Mindfulness Daily Check-In September 15, 2017
Labelling emotions is one of the key aspects of understanding ourselves. It is also very important to get a hold of our thoughts and manage emotions. Many times we can't really identify how are we feeling !
If we're asked, 'How are you feeling right now?' , for many of us, the answer might be limited to 'good', 'bad', 'great', 'okay' etc. However, these words can't really help you understand your inner thoughts and as a result it'll be very hard to address the issues behind a particular feeling.
Broadening emotional vocabulary is of great importance. Words matter. From now on, if youre experiencing a strong emotion, take a moment to consider what to call it. But dont stop there: once youve identified it, try to come up with two more words that describe how you are feeling. You might be surprised at the breadth of your emotions — or that youve unearthed a deeper emotion buried beneath the more obvious one.
Today we'll do a little exercise to start walking on that path. We'll list emotion terms ! Want an example? ...Happy, Excited, Worried and so on !
You have to do a little thinking now. Please don't search in any other sources, but come up with your own thoughts for now. Do a bit of brainstorming and
- List 5-10 positive emotions that you can think of.
- List 5-10 negative emotions that you can think of.
Share with us here. If you can list more, that's great ! If you can't think of so many, that's okay too. It's a learning process. List as many as you can by thinking yourself. It can be hard in the beginning, so don't worry of you can't think of a lot.
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5 positive emotions-happy, joy, glad, love, peace.
5 negative emotions- sad, angry, mad, depressed, worried, stressed, frustration.
Awe, Amusement, Serenity, Gratitude and Compassion
Pessimism, Guilt. Mindlessness, Envy and Anxiety
@SunFern
Positive emotions:
Amused, calm, peaceful, friendly, hopeful,
Cheerful, optimistic, merry, radiant, thrilled
Negative emotions:
Disapointed, disconnected, regretful
Drained,. grieving, heavy-hearted, sorrowful, depressed, hopeless, berieved, heartbroken
@SunFern
Hiya Sunnie I am very glad you did the check-in today
Feelinds-wow we really do some times need to focus on "how we feel" but then target exactly "what" the feeling is. So thank you for this mindful reminder
- List 5-10 positive emotions that you can think of.
happy,content,glorious,positivness,joy, gratitude
- List 5-10 negative emotions that you can think of.
sad, angry,unhappy,disappointed,abandoned....etc
Is it helpful to label emotions as positive and negative? If an emotion is labeled as "negative," could that have the possibility of someone resisting feeling it? Rejecting the emotion because it's "negative" and they only want "positive" things in their life? Why not comfortable and uncomfortable? To me, emotions just are.
More to the point, my understand is that mindfulness has a component that requires one not be judgemental to their experience. Labelling things as "good" or "bad," "positive" or "negative," gets in the way of that, doesn't it? Isn't it enough to label the emotion one is experiencing, say, "Ah, this is shame," and go from there with accepting it and tolerating the discomfort?
@Zeraphim i like how you thought it. that's definitely an interesting thought.
I think it in the way that 'uncomfortable' and 'comfortable' are more subjective in nature and depends on the individual. They are somewhat tricky in communicating in general, like the way we wanted to do here.
In general, we might treat 'uncomfortable' feelings as negative ones and 'comfortable' feelings as positive ones. However, it is not uncommonn that people feel 'uncomfortable' in many 'positive' feelings' .e.g. in a context of prolonged abuse/ traumatic experience, one might think that it is selfish to feel happy. While happiness is usually a positive (or comfortable) feelings, for that person, it is rather uncomfortable, because of the context.
However, it think it is perfectly okay if someone wants to see feelings as comfortable and uncomfortable and find it easier to embreace them in that way.
Thank you for your repsonse! :)
I see your point and I agree. I'm one of those people where feeling good about myself feels uncomfortable, so I get where you're coming from. Comfort and discomfort could be qualities we notice as part of our emotional experience and we could label them as such if we choose to. It doesn't necessarily mean we have to. It was helpful for me to become aware that feeling proud of myself elicited discomfort, but I still needed to get more specific with which emotions I was really experiencing (fear and shame). I offered comfort and discomfort as a substitution but really, perhaps it's more effective just to learn the emotions and be able to identify when we are experiencing them (along with sensations, and whatever other physiological occurances we experience in the present moment), without categorizing them into positive, negative, comfortable, or uncomfortable.
In terms of judgement, I find positive and negative to be more loaded terms. There's a positivity movement that insists that you just have to think positively, even when you feel the opposite; that by forcing positivity, you will become "more positive," and reach your mental health goals.
I worry that labelings emotions in this way can feed into pre-existing beliefs such as these and really end up missing the point of mindfulness; not getting in your own way (avoiding judgements and preconcieved notions of your experience) and gaining self-knowledge and tolerance for the present moment, allowing your experience to be whatever it is, as well as practicing the skill of focusing and refocusing the mind.
Perhaps the exercise was written the way it was because people may already be used to categorizing emotions as "positive" and "negative," but I wonder if it's effective to introduce emotions within this context, given that mindfulness has the component of non-judgement. Reinforcing the idea that emotions should be categorized as a mindfulness exercise could lead to confusion later, when we inevitably talk about non-judgement.
@SunFern
positive emotions i can think of: balanced, connected to my inner self, exited, humerous, mindful, strong, relaxed, happy, feeling loved,
negative emotions: low energy, numb, angry, irritated, agitated
Positive... Grateful, cheerful, hopeful, happy, content, fearless, welcome
Negative... Fearful, scared, worried, terrified, threatened, insecure, hurt
