Forging Emotional Maturity in the Self-Relationship via Secure Attachment Exercises from this Therapist
Exciting seeing your openness in moving into this wondrous transition to motherhood! Here is the link to the feelings wheel. I suggest printing it out. Your homework across the next few months, would be to secure time across your day to pause for a mini-mental-mindfulness (MMM) break, during which time you would take the pulse of what feelings you were aware of having in that present moment and then uncover a bit more psychic material about the construct of your experience of feeling that/those emotions. So, for instance, in any given MMM moment, you would pull up your feeling wheel, consult it to identify one feeling–then keep going to see if there are more feelings you may be having accompanying the one first identified.
Once you’ve written down all the feelings you might be having in that given moment, now explore one of them toward deepening your observation of what happens, process-wise, in your awareness of ‘feeling the feeling/s.’
For instance, if appalled turns into fear or contempt, or something else. What do you notice in your body? If thoughts accompany the feelings, note anyone that stands out or reemerges, but move back into a non-judgmental observational attitude, with (similar to, “of course”) an, “hmmmm, this is interesting” approach to observing what comes next. Steer away from, “what does having this feeling mean for me?” Instead, just simply note.
Write it all down. Important not to judge as what is happening is just a part of your past conditioning.
Welcome whatever comes forward with an attitude of COAL. This journaling and mindfulness serves as a deliberate act, embracing what is happening for you. Doing so with COAL, is an act of deliberate self-acceptance…the kind of self-acceptance you want to give to your progeny.
Write those down (It can be hard to identify emotions, so use the inner wheel then move outward to see if there is any specificity that clarifies the essential feel of the emotion (e.g., disappointment becomes more clearly identified as appalled–or something else perhaps not on the list…it’s a launching point)).
It is a gift to say to oneself, “I love you no matter what is happening inside of you.” “Love is not earned by feeling any this and not that.” Ultimately, you (and your child) can learn from your practice that feelings do not compel action, they are simply feelings and we have competency and mastery in tolerating and moving through whatever comes up. Nothing is reacted (acted out), we learn from our feelings, notice them and can make informed choices about behavior following our mindfulness. We choose how (or not) to respond to our experience following mindfulness. The feelings are one influence upon our behavior, not the only influence. In moving through the feelings we acknowledge any wisdom imparted there, but can also now weigh-in influences such as our goals, values, and resources and our partnerships with others before choosing behavioral responses.
C-uriosity
O-penness
A-cceptance
L-ove
Basically, COAL is a validating, non-judging, compassionate, and accepting attitude. It’s an attitude you hope to approach your new love-bug with routinely as you lean into fostering safety for your child’s experience (an experience increasingly individuated from your own, and intrinsic to existential potentiality/emergence). This attitude fosters their own flexibility, maturity, and possibility. The attitude authenticates a fundamental belief and confidence in feelings as separate from, but informative for engagement in life.
What we are looking for in our work together is feeling states that pattern with dysregulation routinely/habitually. This is where we can add the most value to your treatment. Anxiety is habit-forming. Once we remove the first layer, we often find that other emotions arise in our welcoming awareness. Interestingly enough, however, disorganized reactions to those feelings will track back to the core fear and will present new growth opportunities to practice greater emotional intelligence, flexibility, adaptability. And in so doing unlocks greater existential potentiality, more self-realization, and greater self-actualization, including emotional freedom and greater resourcefulness. Exciting!!!