Making a Habit of Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation 201
forecast, do you tend to loathe it, or do you welcome it for its
benefit? On one hand, rainy days are usually cold and
gloomy. The rain can slow down your commute and leave
you struggling to simply stay dry while dashing between
work and errands. On the other hand, rain is as much a
benefit as it is a discomfort, if not more so! It nourishes plants
and vegetation, it renews water sources, and it’s the primary
basis for life and growth. Rain even increases overall work
productivity, because there are fewer distractions on rainy
days (Lee, Gino, and Staats 2014; R ichards 2014). This isn’t
to suggest that you should enjoy each and every rainy day
but to teach you to recognize how you perceive your life experi-
ences and how your interpretations impact your moment- to-
moment emotions. There’s often value in pain and discomfort,
which doesn’t imply that you should seek those experiences,
but when they do arise, you can look for the opportunity to
reframe them and gain perspective.
Third, and most importantly, everyone is capable of
change. To believe otherwise perpetuates a harmful line of
thinking, encourages you to accept your perceived weak-
nesses, and lowers your self- esteem. Change is a learning
process (remember learning about learning in chapter 3?),
and this book is meant to help you learn the skills necessary
to capably respond to your emotions and manage your
anxiety— both moment to moment and long term. Unlike
diets or guides to investment, emotion regulation and mind-
fulness don’t offer specific or stepwise formulas for achiev-
ing your goals. Instead, they offer you tools to adaptively
focus your attention, disrupt your unhelpful thinking habits,
decrease your reactivity to internal experiences, increase
your tolerance of negative emotions, and enhance your