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    Sensing Into Strong, Triggered Feelings

    NL
    Nicole LannertonePublished January 11, 2015 · Updated March 27, 2024 · 1 min read

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    Sensing Into Strong, Triggered Feelings

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    A mindful companion to this worksheet

    Meeting feelings with mindful presence

    Emotions are messengers, not problems to solve. “Sensing Into Strong, Triggered Feelings” is an opportunity to develop a kinder relationship with the full range of your inner life — the easy feelings and the difficult ones.

    How mindfulness can help

    Mindfulness teaches us to stay near our feelings without becoming overwhelmed by them. By turning toward what we feel — naming it, locating it in the body, breathing alongside it — emotion becomes information rather than instruction. We learn to hold our experience, rather than be held hostage by it.

    Gentle steps to try

    1. Name what is here. Quietly say to yourself, “This is sadness,” or “This is anger.” Naming brings the prefrontal cortex online and softens reactivity.
    2. Locate it in the body. Where do you feel this emotion most clearly? The throat, the chest, the belly? Rest your attention there with kindness.
    3. Breathe alongside it. Imagine your breath flowing into and around the sensation, neither pushing it away nor pulling it closer.
    4. Ask what it needs. Many feelings simply want to be witnessed. Some carry a request — for rest, for boundary, for repair. Listen.

    Feelings are not flaws. They are weather moving through the open sky of your awareness. Trust that no emotion, however intense, is the whole of who you are.

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