The Emotional Clusters is the single most effective tool that I use during coaching. When people begin coaching with me, their emotional vocabulary is usually limited. Most of us know when we’re angry, and we know when we are sad, and we know when we’re happy. But beyond that being able to name specific emotions such as disgust, responsible, hesitant, pressured, yearning, or hopeless does not usually come naturally. However, if we can use our mindfulness abilities to take pause, and sit and listen to our bodies and lean into our emotions.
Identifying the subtlety of our emotions can be a game changer. We feel less confused, we feel more empowered, we feel like we have a better understanding of ourselves and our relationship to our circumstances. Moreover, being able to identify your emotions on this deeper level, indicates to you which mindfulness approach will be best for supporting yourself through this difficult emotion.
For example, if you are feeling emotions such as hesitation, pressure, unstable, or ridiculed then your nervous system is probably activated. You are probably experiencing a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response. In this case, using exercises that soothe your nervous system are going to be the best way to support yourself through this emotional experience.
As another example, if you are experiencing emotions such as disgust, self-doubt, feeling instigated, or argumentative then using a tool that helps you break down the deeper vulnerable emotion and thinking process that lead you to these emotions is going to be key to supporting yourself through this emotional experience.
And lastly, if you are experiencing emotions such as crushed, longing, abandonment or insecurity then practicing self-compassion will be a wonderful way for you to you create space and time for you to feel your emotion in a healthy way. These types of emotions are present to let you know what needs healing within you. Self-compassion practices are perfect for supporting you through this emotional healing.
Listen to my client, Jasmine, tell her story, recovering from past trauma, using the emotional clusters. Listen to The Aware Mind podcast episode “Healing Abandonment and Childhood Trauma with TSD Mindfulness: A True Story”, published on April 21, 2023.
The Emotional Clusters: https://www.tsdmind.org/_files/ugd/8bdf26_e098853c2ccd431eab2923afa955ee10.pdf