One of the things that I will always remember from coaching is
You are not your emotions
Eg: You are not angry, you just feel anger
This is really important because it separates us from the anger [or whatever strong negative emotion you are feeling]. If you have a negative experience happen to you, resulting in a negative feeling, labelling yourself as angry can attract more negativity.
There is an incredibly harmful concept called emotional contagion. The strongest emotions are often negative emotions, they tell us that something is wrong so we can fix it. The people around us tend to pick up on the negative emotion and act in a similar way. This results in a cycle of negativity where everyone in the situation validates and feeds off of each other's negativity.
There are a few ways in which mindfulness can help us to change the way we see emotion and the way we react to it.
Separating yourself from your emotion
It is crucial that we label our emotions what they are, they are a temporary feeling, you are not angry, you just feel that way and it is temporary. Take your emotion, observe it from an objective point of view, ask yourself:
what colour is the emotion
what does it physically feel like [soft, rough etc.]
if possible begin to simulate touching the physical interpretation of your emotion
remember, it isn't you.
Anchoring
Anchoring is a technique often used in various types of therapy. The theory is, performing an action can help us remember certain feelings or emotional states as though we were really there. Eg: The scent of a certain perfume may bring back memories of an old partner. We can use this to our advantage.
meditate on a time or place when you felt a great deal of joy
when you feel yourself get to the peak of the state pull your earlobe [or any other physical sensation]
stop performing the action before you reach the descent from the peak of the emotion
do this as often as you like
when you are in a situation where you wish to feel joy, use your trigger
Relabelling your emotion
This is one that I use a lot, there are many ways you can label an emotion [anxiety = excitement etc]. This can work in many ways, I conducted a seminar for people who struggled with jealousy. That isn't an emotion which you may think can be changed to positive. Upon probing, people discovered all kinds of emotions such as [in the case of a partner hanging out with their friends] 'care, fondness, love, clarity'.
expand your emotional vocabulary [thesaurus some words for emotions you feel often]
take a step back when you feel a negative emotion
point it out, say 'anxious' or 'anxiety'
rename it in a way which the body may have a similar response to 'I'm getting adrenaline, much like excitement'
Taking advantage of these techniques can improve your ability to stay calm in stressful situations, reduce high-intensity reactions and increase your emotional intelligence.
If these tips help you, you may want to consider coaching. Coaching can provide you with tools like these tailored specifically to your situation, personality and ability.
Good luck, I hope this helps.
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