“Smooth seas never made for a skilled mariner.”
Day 21 Morning Scorecard and Tolerance Self-Reflection:
Name it to Tame it: Emotional Labeling
As we all know from prior experience, our emotional minds can be very needy and will keep bothering us until we give it our full attention. From a brain perspective, the best way to keep your emotional right brain happy is to correctly label which emotion you are feeling. When you activate your left language hemisphere the emotional mind "feels heard" in a way that calms it down. Mainly, the right brain is ameliorated because its job is completed, it got you to pay attention to the discomfort instead of ignoring it. This is one reason why psychotherapy is so effective because it allows the client to step back, name the problem, and identify what they are going to do about it. In a way, understanding that someone "betrayed" you or that your partner "treated you unfairly" validates the electrical neurochemicals signals your body is sending. Emotions are just alarm bells telling you to pay attention so you don't repeat the same mistakes. So when we correctly label an emotion as "sadness" or "anger" the emotional reaction itself suddenly begins to fade. The same way a physical symptom might start to subside when treatment arrives.
FACT: People who can accurately identify what emotions other people are feeling during a face recognition task, report drastically lower levels of lifetime anxiety.
TAKEAWAY: Emotional intelligence might not result in a good score on your SAT's but it does have many social and psychological advantages.
Stop and Smell the Garbage: Old School Mindfulness
Mindfulness in its current form is really just old school Buddhism repackaged, reworked, and shifted to become more appealing to a western audience. Originally, mindfulness practice focused on contemplating “vile” things, such as decomposing bodies and sewage. This mindfulness tradition was put in place to help monks be more accepting of the underbelly of life, teaching them to let go of what they couldn't control. Today, mindfulness is all about looking at the positive and taking the time to see what’s great in the world. While this is a worthwhile goal, it's important to remember that life isn't always rainbows and puppies, as we can become too attached to the positive the same way we can dwell too long on the negative. Being mindful is about using your "observing mind" to look at the world objectively without applying your subjective labels to an event or experience. This "view from a distance" may then help you accept the world as it is rather than how you want it to be.
FACT: Focusing non-judgmentally on a stressor moves brain activity away from the rumination centers and towards the visual processing areas of the brain, therefore decreasing ratings of personal distress.
TAKEAWAY: Observing a stressor without labeling it helps you to better understand the problem and make changes that lessen your stress levels.
“I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.”