In this episode, Sarah outlines five categories that make up a well-rounded mindfulness person. How well do you use language to describe your feelings and thoughts? How well do you move into mental neutrality? How well do you observe your physical surroundings? And how well do you pause before you react? Take the Five Facets Mindfulness Questionnaire at this link http://www.awakemind.org/quiz.php , receive your score and find out what your score means by listening to this episode. Jacob is here too sharing his opinion about a 6-year mindfulness study.
Enjoy these excerpts
“Are you good at finding words to describe your feelings? I think that a lot of people struggle with this. Sometimes people get locked into and emotion and they can't use words to describe it. If we do use words to describe our emotions we can be present with them. What resources are you using to develop your emotional language? Use this TSD Mindfulness tool The Emotional Clusters.
When my clients learn the language to describe their experiences, they have more clarity. Additionally, they feel more focused because being in a state of confusion can be very distracting for the rest of your day. And lastly, I find when my clients learn this vocabulary, they feel more capable and more confident.”
“Do you criticize yourself for having irrational or inappropriate emotions? Please, please, for the love of God, stop putting yourself down for being irrational. This is not healthy. It's not supportive. It's not loving. Emotions of feeling rejected are a natural response to certain scenarios. Feeling betrayed or feeling misunderstood or abandoned are all innocent responses.”
“Nine out of 10 times, people immediately feel the need to shut down their emotions.
We might react by fleeing, just saying, I can't deal with this. We might freeze and just shut down completely. Or we might not shut them down and we might get aggressive. Instead, can we just sit there and be with it? If you accept yourself with the emotion, then you don't have to react, you don't have to run away.”