Journal 4 Min 350 words

|04|managing FEELINGS and EMOTIONS

“Feel the feeling but

don’t become the emotion.

Witness it. Allow it.

Release it.”

Anonymous

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS | 60

Where We Have Been In Chapter 3, you were introduced to the concept of “problem-saturated stories.” Understanding problem-saturated stories is an important first step in comprehending a core principle of the narrative coaching approach. We explored how and why, for most of us, it is easy to find ourselves immersed in problematic interpretations of events in our lives, time and time again. We learned how this can keep us short-sighted and stuck in outdated patterns of thinking that diminish our creativity and resourcefulness and impact our current and future choices.

You were also introduced to the concept of “confirmation bias.” By understanding this phenomenon, you set the stage to free yourself from past and habituated tendencies toward unexamined narratives that have the potential to shape how you see yourself, and what outcomes you expect to achieve, based on those beliefs.

Where We Are Going We will cover a lot of territory in this chapter, starting with understanding your feelings and emotions. From an early age, many of us were not taught or encouraged to understand, name, or express the full spectrum of our feelings. While growing up, perhaps you were told that only some feelings were considered acceptable, while others were not (Figure 1). This is not because the people in your life did not care. Most likely, they wanted to make sure that you were prepared for a competitive and sometimes unkind world—starting with the dynamics of the playground and the challenges of the sports field, and extending into the demands of the boardroom. Many adults never developed the insight and awareness to pass along more effective coping skills for dealing with difficult or painful emotions.

Gearing Up » To begin to understand where feelings and emotions come from and how you

experience them

» To begin to understand and explore how influential feelings and emotions are in creating your sense of identity and personal narrative

» To begin to practice updating your current relationship to your feelings and emotions and expanding the words you use to define your emotional experiences

» To begin to learn and practice strategies like breathing exercises, mindfulness and meditation in order to prepare you to be more calm, present and resilient

Figure 1. As a child, you may have been told not to express certain

feelings.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS | 61 With this in mind, and with the appreciation that the journey from enrollment to graduation is riddled with many moments that can provoke emotions (some of which can then escalate to mindset problems and disempowered narratives), it’s necessary to start to understand where emotions come from, how influential they are in creating our sense of self, and how learning and practicing strategies will enable you to feel more prepared and resilient in managing them.

In this chapter, you will initially be learning the neuroscience behind emotions. You will then transition into exploring and practicing how to more consciously react to your emotions so that the feelings you experience as a result of them are more manageable and less likely to hijack a more preferred personal narrative.

As you read this chapter, pay close attention to how your understanding of problem-saturated stories and confirmation bias support your growing understanding of feelings and emotions. However, notice how your beliefs can be distorted through the lens of your emotional experience, as can how you become aware of what you’re capable of and how you perceive your world. You are about to learn you have a lot more control over how you experience your feelings and emotions, than perhaps you’ve ever realized.

We Are Emotional Beings Regardless of how you define yourself, because you are human, you experience emotions, a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others. Some people may live in their emotions more deeply and intimately than others, but from the time you were an infant, you encounter emotions. As you start to familiarize yourself with the neuroscience behind your emotions and practice the steps outlined in this chapter, you will become more proficient when powerful or uncomfortable emotions threaten to throw you off balance.

Figure 2. We can look at emotions and feelings as two sides of the same

coin: One side is physical (body), the

other is mental (mind).

What’s the Difference Between Emotions and Feelings? Most of us tend to use the words emotion and feeling interchangeably. If you were not about to take a deeper dive into understanding your emotions and feelings and how pivotal they are to shaping your personal narrative and well being, this lack of distinction would be just fine. But, for the purpose of more clearly understanding the importance of this material and your ability to apply it, it’s important to clearly define and differentiate them and how they are commonly used and understood. Cindy Meyer, P.h.D.,1 suggests we look at emotions and feelings as two sides of the same coin (Figure 2):

“One side of the coin is an emotion: a physical response to change that is almost hard- wired and universal. The other side of the coin is your feeling: mental associations and other reactions to an emotion that are personal, acquired through experience. Despite seeming the same, emotions actually proceed feelings. Like with coins, what you notice will depend upon where you are looking.”

Emotion a natural instinctive state of mind

deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others

Feeling an emotional state or reaction influenced by the meaning you

assign to the emotion

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS | 62 Let’s examine this further: again, emotions are hard-wired and we all have them. Let’s use as examples of emotions ones we can all relate to like fear, anger and joy. For example, if a masked man were to unexpectedly jump out at you in a dark alley, you, like most, might understandably experience fear. If someone were to come into your home and spray paint your most valued possession, it’s safe to say you might experience anger. And lastly, while watching your favorite team score the winning goal in a tight match, you’re likely to experience something that resembles joy. These are all examples of emotions. They are not something we ruminate on or have cultivated over the course of our lives, but something we experience in direct response to an event or situation and tend to be more automatic in nature.

