Page 21 - Mindfulness Meets Emotional Awareness Sample Book

There is a strong link between our ability to ‘read’ ourselves
emotionally and our capacity for self-care. If we lack an
awareness or a ‘connection’ to our emotional responses we are
missing vital information that serves a primary function in our
ability to look after ourselves. We need this emotional
information to assist and inform our choices and our
decisions.

How many times have all of us NOT listened to the way that
we were feeling, and pushed through regardless, only to
later regret doing so? I know there have been countless
occasions when I have done this myself.

Sometimes my actions followed what I believed that I should
be doing, rather than what actually would have felt right.
Sometimes I simply didn’t want to listen to my feelings
because the outcome would mean acknowledging something
that I didn’t really want to hear. It wasn’t what I really wanted
so I continued on my fixed course, overriding what later
proved to be extremely ‘good information’. In each of these
scenarios, my mind was overriding my natural ability to
navigate my life from a position of well-informed, responsive,
self-care.

I think it is useful here to define a difference here between an
‘inner’ or a ‘gut’ feeling, something deep within us that holds
an inner knowing or an inner wisdom, which some people
refer to as our ‘higher self,’ as opposed to emotional feelings,
and yet both play a part in our ability to navigate our lives
successfully.

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