Old brains can learn new tricks. Engaging with brain training can help increase awareness and offer new perspectives. One of the commonalities amongst the human experience is navigating episodes of feeling emotions, sometimes worry or anxiety. Emotions occur in waves, increasing intensity, cresting, and then reducing. At the height of an emotional wave, individuals may have difficulty initiating or completing daily tasks. At the lull of the wave, individuals may experience fatigue or feeling “emotionally hungover.” Humans experience emotions minute by minute and what I am offering is a method to discern the message. Herein lies the curiosity around what our bodies are telling us and then how to utilize that insight in constructive ways.
In doing an avalanche safety course recently, the instructor stated, “don’t just do something, stand there!” followed promptly by, “is the scene safe?” Professions where risk management is considerable and essential for survival employ a tactic of first taking inventory of the scene before acting. I think this phrase may apply to reflecting on an individual's emotional experience in a constructive and thoughtful way.
So, let’s begin. Don’t just do something, stand there.
Recall an incident where your emotions were heightened.
Engage curiosity by considering what the emotion was/is trying to tell you.
Explore how the feeling of fear/anxiety/sadness/joy might be decreasing or increasing your awareness about a situation or event?
Explore the embodiment of the emotion as it arises. What does the experience activate within your body, centered in the gut, tightness in the throat, weight on your chest?
Pause
As you inventory the emotions and the message, would you like to accept the insight from the emotion or challenge the thought?
Pause
What are options to consider for responding?
Pause
What seems appropriate given the situation?
Choose an action and then proceed.
Afterwards, re-evaluate if you would a) offer the suggested course of action to a friend in a similar situation? b) want to have a chance to do things differently in the future?
Emotions are oftentimes difficult to decode into messages, and it is valuable to acknowledge that emotions inform actions. The framework for taking inventory of emotions and situations is to increase awareness around the body's cues and use that insight to identify a suitable response. It may seem that this process is regimented; however, with application the process can become dynamic and foster adaptability.
On a similar thought process, focusing on certain insights (actions, behaviors, or emotions) may elicit more of the same response. To be transparent, I recently read, The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor. The author proclaimed by taking concrete action steps to redirect one’s thought patterns to positive language, productivity and well-being result. Highlighting only one aspect of brain training that may be useful to apply is to consider awareness around positive and negative things in the moment.
Many people may be able to relate to the fact that when you buy a certain car, you begin to see more of them around. Maybe those cars were always there, but now your attention is honed in on the abundance because you have one yourself. Using this language and logic, consider if you highlight the negative things that occur throughout a day because you are having a difficult day, and imagine that moving forward you may begin to see the negatives more easily. If we flip the script to recognize the positive aspects of the day, we may assert that it will be accessible to see more positive things. This logic can be applied to many arenas, but I dare you to try focusing on the positive aspects as part of a brain training process. The brain is a muscle and training the brain to notice and inventory certain qualities of life that we want perpetuated may let us flex that muscle with intention.