Mindfulness of Current Emotions is a skill to decrease emotional suffering, by allowing yourself to just experience an emotion in the present moment.
When difficult or intense emotions arise, we often try to change, reject or block them because they're so painful. Sometimes this works, but lots of times it doesn't. mindfulness of current emotions is a way of experiencing your emotions without necessarily acting on them. In order to learn you can experience them without falling apart. With practice, you will feel more in control of your emotions. Instead of feeling like your emotions control you.
Start by noticing and observing your emotion. See if you can experience your emotion as a wave coming and going. Imagine surfing this emotion wave. At times it will come to a peak and then will subside.
This is hard to remember when you're in the middle of an unpleasant emotion, but no emotion lasts forever. And actually, the duration of an emotion is much shorter when you just acknowledge its presence. Instead of intensifying it or keeping it around by thinking about all the things that made you sad, or all the reasons another person has made you angry.
Don't try to get rid of the emotion. Don't try to keep it around either. Be willing to experience the emotion just as it is like a wave.
One way to stay in the present and practice this skill is by focusing on the physical sensations that you're experiencing. This step involves noticing where in your body you're feeling emotional sensations, and experiencing them as fully as you can.
It helps here to be curious, do you feel tension in your forehead? Or your fists clenched? Is there a feeling of emptiness in your stomach or a lump in your throat? Do you notice tears in your eyes or pressure in your chest? You may notice quick shallow breaths, you may notice your heart racing. These are the kinds of sensations you want to observe.
See if you can notice any subtle changes in these sensations as you pay attention to them. Or notice how long it takes before the sensations change. As you continue to observe your emotion, remember that you are not your emotion. You don't have to act on it.
There is no emotion you have an experience before. There is no emotion that has lasted forever.
It can also help to remind yourself that there were times when you felt differently. Part of this skill involves respecting and loving your emotion. This might sound ridiculous or too hard at first. Loving something is the opposite of finding it.
By letting go of judging or rejecting your emotion, you are closer to accepting it, which will help you let go of emotional suffering.
Perhaps you can start by noticing how this emotion makes sense. or telling yourself it's okay to feel this emotion right now. Remember for this skill, observe your emotion by experiencing it as a wave coming and going. with curiosity. Notice physical sensations in your body.
Finally, practice loving your emotion.
