Page 20 - Mindfulness Meets Emotional Awareness Sample Book

We are learning to listen to life as a fully relational person and
this will involve not only calming our thoughts to enable us to
have a clarity of perception within the moment, but it will also
involve an awareness of our emotional experience. It will
involve being aware of and listening to our emotions.

Human beings are first and foremost relational creatures. Our
primary drive is to connect and to relate with others and this
is not simply a question of thought. Our relationships and our
ability to relate with others is rooted in our emotional
experience, our relationships with others are rooted in the
emotional bonds that we build, and yet the majority of us will
not have grown up in a world that acknowledges the power of
our emotions let alone taught us the necessary skills and the
emotional intelligence to navigate our lives with an awareness
of both thought and feeling and the powerful interaction
between them.

Our thoughts and perceptions are influenced and colored by
our emotions and likewise our emotions are equally affected
by the way that we think. An underlying state of emotional
unease fuels negative thinking patterns and perceptions. In
turn, a negative state of mind will generate emotions that
mirror this unease.

Left unattended this interaction can create a downward spiral
in both mind and feeling. When we ignore our emotions, we
do so at our peril.

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Mindfulness Meets Emotional Awareness
©Jenny Florence/Burgess A-Z of Emotional Health Ltd 2016 All rights reserved.