The cognitive awareness exercise

The cognitive awareness exercise will be ongoing to help you develop an awareness of where you could have been more mindful ‘today’.


The exercise helps you develop an awareness of cognitive and behavioural traits that have a negative impact on your wellbeing. 



The exercise is a simple one in nature and aims for you to create an awareness of:


  • how you’re thinking and how your mind makes interpretations.


  • how you’re feeling in any given moment.


  • your urges to respond to the above.



The awareness of these 3 main areas will be all you need to be in better control of how you experience the moment you are in.


In any situation or interaction where it is considered that the experience is detrimental to your wellbeing we will call this a STOP moment.


It doesn’t matter why you think or feel the way you do - the goal is to recognise when you’re on negative autopilot so you can take a mindful step back and reset.

In your journal

Over the coming days and weeks you are encouraged to pay more attention to where you could be more mindful of thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions.


You will be engaging with this exercise to learn more about yourself and from a mindfulness perspective where stepping back and mentally resetting will be of benefit to your wellbeing.



  • THOUGHTS: You will already have some idea how your mind thinks but we want to help you develop mindful awareness of what passes through your mind. We are talking about any thought that has a negative impact on your wellbeing, for example: 

    - It could be how your mind interprets situations or interactions.
    - It could be how you feel about yourself or others.
    - It could be worrying or catastrophising thoughts.
    - It could be thoughts associated with stress, anxiety, panic or anger

    We are not going to concern ourselves why thoughts are there - the main point is for you to recognise a negative autopilot mindset so you can learn to be with the thoughts as an observer and let them pass through.

    Start to pay more attention to thoughts that pass through your mind and how you react to them. Write examples in your journal.
  • FEELINGS, EMOTIONS and ACTIONS. This is to recognise, “how am I feeling right now”? Create awareness  when all doesn’t feel well. Do you feel stressed, disappointed, angry, tense, sad? Also make notes on how you know you are experiencing these.

    - An example: “I was very nervous at work because my boss wanted to see me. I could feel the tense feelings in my shoulders and didn’t want to talk to anyone. I kept biting my nails which only made me feel more nervous”.

    - “I felt anxious about going to the party tonight.     I won’t know anyone there. It will be awful. The more I thought about how bad it would be the more anxious I felt. I thought about cancelling because I know the anxiety would go if I did”.   

    - “I felt angry when my wife asked me why I hadn’t put the bins out. It felt like she was telling me I was useless and making judgement about me. I told her to be quiet and slammed the doors”.

    - “I was feeling stressed at work. The job list was getting longer and longer. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get it all done and my boss would have a go at me. I was feeling overwhelmed and became snappy with some of my colleagues”.

    There are many STOP moments above where, in these examples, the people could have labelled their present moment experiences: feeling nervous, tense feelings in the shoulders, not talking to others, biting nails, feelings of anxiety, catastrophising thoughts, feelings of anger, automatic assumptions, slamming doors, feelings of stress, worrying, being snappy.

    Start to pay more attention to your own feelings, emotions, sensations and reactions to these. Make notes that help you get a better understanding of you and your interactions so you can train yourself to recognise where being more mindful will have a positive impact on your wellbeing. 


Learning about yourself

The cognitive awareness exercise is about helping you develop more awareness of your autopilot mind and how it thinks, the feelings and emotions it generates and the urges it creates in response.


As you progress through the course and beyond you are encouraged to create awareness of what you are learning about yourself. Make notes in your journal to train your mind how and where you want to create new responses to triggers.



  • You are encouraged to develop an awareness how your mind thinks and interprets ‘you’ and situations when you feel stressed, anxious, depressed, angry…


  • You are encouraged to develop awareness how you feel when in a negative mindset.


  • You are encouraged to label a feeling or emotion.


  • You are encouraged to create awareness of your behavioural urges.



You will be engaging with the cognitive awareness exercise simply so you can recognise when you are on autopilot so you can utilise your new mindfulness tools to improve your moment to moment experiences. 

  • Creating an awareness of STOP moments

    Taking responsibility means creating awareness of your moment to moment experiences.


    The concept of the cognitive awareness is easy to absorb. Each day you will begin to create an awareness of your thoughts, interactions, how you feel and your behavioural urges. 


    You will begin to learn to recognise what we call STOP points.


    In any given moment you are not to concern why you are experiencing something but just to create an awareness it’s there.


