Building Emotional Awareness - Positive Psychology

Building Emotional Awareness

A way to explore, know and become familiar with your emotions

By Seph Fontane Pennock και του Hugo Alberts / Positive Psychology Toolkit.

This exercise invites you to become aware of your emotions. It’s your chance to really get to know your emotions. By practicing emotional awareness in this way, you can build your emotional intelligence.

Step 1: Emotional awareness meditation script

1. Find a comfortable seated position. Either sitting on a cushion on the floor, or in a chair. Allow your spine to be straight and long, and let your shoulders drop. Gently close your eyes, or, if you’d prefer, simply gaze down in front of you with a soft focus.

2. As you sit here, notice where your body is making contact: your feet touching the floor, perhaps your back on the ground, your sit bones on a chair...

3. Notice your breath. For the next five or so breaths, follow each inhale and exhale, feeling or imagining the breath flowing into and out of the body.

4. Now, shift your awareness from your breath to your body, and begin to scan through the body slowly from

head to toe, observing any feelings or emotions that are present.

5. You might detect numerous feelings or emotions throughout the body. For the purpose of this exercise, choose

one feeling or emotion to focus on for now.

6. Notice where in your body this emotion located... so what part of the body is holding this feeling?

7. How big or small is the feeling?

8. Where are its edges? Are these edges sharp or soft?

9. Does the feeling have a color? And if so, is the color changing or remaining the same?

10. Is the feeling heavy, or light?

11. Is the feeling moving, or still?

12. Is the feeling hard or soft? Is it rough or smooth? If I could touch this feeling with my hand, what would its texture be like?

13. Now, if you were to give a name to this feeling or emotion, what would it be? Can you identify it? Can you give it a label?

14. If a name for this feeling doesn’t come to mind, that’s OK. Be kind to yourself, and continue to observe the feeling in the body with curiosity and without judgment, until the nature of this emotion becomes clearer to you.

15. Continue to get to know this emotion for another five or so minutes. When you feel that you have reached a level of comfort with and understanding of this feeling, gently open your eyes and bring your attention back to the room you are in.

Step 2: Reflection

In the space below, write about your experience in Step 1 in as much detail as possible. Writing about your experience of this emotion will enhance your understanding and familiarity with it.