This week we start adding in a mindfulness practice to increase your emotional intelligence. Mindfulness is the core skill that centers around the ability to be fully present in the current moment. Mindfulness meditation increases awareness of your body and emotions and provides the tools for greater insight into how your mind works. Specifically, a mindfulness practice benefits you in terms of increased empathy, stress reduction, better emotional regulation, and it's even been shown to boost your working memory. A mindfulness meditation practice starts with learning to using your breath as "home." Many people are already doing a daily review whether they realize it or not. When we go to bed at night, there is a natural tendency for all of the things that happened during the day to show up and be reprocessed. The difficulty for many people is that they have a mental filter that screens out the all the day's good interactions and leaves them to only process the bad. And when it comes to the bad, people often re-process those events in ways that only increase their worry and anxiety rather than lessening it. Many people start off their day with a "Today I am grateful for..." post on their Facebook page. Others may keep a private gratitude journal that no one else knows about. Still others just inwardly review their gratitude list before they even open their eyes in the morning. They are practicing this positive focus as their first thoughts of the day. But why are they doing it? |
My Writing and Other Resources for StudentsA growing collection of writing and other resources for students to use to continue their growth.
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