Mindful Micro-Steps For Big Feelings

What if fear, grief, anger, and old hurts didn’t run the show anymore? We share a gentle way to build real emotional capacity without white-knuckling your way through pain. Instead of diving into the deep end, we map a clear, safe progression—starting with mild memories, grounding in the body, and adding just enough mindfulness to feel what’s there without getting swept away.

We begin by setting the container: a quiet space, a stable seat, and a few minutes connecting to breath and body. From there we invite a small, manageable memory to surface—a minor disappointment, a touch of frustration, a flicker of sadness—and practice staying with it. You’ll hear how to shift from fixing the feeling to feeling it, track sensations like tightness, warmth, or shakiness, and notice judgments or stories without letting them take the wheel. That simple arc—evoke, feel, notice, soften—becomes a repeatable flow you can trust.

To make progress visible, we build an emotion inventory that spans both unpleasant and pleasant experiences. We rate intensity from 1 to 10, sort the list, and train at the lower levels until our nervous system learns, I can be with this. Over time, we advance thoughtfully to midrange emotions. When the material touches deeper trauma or profound grief, we talk about making a wise plan: what stays in solo practice and what deserves the steady presence of a therapist, guide, or healer. Along the way, we challenge the habit of avoiding joy, showing how the same mindful skills help us receive good feelings fully.

By the end, you’ll have a practical framework for emotional resilience: a safe setting, a stepwise method, and a roadmap for when to seek support. If this approach helps, follow the show, share it with a friend who could use steadier ground, and leave a quick review to help others find these tools.

Chapters

• 0:11 Naming The Deep-End Emotions
• 0:41 Why Start With Baby Steps
• 0:49 Creating A Safe Practice Space
• 1:29 Evoking A Mild Emotion
• 2:56 Bringing Mindfulness To Feeling
• 4:36 Scanning Body Sensations
• 5:26 Building An Emotion Inventory
• 7:55 Sorting By Intensity
• 7:55 Staying With Raw Experience
• 8:28 Progressing Toward The Deep End

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:11

Some of these topics that we're bringing up around fear and grief and anger and trauma, they're all kind of the deep end emotions, like the big scary ones.

SPEAKER_00: 0:41

So, how do we go in baby steps of this? One way to do a little micro step is to sit in a safe, quiet space.

SPEAKER_01: 1:12

Maybe connect with the body a little bit, connect with the breath. You know, ground in the body for a little bit. You know, minute, five minutes, ten minutes.

SPEAKER_00: 1:29

And then call to mind something that feels mildly disappointing, mildly frustrating, maybe a little sad. And reflect on it. Think about it.

SPEAKER_01: 2:04

Relive a memory about it. As much as you can. Without rationalizing it, without thinking of how you should feel. Just feel it. You know, kind of put yourself in the situation where that mild disappointment, that mild feeling came up, mild annoyance.

SPEAKER_00: 2:31

Relive it as much as you can.

SPEAKER_01: 2:36

Kind of in the past, just allow that mild emotion to surface and allow yourself to fully feel it from that place. And then when you feel like you've kind of open to that feeling, then bring mindfulness to how it feels to feel that.

SPEAKER_00: 3:16

Physical sensations, reactions, judgments, and just noticing, being curious, what's happening when I have this feeling?

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

What's happening in the body? What's happening with this emotion?

SPEAKER_00: 3:39

Kind of thoughts are coming up.

SPEAKER_01: 3:46

And we'll do this meditation together today. But I'm kind of giving you a bullet point summary, kind of dissecting it a little bit. Really allowing yourself to feel it and then bringing mindfulness to this experience right now of it. Because you've called this emotion up, and now we're facing it, we're being with it, we're noticing what's happening. Noticing the judgments, being curious about the judgments, maybe softening the judgments with curiosity, with some care, and just noticing the raw experience of this. Coming back to the body, noticing temperature, tightness, spaciousness, movement, stillness.

SPEAKER_00: 4:49

What's happening around the chest, the belly, the head.

SPEAKER_01: 5:26

You know, that time I fell off my bike and I felt scared.

SPEAKER_00: 5:33

That time last time I felt incredible joy. Last time someone really hurt me.

SPEAKER_01: 5:52

Last time someone cut me off in the street, and I felt a little frazzled.

SPEAKER_00: 6:03

Last time I was lightly, slightly annoyed. Or that time I um lost my grandmother.

SPEAKER_01: 6:20

Listing out a lot of memories of emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant. As you can do this practice with pleasant things too, because a lot of us don't open to those either.

SPEAKER_00: 7:07

So rating each one in terms of intensity. And then sorting them. Fully allowing those feelings to surface and exploring them.

SPEAKER_01: 7:55

Noticing judgments, noticing shame, noticing rationalizations, noticing stories, coming back to the rawness of the emotion with caring curiosity, gentle awareness, sticking with them. Where you're allowing them to be here, and you're able to be with them with more and more presence. Then maybe a few weeks with the threes and fours, and then you know, five through tens, making a judgment call and what you can do by yourself, and what you can do with the therapist or a guide or a healer to support you as you learn to swim in the deep end, so to speak.