Now, a feeling on the other hand, is the reaction to the emotion and comes after you experience it. Let’s return to the anger/spray paint scenario: you may have mental associations to both the emotion of anger, as well as to the scenario of someone violating a prized possession of yours. Perhaps you have felt violated or disrespected in other areas of your life, and so in addition to the anger you initially felt, you then also begin to harbor feelings of resentment, bitterness and maybe even a desires for revenge and it is far too easy to create a spiraling effect with these feelings. These feelings surface after the initial experience of anger, and are fueled by your own personal history with anger, as well as the associations you begin to make around the emotion and the event. Feelings can easily shape our personal narratives, and for this reason are important to pay attention to. Additionally, you may experience mixed emotions. What if you learn that the person who hurt you, is also someone you love? We are often hurt by the people we love most which can leave us contending with feelings that may be in conflict with one another, like resentment and affection.

The Role Stress Plays in Shaping our Feelings You will have so many experiences as a student—some of which will fill you with joy, excitement, exhilaration, and pride. For many of you, college will be one of the happiest times of your life, but not always consistently. What we know is true for most is that stress will certainly be a part of your experience. Whenever we are caught in the grips of stress, we often are also caught in the grips of uncomfortable feelings.

For most of you, stress is no stranger, and in the predictable routine of your life before college, you may have found ways to cope with it and manage it that have worked for you. However, in starting college and moving out of your comfort zone, you may find that, at least initially, your stress has increased. With a new routine and new challenges, the habits and coping mechanisms that used to work may feel less reliable, or you may just feel less grounded and able to implement them as easily. Now that you are out of your comfort zone, you may find that you have opened yourself up to a myriad of less desirable feelings (Figure 3). For many, it may involve experiencing feelings like these:

» Frustration: “Why is this not working like it’s supposed to? I am following the instructions. I feel like throwing this laptop out the window!”

» Overwhelm: “How will I ever get this financial aid package completed in time, on top of all my homework?”

» Guilt: “My mom is struggling and needs my help. I feel so guilty for being so far away in her time of need.”

» Doubt: “I am not sure I am capable of keeping up on all these assignments and passing this class.”

» Confusion: “I am so confused about which courses to take, and how to choose a major.”

» Anger: “I worked so hard on this report! How could I have just received a ‘C’ when I put so much into it? I am so fed up with this professor—his expectations are so unclear!”

» Embarrassment: “I did so badly on that test. My professor must think I am an idiot and have no business being in her class.”

» Envy: “It seems like everyone else is so much happier than me. Every time I see their Instagram posts they are surrounded by friends and going out all the time.”

» Loneliness: “I feel like such an outsider. Everytime I see friends post about a fun event they went to together, I feel so left out.”

» Anxiety: I am so tired, and yet I can’t sleep. My brain is on constant overload. What if I panic during my presentation?”

» Sadness: “My boyfriend broke up with me and I feel so lost. I don’t want to get out of bed.”

» Worry: “What if I cannot afford college and I have to drop out?”

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These examples are not meant to scare you, but to normalize these common emotions, if indeed they or others are showing up in your life. Again, it is human to experience emotions. The challenge and responsibility is to understand them, and to practice managing the feelings that follow an emotional experience more effectively.

Who We Are Versus What We Feel Feelings and emotions are something we experience, they are not who we are. Feelings and emotions can be powerful, though. Investing in your awareness around why they are occuring, how you can adequately manage them, and understanding how influential they are in shaping your perception of yourself is worthy of some serious inquiry and explanation.

If you can start the process of learning how to recognize, understand, and manage your feelings, you will be giving yourself an enormous gift—the gift of fostering personal peace as you transition further and further away from the propensity to engage in an internal battle with yourself that feelings of anxiety, jealousy, and anger can generate.

To begin this process, let’s start by asking a question: Have you ever felt so angry, or sad, or anxious, or stressed that you felt like it was becoming a part of who you are and how you see and know yourself?

If you can relate to this question, to any degree, know that there is a reason for this. Our use of language encourages a blurring of lines between who we are and what we feel, as in the ever present “I am” statements we commonly use. In the English language, we more often will say “I am so angry,” “I am so sad,” “I am so anxious,” or “I am so stressed,” rather than saying (albeit more awkwardly) “I am feeling anger,” “I am feeling sadness,” “I am feeling anxiety,” or “I am feeling stress”. Do you also notice how “I am” statements feel more permanent, static and fixed, whereas simply feeling something suggests a temporary experience, rather than an extension of one’s identify? (Figure 4). Our words represent our ability to conceptualize our experiences; the language we adopt and the syntax we follow play a fundamental role in shaping our perception; and our speech patterns (or self-talk) are the engineers of our self-concept. When we feel emotions and continue to say “I am angry/sad/anxious/stressed,” we are in essence verbally believing that those emotions are, in fact, who we are. It’s no wonder many of us have a hard time separating who we are from what we feel.

