Discover the old self.Design the new self.
A guided interactive practice to help you notice the thoughts, emotions and behaviours you repeat automatically, understand the patterns they create, and intentionally choose how you want to think, feel and respond instead.
Begin With Awareness.
All of us develop familiar ways of thinking, feeling and reacting. Some are useful. Others were learned through repetition and now happen so quickly that we barely notice them.
Throughout this exercise, “old self” simply means a familiar pattern you have been practising automatically. “New self” means the way you intentionally want to think, feel and respond going forward. Neither label is a judgment about who you are.
How this practice works.
You will move through eight short steps. There are no right answers, and you do not need any prior experience with meditation, neuroscience or personal development.
First: become aware
You will choose a real situation, notice the pattern, name the emotions involved, and connect them to the thoughts and behaviours that were present.
Then: choose intentionally
You will decide how you would prefer to think, feel and act in that same situation, creating a clear response you can mentally rehearse and practise in daily life.
Become the observer.
Think of one recent situation where your reaction was not quite how you would have chosen to respond if you had paused first. It could involve another person, pressure, uncertainty, conflict, success, an opportunity, a mistake, work, family, money, your body, your schedule, or simply your own thoughts.
What familiar pattern was present?
Patterns are repeated ways of responding. Select any that describe what was happening in your situation. You can choose more than one, and you can add your own description below.
What emotion or state was present?
Emotions can be surprisingly difficult to name, especially when a feeling has been present so often that it simply feels normal. This step helps you put language to the emotional state that was present in the situation you chose.
We begin with emotions that often accompany stress, protection, threat, frustration, disconnection or self-judgment. You may hear these described as depleting emotions because they often require more physical and mental energy when they persist.
1. Read the broad emotional families below and select any that seem close.
2. More specific emotion words will appear underneath each family you selected.
3. Slowly scan those words and click any that make you think, “Yes, that feels familiar.”
4. You can choose more than one. You do not need to find one perfect answer.
5. When you are ready, click Continue.
Look beneath the first emotion.
Stay with the state you identified. Don’t change it yet. Just become conscious of it.
Listen for the thought
- “What if something goes wrong?”
- “I need this to work out.”
- “They shouldn’t be doing this.”
- “I’m not good enough for this.”
- “I need them to understand or approve.”
- “I have to get this right.”
- “There isn’t enough time.”
- “Why does this always happen?”
- “I can’t handle one more thing.”
- “I should be further ahead.”
- “I don’t want to deal with this.”
- “I need to know what happens next.”
Or start with the body
- Tightness or pressure
- Heat or agitation
- Heaviness or collapse
- Restlessness
- Shallow or held breath
- Jaw, shoulder or stomach tension
- Impulse to escape, defend, fix or control
- Impulse to shut down or disconnect
Meet the old self without judgment.
Thoughts, emotions and behaviours reinforce one another. A familiar thought can create an emotional response, and that emotional state can make a familiar behaviour more likely. Here, you are simply mapping the pattern so you can recognize it sooner next time.
See the gap.
Now compare the automatic response you just identified with the response you would consciously choose. The situation itself can stay exactly the same. What changes is how you meet it.
Who I was being automatically
Who do I choose to be?
In this same situation, who would I choose to be if I were no longer responding from the familiar old state?
Design the new self.
You have identified how you tend to respond automatically. Now you get to design a more intentional response.
The goal is not to force yourself to “be positive” or pretend that difficult circumstances do not exist. The goal is to decide how you want to meet those circumstances.
Renewing emotions are states such as calm, confidence, gratitude, courage, compassion, trust and curiosity. They are useful here because they can support clearer thinking, more deliberate choices and behaviours that are aligned with the person you want to become.
Choose the emotion you would want to practise in the same situation you explored earlier. For example, if the old response was anxiety, the new state might be grounded or trusting. If the old response was resentment, the new state might be clear, compassionate or empowered.
You are not trying to erase the old emotion. You are practising a different state so that, over time, it becomes easier to access when you need it.
The more clearly you define the new thought, emotion and behaviour, the easier it becomes to mentally rehearse and recognize opportunities to practise it in everyday life.
Your Old Self → New Self practice.
Your answers are now organized into a simple Old Self → New Self map. Review it before meditation, visualization, journaling, or before entering a situation where you want to respond differently.
OLD SELF I AM BECOMING CONSCIOUS OF
NEW SELF I AM REHEARSING
TODAY’S PRACTICE
Notice the familiar state when it appears. Recognize it without judgment. Then consciously choose the state, thought and behaviour of the new self you have rehearsed.
If you meditate, use your Old Self → New Self map as material for mental and emotional rehearsal. If meditation is new to you, simply spend a few quiet minutes imagining yourself meeting the same situation with your chosen thought, emotional state and behaviour. Then look for opportunities to practise that response in real life.
Emotion library
Use this library whenever you are struggling to find the right word for what you feel.
Old-self / depleting emotions can help you name states associated with stress, threat, frustration, shame, disconnection or protection. New-self / renewing emotions can help you choose the state you want to cultivate when you respond more intentionally.
These lists are not diagnoses, and emotions are not “good” or “bad.” Every emotion can carry useful information. The purpose of the categories is simply to make the reflection process easier.
Come back to this practice.
You do not need to identify every pattern at once. Work with one real situation at a time. As you become more observant, you may notice subtler thoughts, emotions and reactions that were previously automatic. Return to this exercise whenever you want to understand a recurring response or deliberately practise a different one.