Being mindful of your feelings, its meaning and intensity
This is a good session to teach about mindfulness and emotional awareness. Emotion is an evolutionary survival mechanism that helps us make decisions in life (Flight, fight, or freeze response). As we get older, our brain goes into a quick reaction rather than thinking logically “what am I feeling, what is my feeling telling me to do?”. and “how much am I feeling”? You teach them to be more aware.
Range/Intensity/ Scale of Emotions
I remember working with kids who tell me “it’s not okay to be mad”. So, it is very important to teach the children that emotions actually gives the signal for motivation and protection. They are there to protect us. But it becomes a problem when we let our emotions control us rather than guide us.
- We all have emotions.
- it’s okay to have emotions.
- Emotions come and go. They also change from time to time. We might feel several feelings at the same time.
- Emotions have different intensities. Sometimes we feel a lot of emotions and other times we feel a little.
- Emotions can be felt in our bodies. It is a sign to take care of our emotions, mind, and body.
- Everyone is capable of teaching our mind and body to be more aware of our different range of emotions and their meaning before acting on them.
Body Sensations
I ask questions about how do we know that we have flu/virus in our body. If they cannot answer the question, I usually answer them by saying how symptoms like “cough, fever, warm body, and weak body” tell us to take rest. The body tells us when something is harmful to us. Similarly, if our body recognizes that stress/ strong emotions are not healthy, our physical sensations are signs to use our emotion awareness rather than acting on it. Stress can help push us and motivate us. And body sensations are ways of telling us if it went above the “just right stress”, and might need to relax a little bit.
Website where you can find 5 step guide
Lastly, I wanted to add this 5- step guide on how to feel your feelings by www.milk and honeytherapy.com (identify feelings, face your feelings without any judgment, identify body sensations, express emotions, and cope with it). This just sums up everything. Good resource!!!
