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You may have noticed during part two that sometimes you notice an emotion, but didnu2019t observe the thought that preceded it. This is progress. Often this is the source of patterns on replay in our minds that have moved beyond our conscious awareness. They have become ingrained in our psyche and are often driving our decisions and actions without our conscious consent.

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Iu2019ve been quite good at taking risk in the financial markets. When managing money for a bank or when managing my own money, Iu2019ve rarely had crippling fears preventing me from making decisions and taking risk. But when dealing with people, Iu2019ve been stopped by fear on many occasions. My greatest strength is in reading people. Picking up on their feelings and helping them to process them for good. As a coach, this is an important tool in my kit.

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But for many years, I avoided dealing with people as Iu2019ve had strong feelings of unworthiness around this. I didnu2019t understand these feelings until I uncovered the thoughts that preceded them. Iu2019d been telling myself that Iu2019m not trustworthy and that the only way to protect you, was to stay away from me. I subsequently realized that this was residue from a conversation I had with a school friendu2019s father who asked me to stop taking his sonu2019s lunch. I had been trading my sandwiches for his cheese triangles and he must have told his father (who was a teacher at the primary school we attended).

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I had been avoiding bringing my greatest strength into the world based on a conversation I had when I was 7 years old. Crazy. But thatu2019s the power in this part of the exercise. Your job here is simply to observe any emotions that arise of unknown origin. If you observe one, stay with it. Donu2019t shy away from it or shut it down.u00a0Now listen. Ask yourself if there was a thought that led to this feeling. And listen. Itu2019s important when the thought or thoughts reveal themselves, they are just thoughts like clouds. They may surprise you, they may throw you off balance. But they too are just thoughts. This time, write down the emotion and write down the thought that preceded it.

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When it comes to the practice of meditation, we’ll become very aware of our emotions and we will know the thoughts that preceded them. These become our tells; our internal signals that tell us we are stuck in the past. We will know we are out of kilter and would benefit from pausing in our busy lives to clear these emotional attachments. Practising this exercise now will give you greater emotional dexterity enabling you to become more efficient in detecting patterns of thought that are getting in the way of your current objectives.