Often our moods can change so quickly and automatically that we are unaware of what actually caused them. Keeping track of your moods in a mood log can help you reflect on the factors and situations that affect your emotions. Discovering the thoughts and situations that are linked to low moods can help you anticipate what factors (such as certain people, times of day, thoughts) are most challenging for you. With the information learned from tracking your mood you can gain insight into your habitual reactions to triggering events and work with bringing awareness to your responses so that they are not as automatic.
Mindfulness of Moods
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Nicole LannertonePublished December 30, 2014 · Updated October 21, 2026 · 1 min read
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Mindfulness of Moods
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A mindful companion to this worksheet
Meeting feelings with mindful attention
Emotions are information, not problems to solve. “Mindfulness of Moods” is a chance to build a kinder relationship with the whole range of your inner life, the easy feelings and the hard ones.
How mindfulness can help
Mindfulness helps us stay close to a feeling without being swept away by it. Turning toward what we feel, naming it, finding it in the body, and breathing alongside it, often makes the emotion easier to hold. Over time we learn to have our experience rather than be run by it.
Gentle steps to try
- Name what is here. Quietly say to yourself, “This is sadness,” or “This is anger.” Many people find that naming a feeling takes a little of the charge out of it.
- Find it in the body. Where do you feel this emotion most clearly? The throat, the chest, the belly? Let your attention rest there with kindness.
- Breathe alongside it. Imagine the breath moving into and around the sensation, neither pushing it away nor pulling it closer.
- Ask what it needs. Many feelings simply want to be noticed. Some carry a request, for rest, a boundary, or a repair. Listen for it.
Feelings are not flaws. They are weather moving through, and no emotion, however strong, is the whole of who you are.
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