When people are dissatisfied with their job, they usually describe it as a physical sensation — “I feel sick when I think about going to the office,” or “My heart races when I see my boss.” By becoming more aware of, and better at detecting physical and body emotions, you stand a chance of responding to them differently at work. This would be a great start or end of work day meditation.
In mindfulness training at work, the first thing I do is help people become aware of how they experience things in the three sense categories. Physical and body sensations play a big role in career contentment, so I often start by training people on how to detect both inner and outer Feel.
This practice introduces you to the feel sense category — how you can learn to work with body sensations in a mindfulness practice.
About Feel:
The sense category of feel includes any physical or emotional sensations. Often we’ll divide the feel sense into two categories, inner and outer. The outer sensations are what you experience in the body physically (Feel Out), such as hands on your lap or physical relaxation, including taste and smell. The inner sensation is anything that feels emotional in nature (Feel In). Putting feel sensations into these categories makes it easier to detect, track, untangle, and befriend them. They have less of a chance of sabotaging our day if we know what to do with them.
In addition to the inner and outer feel, the state might be restful or active. Being able to detect this build the core mindfulness skills of concentration, sensory clarity, and equanimity.
Using Feel In or Out at Work
I recommend doing Feel In and Feel Out for 6 minutes each day. You can do the formal practice (a longer sit) at home in the morning. Then also try to do short practices that are 30 seconds or so throughout the day. Over time, you will build mindfulness skills, you will know how to turn toward the feel or anchor away if you need to.
Instead of wondering, “why am I feeling this way?” you’ll be able to notice the subtle signs before they get uncomfortable, you can skillfully work with these to feel better at work. This will give you relief. This would make a great end-of-work-day meditation.
This meditation can also be used to assess which parts of your work you enjoy the most. Loosening the grip on unpleasant sensations and emotions often clears up space for new ideas and positivity.
