Emotion Exposure

Step One: Chronic Emotion

Think about an emotion that you've noticed you have a hard time accepting. The way you will recognize this is by trying to remember certain repetitive problematic behaviors you have in your day to day life as a result by this emotion. By now, doing the previous exercises from this and the other two modules should prepare you to easily observe your emotions and resulting behaviors. Take your time. For example, maybe you fight a lot with your close ones (friends and family), maybe you have difficulties with your job, or your relationship with your children could use some work. Think about the underlying emotion behind this.

Then, in the worksheet write down what emotion you picked and what your usual resulting behavior is.

Step Two: Observe the Emotion

Next, during the day try to be observant and open to noticing when this emotion arises in you. Since it is a chronic one, one that you've been struggling with often, you will probably be able to identify it when it arises.

Notice that first you need to get familiar with all the steps of the exercise, so that later during the day (or perhaps the next few days) when the emotion arises - you will be prepared to apply these steps.

Step Three: Emotion Exposure

Once you've identified that the emotions you are working on started arising, take 5 minutes to sit down and observe the process.
Take a few deep breaths, and observe the emotion. What are you feeling? What is the intensity of the emotion? Do you feel like the intensity will increase or has it reached its peak? Do you feel any bodily sensations as a result of the emotion? Be open to the emotion even if right now you don't feel as comfortable as you like. You will notice that, perhaps, allowing yourself to feel the emotion will change the process in some way.

Now that you've been present together with your emotion for a while, do you notice any change? Maybe the intensity of the emotion changed. Perhaps you even started feeling another emotion as a response to the first one. Think of this process like a wave or a cycle that is ever-changing and temporary.

Step Four: Emotions Without Action

Now that you've been mindful for a while of the emotion and of the whole wave-like process, observe how it feels to just sit with the emotion and not take the usual action. For example, if you usually lash out at people and argue because of feeling hurt, how does it feel to just be with the emotion and not take any action?

Remember, emotions are temporary. They come and go, and even when they are uncomfortable, the skillful approach of dealing with them in an informed way is a better alternative than reacting in the automatic behavioral response.