Figure 3. College can be one of the best times of your life, but it will

sometimes open you to less desirable

feelings.

I am... I am feeling...

angry anger

sad sadness

anxious anxiety

stressed stress

Figure 4. When we use “I am” statements, we have a hard time

separating who we are from what we feel.

FEELINGS AND EMOTIONS | 64 So, why does this happen? When our emotions become intense, we can feel like they are not separate from us, but instead have somehow become an extension of who we are or we have become an extension of them; essentially, the lines and boundaries between us and them have been blurred. When this happens, feelings run the risk of becoming a part of our sense of identity and can become deeply planted into our personal narratives. Once they start to become part of our personal narratives, they can serve to limit our connection to our strengths, our values, and our ability to connect to and express the most meaningful, aspirational, and courageous parts of ourselves. When our feelings and emotions take over, they can distance us from the present moment, keep us from a sense of calm and peace, and impact our ability to focus and stay intentional. While this dynamic ensues, most of us would agree that it can feel pretty darn miserable. Overpowering feelings, like anxiety or worry, can make completing every day tasks seem more overwhelming, maintaining relationships more tricky, and stepping out of our comfort zone a far more intimidating prospect.

It’s important to remember, though, that emotions are not bad. Emotions can frequently be your teacher. When you are able to experience the full range of emotions, they often serve to enrich your life—particularly if you are able to expand your awareness and develop a more nuanced and granular language to represent a wider spectrum of emotional experiences. Emotions, and your ability to understand them and manage them, serve as the direct route to developing emotional intelligence. They do this because they can be what connects and unites us, and what deepen our experiences of compassion, empathy, and inspired creativity (Figure 5). Feelings and emotions often compel us to live with purpose and to engage in healthy protest in the face of injustice. Emotions, when recognized and leveraged, can be the spark that ignites action and changes societies by engaging communities and creating bonds of trust and acts of courage. Emotions, when acknowledged, identified, and named, can be the gateway to creating a commitment to a cause greater than yourself that may enable you to leave a legacy through the contributions you make in life.

Figure 5. Emotions can serve to enrich our lives and give us compassion,

empathy, and creativity.

In order to get to this place where you can feel inspired by your emotions, as well as in healthier connection to them, let’s first pause and establish what we have learned:

» The very language we use to express our feeling can too easily encourage us to blur the line between who we are and what we feel, convincing us of realities that can be limited or distorted.

» Emotions are not bad. In fact, they can represent the gateway to living in connection with our core values and from our most inspired, connected, resilient, and creative places.

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The Dueling Nature of Anger Take a moment to read this short article in NPR’s, “All Things Considered,”2 that illustrates how Martin Luther King Jr. channeled his anger into a positive form of protest, but not without a very human level of struggle that most of us can identify with (Figure 6). Pay particular attention to this passage:

“Though King became an icon of non-violence and peace, he also inwardly wrestled with anger and, at times, would snap at those he loved. Looking at how King dealt with anger reveals its dual nature—how it can be a motivating force for change, while also containing the potential for destruction.”

You may be thinking, “If Martin Luther King Jr. also struggled, what chance do I have in managing powerful emotions?” This is where growth mindset once again comes in. As we move forward in sharing more insight and strategies, remind yourself that the management of emotions is an ongoing practice, not a direct line toward a finish line. Life will continue to test you, as it did Martin Luther King Jr., but the more you commit to the practice—showing yourself grace and compassion in the places and times you stumble—the greater the likelihood you will, over time, improve. The practice of managing and channeling our emotions is not about perfection, but about progress.

“A destructive passion is harnessed by directing that same passion into constructive channels.”

Martin Luther King Jr.

Figure 6. Martin Luther King Jr. was able to channel his anger into something positive. (Editorial credit: /Shutterstock.com)

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Feeling is Believing (Often Without Question) An emotion is a physical sensation; think of it as experiencing a particular vibration or energetic frequency as it travels through your brain and nervous system. It holds no particular inherent or empirical truth or “goodness” or “badness.” It is your mind that seeks to do that. It is your mind that assigns meaning to your experience of it and then labels it with a “feeling” word. It is your mind that generates a narrative and then, as in the case of confirmation bias, seeks to find evidence confirming that your self-talk—your feeling—represents truth and is an accurate reflection of reality. Basically, you end up believing what you label that emotion, because of the perpetuating story you create around the feeling you have identified. Consider psychologist Tara Brach’s explanation of thoughts and emotions:3

“I recently read in the book My Stroke of Insight by brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor4 that the natural lifespan of an emotion—the average time it takes for it to move through the nervous system and body—is only a minute and a half. After that we need thoughts to keep the emotion rolling. So if we wonder why we lock into painful emotional states like anxiety, depression, or rage, we need look no further than our own endless stream of inner dialogue.”

