Mindfully notice and attend to your emotions

If you find yourself often running from, avoiding, or escaping your emotions, then sometimes the best thing to do is the exact opposite: purposely look at your emotions, pay attention to them, notice them, accept them for what they are, and let them come and go. Worry can be a very unproductive way to deal with your emotions. Instead, if you mindfully notice them, you might find out that your anxiety, fear, or whatever other emotions you were avoiding are not quite as overwhelming as you thought. You might even learn that it’s perfectly okay to have these emotions and that you really don’t have to do anything to get rid of them.

Exercise 6.5 Practice Mindfully Noticing and Attending to Your Emotions

The next time you catch yourself worrying, you will likely find the following steps to be helpful. This skill involves paying close attention to the physical sensations of your emotion, or what you feel in your body when you feel a particular emotion. The idea here is to avoid getting entangled in your thoughts and to try your best not to escape or avoid your emotions; simply bring your attention to the physical sensations of whatever emotion you are experiencing. You’ll find this type of exercise again in chapter 7, when we discuss how to deal with overwhelming emotions related to post-­traumatic stress. This exercise, however, is much more focused on worry, so do it whenever you catch yourself worrying.

1. The first step is to catch yourself worrying. Identify that you are worrying and tell yourself, Okay, I’m worrying again. Describe the worrisome thoughts that are going through your mind here:

2. The second step is to turn your attention to your body and notice any sensations of emotion that you can identify. You might notice that your muscles are tense, your heart is beating hard or quickly, you have butterflies or a sinking feeling in your stomach, or you feel queasy or nauseated. Whatever you are feeling, simply pay attention to it and notice it. Keep your attention on your body. If your mind strays to other topics or you notice worrisome thoughts creeping into your mind, then gently guide your attention back to your body. Don’t let yourself get involved with your worrisome thoughts. Just notice them and return your mind to your body again and again. Try to label or name your emotion, whether it’s anxiety, dread, fear, trepidation, anger, irritation, shame, or sadness. Tell yourself that it’s okay that you feel what you feel, that your emotion won’t kill you, and try your best to simply let it be there for as long as it’s there. See if you can watch or notice it with curiosity. See your emotion as an ocean wave cresting and then dissolving on the shore. Notice how transitory emotions can be; sometimes they’re there one minute and gone the next. It’s perfectly okay to have them; you don’t need to get rid of or escape them.

3. Put words to your experience. Use the following space to describe what you noticed when you paid attention to the bodily sensations of your emotion: