17 Attention to emotions

By this point in the course you will have noticed an increase in your level of awareness and perhaps you have achieved incorporate the mindfulness exercises we have done into your daily life

In the previous episode you discovered the importance of paying attention to your internal dialogue and today we are going to work on so you can learn to attend to your emotions

Emotions are nothing more than reactions to those thoughts that we have in our daily life

They are the most physical consequence of our way of perceiving the world, but sometimes we feel them in a different way

and today I intend to show you how to identify them

and what to do with them once you recognize them

You have to know how to manage emotions, we must not deny them, reject them, run away from them or deceive ourselves

telling ourselves that we do not feel them

The emotions that we avoid for a long time remain chronified

and give rise to a series of problems, for example, unmanaged emotions make us sick and weaken our health

our immune system

They can also lead us to certain addictions such as smoking, drinking, taking drugs, feeling addiction to work, to food, to social networks or anything else

Unfeeling feelings end up distorting the way we think, they make us believe we are unhappy

and incapacitate us to achieve the life we really desire

So today we're going to do an exercise that you can do in your day to day life to detect what your emotions are and learn how to direct them, channel them

and accept them

You will need a pen and paper, a quiet place where no one can interrupt you

Of course, it's time to mute your cell phone notifications and avoid any distractions

that can take you out of your moment

Sit back, relax and start to breathe easy

Little by little I want you to evoke in your mind two recent situations in which I have felt an emotion classified as negative, anger, frustration, fear

Write down in the notebook what emotion you felt and then in what situation it came to you

Where in your body did the would you detect? What thoughts could you have to calm that bad feeling? Do it with three different situations

Remember, write down the emotion that awakened in you, the situation or conflict that caused it

and the place in your body with which you identify it

Finally, what thoughts would cause that emotion to dissipate? With this little analysis you will become more aware of how emotions are produced in you and you will be able to direct your thoughts to modify them

Above all, remember these three steps: identify, recognize that it produced it, accept and let it go

I'm sure that little by little and doing your part you will be able to anticipate those acquaintances, such as negative emotions and you will learn from every situation that comes to you, without being affected too much

Until next time and happy present moment