![]() It is talked about a lot - developing emotional awareness, but what does that actually mean and how do we do this? Firstly we need to start with understanding emotions and the depth of these, and look at all aspects including body sensations, thought related feelings, triggers and how these connect to all our experiences. We may inadvertently dampen down our emotional life by striving to managing it, however being more curious of our emotions and feelings is a more mindful way of embracing them when they arise. Understanding the full breadth of our emotions and feelings build self-awareness. Many people use the terms “feelings” and “emotions” interchangeably however while they can appear remarkably similar, there is a marked difference. An emotion is a physiological experience (or state of awareness) that gives you information about the world, and a feeling is your conscious awareness of the emotion itself and the meaning you assign to the emotion. Simply, emotions are more physical reactions whereas feelings are the mental associations and reactions to the emotions. Emotions are an immediate physiological response to perceived stimulus. This all happens automatically usually without thought. Emotions can be measured by our blood flow, brain activity, facial expression, and body stance. Our emotions continuously regulate every living cell to adapt to emerging threats and opportunities. Emotions provide raw data about the world around us, essential to our functioning. Chemicals are then released in response to our interpretation of a specific trigger. It takes our brains about 1/4 second to identify the trigger, and about another 1/4 second to produce the chemicals. Emotion chemicals are released all through our bodies not just in our brain which creates a feedback loop between the brain and body and interestingly, emotions last only about 6 seconds in the body. Feelings are both the physical and mental sensations that arise when we begin to interpret and integrate the emotions into the brain. It’s when we begin to ‘think’ about the emotion. Feelings are related more to thought and are more cognitively orientated. It is also how we make meaning of our emotions as we pay attention and react to our perceived threats or opportunities. As our emotions become integrated into our brain, we begin to feel. Feelings reflect your personal associations to your emotions. They can then be integrated with a mix of emotions and last a lot longer than emotions. Moods are more generalised and happen over a period of time. They may not be associated to a specific incident but a range of experiences and external stimulus. This can be influenced by our energy, workload, people around us, how much we have slept the day before, how healthy we are and also our current feelings. Moods last a lot longer than a feeling and can last hours or even days. Core Emotions During the 70’s, psychologist Paul Ekman identified six basic emotions which are happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise and anger which have been viewed as universally experienced in all human cultures. Later he expanded on his list of basic emotions to include pride, shame, embarrassment, and excitement. There is still a lot of discussion and differing opinions on what are the core emotions. Some theorists categorise them into six, eight and even four areas. Happiness A pleasant emotional state that elicits feelings of joy, contentment, and satisfaction. Sadness An emotional state characterised by feelings of disappointment, grief, or hopelessness. Fear A primal emotion that is important for survival and triggers a fight, flight or freeze response. Anger An emotional state leading to feelings of hostility and frustration. Surprise A brief emotional state, either positive or negative, following something unexpected. Disgust A strong emotion that results in the feeling of being repulsed. In 1980 Psychologist Robert Plutchik created the wheel of emotions that is like a colour wheel. The emotions are combined to form different feelings, the same as mixing colours on a colour wheel. According to his theory, the core emotions are building blocks for which other emotions and then feelings are related. Complex emotions are made up of two or more core basic emotions. For example, fear, anger, and disgust make up the complex emotion of hate. Emotions and Body Sensations Sensations are physical feelings in the body, and these can be experienced with a range of emotions and feelings. Sensations describe the sensations based on the five senses of taste, touch, smell, sound, and sight. To become more aware of our own emotions and feelings, it can be helpful to notice what physical sensations we can feel in the body. This helps to ‘name and tame’ the emotion. When we attune to the obvious and subtle body sensations, we can learn to understand ourselves better. This means we can savour the positive emotions and experiences and manage the difficult and uncomfortable emotions and experiences with more resilience as we tune into the emotion, rather than avoid or dismiss it. The more we learn to trust our bodies, the easier we can manage the inevitable ups and downs of life and accompanying difficult feelings. To help children and teens manage their emotions, we need to firstly help them recognise them and understand them. We can then help them to ‘befriend’ their emotional experiences. Just like adults, children and teenagers need a range of strategies to manage their emotions which then helps to build their social and emotional skills. The more socially and emotionally aware and then also skilled, the more effective they will be at self-regulating, managing relationships and problem solve the difficulties in their life. The more we can get children to ‘name’ their emotions, the more they can ‘tame’ their emotions. This helps to calm the brain’s limbic system. Once they are calm, they can then Mindfully choose how to respond to situations.
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It is helpful to understand what mindfulness is and what it is not. You will see and hear a lot about mindfulness and often it is watered down to relate to a myriad of situations and experiences that do not give it justice or encapsulate the full richness of it. These misconceptions can be barriers to practicing mindfulness and living a mindful life.
