🌱 What is Feeling Tone?

## 🌿 What is Feeling Tone?

### Working with Feeling Tone and the Klesha of Aversion (Dvesha)

Part of the Relational Capacities Series

Why do certain moments trigger such quick reactions in us — criticism, embarrassment, discomfort, tension? 🤔

Classical contemplative psychology offers a helpful model.

Every experience first arrives as a feeling tone.

Feeling tone is the mind’s immediate internal signal about an experience — usually one of three qualities:

• pleasant 🙂
• unpleasant 😬
• neutral 😐

This occurs before thoughts, stories, or analysis begin.

Because it happens so quickly, we often miss it.

When we do, reactive mental patterns — known as Kleshas — quickly attach themselves and drive automatic reactions.

A helpful way to understand the process is:

Stimulus → Feeling Tone → Klesha → Reaction

Example:
Criticism
→ unpleasant feeling tone
→ Dvesha (aversion)
→ defensiveness ⚡

Embarrassment
→ unpleasant tone
→ Dvesha
→ withdrawal 🚪

Mindfulness offers another possibility.

When we learn the skill of Noticing Feeling Tone, the pattern begins to change:
Stimulus → Feeling Tone → Awareness → Response ✨

### 🧠 Mindfulness Skill:

### Noticing Feeling Tone

This practice involves gently recognizing whether an experience feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral as it arises.

Seeing this early moment of activation helps us recognize the Klesha before it drives the reaction.

Even a small moment of awareness can soften automatic reactions and expand our capacity for non-reactivity, steadiness, and thoughtful response.

During tonight’s gathering we will:

🌿 briefly explore the five Kleshas
🧠 introduce the mindfulness skill Noticing Feeling Tone
🧘 practice a short guided meditation
💬 discuss how this awareness applies to everyday life and relationships

The goal is not to suppress emotions.

It is simply to see the moment clearly enough that choice becomes possible.

👉 Please RSVP if you plan to attend so we can prepare the room appropriately for discussion. 🌿