These last few weeks have been about being able to see and examine your thoughts in a meaningful way. With each step you have been learning to use the ABCD model of thought analysis. You can remember how to do this going forward by seeing each letter below for each step:

A. Activating Event
B. Beliefs
C. Consequences
D. Dispute

​So far you've noticed the difference between the event itself and the meaning you give it, looked at how many of your beliefs are formed, and then examined how your beliefs can become self-fulfilling prophecies.  This week is about how to tell if your beliefs are healthy or helpful.  And for that, we need to introduce two important concepts: Explanatory Style and Cognitive Biases and Distortions. 

​So far in examining your thoughts you've seen how your interpretations of what happens to you are separate from the events themselves. You've also delved a little into seeing how some of your beliefs about how the how world works are created.  

​This week, it's time to look at how those stories and beliefs affect you and how they influence what you create and even what you filter out as you see the world around you.

Last week’s skill building post had you start noticing the stories and meanings you add on top of the events in your life. You did this to begin really seeing the separation between what occurs and what you think about what occurs.  “It’s not so much what happens to you but how you interpret it that matters,” is the old maxim that applies here.  

​This week is about expanding out and seeing all the different beliefs that come along with your own very personal interpretation of the world around you.

There is what happens to you and then there are the stories you tell yourself about what happens to you.  You have a natural tendency to want to assign meaning to the events in your life. How you define what happens to you can often be even more important than what actually happens.  

The stories or meanings you assign to life's events are what determine your future actions and even how you see yourself. They create the lens through which you see your world. You create these stories for yourself and even for other people when they share their life experiences with you.

Mindfulness Meditation derives from Vipassana, otherwise known as Buddhist Insight Meditation. You will find it taught as a secular or as a spiritual practice depending on your teacher. Mindfulness is often defined as a core skill that centers around your ability to be fully present in the current moment. Mindfulness meditation defines further what "fully present" means when it goes into examining the sensations in your body, focusing on your emotions, and providing insight into your ways of thinking.

Today, we cover the last basic piece of mindfulness: working with your thoughts and the mind.  You have learned so far to use your breath as home, bring awareness into your body, and to begin working with your emotions. All of these things layer on top of each other as you work toward greater self-awareness.

When you began this practice on Week 3, your homework had you noticing your thoughts, letting them go, and returning to your breath. The part of you that is doing the noticing and issuing the instruction to return is called your observer self.

​Emotional intelligence is about being aware of our own and other’s emotions, being able to regulate those emotions, and also being able to express what we feel in effective ways.  This week, we add the base level of working with your emotions into your mindfulness practice

The practice skill for this week will help you learn to identify and become more aware of your emotions.  This is a base level skill that we will expand on in the future but, for now, we need to build a solid base before adding the more in depth material later.

The next step or layer to add on top of Using Your Breath as Home from last week is to begin to work with the sensations in your body. You may spend so much time up in your head or focused on TV, computer, or phone screens that there may be days when you forget you even have a body.  It's in your body, though, where a lot of wisdom lies. 

It's in your body that you can identify your stress level. It's in your body where you can first identify that you've been triggered before your mental response kicks in. Often, it's your body that is grounding you to the present moment. Emotions are felt in different parts of your body.  This is why, after the breath, we move to the body to build a greater connection with ourselves and the present moment.