There are more things that can affect our emotions but these are the ones that I'd like to focus on as they cover a broad spectrum of what we bring to the tasks of learning and programming.
-### FIXME
-
## Awareness of our Emotional State
Being aware of our emotional state (what we're feeling right now) gives us our current emotional location. We can see where we are and understand what our mind is telling us. Giving ourselves a few moments to truly see what emotional state our mind is in will help us to move forward.
Note that we're not trying to change our emotional state. We're not trying to force ourselves to be something we're not. If we're truly unhappy with where we are or what we're doing it's more helpful to see what's causing this unhappiness than to try to paper over those emotions. Seeing our emotions clearly allows us to see what is causing them. Being present with these emotions allows us to better understand our mental state and what we're capable of in the moment.
-You can do this in the context of mindfulness meditation but even sitting still in your desk and saying "for one to two minutes I'm just going to sit here and explore my emotional state" should suffice. Seeing our emotions for what they are and thinking to what is causing them can help us understand what we're feeling.
+You can do this in the context of mindfulness meditation but even sitting at your desk and thinking "for one to two minutes I'm just going to sit here and explore my emotional state" should suffice. Seeing our emotions for what they are and digging in to find out what is causing them can help us understand what we're feeling.
+You might already know what is causing these emotions and emotional state and be afraid of exploring them. Some emotions may overwhelm us and make us feel things that we don't want to feel. Do as much of this as you are able and be gentle with yourself. You may find that your gentle prodding of these emotions can lead you to better understand them. Be as brave as you can with these emotions and if they start to overwhelm you then pull back and let the residue of those feelings subside before continuing.
## Our story
-Each one of us have a story that we tell ourselves. The stories we tell ourselves shape our perception of the world. We tell ourselves stories of how the day will be, and how we will engage with the day. We create a world in which we are the central protagonist of our story (which we are). We tell ourselves stories like "the work I'm about to do will be amazing" or "I'm going to work through this problem quickly and will have an awesome solution when I'm done". Or we tell ourselves a story about how we're not good at what we're doing and will likely fail in the attempt. We weave a tale of struggle, pain, and misery.
+### FIXME
+
+Each one of us have a story that we tell ourselves. The stories we tell ourselves shape our perception of the world. We tell ourselves stories of how the day will be, and how we will engage with the day. We create a world in which we are the central protagonist of our story (which we are). We tell ourselves stories like "the work I'm about to do will be amazing" or "I'm going to work through this problem quickly and will have an awesome solution when I'm done". Or we tell ourselves a story about how we're not good at what we're doing and will likely fail in the attempt. We weave a tale of struggle, pain, and misery where everything wrong with the world is the direct result of our actions.
-Our emotions inform the story we tell. If we're feeling amazing we tell ourselves that what lies ahead will also be amazing. If we're feeling down and defeated our story reflects that.
+Our emotions inform the story we tell. If we're feeling amazing we tell ourselves that what lies ahead will also be amazing. If we're feeling down and defeated our story reflects our defeated tone.
-The story is just that - a story. Our stories are not a guarantee of how the day will progress. We can tell ourselves that today will be amazing but watch in horror as each interaction we have causes that story to reflect a different reality. Or we can say that today will totally suck and we won't accomplish anything but instead have a pretty decent day.
+The story is just that --- a story. Our stories are not a guarantee of how the day will progress. We can tell ourselves that today will be amazing but watch in horror as each interaction causes a very different story to emerge. Or we can say that today will be terrible and we won't accomplish anything, but instead have a pretty decent and productive day.
-What we can do instead of creating these grand stories is focus more on the things that we love about the present moment. Instead of saying that we're going to have an amazing day we can say that there are things that we are looking forward to in this project and we hope to work on them. Instead of filling your day with dread you can focus on the little victories along the way. Yes, even something as small as "my computer booted without crashing" can be a victory.
+What we can do instead of creating these grand stories is focus more on the things that we love about the present moment. Instead of saying that we're going to have an amazing day we can say that there are things that we are looking forward to in this project and we hope we can work on them soon. Instead of filling your day with dread you can focus on the little victories along the way. Yes, even something as small as "my computer booted without crashing" can be a victory.
-Giving ourselves the power to focus more on the present and the very next steps we're about to take gives us the freedom to recalibrate as the day progresses. We can focus on the positive aspects of what we're doing instead of seeing how reality is diverging from our internal stories.
+Giving ourselves the power to focus more on the present and the very next steps we're about to take gives us the freedom to re-calibrate as the day progresses. We can focus on the positive aspects of what we're doing instead of seeing how reality is diverging from our internal stories.
## Awareness in action
projects / themediocreprogrammer.git / commitdiff