There’s a surprisingly effective way to access emotional regulation through the visual aspect of thinking that I seldom hear mindfulness teachers mention. It’s subtle but worth examining.
To explore this, you need some familiarity with dividing subjective awareness into three sensory-based categories, which work together to help us navigate life conceptually.
Visual thinking through mental images
Verbal thinking through mental talk
Affective sensations, which are bodily sensations that seem to convey emotionality
Categorizing our subjective perceptions into these three categories allows us to focus on the makeup of our thoughts and feelings rather than only on their meaning.
I see this as connected to how Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett defines emotion.
“In every waking moment, your brain uses past experience, organized as concepts, to predictively guide your actions and give your sensations meaning. When your brain constructs concepts from past experiences of emotion, your brain is categorizing sensations and guiding action.”1
When we feel emotionally triggered, overwhelmed, or realize we’re ruminating, it can be helpful to parse out the perceptual mechanism that enables these subjective states. This requires temporarily downplaying the content of our thoughts and feelings, which requires practice. It reminds me of the artistic skill required to edit films.2
A movie is carefully crafted to convey a story and evoke emotional responses, but once released, each viewer will have a slightly different experience. For the subjective films we constantly create in our minds, our reactions continually influence how the plots develop.
What we picture and say to ourselves generates feelings, and what we feel fuels more mental imagery and talk.
Mental images spark emotional reactions and mental talk
Mental talk evokes mental images and emotional reactions
Emotional reactions produce mental images and talk
When people talk about not being able to stop thinking, they’re usually referring to the verbal side of thinking. Mental pictures and emotional sensations are more elusive, which you can use to your advantage in calling off battles with your mind.
When we try to observe the visual aspect of thinking, mental images often seem to evade detection. Like skilled cinematographers, they prefer to contribute visual details to the storytelling without attracting scrutiny.
When we get curious about trying to perceive visual processing instead of focusing on what mental images mean, it’s not unusual for the mental screen to appear blank. By not making a problem out of this bashful behavior, we can learn to observe the apparent mental inactivity, which can be calming to watch. It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise, considering that every time we’ve fallen asleep throughout our entire lives, we have soaked up at least a little of the undisturbed darkness behind our closed eyes before slipping into unconsciousness.3
Taking a few seconds to enjoy this visually restful state can temporarily interrupt the vicious cycle of automatic internal escalation. Savoring the blank mental screen can feel soothing, and sometimes even quiet mental chatter a bit.
Listening to mental quiet also disrupts the cycle, but while it’s relatively easy to listen to our internal monologue, mental images tend to be more fragile and murky. A blank mental screen tends to be a bit more accessible than the restful state of verbal processing because the faint visual impressions we notice tend to dissipate quickly. Observing both aspects of thinking responds to practice, but listening for the silence between verbal thoughts usually takes longer to master.
To develop perceptual clarity through mindfulness, it is essential to occasionally shift the focus away from what your thoughts mean and toward the processes involved in thinking.
The exercise below sharpens your ability to observe visual thinking while letting the murkiness of mental images help you avoid stirring up more verbal thoughts and emotional reactions. I hope experimenting with it provides you with a helpful way to practice stepping back so your thoughts and feelings can settle on their own.
Exercise
This exercise enhances your ability to distinguish between the active and restful states of visual thinking.
Circumstances for learning this attention exercise
Ruminating during the day
Being wide awake in the middle of the night
Reflecting on the week over the weekend
