Trust Your Gut

Buddhists talk about “feeling tones” — everything in our lives has one of these feeling tones which, broadly speaking, are positive, negative and neutral. Everything we encounter will fall into one of these three categories.

Pick three people or things as quickly as possible — no more than two minutes:

1. A person who makes you feel clearly positive (perhaps a childhood friend or teacher).
2. A person who makes you feel clearly negative (that political figure or a former boss).
3. A person for whom you really feel clearly neutral (a bank teller or neighbor you don’t really know).

Once you’ve got your list, spend a minute or two journaling about the feeling the person/thing gives you: where does that positive/negative/neutral feeling tone come from? Stream-of-consciousness-style, write about these feelings. Think of each item (one at a time) and reflect on your experience of the feeling. Does it have a physical sensation? If something (especially the negative tone) feels too intense, try to select someone about whom you feel less passionately.

If you journal multiple times… Repeat the exercise focusing on one of these feeling tones, but this time don’t limit yourself to people. Open it up to experiences, places or anything else that gives you “that vibe.”

Start with the positive: as many things as you can come up with whose “feeling tone” is positive. After three-to-five minutes, allow yourself to explore whatever comes up. Don’t censor or edit. Just write.

Repeat this on the other days for the more neutral / negative feelings. (If the negative goes too dark, I encourage you to spend the last few minutes of that session returning to more positive ground.)

If you have completed the journal prompts above, then simply let yourself write for ten minutes without any rules or restrictions. Consider the prompts, your previous journal entries this week, and just let your pen go!

Many thanks to The Mercedes Club, Hell’s Kitchen, NY, for letting me record these yoga flows in their gorgeous yoga studio.