The beauty of Brach’s words is that, if we’re willing, we can change the way we think, and in so doing shift our inner dialogue in relationship to the physical sensation of an emotion. After that, should the emotional state continue, you are merely caught in a habit of living in the memory of the emotion (the past), or living in the anticipation of the emotion (the future).

The solution seems so straightforward: Just stop living in the past or anticipating the future! Well, as we all know, that is not so easy to do. It requires discipline, commitment, time, and practice. Fortunately, you are about to be taught the science of emotions. In learning the science, you’ll set the stage for interrupting patterns of thoughts and practicing this powerful shift away from feeling stuck in your “own endless stream of inner dialogue.” Once you have learned the science of how we experience emotions, you will then be taught how to return to the present, the only moment you truly have and the one through which you can cultivate calmness and begin to more receptively feel your emotions and escape the tyranny of that “endless stream of inner dialogue.”

Emotions Are Built, Not Built-In Through her groundbreaking work in psychology and neuroscience, professor Lisa Feldman Barrett of Northeastern University is challenging what we think we know about how we experience and understand our emotions. Here is how she puts it in her paper, “The Science of Emotion: What People Believe, What Evidence Shows, and Where to Go From Here”:5

“Knowledge, expectations, and beliefs seem to have little impact on emotion, although they can regulate a response once it has been triggered. As a consequence, people assume that emotions can overcome them, rapidly overriding whatever else they might be doing, thinking, and feeling. Regulation, if it occurs at all, happens later, after the emotion has taken hold. Anger, sadness, and fear cause behavior, just as lightning causes thunder.”

What if we do have more control? What would we do differently and how would it change us and our lives? To begin to imagine, listen to her own words in her TED Talk:

WATCH THIS:

You Aren’t at the Mercy of Your Emotions—Your Brain Creates Them6

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When you’re investing in building your emotional vernacular, have fun with it. We often take ourselves and our feelings and emotions very seriously. Yes, they are often very serious, but if you engage with each emotion differently, you may find them less threatening as you come to acquire a new relationship to them. As you invent and discover new words and expand your vocabulary in this way, you’re also practicing tuning in to yourself. In pausing to feel and describe the sensations you feel, you’re practicing a new way of predicting and experiencing greater gradation in the range of your emotions. Just like as a child you might have only described the ocean as blue, as an adult you might notice (depending on the season, the time of day, or the weather) that the ocean might actually appear to be more azure, sapphire, aquamarine, turquoise, teal, or cobalt.

The aim in doing this is to allow yourself to eventually go from ongoing emotional suffering, to something more closely resembling temporary physical discomfort. This would be followed by inner dialogue that reinforces feelings that support your ability to recover to a more preferable feeling state more quickly.

When you do this, you have the chance to change what might have previously been a negative emotional experience, into a more neutral one. For example, if previously you experienced what you labeled as “social anxiety” in anticipation of meeting new people, you now have the opportunity to tune into those physical feelings, and reframe the experience by renaming it. As you tune into yourself, you may feel an accelerated heart rate, a bit of queasiness in your stomach and maybe your mouth is dry. When before you might have immediately labeled it as “social anxiety” and allowed your personal narrative of social anxiety to run rampant, you can instead simply notice the feelings and

Figure 7. Broadening your emotional vernacular allows you to differentiate

the many emotions you experience.

Emotional Vernacular the vocabulary you possess that

enables you to express and discern between many different feelings and

emotional states of being

She shares that your brain is continually engaged in guessing and predicting what you’re seeing and feeling based on your past experiences—in other words, your past narrative. You can think of it this way: your guesses are shaped by the perpetual inner dialogue that continually streams through your mind. It takes effort and intention to notice it, quiet it, and train it to play a new tape.

Increasing Your Emotional Vernacular The experience of processing feelings is one of recognizing physical sensations; the more often we encounter those physical sensations—like the churning of our stomachs, or the sweating of our palms—the more aware we can become in assigning predictions based on past similar events. The opportunity lies in making what was formally an unconscious prediction and making it conscious. We get to, if we heed the challenge, interpret sensations differently, and then choose to assign a different meaning. Let’s consider the experience of anxiety as a way to start practicing.

What you are doing as you play with language is broadening your emotional vernacular. Your emotional vernacular is the vocabulary you possess that enables you to express and discern between many different feelings and emotional states of being. In reality, there exits the potential for so much emotional nuance. Invest in widening the spectrum of words you possess to capture the vast granularity of different emotional experiences (Figure 7).

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Naming Your Feelings Now, it’s time to increase your ability to name your feelings. As you start to notice your feelings, you may come to appreciate that there are more subtle distinctions between emotions as well as more than one feeling existing at the same time, which can easily be confusing. The more you can put a name to what you’re actually experiencing, even if it’s multiple things at once, the more you will be able to intentionally regulate your feelings.

