Is it possible to be mindful when you’re feeling frustrated or dealing with a problem?
It’s useful to understand where our emotions come from. We tend to think that our feelings are a guide to what’s happening in our life, for example you feel frustrated because the traffic is at a standstill and you’re late for a meeting or school pick up. But what if your feelings are only telling you about your thinking in that moment and nothing else?
It can be freeing to understand that our feelings don’t come from our circumstances (in our example, the traffic) but from our thinking about our circumstances.
START WITH AWARENESS.
Look in the direction of how we experience life i.e. our feelings come from our thinking not our circumstances.
Over time you’ll have more awareness about what’s causing your state of mind moment to moment.
TRY NOT TO ANALYSE YOUR EMOTIONS.
We’ve learnt to look for something or someone to explain the source of our emotions. You’ll begin to notice that there are days when your emotions go up and down independently of anything and anyone. For example, you might wake up feeling out of sorts but can’t explain why. Or something that bothers you one day may have no effect on your mood the next. So analysing why your mood goes up and down throughout the course of the day is not helpful. But knowing that your mood goes up and down throughout the day all by itself, means you don’t need to do anything about it.
HOW MUCH TIME IS YOUR HEAD STUCK IN THE PAST OR THE FUTURE?
We spend a lot of our time thinking about something from the past or the future. We might go over something that happened, wanting it to be different or we might begin to make up a fantasy around something that’s going to happen. Either way, the scenarios are made up…they are not real. This is the power of Thought…it can make something you make up in the moment feel very true. The thought comes with its own production company that uses our senses to create a feeling that appears very real. That’s why we can relive an experience and our body and mind will react as though it’s happening right now.
Don’t worry if you don’t remember in the middle of having a strong emotion that it’s all coming from thought…most of us don’t catch on until after the emotion has passed. After a while you’ll catch on faster and you won’t spend so much time worrying, stressing or staying stuck in a problem.
Contact me to let me know how you get on or if you have any questions about this post.
