Feeling Flavors

Feeling flavors is a meditation technique that is part of our" feel in " subjective experience . When we are aware of emotional type body sensations we say that we" feel in".

By using the feeling flavor technique we focus on observing and noting particular specific emotions as we experience them in our moment to moment experience.

It can be very enlightening to bring such a focused awareness to this part of ourselves. We are often aware of big emotions, but perhaps not aware of the subtler ones or combinations of feelings that we experience.This information is helpful in self knowledge and with it the opportunity to see what we are feeling, how it changes and how it drives certain behaviors.

1. Bring your awareness to the area or areas where you experience emotional sensations in the body. We call this "Feel in."

2. See if you can name by noting with a label(word) a particular feeling that you are experiencing and where. Example: happiness on the face. Fear in the belly .....gratitude chest and fear in back.

you might be aware of experiencing more than one emotion at a time.That is fine . Just include it with "and" .If there is no emotional feel then there will be a label of "feel rest" and enjoy the rest. Guessing is perfectly ok

Every couple of seconds check in and label your experience unless it disappears first and then you can note "gone."

The Way of Thoughts and Emotions

This technique involves tracking your subjective experience in terms of visual thoughts(mental images), internal conversations(mental talk) and emotional body sensations.

In a psychological sense, this technique allows you to break up negative states into smaller manageable pieces, thus loosing their hold on you. By negative states I mean things like difficult emotions, limiting beliefs, judgements, urges leading to unproductive behaviors, etc.

Learning to focus on just one area at a time in a given moment will reduce the sense of overwhelm.

#1 Working with mental images.

Position your attention in the area where you experience visual thinking or mental images. When you become aware of an image you will note that as"see in" If there is no image you will note "see rest" . If all or part of an image (or rest) drops away, note that as "Gone"

Every few seconds observe and note.

#2 Working with mental talk.

Position your attention in the area where you hear self talk, usually in your head or around your ears. Pay attention to see if you can detect the presence or absence of mental talk. If you detect metal talk you will note "Hear in" When it is quiet you will note "Hear rest". When a burst of talk comes to an end ,note "Gone"

#3 Working with emotional body sensations

At any given time you might experience strong, mild, or no emotion in the body. If it is strong it will be easier to detect than if it is subtle. You can guess , subtle is significant.

Place your awareness in the body and see if you can detect emotion....from negative to positive.

If you detect something you will note "Feel in"

If you detect nothing you will note"Feel rest"

If the emotion or rest suddenly goes away note "Gone"

#Free float between the three

If you would like to work in the whole subjective state then broaden your awareness to include it all and note what arises or what calls to you noting as above