The story we've created isn't a good story, but I'm sure you can relate to it. You've had this story play out in your head. It's a story based on our insecurities and feelings of inadequacy. It's fueled by a feeling of fear: fear that you'll ruin your reputation, fear they won't trust you, and fear that you'll fail.
-Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we have but it's not the only one. Reading that bug report may also elicit other emotions like grief (we thought that code was good and now that thought is gone), uncertainty (how will we fix the problem), and anger (how could we have deluded ourselves into thinking this worked?). We may also feel sadness and loneliness. We could feel disconnected and adrift.
+Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we have but it's not the only one. Reading that bug report may also elicit other emotions like grief (we thought that code was good and now that thought is gone), uncertainty (how will we fix the problem?), and anger (how could we have deluded ourselves into thinking this worked?). We may also feel sadness and loneliness. We could feel disconnected and adrift.
-Being aware of the feelings we have can help us diagnose the story we told ourselves and how it didn't match reality.
+Being aware of the feelings we have can help us diagnose the story we told ourselves and how it didn't match reality. They can give us feedback on how we are perceiving our world and the work we're doing. Pausing for a moment to acknowledge our feelings and understand where they are coming from give us an understanding of what our emotions are trying to tell us.
-(Discuss more about feelings, the story, and how to best learn from our feelings).
+## Finding our feelings
+
+Our feelings manifest themselves in our bodies in some shape or form. Fear can be a knot in our stomach or tension in our chest. Anger can feel like our head is getting hot and our jaw clenching. We can pause for a moment and just sit with our feelings and notice them. Think of like you are scanning your body looking for the feelings you have. Notice where your mind is drawn: tightness of your chest, tightness in your stomach, a clenched jaw, or whatever you may feel. Notice the sensation of that feeling. You can dig deeper and try to find the underlying causes of the feeling but for now just notice that it exists. Sit for a few moments more and be curious about how it feels. Let the feeling exist - be kind and gentle with it. Give it space. Above all don't try to fight the feeling or wish that it would end; just notice it. Eventually the feeling may subside but for now just acknowledge that you have this feeling and you're going to be curious about it.
+
+Some feelings and emotions may be more painful than others. Give them space and be curious about them as long as you can. If you notice yourself starting to panic or feel overwhelmed by the feeling then you may stop before they overtake you. Remind yourself that these are emotions and are a part of you. You and your emotions work together. You're on the same team.
+
+## Emotional Triage
+
+There's a tendency to want to run away from our feelings, or try to suppress them. Our feelings aren't always pleasant and we want to avoid things that make us unhappy or uncomfortable. And we want our internal narrative to be one of someone who is smart and capable of doing anything we put our mind to doing. But when we feel negative emotions or fail to live up to our stories we start to feel crappy about ourselves. We wonder if this is worth it and wonder if we will ever be happy working with computers.
+
+Think of this practice as emotional triage. Hopefully you've never had to go to a hospital emergency room, but if you have you'll see a whole string of doctors and nurses who are trained to diagnose what just walked through the door and determine the severity of the problem. When we recognize that we're having an emotion we too are diagnosing what emotion we're having and the severity of the emotion. We take these moments when we're having these emotions to see what the emotion is. As we review our emotions we are gentle with them and see them for what they are. A good doctor or nurse doesn't impose their desires on the patient; the simply accept the patient for who they are and act accordingly. When we recognize our emotions for what they are and see where they are coming from we can better understand what we're facing.
+
+The more we do this practice the better we'll become at recognizing our emotions and why we're having them. We'll be better able to see what we're feeling and understand why we're feeling them. When we feel anxious we can recognize that we might be in an area of development where we don't fully know what we're doing. We can then feel the anxiety for a bit (don't try to chase it away just yet) and then think about what we're currently working on and the areas that might be new to us. We can then mentally note them, or (better still) write them down or journal them so when we complete what we're doing we can review the areas that caused us anxiety.
+
+With this practice we can turn our emotions from something that drives us into something that guides us. We can use our emotions as a tool to better calibrate our internal stories. Instead of thinking that we're going to be amazing programmers generating bug-free code (which is amazing fiction, no doubt) we can instead say that we're going to spend the next 10 minutes exploring this area of our work and see where the gaps are in there. As we explore our emotions and anxiety can let us know where we feel we need to improve and adapt. We can then change our plans as needed to address those areas we feel are lacking or need improvement.
+
+## Burnout
+
+As we're doing our emotional triage we can also recognize our feelings of burnout.
+
+(Discuss feelings of burnout)
projects / themediocreprogrammer.git / commitdiff