The Mindfulness Response: Emotions

Self-Compassion, Emotions and Feelings

The Mindfulness Response: Common Humanity

            Common humanity notices how everyone experiences feelings all over the world. All humans have feelings that range from happiness, sadness, despair, grief and loss, regrets, and fears. Everyone will have intense feelings and must go through difficulties in life. No one can go through life without experiencing the struggles that come with it.

            We often feel alone and alienated from others when we have strong, distressing emotions such as when we are depressed, anxious, ashamed, or fearful. We feel as if we are the only one in the world who has these feelings. This part of the self-compassion concept explains to us that we are not alone. We are very much like millions of others who also experience pain from emotions and also have intense emotions.

            Depression, anxiety, psychosis, and PTSD create fogginess in the brain. Mental illnesses affect the brain, just like heart disease. People with any disease must take medications daily and over a lifetime. People need to adjust their lifestyle to manage the disease of mental illness.

            Common humanity recognizes the issue of stigma and shame. There are advocates for changing the shame and stigma associated with mental illness. National Alliance of Mental Illness is one that lobbies for changes to laws at the legislature to improve the lives and treatment of those with mental illnesses. This type of education starts with each person, and this is addressed in group therapy.

            The use of the self-compassion helps reduce shame and guilt brought on by the stigma of mental illness. Common humanity addresses the fact that all people have troublesome emotions, difficult moods, strong emotions. Common humanity lowers levels of shame and brings the possibility of regaining personal strength, abilities, and desires to return to the community. This is done with supportive relationships.

            Participants in group therapy eventually found a common bond that held them together like an invisible safety net. Self-compassion skills help strengthen this bond and unify each person to the common goal of healing. This bond grows stronger as each person speaks about their own inner struggles and hears others respond with how they had to deal with the same difficulties.

            When someone new started in the group older members said “You are in the right spot. You will get help here.”  They may think that it is the licensed psychotherapist that is doing all the work to keep the bond of the group, but that is mistaken. Each person is bringing their own grievances and offering their own energy to benefit the others in the group. Each group member offers suggestions, passes their hope, and desires on to the next member and the next, until all have heard and felt the intensity of the healing suggestions.

            When people leave the group therapy and move on to other tasks in their lives and they are thankful for all that they have learned from the process and the new skills that they obtained. They thanked the group and reminded them that they did the hard work and supported them through the process. They talk about gratitude and being thankful to others who listened to them describe their struggles. They had the skills inside themselves. They were hiding under a pile of tensions, worries, and ruminating negative thoughts and the group helped them uncover this and face the distress.

            This sharing process of group therapy enabled them to regain their skills and define it under their own terms. At this point they developed confidence, patience and understanding and then the fog clears, and they can move on to their longer-term goals.

            Group therapy is a healing process. It contains ideas and energy that is felt and not seen. An invisible safety net is formed from the process of exchanging personal information about personal struggles. The safety net strengthens as each person releases inner tensions and struggles and replaces it with self-love, hope, and healing.

The Great Wave Kanagawa

Figure 4 The Great Wave of Kanagawa. Library of Congress (2023)

The Mindfulness Response and Waves of Emotion

            Common humanity shows how people try to “ride the waves of emotion,” and go towards the earth in the background, which is Mount Fuji. Getting to the earth, the ground helps us to maintain stability. The skill of staying grounded is part of self-compassion. It involves staying in the present moment and focused on “now.”  Staying present also involves understanding oneself and all that comes with being a human.

            The Mindfulness Response acknowledges all symptoms, thoughts, feelings, and sensations and names them. It is important to recognize and accept all emotions that you identify, and do not ignore them or pretend that you do not have a feeling. Write them down. You are “riding the wave of emotions.”  In the picture of the Kanagawa Wave, the people in the canoe are intent on staying inside their safe canoes and seeking a safe voyage back to land. They struggle with the waves of emotion as shown in the picture of how high the waves are. They work together to stay afloat, as the waves could capsize their boats.

            Other people in the world have the same feelings, sensations, thoughts, and symptoms that you do. You are not alone in this struggle. There are support groups for people who have similar symptoms. NAMI.org or your state NAMI has online support groups. Seek out others to help you understand the level of distress that you have.

Mindfulness  

            Acknowledge symptoms that are thoughts, feelings, sensations, or images, and observe and notice them. Accept that the symptoms are there. Write down any thoughts, images, sensations, or feelings that may come as you are observing them and bring them to therapy.

            Practice for up to ten minutes each day. Do deep breathing and focus on your breath. Other ways to do mindfulness is with Yoga, Tai Chi, walking, stretches, or learned activities and staying in the moment.

Body Scan:

Do a body scan to determine where you hold tension in your body. Start from the head and move down to the toes and take time to observe and feel what is in your body.

Self-Kindness:

            Do not judge yourself and try to not judge others. Do not call yourself names or swear at yourself. Be patient with yourself and the process. You will improve but this is a team effort, and you do not do this alone. Have a support person to listen to your symptoms and help you do reality checks.

            It takes time and practice to become non-judgmental. This is done by observing negative thoughts, moods, and intense feelings. It helps you gain inner knowledge by observing them and learning how you tend to react the way you do. It helps you learn to use different skills to manage distress.

            Become non-judgmental with yourself. Do not criticize, swear, call names, or put yourself down. Try to apply this to others after you can do it to yourself.

            People who have deep depression, recurrent mental health symptoms or self-persecutory thoughts will need a support person to help them challenge those thoughts and realize that they are deserving of love, friendship, family, education, jobs, or being part of a community. Medications help people lower their symptoms and be able to reduce the despair that they feel.

Mindfulness Note:

            Do a 10-minute mindfulness exercise and observe and notice the sensations in your body when you think about these different emotions and feelings. You may have to think of past events or situations and go back into those situations in your memory to regain the sensation and emotion. Write down any observations and bring them to your individual therapist.

I notice this emotion: ____________________________________________________________

Past situation or event: ___________________________________________________________

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Where I felt it in my body:  head, neck or shoulders, arms, hands, heart, middle of my chest, stomach, pelvis, hips, legs, feet, toes.

_____________________________________________________________

I felt: Numbing, tingling, hot, cold, sweats, shaking, pressure, tightness, warmth...

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