Mindful Metaphors: Give Feelings Space (transcript)

(from videos)

Hello and welcome to another edition of Mindful Metaphors.  I’m Dr. Ellis Edmunds and today I wanted to show you the game I created, The Mindful Bus, and this is the cover for it.  We are going to do a metaphor from the game based on the cards in the game and I wanted to show you the cards here.  There are 4 different types of cards – you got the observing self cards, defusion, present moment, and acceptance.  So I just wanted to give you an example and just do one of these cards.  I think I’ll do a few videos with different exercises.  And all these cards are different mindfulness exercises and they are supposed to be very short, 30 seconds to a minute, and as part of playing the game you get to go through the different ones and do most of them.  So here’s an example of one, one picked randomly.  This one is from the Acceptance deck.  So these cards are about opening up to your feelings and seeing them as they are.  Letting go of struggling with them.  And so this card I will read is titled Give Feelings Space.  So as we do this exercise if you could think of any difficult thoughts or feelings that have been coming up for you recently in your life and you want to focus on them for the exercise that would be helpful.  So take a moment to think of anything you’re feeling that you want to focus on.  And so the card is called Give Feelings Space:

Notice what feelings arise in relation to your thought…

See if you can open up around the feeling…

See how much space you can give this feeling to just be itself…

Notice what happens when you give the feeling space.

So that’s the exercise.  You can actually sit with that as long as you’d like to.  Just taking a minute or a mindful moment to open up to your feelings can make a big difference in your day.  So this was one of the Acceptance cards from The Mindful Bus, which you can check out at www.themindfulbus.com  So that’s it for today and until next time, I hope you have a very mindful day, take care.

Ellis Edmunds, Psy.D.

Therapy for Anxiety, Panic, and Relationship Stress

Oakland, CA