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.

Ομ! True Discrimination ~ St Peter of Damaskos

True Discrimination 

By St Peter of Damaskos - Philokalia Book1

A Treasury of Divine Knowledge

True Discrimination characterized by an unerring recognition of what is good and what is not, and the knowledge of the will of God in all that one does. Spiritual insight is characterized, first, by awareness of one’s own failings before they issue in outward actions, as well as of the stealthy tricks of the demons; and, second, by the knowledge of the mysteries hidden in the divine Scriptures and in sensible creation.

As has been already explained, humility, the mother of discrimination and spiritual insight, likewise has its own characteristic by which it is known. The humble person; must possess every virtue and yet truly think himself the greatest of debtors and inferior to everything else in creation. If, however, a person does not think in this way, then he can be assured that he is mi fact inferior to everything else in creation, even though he seems to lead a life like that of the angels. For even a true angel possessing so many virtues and so much wisdom cannot conform to the Creator’s will unless he also possesses humility. What, then, can a person who thinks that he is an angel say for himself if he lacks humility, source of all present and future blessings, begetter of that discrimination which illumines the ends of the earth and without which all things are obscure?

Discrimination is not only called light; it truly is light. We need this light before we say or do anything. When it is present we are able to view everything else with wonder. We can marvel at how God, on the first and greatest of days, began by creating light, so that what was subsequently created might not he invisible and as if it did not exist, as St John of Damaskos says.’ Let it be said again: discrimination is light; and the spiritual insight it generates is more necessary than all other gifts. For what is more necessary than to perceive the wiles of the demons and with the help of God’s grace to protect one’s soul? Other things most necessary to; us include, according to St Isaac, purity of conscience; and, according to the apostle, the sanctification of the body (cf. Rom. 12:1; 1 Cor. 6:19-20) without which ‘no one will see the Lord’ (Heb. 12:14).

The foundation of our suffering - Atman NItyananda

The foundation of our suffering

In short, our misery and suffering are due to the following factors.

1. Identification and attachment to the body, mind and sense objects.
2. Desire and attachment to pleasures, money, power, fame, name, recognition, etc.
3. Low self-esteem, feeling not enough, not worthy, not valuable and associating our value and worthiness with things other than our Soul. That is, we depend our value on characteristics of body, mind and personality, money, status, work, success, family reputation, nationality, religion, parental status, etc.

These factors are correlated and interdependent and all have as their basis and cause the ego and the rajas and tamas Gunas and the ignorance of our true Self.

Due to these factors, we suffer from fear (in all its varieties, insecurity, anxiety, worries, agony, phobias, etc.), anger (in all its varieties, annoyance, dysthymia, frustration irritability, rage, hostility, wrath), depression, grief, feeling threatened, offended, hurt, separation, isolation, loneliness, boredom, discontentment, uneasiness, restlessness, hopelessness, hatred, jealousy, envy, shame, guilt, etc.

Our ego needs and wants (desires) from others pleasures, security, attention, acceptance, recognition, approval, affirmation and generally wants others to have a good image and opinion of us. 

Because of it, we see others as a threat to our self-esteem, value, reputation, security, pleasures, comfort, etc., or as contributors to them. We like or dislike, love or hate others depending on whether they threaten (or we imagine it) our needs or help us to meet them.

We create relationships based on needs and desires and not on love. However, relationships are a great opportunity, a challenge and a university to know and work with ourselves and to free ourselves from limitations, programming and selfishness and develop our consciousness and unconditioned love.