As you develop your own emotional vernacular, here is a go-to list7 to guide your process (and remember, you can chose more than one feeling, even if they feel in opposition to one another):

Pleasant Feelings

OPEN HAPPY ALIVE GOOD

» understanding » confident » reliable » easy » amazed » free » sympathetic » interested » satisfied » receptive » accepting » kind

» great » gay » joyous » lucky » fortunate » delighted » overjoyed » gleeful » thankful » important » festive » ecstatic » satisfied » glad » cheerful » sunny » merry » elated » jubilant

» playful » courageous » energetic » liberated » optimistic » provocative » impulsive » free » frisky » animated » spirited » thrilled » wonderful

» calm » peaceful » at ease » comfortable » pleased » encouraged » clever » surprised » content » quiet » certain » relaxed » serene » free and easy » bright » blessed » reassured

LOVE INTERESTED POSITIVE STRONG

» loving » considerate » affectionate » sensitive » tender » devoted » attracted » passionate » admiration » warm » touched » sympathy » close » loved » comforted » drawn toward

» concerned » affected » fascinated » intrigued » absorbed » inquisitive » nosy » snoopy » engrossed » curious

» eager » keen » earnest » intent » anxious » inspired » determined » excited » enthusiastic » bold » brave » daring » challenged » optimistic » re-enforced » confident » hopeful

» impulsive » free » sure » certain » rebellious » unique » dynamic » tenacious » hardy » secure

interrupt the associations and negative self-talk you historically engage in. You interrupt the rabbit hole of negative self-talk by choosing to simply notice the sensations first. Then, you can creatively assign different meaning to them. Your internal dialogue can be updated this way; “I feel my heart beating faster and harder, and my stomach is feeling queasy. I know that this feeling will not last forever. I will call this experience ‘excited anticipation’, instead of social anxiety. This no longer needs to scare me or define me or continue to hijack my thoughts for the rest of this encounter with new people.”

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Difficult/Unpleasant Feelings ANGRY DEPRESSED CONFUSED AFRAID

» irritated » enraged » hostile » insulting » sore » annoyed » upset » hateful » unpleasant » offensive » bitter » aggressive » resentful » inflamed » provoked » incensed » infuriated » cross » worked up » boiling » fuming » indignant

» lousy » disappointed » discouraged » ashamed » powerless » diminished » guilty » dissatisfied » miserable » detestable » repugnant » despicable » disgusting » abominable » terrible » in despair » sulky » bad » a sense of loss

» upset » doubtful » uncertain » indecisive » perplexed » embarrassed » hesitant » shy » stupefied » disillusioned » unbelieving » skeptical » distrustful » misgiving » lost » unsure » uneasy » pessimistic » tense

» fearful » terrified » suspicious » anxious » alarmed » panic » nervous » scared » worried » frightened » timid » shaky » restless » doubtful » threatened » cowardly » quaking » menaced » wary

INDIFFERENT HELPLESS HURT SAD » insensitive » dull » nonchalant » neutral » reserved » weary » bored » preoccupied » cold » disinterested » lifeless

» incapable » alone » paralyzed » fatigued » useless » inferior » vulnerable » empty » forced » hesitant » despair » frustrated » distressed » woeful » pathetic » tragic » in a stew » dominated

» crushed » tormented » deprived » pained » tortured » dejected » rejected » injured » offended » afflicted » aching » victimized » heartbroken » agonized » appalled » humiliated » wronged » alienated

» tearful » sorrowful » pained » grief » anguish » desolate » desperate » pessimistic » unhappy » lonely » grieved » mournful » dismayed

Different Cultures Offer a Different Lens into our Emotional Lives Sometimes it can feel like the English language short-changes us when it comes to finding words to express the uniqueness of our feelings and experiences. Check out how people around the world use language to capture their distinctive emotional experiences:

» Age-otori is Japanese, and apparently it describes “the feeling of looking worse after a haircut.”

» Saudade is a Portuguese word that describes the feeling of longing for something or someone whom you love and which is lost.

» Fisselig is German for flustered to the point of incompetence.

» Hyggelig is a Danish word that describes a feeling of openness, warmth, and friendship, often between friends.

» Dépaysement is French for the feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country. So instead of homesick, it’s home-countrysick.

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Tuning In to the Body Because nervousness and it’s more advanced cousin anxiety are such common experiences for many, let’s use them in an exercise designed to help you calm and quiet nervousness and anxiety by tuning in to your body and becoming present. As intuitive leadership and life coach Tonyalynne Wildhaber puts it:8

“Anxiety cannot exist in the present. Anxiety is fueled by past memories or future forecasting. Returning to the body is the path to returning to the present moment, where you can cultivate calmness and peace.”

The desired outcome of this learning is to (as Feldman Barrett says) transform what we have previously experienced as emotional suffering into experiences of physical discomfort.

Focusing on Breathing One of the best places to start is with simple breathing exercises and mindfulness. Learning to control your breathing is a foundational element of meditation. It is the act of focusing on breathing and becoming mindful and aware, and simply noticing your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, that represent the principles of many meditation practices (Figure 8).

