Continued From Page 1Skill Builder: Don't Let Your Emotions Eat You Up The following exercises will help you cope with difficult emotions in the moment rather than allowing them to eat you up.
- Identify the feeling. Full awareness is always the key. Write a letter to yourself describing the emotion. Observe it first, then describe it.
- Bump it down a notch. Imagine that you can quantify the level of your emotion, and adjust it, just as you can tune the dial that sets your radio volume. If you are at ten, make a plan about what needs to happen to reduce it to a six.
- If you are feeling anxious, let your body go. Reconnect with your body. Feel your feet against the floor. Let your shoulders and neck drop. Observe how it feels not to resist the pull of gravity.
- If you are feeling stressed, imagine giving yourself a body massage. Picture yourself lying on your stomach. First, focus on your feet and imagine them being massaged with scented oils. Be mindful of your ankles and calves as they are being rubbed. In your mind, allow the massage to travel down your neck, shoulders, arms, and fingertips. Imagine turning over on your stomach and feeling the kneading deep in the muscles of your lower back.
- If you feel sad, be sad. Don't fight it. Rent a sad movie, call a friend and talk about it. Teach yourself that bad feelings aren't intolerable or scary. They can be accepted.
- Anger is a particularly difficult emotion. It often occurs secondary to a primary emotion. Frustration, hurt, or fear of loss may be behind an angry feeling. Admit your anger and discover what is prompting it. Take a mental snapshot of the moment. Step back and take the same picture with a panoramic lens. What else is in the picture? Buddha said that, "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; but you are the one who gets burned."
- If you're feeling guilty, confess that to yourself. Admit you feel guilty. Remember that mindfulness is about being nonjudgmental. If you see yourself sentencing yourself to a punishment, think again. Handing out a punishment will only start another mindless eating cycle. You gain more power by being compassionate with yourself, and your compassion will prevent negative feelings from arising that could trigger more mindless eating.
- If you are feeling overwhelmed by emotions and, typically, you push them down, imagine you have a pressure valve somewhere on your body. Turn the knob slowly. Let out a little bit of emotion at a time. Remember, you are in charge of turning the handle.
- Midday and/or end-of-the-day rituals. Observing rituals can be a helpful way to release emotions that build up throughout the day. Daily routines have a grounding effect and foster awareness. Write one page in your journal, sing a soothing song, burn incense, or repeat a prayer aloud. Try to do this at the same time every day. Practicing ritual is similar to the feelings you get when you hear a song you know well. It is familiar, uncomplicated, and you can predict how much you will like it.
- If you feel as if you want to harm yourself, call 911. When you want to injure yourself, this means that the emotions you are experiencing are too intense for you to contain. Find a safe place with people who can help you moderate and understand your feelings.
Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.
-- Buddha#28
Mindful Metaphors -- Visualize Your Feelings
I am terrified of eating fat because I fear blowing up like a big, red beach ball. The kind of ball that people kick around, and let float away when they don't feel like it's worth rescuing out of deep water.
I feel skinless. Any kind of emotion feels like it is touching my raw nerve endings. When people look at me, I feel naked and unprotected. I want a porous emotional skin that lets people in, and protects me from being afraid they are evaluating my body.
These statements are two examples of the many vivid metaphors people create to describe the experience of mindless, problematic eating. Creating and describing analogies, parables, myths, stories, and personal anecdotes encourages people to look beyond the surface of their problems. Transforming your experience into an image or a poetic metaphor can help you step back and examine your problem from a different perspective.
