How to Sit in Your Feelings
“Emotion work begins with adopting the mindset that at any given moment, we experience a feeling or set of feelings. Feelings are temporary and will pass to give way to other feelings. To process emotions means to practice mindfulness and work through any defenses that usually get in the way of experiencing them fully, making meaning, and deciding how to be guided by them.
- Label the emotion. If you are struggling with finding the language, you can use an emotion wheel to help. Labeling the emotion helps alleviate some of the power and discomfort the feeling was originally associated with. Attaching a descriptor to something intangible makes it more real, with just enough distance to start to observe it.
- Locate the emotion. Focusing on the physicality of emotion also makes it increasingly observable. Recognizing the physical sensation an emotion brings also establishes a connection between your mind and body. It allows you to witness firsthand the impact working through emotions can have in providing physical relief. Emotion work like this has the capacity to improve the self-awareness of both your emotional and physical experiences.
- Ask nonjudgmental questions to understand the emotion. By asking more inviting questions about emotion, we can start to understand its purpose. Here are some compassionate questions that start to encourage a positive relationship with emotions and help attend to their function: How intense is this feeling on a scale of 1-10? Was this a gradual or sudden onset? Is it familiar? What is this in reaction to? How can I make sense of it? What could it be trying to tell me?
- Decide whether to act from the emotion or let it go. Emotions can be used to intentionally guide behavior or allowed to pass for the next emotion on the wave to take the lead. After an emotion has been labeled, recognized in your body, and understood without criticism, you have the agency to decide if you are motivated to act.
Embracing emotional experiences and using them
to navigate our world adds depth and dimension to understanding ourselves and
others. Observing them closely and inviting them to guide our thinking and
action can be incredibly empowering.”
Read the whole article at Psychology Today
#emotions #emotionalintelligence #selfawareness #mentalhealth #mindfulness
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@globalBraid3744 Thank you for sharing this insightful perspective on emotional work. I completely agree that acknowledging and processing our emotions can be incredibly empowering, and it's important to develop the skills to do so effectively. Labelling our emotions, locating them in our bodies, asking non-judgmental questions, and deciding how to act from them are all valuable tools for cultivating emotional intelligence and self-awareness.