“The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness.”

Abraham Maslow

Figure 8. Focusing on your breathing is at the heart of any meditation

practice.

We are not going to accelerate quickly into meditation. We are simply going to teach you basic and quick breathing techniques. If you so desire, use this as an introduction into meditation, one of the most powerful ways you can take a signitifant step in learning to manage your feelings and emotions.

Many people feel overwhelmed by the prospect of starting a meditation practice. It can easily become one of many items on their “to-do list” that they plan one day to get to like, finally getting in shape, eating healthier and cleaning out their closets. With this reality in mind, we are sharing a shorter exercise that can serve as an introduction to the power of meditation. This breathing exercise literally takes less than one minute and packs a powerful dose of relaxation. You can practice it prior to taking a test, giving a presentation or even use it to help you fall asleep more easily. And, what you will notice after you’ve made it a part of your daily routine, is that you will be cultivating more peace, calmness and focus, as well as incorporating a quick way to steady your nerves when you feel fear, anxiety or worry beckoning.

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The 4-7-8 (or Relaxing Breath) Exercise The 4-7-8 breathing exercise is a natural tranquilizer for the nervous system. Unlike tranquilizing drugs, which are often effective when you first take them but then lose their power over time, this exercise is subtle when you first try it, but gains in power with repetition and practice. Do it at least twice a day. You cannot do it too frequently.

First, read through these instructions thoroughly, then watch the video, presented by Andrew Weil, M.D.9 After you understand the technique, practice it one time. Make time later today to practice the technique a second time.

The 4-7-8 breathing exercise is utterly simple, takes almost no time, requires no equipment, and can be done anywhere. Although you can do the exercise in any position, sit with your back straight while completing the exercise. Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue just behind your upper front teeth, and keep it there through the entire exercise. You will be exhaling through your mouth around your tongue (Figure 9); try pursing your lips slightly if this seems awkward.

1. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound.

2. Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four.

3. Hold your breath for a count of seven.

4. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of eight.

5. This is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.

TRY THIS:

Figure 9. Inhale through your nose, and exhale through your mouth around your tongue.

Note that with this breathing technique, you always inhale quietly through your nose and exhale audibly through your mouth. The tip of your tongue stays in position the whole time. Exhalation takes twice as long as inhalation. The absolute time you spend on each phase is not important; the ratio of 4:7:8 is important, as Weil explains in this video.10 If you have trouble holding your breath, speed the exercise up but keep to the ratio of 4:7:8 for the three phases. With practice you can slow it all down and get used to inhaling and exhaling more and more deeply.

Do not do more than four breaths at one time for the first month of practice. Later, if you wish, you can extend it to eight breaths. If you feel a little lightheaded when you first breathe this way, do not be concerned—it will pass.

Once you develop this technique by practicing it every day, it will be a very useful tool that you will always have with you. Use it whenever anything upsetting happens, before you react. Use it whenever you are aware of internal tension or stress. Use it to help you fall asleep. This exercise cannot be recommended too highly. Everyone can benefit from it.

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Guided Meditations to Get You Started After practicing Andrew Weil’s breathing exercise, you may be ready or curious about trying different types of meditation. As our lives become more and more hectic and as the demands for our time and attention grow, so too can our mounting worry, stress and anxiety. It can feel like we’re trapped in a repetitive loop of negative self- talk and challenging feelings and emotions as cortisol and adrenaline reap their corrosive effect on our bodies. The ancient practice of meditation is one of the best ways to calm our central nervous systems, restore balance and health and foster greater emotional peace by bringing us in greater connection with our bodies, our breath, and all importantly, the present moment.

Here are some recommended guided meditations to consider. These were selected because they are both shorter in length than many guided meditations, as well as focusing on cultivating presence and supporting your ability to work with difficult emotions when they arise.

» Brief Meditation: Arriving in Mindful Presence: This guided meditation is a good beginner meditation as it is only 5 minutes and focuses on what is called “mindful presence.”11

» A 10-Minute Meditation to Work with Difficult Emotions: This meditation is specifically designed to support you when you’re experiencing difficult emotions.12

» An 11-Minute Awareness of Breath Practice: This guided meditation is one of the oldest and one of the simplest. Through focusing on your breath, it guides you to greater awareness, presence and a sense of calm.13

The Scientific Benefits of Meditation According to Matthew Thorpe, M.D. PhD., there are 12 science-based benefits of meditation14 (including the short breathing exercise you just learned):

1. Reduces stress

2. Controls anxiety

3. Promotes emotional health (improved self-image, positive outlook on life, decreased depression, positive thinking and optimism)

4. Enhances self-awareness

5. Lengthens attention span

6. May reduce age-related memory loss

7. Can generate kindness

8. May help fight addictions

9. Improves sleep

10. Helps control pain

11. Can decrease blood pressure

12. You can meditate anywhere

Once you commit to a practice of mindful breathing/meditation, whether it’s two minutes a day or twenty, you will find that you have grown in your capacity to still your body by connecting with your breathing. In return, you will create the ability to be aware of your feelings, rather than being at the mercy of them. Although it may be challenging to break the habit of saying “I am anxious,” by practicing mindful breathing and/or meditation, ideally you will become less and less likely to find yourself needing to say it at all.

