Mindfulness is about fully and openly embracing the present moment.  Sounds so simple, right?  But in truth we spend our time doing everything but that.  And that goes doubly when we encounter a challenging emotion that makes us uncomfortable or even fearful.

When we face a situation that triggers a challenging emotion, we quickly fall into our default position for challenges. We move into the story we have built up around this situation or emotion over time. This story is embedded in our subconscious and carries a specific limiting mindset.

We get pulled us straight back into the past and all the times we have experienced that emotion before. We remember the situations in detail, the wrongs that were done to us or how we failed or were judged by others.  We end up getting lost in the emotional drama of our ‘story’ and our connection to the present is quickly and completely lost.

But the past is gone.  Those thoughts and beliefs that arise are nothing more than stories, they’re not real. 

In many cases these thoughts and beliefs are not even of our own making. They have been passed to us from someone else and usually don’t even reflect our own true values. They can even come from the earliest time in our life before we were cognisant of what they even meant.

Unfortunately, the stories we re-run over and over, and the emotional ‘rabbit-hole’ they lead us down, hold such a power over us that it can be really difficult to break free of them.  

Luckily the key to breaking them apart and changing that mindset is a simple technique using awareness.  Mindful awareness is an active investigation into the nature of your mind and how it functions.

Perceiving True Mind

Trying to discover the true nature of our mind is impossible using the mind itself.  We can never clearly understand this by using our thoughts. This is because most of the stories in there are hidden in the subconscious or distorted in faulty memory. 

But fortunately, we don’t have to rely only on our mind because our thoughts, experiences, memories and emotions are also held within every cell of our body.   And our body cells are a far more reliable and accessible library of all these than is our mind.

We can use a simple awareness exercise to keenly observe and witness the messages held by our body with clarity. This helps us to unlock them without getting drawn into the story or the drama that has always surrounded them.

This simple exercise will guide you to unlocking the secrets of your cells.   Doing this exercise allows you to stay in the present moment even when your emotions begin to overwhelm you. It becomes an excellent tool to draw on whenever life threatens to overwhelm you.

When you first do this exercise, you may find yourself slipping back into the emotion.  Whenever you notice this happening gently guide your awareness back to the exercise, without any judgment.  Don’t beat yourself up, it’s completely normal for our thoughts to stray and for emotions to take over. Just notice them, focus and then bring them back.

Each time you do the exercise you’ll find your ability to maintain your detached focus, to identify what you observe and to accept the associated emotion become easier and easier. Each time it will cause you less stress.

Mindfulness Exercise: Connect Your Mind, Body and Emotions

Observe:  When you feel an emotion that’s unpleasant the first step is to take a few slow, deep breaths and quickly scan your body from head to toe.  Look for the strongest sensation – the one that bothers you the most. Focus your attention on that sensation.  Use your awareness.  Observe it carefully, curiously.  Notice where it starts and where it ends. Discover as much about it as you can.

Distance:  Don’t judge what you find.  Don’t try to work out what it’s about.  All you need to do is observe.

Breathe:  Take a few deep breaths.  Breathe into and around the sensation.

Expand:  Make room for the feeling.  Loosen up around it and create space.

Allow: Allow the emotion to be there.  You don’t have to like it or want it.  Simply let it be and make peace with it. The goal is not to get rid of it but to give up the struggle with it.

This mindfulness technique can be applied to as many different sensations as you want.  As you do the exercise one of two things will happen: either your feelings will change – or they won’t.  It doesn’t matter either way.  This exercise is not about changing your feelings.  It’s about observing them and accepting them whilst staying in the moment.

This exercise helps you stay out of the drama, whether it’s around you or within. When you step outside the emotion like this and simply observe it with awareness, you strengthen your engagement with your Highest Self, with Source. This keeps you grounded and in the present moment.