Your emotions can affect how you think about events and problems. Knowing the ‘facts’ of a situation can decrease the likelihood of lashing out toward others or overreacting. Why is this important?
Examining your thoughts and checking the facts can help manage your emotions and your response to people. How do you check the facts? There are several questions….
…What is the emotion I want to change?
…What is the event prompting my emotion?
…What are my interpretations, thoughts, and assumptions about the event?
…Am I assuming a threat?
…What is the catastrophe?
…Does my emotions and/or their intensity fit the actual facts?
It is difficult to problem-solve an emotional situation if you do not have the facts straight. These questions help you figure out whether it is an event causing the emotion or your interpretation of an event or both. Use mindfulness to observe the facts and then the facts you observed.
Christopher K Germer in his book, The Mindful Path to Self “Compassion states you can measure your progress by how you feel in your daily life. Are you feeling happier, more confident, less stressed? More important, are you responding with more and more goodwill toward yourself when things go wrong?
Peace
Larry
email: ljw@superhumanbeing.net
website: https://superhumanbeing.net/