RECAP AND GOALS

Mindfulness for Men > 1. Anchoring Our Attention > 2. Body Awareness > 3. Stepping Back from Difficult Thoughts > 4. Emotional Resilience > Recap and Tasks

Lesson 4. Developing Emotional Resilience ✔

Summarizing Lesson 4. Developing Emotional Resilience focusing on developing equanimity, to help us find emotional balance.

Putting these skills into practice throughout our week

SUMMARY AND RECAP

In Lesson 4, we have explored the concept of responding to our internal experiences, whether pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, with equal interest and non-reactivity. 

Our practices – the Equanimity Practice, Moment of Challenge, and Mindful Pause – support bringing a genuine willingness to experience each internal sensation as it is, without any agenda to change it at that moment. Although it can seem counterintuitive, when we allow our internal experience to be as it is, bringing interest to it, we can both gain appreciation for the pleasant moments and reduce the intensity and duration of difficult emotions and thoughts. 

By cultivating equanimity in our daily lives, we can increase our capacity to respond to difficult moments or situations in more skillful or appropriate ways. This will help us to feel a greater sense of well-being, resilience and control over our lives. 

CONSOLIDATING SKILLS

Before moving on from Lesson 4, we encourage you to do the equanimity practice, the moment of challenge practice, and mindful pause at least three times in the next week.  

Our worksheet below can help you to reflect on your experience (or you can use a journal, notebook, or notes on your phone, etc).

Preview of Mindfulness for Men: Lesson 4 Weekly Practice Sheet

Try to set aside 5-10 minutes each evening to reflect on your mindfulness practice for the day. Use the following prompts to guide your reflection:

  • What did you notice during your mindfulness practice today?
  • What challenges did you encounter?
  • How did you respond to these challenges?
  • What have you noticed about your ability to meet your experience with equanimity? How has it changed, if it has?
  • What did you learn from today’s practice? 
  • How might you apply what you learned to future mindfulness practices or daily life?
Download Lesson 4: Weekly Practice Sheet

Keep in mind

At the end of each day or the week, try to reflect on the following questions in relation to cultivating equanimity. 

  1. What have you found gets in the way of your practice? What supports it?
  2. How does the moment of challenge practice affect your ability to respond to that moment?
  3. How does the mindful pause affect your subsequent actions or emotional state?
  4. What bodily sensations accompany low mood? When you’re able to rest your attention there for a few moments, with an intention to exercise equanimity, what happens? 

The next page wraps up our Mindfulness for Men course. 

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