What am I feeling right now?

Common answers: Like screaming, like jumping for joy, like throwing up, numb...or, I haven’t the faintest idea.

If your answer is, “I don’t know,” or “Like...some activity or thing,” then it may be helpful to come to a greater understanding of your emotions.  Many times people with powerful emotions become frightened of their emotions and withdraw from them.  The result is that we become unfamiliar with what we are feeling and ultimately with ourselves. When this happens our lives become confusing and frightening.

Mindfulness is the practice, drawn from Zen Buddhism, which calls us to be fully present and fully aware in the present moment.  Practicing mindfulness can bring the courage to become friends with our emotions...even the scary ones!  With mindfulness we can be more able to approach things that we previously thought were impossible and we can learn to live with what we perviously found unacceptable.

In my counseling practice I make use of mindfulness based therapies such as Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) developed by Marsha Linehan. DBT was developed to work with people who have ongoing problems with self-harm and self-destruction, but it is also applicable to a wide range of other issues.