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Practicing RAIN As you begin to navigate your college experience, you are bound to feel lots of feelings, and those feelings are bound to shape what you believe and how you see yourself as you encounter new challenges. This can be very difficult. Focusing on your breathing is the first step in learning to manage your feelings and emotions more effectively. The second step is to learn the acronym RAIN:15

The acronym RAIN is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness and compassion using the following four steps:

» Recognize what is happening. » Allow the experience to be there, just as it is. » Investigate with interest and care. » Nurture with self-compassion.

You can take your time and explore RAIN as a stand-alone meditation or move through the steps whenever challenging feelings arise.

Tools for Managing Difficult Emotions If you find that your emotions can easily derail your progress or minimize your joy or sense or purpose, here are even more helpful techniques to help you manage them:

» Music: Choosing the right song with intentionality can definitely be a big part in accessing and channeling your emotions (Figure 10). Do you want to feel better, or really explore the mood you’re in?

» Connection with nature: Go outside for a walk, if possible; breathe in the fresh air of the outdoors (11 Scientific Benefits of Being Outdoors16).

» Connection with other people: Be mindful of who you reach out to and why: Which of your friends is a great listener? Who makes you laugh? Who is someone you feel seen, heard, and understood by, without judgment? Also, go out of your way to reach out and support others. When you reach out to a friend for support, tell them what you need—for example,“Will you just listen?” rather than “I really need some advice” (How and Why You Should Maintain Friendships17).

» Distraction: Sometimes it’s a matter of simply distracting yourself by doing something else. However, be careful with the distraction of video games or social media, as they can steal your time, energy, and motivation (7 Ways To Distract Yourself From Your Frustrations18).

» Humor: Funny movies, shows, memes, and people can often shift and lighten your mood very quickly and effectively. (How Laughter Can Improve Your Health19)

» Exercise: Get moving! It doesn’t need to be an intense workout, but consistent physical activity correlates with our emotional well being (The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise20).

Figure 10. Listening to music can help you explore your emotions.

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Learning to Manage Feelings and Emotions: Angela’s Story In the previous chapter, we identified the parts of Angela’s personal narrative that were problem-saturated. Focusing on the first two problems, “in the first week, she felt scared and overwhelmed” and “she felt anxious, homesick and out of place,” we discussed possible self-talk that Angela might engage in and how if the problem- saturated stories were to dominate, they may cause her believe that she is “weak, fragile, hesitant, powerless, not ready, bad at making friends, and an outsider.”

Before Anglea can work through her problem-saturated personal narrative, she must also know how to interrupt the negative self-talk that threatens to dominate whenever she experiences emotions like fear, overwhelm, guilt, or feeling like an outsider. Given what we covered in this chapter, here are examples of how Angela practices the important elements of managing her feelings and emotions so that they do not further ignite her potential to believe her problem-saturated story.

Normalizing and appreciating the role of stress for Angela: Because Angela is in a totally new environment, she, like most new college students, is bound to feel an amplified level of stress. This is normal and to be expected for awhile. With this being the case, it will be important for Angela to acknowledge this and remind herself that although her feelings might feel both unpleasant and intense, stress is playing a role in magnifying the experience as well as distorting her thinking. For this reason, purposely practicing reassuring self-talk will be important, starting with normalizing the stress response given her new life circumstances. Addressing herself by name when she practices self-talk will also help to lessen her stress. She can practice by saying things like, “Angela is going to be just fine” or “Angela’s got this” or even “Remember, Angela, this feeling will pass.”

Angela is not her feelings and emotions: “Angela is someone who experiences feelings and emotions; she is not her feelings and emotions.” Angela may need to repeat this over and over to herself as she acclimates to her new surroundings. This self-talk will also go a long way in helping to distance herself from her feelings and emotions, and decrease her stress as she repeats it. This may sound like, “Angela, you are not anxiety and it does not define you. You are feeling physical sensations that you have called anxiety. It is not who you are.”

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An Awareness of Your Internal World We have explored many aspects thus far of how our personal narratives come into being and what we can do to take a more active role in shaping them. We started with the critical role of our self-talk and self-doubt and transitioned into how common our perception or our lives, and thus our narratives, become deeply and convincingly problem saturated. This, as you’ve learned, is especially true when we experience both pervasive and powerful feelings. When they are not addressed, pushed away, or under-estimated, they can all too easily contribute to problem-saturated stories that define how we see ourselves and experience the world. Simply put, they can easily make our lives miserable if they take over.