    An example: You have had a stressful day at work. When you get home your children are being noisy. You ask them to be a little quieter which they do for a few minutes but the noise level starts to rise again. 


    You begin to feel more tense and frustrated, “why don’t the children never listen to me?”. You shout at them; they cry and you end up having an argument with your wife.


    There are a few STOP moments in this scenario:


    • Being aware that you have had a stressful day and with that more likely to get irritated.

    • Recognising the noise from the children was raising your tense feelings. 

    • Noticing the thought, “why don’t the children ever listen to me”.

    • Being aware of the urge to shout at the children.

    • Noticing the defensive responses when your wife tries to calm the situation.

    In any situation there might be mitigating circumstances that act as a valid reason why you might feel the way you do but this course is not interested why you think or feel the way you do but to develop awareness of your moment to moment experiences so you can manage your responses in a more positive way.

The simplicity of the cognitive awareness exercise

The key word is awareness


  • If a negative thought comes in to your mind, be aware of it.

  • If an interpretation of an event, situation or person comes in to your mind that causes a negative response internally or externally, be aware of it.

  • If you feel tenseness in your body, be aware of it.

  • If you experience an emotion such as jealousy, sadness, disappointment, feelings of failure or inadequacy, resentment or envy, feeling overwhelmed, guilt, fear, panic, helplessness, and emptiness, be aware of it.

  • If you experience an urge to be reactive, be aware of it.

  • And lastly, be aware of your actions, whether it is inward or outward.

  • Examples to document your awareness

    The examples below follow Matthew who quite clearly is having issues with his wife Sharon. You may notice from the examples that Matthew’s personality trait is that he is quick to take things personally and is equally quick to show his irritation towards Sharon. When you complete your notes, they may be a little more diverse than the examples below.


    • Sharon asked me why I hadn’t put the bin out. I responded defensively saying “why do you keep pulling me up for things I do wrong. Why don’t you ever give me praise”. I could feel inner tension and my voice raised considerably.

    • My boss asked me if I could develop a quicker way to get the project finished. I told him if he didn’t have faith in me, he should get someone else to finish the job. I was quite abrupt with him. I felt like he was being critical of me.

    • Busy day at work. Felt quite overwhelmed with the amount of work I have. Got home and the kids were all over me. I have no patience with them when this happens. I just shout at them. Sharon said I shouldn’t talk to the children like that. I told her to shut up and didn’t talk to her for the rest of the evening.

    • Was trying to talk to Sharon how work was impacting on me. She didn’t seem interested and wanted to talk about how difficult her day has been with the children. She doesn’t seem to care about what’s happening with me. I told her that she’s always got time for her sister though. I didn’t just say it actually…I shouted it at her. When she said she wanted to talk about the children I said, “Don’t bother, I’m not interested”. We didn’t talk for the rest of the evening.

    • Woke up still annoyed from last night. I can’t understand why Sharon is just not interested in me these days. Feel quite rejected. Just had breakfast, made my lunch and went to work. Didn’t talk to her. Why should I bother?

    • Sharon has been messaging me this morning. She is really annoying me. Can’t she just leave me alone. She is irritating me so much. I ignored her texts. One message said I was being childish. I phoned her and asked her what the heck she was playing at. I accused her of deliberately trying to wind me up. We had an argument and I slammed the phone down on her. It’s going to be a nightmare when I go back home tonight.

    The examples here show you how to bullet point interactions to recognise the character traits that help you recognise you are in a negative mindset. The exercise is not a means to analyse why you feel this way but just to create awareness. Daily documentation of your thoughts, feelings and actions will begin to help you recognise where to take a step back and develop a calmer approach to triggering situations that fuel irritation, frustration or anger.

A recent client said, “it isn’t rocket science is it? I can’t understand why I haven’t been doing this all along”. 


This client was right. The simplicity of our approach helps to develop easy and effective ways to manage anger triggers but there is a very important but…You need to create conscious awareness of your anger triggers and be acutely aware of what they sound and look like so you can notice their presence earlier. 



This is the importance of the cognitive awareness exercise




  • Noticing the presence of your triggers earlier means you can step back from them earlier. 

  • This conscious awareness will not happen unless you devote time to creating the awareness. 

  • To make this awareness stick you are also directed to regularly check in to your notes to recognise what you are learning about yourself. 

  • When this awareness is in full flow you’ll recognise STOP moments much earlier. Basically, you will take full ownership and accept responsibility of how you react to your thoughts, feelings, emotions, tensions and urges.