Step 2: Pay Attention to Your Warning Signs

This is the first and arguably toughest step, and there isn’t much I can tell you about it other than to breathe deeply, make sure not to act when your heart rate is elevated, insert as much time as possible between the external trigger and your response, and continue to ask yourself on a constant basis, “Why am I feeling this?” If that seems hard,

If you can identify what it is that catalyzes a behavior you want to stop, then you can focus on it and actively try to redirect your behavior when you encounter a similar situation again. This is where we also start to think about emotional triggers and needs.

You may already be familiar with certain cognitive distortions—catastrophizing, black-and-white thinking, etc.—and have begun recognizing the language of negative self-talk in yourself. Observing your thinking and becoming aware of previously automatic thoughts and distortions is step 1.

anchor into the present moment using the 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique: Look around you and identify five things that you see, four things that you feel, three things that you hear, two things that you smell, and one thing that you taste (or if you find this difficult, one good thing about yourself).

Here’s the trick: any sensation, be it mental, emotional, physical, or spiritual, can be dealt with in the same way: with compassionate awareness. We can sit with and accept unpleasant physical sensations just as we can emotional or mental ones. Just offer gentle attention. Breathe into it.

studies have shown that just being aware of or questioning your gratitude—even if you can’t think of anything off the top of your head—can create some powerful chemical changes.

First, in order to accept an emotion, you need to be able to correctly recognize that it is occurring. Take some time to be still with that sensation, whatever it is. Try not to rush in to deny or avoid it, and remember that there’s no need to embrace it either or pretend it isn’t there. Simply give yourself and the emotion space to expand and watc

The first important tenet of Stoicism that will seek to promote emotional resilience is that everything that happens in the world is neutral—every event and consequence thereof. Every event has a different effect on everyone, but the events themselves are neutral, without intent, and play no favorites. There is no bad or good; it is all subjective.