Blank Minds Often, we hear the misconception that we need to have a completely blank mind to experience mindfulness by getting rid of thoughts. This could not be further from the truth. We just bring gentle awareness to our thoughts as they come in and out of our mind and redirect our attention to where we would like to be in the present moment such as the breath, our body, sounds. We become aware of our thoughts, and we can choose which thoughts we can engage with. As Jon Kabat Zinn explains ‘Like the ocean, the mind is subject to constantly changing “atmospheric conditions” including storms of varying intensities.’ We can just bring awareness to these changing mind states and associated thoughts. It is not about clearing the mind so there is nothing there and we don’t feel anything but feeling calm. Mindfulness really could be interchanged with the term ‘awareness’. As we are just bringing awareness to what is, including our thoughts, and then we can choose to direct our attention away from our thoughts if we choose, and bring our attention to the present moment focus. Always feeling peaceful and relaxed If we are mindful then somehow, we shouldn’t feel strong emotions and only feel peace. Mindfulness is not just about feeling good. We can tune into our strong and uncomfortable emotions as well and have present moment awareness of these without stepping into reactions. We are not aiming to feel relaxed, calm or peaceful. Just by being mindful, then we can feel this state as a side effect. We are also accessing that calm and peaceful part of ourselves that is there, underneath the ‘monkey mind’ of thoughts and feelings. Trying to push away uncomfortable feelings, just makes them stronger and pushes us further away from what we are feeling right now. As Jon Kabat Zinn expresses, we ‘put out the welcome mat’ for all emotions. We can be mindful when we are full of anger or anxiety, and we can be mindfully engaged in the here and now even though we don’t feel relaxed. We allow the natural flow of emotions, feeling the full range of emotions we have such as pain, joy, anxiety, joy, contentment and allow this flow through us. We don’t need to be feeling happy all the time and try to strive for this through out practice. Successful / Unsuccessful meditation Judging the meditation experience takes us away from just experience what is during the meditation. If our minds wander a lot, then they have wandered a lot, and we can bring attention and awareness to this. There is no need to judge the experience as bad, or to judge ourselves as meditators as a good or bad meditator. If we can have no thoughts, then we can judge the meditation and ourselves as good and successful and the days we have more thoughts, then we have not managed to meditate. Mindfulness is just about meditation Practicing mindfulness is not just about sitting on a meditation mat. We can live mindfully and bring awareness to our day to day lives including our rich inner emotional lives. Mindfulness is also a way of being, bringing in the attitudes of mindfulness. There are so many ways to bring mindfulness into our lives, which are not meditation practice. You must sit in a certain way to practice You do not have to sit in a lotus position to practice mindfulness. You may choose to lie down, sit on a couch, sit in a bean bag, lie in the bath, walk, lie down on the loungeroom floor with your feet up on a chair (my favourite). We have a huge number of images that tell us how to meditate to do it ‘right’. We often see people sitting cross legged (and that’s fine if that feels comfortable for you!) on a mat on the floor with their eyes closed. We need to find what is right for us, what feels comfortable and enjoyable and allows us to access mindfulness that suits you. You have not failed if you do not sit on a mat and get up at 5.30am each morning and sit for an hour. You need a quiet place to practice Although it would be beautiful to practice mindfulness each day in a serene environment such as the beach or bush, hearing the waves and the birds in the background, we are usually not that fortunate to have that as a daily experience. This can be powerful to experience as we can find it a bit easier to tune into our body sensations and all our senses in a calmer environment, however we also want to learn how to be mindful in all environments. practising mindfulness in a busier environment is helpful as our day to day lives are usually not living in a secluded bubble away from other people and situations who can often trigger us. We can practice mindfulness anywhere such as bringing full mindful awareness while we are in the car. We are ot trying to knock ourselves out into another state of being, we are tuning into the now, including how we are feeling. Mindfulness is religious Mindfulness practice is secular and can be practised by anyone regardless of their cultural or spiritual beliefs. The cultivation of mindfulness can be found can be found in many contemplative traditions including Buddhism many other religions. Often Mindfulness is associated with Mindfulness, however Mindfulness has taken key component from this 2550-year-old tradition, but it is not linked to any specific beliefs, codes or lifestyles. Mindfulness practices in many religions but in and of it itself it is not a religious practice; it is a form of mental training that is entirely secular and does not require commitment to any spiritual tradition. The Negativity Bias is the phenomena by which humans give more psychological weight to a bad experience than a good experience. Some researchers assert that negative emotions have an impact close to 3 times stronger than positive emotions. Our brains are built with a greater sensitivity to unpleasant events or negative emotions. The negativity bias is completely automatic and served a strong evolutionary purpose, as being highly attuned to danger in the environment allowed humans to survive natural threats.
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AuthorGeorgina Manning Director of Wellbeing For Kids Archives
January 2025
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