt, pandemic anxiety, and Zoom fatigue. Now, Big Feelings addresses anyone intimidated by oversized feelings they can't predict or control, offering the tools to understand what's really going on, find comfort, and face the future with a sense of newfound agency.

Weaving surprising science with personal stories and original illustrations, each chapter examines one uncomfortable feeling—like envy, burnout, and anxiety—and lays out strategies for turning big emotions into manageable ones. You’ll learn:

• How to end the cycle of intrusive thoughts brought on by regret, and instead use this feeling as a compass for making decisions
• How to identify what’s behind your anger and communicate it productively, without putting people on the defensive
• Why we might be suffering from perfectionism even if we feel far from perfect, and how to detach your self-worth from what you do

Big Feelings helps us understand that difficult emotions are not abnormal, and that we can emerge from them with a deeper sense of meaning. We can’t stop emotions from bubbling up, but we can learn how to make peace with them.

* This audiobook includes a downloadable PDF of illustrations, assessments, and resources from the book.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"Lucid, wise, illustrated advice for when we are overwhelmed. Neither patronizing nor pedantic, just good sensible advice that helps you have more control over those mental avalanches."
—Matt Haig, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Midnight Library and The Comfort Book

“Over the past few years, our emotions have often gotten the better of us. This book will restore your sense of control—and make you feel less alone in the world. Liz and Mollie do an outstanding job bringing your fuzziest feelings into sharp focus.”
—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast WorkLife

“The rise of stress, burnout, and anxiety is one of the most urgent issues of our time. Big Feelings is a vital guide to not only handling complex emotions but learning to thrive through difficult times—and emerge even more resilient.”
—Arianna Huffington, founder & CEO, Thrive Global

This book is amazing! Gives you great insight.

Love this book. Gives great insight into restoring your sense of control. Liz puts put incredible content

Life changing

Absolutely brilliant insight into emotions and healing modalities. I have truly enjoyed this masterpiece.

Some helpful information

Once you get past the authors' annoying voices, there was some good information in this book about dealing with big feelings. The last 50 or so minutes bored me. Notes to the authors:
1. Don't read all your acknowledgements aloud.
2. Do get some vocal coaching before you read another book that you wrote.

Amazing book

Loved the book! It was so insightful and relevant! It’s amazing to read such an authentic and thoughtful book about all feelings we might feel shame to talk about. Will re-read it and recommend to family and friends. Thank you, Liz and Mollie!

Recommend to (almost) everyone

I really appreciate this book. The readers' stories and the authors' personal experiences add so much depth to the research of the main points. The book does not feel at all academic, so do not get scared by the word "research". There is so much valuable vulnerability, and our big feelings can be normalized through the lessons.
I first heard of the book when Molly was interviewed on a podcast I subscribe to, and I was captivated. The audiobook, read by the authors, is very easy to listen to. (That is, until one of the big feelings discussed brought up so much emotion that I had to stop and have a good cry.) I also plan to buy the printed version, and I plan to re-read the book. I am glad this book was published when it was, and I am thankful to experience it while it was so freshly relevant. Even so, the guidance is timeless!
I have so many big feelings myself, and I know people who are dealing with some extremely difficult circumstances, so I want to recommend the book to almost everyone. My one disappointment with the book is the frequent use of an expletive (quoted from people who had been interviewed for content examples, not directly from the authors). I can hear the story behind the words, and I did not give up on the book. Yet I know some people who really need the ideas and guidance of the book, but they are so closed-minded that they will not get past those expletives.

Feels like therapy (in a VERY good way)

Seriously, this book felt like I was in a therapy session. It was hard to get through, but only because I'm also working through hard stuff right now with my own therapist. I've never felt this deep of a connection with an audio book before. I felt understood. The authors' voices are so soothing. I'll be listening to this again and again, to help me through the many seasons of life and remember that if I did the hard thing once, I can do it and other hard things again.

Excellent book for current times!

Many of us are currently going through a barrage of feelings and this book helps us navigate through our own feelings and being able to add resources in our toolkit to deal with these feelings. Thank you for writing such a relatable book!

Big Feelings, Big Likes

I really liked this book. It does not labor points like many self help books and can shift the tone from wit to vulnerability with the natural voice of a conversation with a friend. In many ways the theme of this book is having patience and grace with yourself and putting your Big Feelings to work for you. The chapters on anger, burnout, despair, and perfectionism stood out to me as highlights. Liz and Mollie take care in their handling of serious mental health issues and offer resources for those awaking help as well.

Overall, the subject matter, the tone, and the illustrations stood out and made this one an easy, enjoyable, and insightful read on some heavy subjects.

Great! New things as well

Great book! I read a lot of self empowerment, and this had some new things in it, as well as a good general overview. I especially liked the revenge bedtime procrastination, I didn’t realize it had a name. That plus the authors’ vulnerability was really great. I didn’t quite deliver on the promises I was hoping for of actually how to deal with these big emotions. But overall I liked it and would recommend.