Notice emotional feelings and journal them.

 

Sometimes knowing what pushes your buttons is obvious, sometimes much more subtle. 95% of our reactions to stimuli are programmed reactions or ‘Bottom Up’ reactions from our lower brain. Only 5% of the time are we responding to stimuli using the tools of our pre-frontal cortex and contemplating our response to stimuli; ‘Top Down’. Sometimes it is harder to see these things in yourself and would be more helpful to engage the support of a trusted friend. If you have ever been enraged by an offhanded comment by a friend saying that “you are just like your father”…you know that this is very hard to see within ourselves but very obvious to the outside world. The only way that we learn how to behave is through our experiences. If you are considering as a goal trying to respond to stimuli instead of immediately reacting to it; practice capturing your feelings early and identify triggers that have a similar pattern of response for you. When you experience a negative thought, notice if you tend to react strongly with one or more of the following examples of common feelings:

Desire or lust – Do you may feel a compulsive need to go shopping or binge eat or think to yourself “I deserve this”?

Aversion – Do you feel anger that may range from a mere annoyance to rage or victim behavior?

Sloth or fatigue – Do you feel exhausted and not feel the energy to deal with the experience?

Restlessness – Do you immediately feel the need to react with fretting, worrying or catastrophizing? This is your mind taking information from past experiences or postulating what will happen next.

Doubt – Do you find yourself blaming yourself; feeling that you deserve this experience or feel insecure that you can handle it, a guilt or shame response?

As you may begin to notice these types of feelings in your body pause and see the trends of what kind experiences trigger them for you and think about how this reaction may have been ingrained over your life as an integral part of yourself.

Practice change. Surround yourself with others who love you when you are at your best and support you when you trip up. You will trip up but think about the experience as you would if it were a small child that you love dearly. Be curious as to why the trip up happened and hit the reset button and start again having learned something new about yourself. Responding to your programmed reactions with kindness, catching them earlier and earlier by living in the present moment lightens your reaction to stress and improves your outlook on life and your health.