We are always told "Don't shoot the messenger" and most of the time we abide by that. Except when it comes to our emotions. According to the creator of feelings magnets, our emotions are the messengers that deliver important messages, and when we ignore them they persist until we can no longer ignore them.
I used to be guilty of bottling my emotions. One particular instance of this and the negative consequences that occur as a result was when my younger brother died while deployed. I was sad and grieving, but as a mother I had to put all those emotions to the side in order to perform my day-to-day functions. After ignoring those feelings of sadness and grief they started to leak out and manifest in many negative ways. I progressively became more and more moody, prone to irritation and anger. Eventually, I sought out help with handling the grief and by exercising those emotions and allowing myself to listen to them I was able to bring myself back into balance.
The feelings magnets are a tool to help one focus during a quiet meditation session. I like to sit down with my kit once or twice a week and really think about how I feel. As an adult, I find my emotions are usually complex consisting of several emotions simultaneously. The feelings magnets kit allows me to address each feeling individually and work through them.
There is also a version of the kit for children. This version of the kit while it has few emotion tiles (I guess children are supposed to have simpler feelings) they are more colorful and fun. The case for both kits are metal so the magnets can be used on them or on another magnet compatible surface.
The website for the feelings magnets also allows users to sign up for feel exercises to be done with the kits. These short exorcises teach different ways to use the kits and range from identifying the emotions you are feeling as well as listening to why you are feeling a particular emotion to finally coming up with a strategy or action plan to work through a difficult emotion.
My oldest minion is nine years old and so far as a family we have not made that big of a deal before of talking about our feelings, and this maybe by far one of the biggest oversights we have made as parents so far. I hate to say it, but I do see him struggle with managing his feelings, especially those of angers and disappointment. Not only did we find that he had a hard time describing them, but they also usually controlled him, causing a full on meltdown. For this kind of behavior to be manifesting now, so early before the tumultuous teenage years is a bit terrifying.
We started using the Feelings Magnets kit with him. I was a little surprised that even with the children's kit there were some emotions that he was not able to identify with. I worked through a few exercises that were emailed to me and we are working on expanding his emotional vocabulary. Our next step will be to start putting together a plan for him to work through his more extreme emotions so that he is not getting stuck in a vicious cycle.
You can check out the Feelings Magnets Kits available as well as sign up for the email emotion exercises at the website below.
http://www.feelingmagnets.com/
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