Mindfulness of Distress Script

Mindfulness of Distress Script

Recognize and Allow Emotion: Aha! I’m feeling…[angry/sad/scared]. It is OK, I can allow myself to have this feeling…I can make space for it…I don’t have to be afraid of it or try to get rid of it.

Watch Emotion: I can just watch this feeling and see what it does, I don’t have to get caught up in it. Let’s see, where do I notice the emotion in my body? This is just an emotion, just a feeling to be felt, nothing more and nothing less. I am not my emotions, I am the watcher of my emotions. The feeling is just like a…[ocean wave…I don’t need to fight the wave frantically…I can just go with the wave, letting it bob me up and down, or riding it into shore]

Be Present: I will turn my attention back to the task I am doing now …noticing what I can feel…hear... see… smell… taste… OR I will turn my attention towards my breath…the breath being my anchor to the present moment…noticing each in breath and each out breath

Deal with Emotional Comebacks: I feel the emotion returning…that’s OK, that’s what emotions do, they like to rear their head again. I will just go back to watching it again…it is just another [ocean wave]…

Non Judgmental Stance

What are judgments?

• Describing things as good or bad, valuable or worthless, smart or stupid, terrible or wonderful, beautiful or ugly, etc.
• Describing how things “should” or “shouldn’t” be
• Describing by comparing or contrasting

Usefulness of judgments?

• They allow for quick descriptions by creating simple categories
• They are fast, short hand for describing preferences and consequences

Problems with judgments?

• They often distract from reality (judgments may replace facts; when we judge we often stop observing)
• They tend to feed negative emotions (anger, guilt, shame)
• Positive judgments are fragile: anything judged “good” can also be judged “bad”

Steps for letting go of judgments

• Practice noticing judgments. Keep a count of judgments.
• Ask yourself, “Do I want to be judging?” “Is the judging helping or hurting me?”
• Replace judgments with:

1.     Statements of preference: “I like…” “I prefer…” or “I wish…”

2.     Statements of consequences: “This is helpful/harmful for…”, “This is effective/ineffective for…”

3.     Statements of fact: “This thing happened in this way, at this time…”

• Practice accepting what is (facts, preferences, consequences) and letting go of the judgments. Let the judgments drift away.
• Remember not to judge your judging!

UNPRODUCTIVE WORRY

Unproductive worry displays the following characteristics:

• It imagines all sorts of unlikely outcomes.
• It assumes that one bad outcome will cascade into a series of even worse outcomes.
• It worries about events far into the future that don’t need a solution right now.
• It assumes that your worrisome thinking is valid and reflects the realistic truth.
• It assumes that your negative feelings are accurate measures of the importance of the worry.
• It rehashes negative experiences in the past.
• It demands that you have control over just about everything in your life.
• It refuses to accept that negative experiences are part of life.
• It makes the approval of others an overly important need.
• It accepts only perfect, or near perfect, solutions to problems.

PRODUCTIVE WORRY

Here’s what makes this kind of worrying adaptive and functional:

• It helps you solve a problem or resolve a situation.
• It doesn’t demand certainty.
• It’s not overwhelmed by emotion.
• It turns a worry into a problem to be solved.
• It explores appropriate ways of finding a solution to a problem.
• It doesn’t get stuck in evaluating unrealistic outcomes.
• It defers those worries that can’t be solved until a future point in time.
• It’s not long lasting and can be ended in a relatively short period of time.
• It accepts that loss and tragedy are a natural and expected part of life.