So in the last blog I talked about observing a recurring patterns.
The idea here is not to consciously change anything, but rather to just observe and learn what is going on. Often what you are observing is transform just by the act of seeing without do anything more. We will cover some steps to take if not later.
Once you get to seeing the process real time it can appear to be a bit surreal. You are in the process executing the process and at the same time you are able to look at the process almost from the outside. You are able to know what steps are coming up. Oh this is where I do X, here comes Y. As you are doing this you are learning more of the beginning steps.
We can use virtually the same process in other areas.
An often ripe area for observation is with our own brain chatter. Brain chatter is the conversation that you carry on with yourself. It may be voices other than yourself you hear, like your parents. Observe the tone of this conversation. Is it light and upbeat, is it serious, is it critical of others, or of yourself. Does this conversation bring out a better you? Or is it a repeated conversation from long ago that is critical and hurtful.
Again look for patterns. The first step is to learn as much as you can by observing the pattern first through reflection after the fact and then trying to observe it as it is happening. Once we can experience it in real time then we can work on changing it.
Sometimes these internal conversations are the triggers for repeating patterns with others, blind siding someone with a reaction that appears to have come out of no where.
You can also do this observation for emotions and moods. With emotions, the idea is to observe the emotion and notice what happens after the emotion. Emotions may only last a very brief time. They may link to other emotions in a rapid series. You may be able to feel emotions as they arise in you body. You may have a literal gut feeling. You may also observe emotions leading to thinking or to physical action like feeling down or depressed and then trying to fill this feeling with Ice Cream. Try to locate the physical sensation of the emotion in your body.
Moods are a little different because a mood is more like looking for the canvas upon which your picture of emotions is painted. The actions and emotions are the paint. The mood resides between the emotions, once the emotion has subsided and no other emotion is triggered. It may be easier to try and see these in the aggregate. Try looking at the past few weeks. Note your impression of your mood, and begin tracking what your mood does.
As you become more adept at this you can look for what effects your mood and there are any triggers that act to change your mood. In the last few weeks I have observed that any response on a possible job quickly affects my mood in a positive manner and then not hearing slowly drains my good mood. As you get better at seeing, you get better at seeing between the emotions and seeing the mood more or less directly.
With moods, trigger isn’t quite the right term. A mood generally move much slower that the processes that we have been talking about up to this point. Instead with moods, look for influences of your mood over a longer period, say hours to days. Now that I’m exercising more regularly, I notice a more depressed feeling when I go a few days without exercising.
So observation begins the journey. This is actually the longest and the most important part of the whole process. You don’t have to observe everything. To start you might try looking for or thinking about reoccurring patterns that have happened in the past. Or a exchange that you have with a someone close that it seems like you have had over and over again.
You can add other areas as you can.
It is important not to get down on yourself. Observe like a scientist. Try to understand what is going on without getting emotionally drawn into to drama of it. If you find yourself drawn in and you want to get out, take some deep breaths, and give yourself kudos for how ever far you made it.
Next blog we will look at interrupting the patterns we are finding.
Related Articles:
- Day 59 - Transition - Working with Emotions Part 1 (other-dribblings.blogspot.com)
- Day 60-Transition-Working with Emotions Part 2 (other-dribblings.blogspot.com)
- Day 61 - Transition - Working with Emotions Part III (other-dribblings.blogspot.com)
- Working with Emotions Part IV (other-dribblings.blogspot.com)
- Working with Emotions Part V (other-dribblings.blogspot.com)
- Working with Emotions part VI - References (other-dribblings.blogspot.com)
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