Don’t believe everything you think.

Think back to the most recent incident of when something or someone upset you. Relive the storyline in your head.

For most of you, looking back on that incident probably brought up the same emotions you felt at the time it occurred. Now check into your body. How do these emotions manifest for you physically? You may experience tightness in your chest, sweaty palms, clenching of your fists, a turn of your stomach.

It is a human condition to constantly live in the rumination of our past. What most people forget is that a majority of the time, our present moment is actually ‘okay’. The truth is that most of the times that we are feeling depressed and upset it is not due to our current state, but a result of re-living upsetting events in our past (as I asked you to do earlier). Biologically, our bodies are a reflection of our thoughts and emotions. If you relive an unpleasant moment in your mind you will most likely know because of how your body reacts. You’ll feel that lump in your throat again or that metal taste in your mouth. Through my journey with mindfulness and meditation, I’ve quickly learned that our bodies don’t need to be a slave to our emotions, but rather we can gain control over our emotions through our bodies.
Mindfulness helps us put a rein on the rumination of unpleasant memories and therefore helps us not have to continuously feel the negative emotions.

Body scans have been a great way to introduce individuals into mindfulness and mediation; however, body scan meditation can also be an incredibly effective tool for emotion regulation. Body scan is a particular type of meditation where you focus on each part of you body and literally scan it head to toe while breathing through any tension or discomfort. Each one of your emotions will normally present itself to you physically. For example, feeling anxious may cause you to tighten your jaw. Through body scan mediation, you can isolate each body part and see if it presenting this discomfort. Once you acknowledge the source of discomfort, breathing into it can ease the negative emotion associated with it. Body scan serves like a feedback loop to your brain; gaining control of the physical manifestation of your emotion helps to gain control over the actual emotion.

Don’t believe everything you think. Just because your mind thinks of unpleasant thoughts, does not mean you have to feel unpleasant. You are in control.