When feelings take over it is next to impossible to develop our emotional intelligence because when we are embroiled in feelings like fear, it limits our ability to genuinely understand ourselves and connect in an authentic way with others. However, when we cultivate a greater awareness of our internal worlds—our feelings and emotions—we grow in our ability to govern our thoughts and behavior from a place within us that is aligned with our values and an expression of our strengths, our joy, and our higher purpose, however we grow to define that. When we begin to do this, we begin to feel a greater liberation from feelings and emotions that previously felt stifling, and we nurture our capacity to experience freedom in shaping our narratives in more empowered ways.

Identifying and naming her feelings: Angela is experiencing a lot of different feelings, based on her circumstances, and some feelings she experiences at the same time. When she is having these feelings, it will be very helpful for her to seek to identify them, and then put a name to them. For example, when she sits down to do math she may notice that she feels a queasy feeling in her stomach, which she is familiar with and predicts as anxiety. This might then lead directly to something she experiences as homesickness. It will be important for Angela to acknowledge these feelings and put a name to them (even if there are multiple, or even conflicting, feelings). She can play with the language she uses to capture the thoughts and feelings and even replace words like anxiety and homesickness with other more creative terms like “ruminating anticipation” for anxiety or “appreciation for home” for homesickness. It feels a little silly, but even the process of searching for the right words seems to lessen her stress.

Tuning in to her body: As Angela tunes in to her body, she returns to the queasiness in her stomach.There is no need to judge the feeling, so she simply observes it. The priority at this point is staying present so that the feeling of queasiness isn’t given the opportunity to grow and overtake her when really what she needs is to be calm, present, and clear- headed for the math work ahead. Presence is key; as a reminder, anxiety is most potent when our thoughts are either travelling to the past, or forecasting into the future. For Angela, the present moment is hers to claim and it is where calmness has the best chances of residing.

With this, Angela chooses to employ the 4-7-8 breathing exercise. It will not take long—actually, less than a minute. After performing one cycle of this breathing exercise she feels a little bit better, but she is still not feeling completely present. To cultivate more presence, she decides to follow a five minute guided meditation to help bring her back to the present moment.

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References 1 Meyer, Cindy, P.h.D. (2013). “Thinking Clearly.” The Emotional Detective. Retrieved from

https://emotionaldetective.typepad.com/emotional-detective/

2 Greenfieldboyce, Nell (2019). “All Things Considered.” NPR News, February 20. Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/programs/all-things-considered/2019/02/20/696185842

3 Brach, Tara (2003). Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha. Bantam Books.

4 Taylor, Jill Bolte (2009). My Stroke of Insight. Penguin Books.

5 Barrett, Lisa Feldman (2008). “The Science of Emotion: What People Believe, What Evidence Shows, and Where to Go From Here.” In Human Behavior in Military Contexts. The National Academies Press.

6 Barrett, Lisa Feldman (2017). “You Aren’t at the Mercy of Your Emotions—Your Brain Creates Them.” TED Talk. Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/speakers/lisa_feldman_barrett

7 Niolen, Richard. PsychPage. http://www.psychpage.com/

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11 Brach, Tara (2016). “Brief Meditation: Arriving in Mindful Presence–(5 min).” Retrieved from https://www.tarabrach.com/brief-meditation-5-minute/

12 Hauck, Carley (2018). “A 10-Minute Meditation to Work with Difficult Emotions.” Mindful, October 11. Retrieved from https://www.mindful.org/a-10-minute-meditation-to-work-with- difficult-emotions/

13 Kaiser-Greenland, Susan (2018). “An 11-Minute Awareness of Breath Practice.” Mindful, August 20. Retrieved from https://www.mindful.org/an-11-minute-awareness-of-breath- practice/

14 Thorpe, Matthew, M.D. Ph.D. (2017). “12 Science-Based Benefits of Meditation.” Healthline, July 5. Retrieved from https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/12-benefits-of-meditation

15 Brach, Tara (2018). “Meditation—RAIN: Working with Difficult Emotions.” TaraTalks, May 22.

16 Mental Floss. “11 Scientific Benefits of Being Outdoors.” Retrieved from https://www. tarabrach.com/taratalks-meditation-rain-working-difficult-emotions/

17 Scott, Elizabeth (2019). “How and Why You Should Maintain Friendships.” Verywell Mind, May 21. Retrieved from https://www.verywellmind.com/how-and-why-you-should-maintain- friendships-3144973

18 Curtis, Melissa (2017). “7 Ways To Distract Yourself From Your Frustrations.” Odyssey; Health Wellness, February 13. Retrieved from https://www.theodysseyonline.com/7-ways-distract- yourself-frustrations

19 Muller, Robert T. (2013). “LOL: How Laughter Can Improve Your Health.” Psychology Today, November 29. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about- trauma/201311/lol-how-laughter-can-improve-your-health

20 HelpGuide. “The Mental Health Benefits of Exercise.” Retrieved from https://www.helpguide. org/articles/healthy-living/the-mental-health-benefits-of-exercise.htm

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