Page 54 - Mindfulness Meets Emotional Awareness Sample Book

P. 54

“I find myself thinking about… or wondering about…” rather than
“You are this…” or “You are that…”

This kind of ownership of your own thoughts and feelings
within a conversation evokes a far less defensive response
from the other party. If needed make a list that you can draw
on so as not to forget the points that you need to make.

• Re-evaluate. Return to step 3 in the process and use
this process of reflection to re-evaluate and re-consider.

Did you achieve a successful outcome? If not, what have you
learned from the experience? Brainstorm again, listen to your
thinking, listen to your feeling. Use this information to inform
and to establish your choices at this moment in time.

Steps 3, 4 and 5 are active components in developing
considered choices and empowered decision making. Return
to them as ongoing skills in your relational toolkit.

For myself I have found them to be a valuable and effective
tool in almost any situation. Even when the choices available
to me are not necessarily those that I would wish to have, the
clarity brought about by this process of mindful emotional
awareness creates a pathway of decision making that has
proved time and again to support me in finding the most
appropriate way forwards.

“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems, not people;
to focus your energies on answers, not excuses.”

William Arthur Ward (b. 1921), writer

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