Mindful Check-In: The Importance of Emotional Awareness

Emotional awareness refers to the individual’s ability to recognize and describe an emotion in oneself and others (Lane and Schwartz, 1987).

Being aware of your emotions and those of others matters because emotions can influence all aspects of our lives. Yet, many of us struggle to manage our emotions more gracefully and aren’t aware of how emotions impact our health and wellbeing. Exploring pathways to emotional awareness in our day-to-day life may begin with mindful awareness of our emotional states.

Why use emotional awareness as a tool for change? 

Using mindfulness, we can begin the journey of cultivating emotional awareness by stepping back and attending to what we feel at that moment. Through this process, we become aware of our thoughts, emotions and sensations and accepting of our experiences (Creswell, Way, Eisenberger, & Lieberman, 2007).  

While paying attention to present moment experiences, we can label our emotions by saying, for example, “I am feeling joy” or “I am feeling anxious right now.” Indeed, studies have shown that mindfulness may assist in emotion differentiation or being specific about how we feel (Fogarty, Lu, Sollers, Krivoschekov, Booth, & Consedine, 2015). Simultaneously, there is growing literature that shows labelling emotions is associated with psychological wellbeing and how we process emotions promotes wellbeing (Brackett, Rivers, Reyes, & Salovey, 2012). For example, labelling emotions in more detail and being granular may be especially helpful when in stressful situations (Kashdan, Berrett, & McKnight, 2015). It’s suggested that naming our emotions, whether in a written or a verbal form, can reduce distress or negative affect associated with a particular stimulus (Kircanski, Lieberman, & Craske, 2012). The psychologist Dan Siegel refers to the practice of naming emotions as “name it to tame it.” 

Labelling can be done informally throughout the day. The aim is to cultivate awareness of our emotional states and reflect on our feelings as observers, enabling us to reflect adaptively (Kross & Ayduk, 2011). I recently engaged in the mindful, self-reflective practice to uncover why and how procrastination impacted my ability to reach my goals. At first, I noticed when I was procrastinating and stepped back to examine what I was feeling at that moment. My mind would wander almost immediately, and it was challenging to stay with what I was experiencing. I used my breath as a point of focus to help me come back to the present moment and name what I was observing in terms of thoughts, emotions and urges. I found that my procrastination was an attempt to manage my unpleasant emotions by shifting to a less important task. 

How can a mindful check-in help you? 

Through a simple practice of taking a mindful pause to check in, we can foster our emotional awareness. We can also consciously target various habits, goals, moods, strengths, weaknesses, and patterns. Or you might consider exploring emotions in areas where you would like to experience growth and gain insight.

Mindful check-in is a quick and simple process that will help you identify your emotions. It can be done as part of your daily journaling, morning routine, or when you wish to reflect on your thoughts and feelings.  

What to do 

Take a mindful check-in whenever you are moved to do so or combine it with an existing habit of keeping a journal. The aim of this practice is to simply notice with awareness. You can start by labelling your thoughts and emotions. Then, with openness and curiosity, notice what's come up for you at the moment.

Here is a simple exercise to get started: 

As you breathe in, place your awareness on your sensations, thoughts and emotions. 

1. What sensations in my body do I feel?-i.e., My shoulders are tense, my stomach nervous, fluttery. 

2. What emotions am I feeling right now? -i.e., I feel anxious or this is anxiety. 

3. What thoughts am I thinking right now? -i.e., I am having the thought that I can't write. 

4. I notice that... -i.e., When I sit down to write, I notice my stomach churning and I'm having the thought that I can't write like other people, and I experience a strong urge to distract myself with less important work to avoid unpleasantness.

Take a deep breath and let out a sigh. Calming our mind and body we embrace the feeling. 

Then, breathe mindfully and calm your body before leaping into action. You might consider asking: What is needed at this moment? What shifts do I want to make? What feelings do I want to invite? How do I want to feel? How do I want to be? 

• References

  Brackett, M., Rivers, S., Reyes, M., & Salovey, P. (2012). Enhancing academic performance and social and emotional competence with the RULER feeling words curriculum. Learning and Individual Differences, 22(2), 218–224. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2010.10.002 

  Creswell, J. D., Way, B. M., Eisenberger, N. I., & Lieberman, M. D. (2007). Neural correlates of dispositional mindfulness during affect labeling. Psychosomatic medicine, 69(6), 560–565. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0b013e3180f6171f

  Fogarty, F., Lu, L., Sollers, J., Krivoschekov, S., Booth, R., & Consedine, N. (2015). Why It Pays to be Mindful: Trait Mindfulness Predicts Physiological Recovery from Emotional Stress and Greater Differentiation among Negative Emotions. Mindfulness, 6(2), 175–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-013-0242-6

  Katharina Kircanski, Matthew D. Lieberman, & Michelle G. Craske. (2012). Feelings Into Words: Contributions of Language to Exposure Therapy. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1086–1091. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612443830

  Kashdan, T., Barrett, L., & McKnight, P. (2015). Unpacking Emotion Differentiation: Transforming Unpleasant Experience by Perceiving Distinctions in Negativity. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(1), 10–16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414550708

  Kross, E., & Ayduk, Ozlem. (2011). Making Meaning out of Negative Experiences by Self-Distancing. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 20(3), 187–191. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411408883 

  Lane, R. D., & Schwartz, G. E. (1987). Levels of emotional awareness: a cognitive-developmental theory and its application to psychopathology. The American journal of psychiatry, 144(2), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.144.2.133

• Further Reading  

  There are myriad of books that explore topics related to emotionalawareness and feelings including Emotional Intelligence (2009) by Daniel Goleman, Emotional Agility (2017) by Susan David and, more recently, Permission to Feel (2019) by Marc Brackett.