It’s not easy to reflect on our emotions without judging them or running away from them. It’s difficult to stay with challenging or frightening feelings and thoughts. But to cultivate awareness means taking an open, curious, and non-judgmental approach to observing our minds.

More than simple or immediate observation (like Attunement), awareness asks us to get curious and reflect on our feelings, emotions, thoughts, and the landscape of experience we discovered in step one of attunement. What emotions are coming up for us? What thoughts keep coming into our consciousness?

In this second step of the 5 A’s of Agility for Spiritual Health, Pam King explains how we can become more emotionally aware and open-minded about our psychological reality. The key to observing our thoughts and feelings is to simply look, and not judge yourself. Let the emotions come and go, and learn from they provide information to us.

ANNOUNCEMENT: With & For Season 2 launches on January 6, 2025!

Show Notes

• Jill Westbrook introduces the episode
• For the most enriching and helpful listening experience, make sure to start with the beginning of this series!
• More than immediate observation: we must reflect non-judgmentally
• Just observe, don’t judge yourself.
• Examining the meaning of our feelings, thoughts, and sensations
• Attach reflective thoughts to our embodied and psychological experience
• Journaling is a powerful exercise to connect kinetically with emotional realities.
• Narration and storytelling helps with processing non-judgmentally.
• Cultivating curiosity and open-mindedness
• “So be curious, welcome the dust, welcome the muck,  hold it, consider what it means and what it's pointing you towards.”
• “Avenues for growth. Avenues for loving yourself.”
• Uncover the values that fuel our life.
• Understanding anger, sadness, disappointment, joy, delight—all as emotional signposts to meaning and purpose
• Emotions that direct us to what matters.
• Practical Example: Anger
• Practical Example: Sorrow or Sadness
• “Linger, but don’t loiter.”
• “You’re not in this alone.”

About the Thrive Center

• Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
• Follow us on Instagram @thrivecenter
• Follow us on X @thrivecenter
• Follow us on LinkedIn @thethrivecenter

About Dr. Pam King

Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. Follow her @drpamking.

About With & For

• Host: Pam King
• Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
• Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
• Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
• Consulting Producer: Evan Rosa

Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.