Renée Smith
Director of Workplace Transformation
Governor’s Results Washington Office
Highly, highly recommend❗
If you need to feel empowered to honor what's going on in your internal world, this is it. The I Can book let's you into twelve ways you can do exactly that. I've read it, and it's inspired some journaling sessions ❤️📖🖋
Thank you Pamela @emotionliteracyadvocates for writing this. It's deeply inspiring, reassuring, and expresses deep compassion.
Find I Can on Emolit.org ❤️❤️
Listen to Tiffy's podcast conversation with Pamela, about journaling and emotion literacy, here: journalheaux.com/s2e2
The I Can book's message coincides with my inner journey in perfect synchronicity. The synchronicity is truly important in the matter of heart ❤️. We speak the language of the mind most of the time. But when it comes to our own heart, we speak and listen through feelings. I recently started to recollect pieces of myself that were buried underneath fear and pain. The discomfort I used to run away from now feels like a gentle hand that dusts off the veil that separates me from my true and whole self. Our feelings never meant to detroy us but to take us home. I Can is really helpful and inspiring for people who are exploring their inner world and finding it quite a daunting task like me🤣 So THANK YOU!! It's amazing how Pamela puts everything into words. Sometimes we feel something but we don't quite understand it until someone speaks it out! The I Can book feels like that voice to me now❤️
"Feelings show up in an especially desired context and one that we find repellent; they show up regardless of the nature of a context; feelings do not discriminate. By being with our feelings, letting ourselves know them, we create a home for feelings and, essentially, a vital part of ourselves has a place to live. A well-developed relationship with our feelings affords deeper understanding of ourselves and each other—a grand exploration in progress. Circumstances and particular feelings might come and go; our capacity to feel is a remarkable form of protection and guidance that stays with us as we learn and grow. Feelings are non-verbal and don’t need words to exist, and words help to make their presence known. Feelings come more alive when shared."
There are many reasons I loved reading
I Can…I’m big into communication, especially being a mom introducing feelings into my son's life…it is so important to let my child know—IT’S OK TO HAVE FEELINGS!!! Thank you for writing I Can.❤️
The I Can book helped my students to understand that the “smarts” they needed to understand Shakespeare were not academic; instead, the smarts they needed were firmly located inside their own hearts...Shakespeare’s characters speak the glorious language of the heart. We don’t need to be academically brilliant to understand Shakespeare, but to understand vulnerability.
I am reading your tiny tome of ageless wisdom and feeling that you are quite certainly a magician.
I thoroughly enjoyed your book, I Can. It’s a must-read several times over!
Renée Smith
Director of Workplace Transformation
Governor’s Results Washington Office
Your book is so, so, so, good.
I really believe it is a wonderful resource for so many. Both the content and the writing are excellent. I also share the importance of emotional knowing, expressing and sharing. And, vulnerability? The best!
Here’s to this little gem being cherished by many!
This simple, elegant and profound book invites the reader to better understand themselves and others without the need to pass through a massive quantity of text to find meaning and insights. Yet even though it is spare, it is profound. What a gift!
I read the I Can book today and, to be honest, it was much needed…I did not expect to learn and relate to so many things in the book. I am going through an emotional rollercoaster these days, I did the right thing reading the book, I regret not reading it sooner.😃 I could finally understand what emotion literacy actually is. I really loved it and enjoyed every part of the book, specially “Message from Pamela” and it inspired me in many ways. There is so much to tell you about (my responses to) the book…English is not my native language…in reading the book, I found new words and added them to my dictionary. The last part of the book: “Emotion Literate’s Proclamation” describes me completely. I really appreciate your work and highly recommend this beautiful book to others.
Regards,
Your genuine fan from India
aka Kaivalya Jain💜💜
I have to tell you I really appreciate all the quotes from various authors, including those from your past work : The best way out is always through. (Frost); The past is never dead. It’s not even past… (Faulkner). Thank you for putting out this new creative work for the world to enjoy. May your words marinate in the minds of your readers.
Pamela, I brought I Can on my solo hike today…
EIGHTH WAY
I CAN ACCEPT
MY FULL RANGE OF FEELINGS,
knowing that
each particular feeling is of equal value,
even when not my preference
or socially acceptable.
...lovely, clear, deeper than it first appears, accessible, practical and beautifully written.
Read the book and loved it…so did my mom!
Experience the I Can book Circle: ELA's introductory course on emotion literacy. Start reading I Can, reflect, write and talk about it in a group of your own making, faciliated by the book's author.
I found the book insightful and reassuring. I like how eloquent, purposeful and approachable it is.
Paying attention to your feelings (and being kind to yourself about them) sounds easy, but it’s not something I’d consciously done on a regular basis. I Can puts emotional self-care practices in accessible terms and makes it feel simple.
…one aspect of my writing process has been to not allow self-judgment to block expressing the emotional truth of what I want to say. I had been making some progress, but I have been much more connected to that place with all the permission and 'cues' I got from I Can. Given these days of deep emotion, I have so appreciated the ability to let mine flow and appreciate the allowance to experience the rightful anger at injustice and cruelty, the tears of rage as well as the tears of deep appreciation for the many acts of nobility, strength and kindness that are part of the news. Thank you.
I Can book fits perfectly in one’s pocket or purse 👛 and it is so beautifully layered and wise about how we can stay emotionally connected to our feelings — I am thrilled for Pamela's accomplishment and for every man, woman and child who is lucky enough to read it!
Pamela, I brought I Can to the Seattle Children's March...
ELEVENTH WAY
I CAN RE-EVALUATE
AND ESTABLISH NEW WAYS
OF REGARDING VULNERABILITY as a key characteristic of the human condition,
by facing and bravely welcoming
my own version of this universally shared state of being.
Thanks for recommending I Can by Pamela Sackett. I found it wonderfully dense and best on a second reading.
I especially appreciated the twelve chapters synopses at each chapter’s title page,
as I am one of those who should be in ESL classes: emotion literacy as a second language…I found one chapter—the Sixth Way—especially challenging.The book is definitely one of the cairns on the trail…
…seems a couple times a page, I freeze, count on my fingers, blink hard, and wonder what is real…you’ve got a way with words, Pamela, that seems to stymie meaning but instead opens up my subconscious into long journeys that I’m bouncing through…text, heretofore, hasn’t had such effect on me….as I spiral into epistemology, existentialism and Russell’s teapot, the lines—in the first WakeUpCall of your pocket guru—about saying, doing, thinking and showing appear as synesthetic shadows shouted onto a cave wall. “which part sees who” taunts me with identity solipsism and Cartesian objectivism vs. relativism. And I seem unable to turn the page for an hour…I Can is unfolding my mind like old origami.
…honestly, I usually take your book whenever I travel, too…I’ve always been afraid of flying, but in the last year I’ve started reading field guides—and now your book—when my anxiety builds up. It helps a lot, and your book has helped me to come to terms with a lot of the control issues I have with my own feelings.
I Can’s author brilliantly juxtaposes quotes, excerpts, and observations from a variety of sources to launch and reinforce her points in a completely integrated way, allowing the reader to perceive, ruminate, and have a quicksilver response all at once.
*To view our "Invitation to READ I Can book" musical trailer, (pictured above), PLUS our growing collection of ELA originals, visit us on instagram and/or YouTube