Let's Talk About Mindfulness
We practice Mindfulness in order to live intentionally with awareness in the present moment without judging or rejecting it and without attachment to that moment.
Sounds daunting, huh? Well it's really not. It may seem like a lot of work to develop these skills so that we can allows us to use these skills automatically when we are led into moments that are not emotionally tolerated.
This month we will learn more about Wise Mind and the "WHAT" and "HOW" skills that can help us better live a happier life.
Moody Talk #1 Mindfulness: How Practicing Mindfulness Helps in Everyday Life
Welcome to our first Moody Talk on Mindfulness. As we've discussed in the past, Mindfulness in DBT is much more than just Meditation. It is a useful tool we can use when we are in situations that may require being completely present in the moment.
Living Mindfully means that your are thinking nonjudgmentally and without rejecting and without attachment. It's as way to walk a middle path between complete reason and complete emotion.
When you practice Mindfulness, you reduce suffering and increase happiness as well as increasing control of your own mind and experiencing reality as it is. YOu may be thinking - I HAVE complete control of my mind and am living in reality. But when we live moment to moment, it is hard to let go of our judgments and experience reality more emotionally than we realize.
Throughout the month we will be building skills and understanding more about "walking the middle road."
After these talks, you will have a better understanding of how Mindfulness can help during distress and find it easier to build a coping skills toolbox with these essential skills.
Moody Talk #2 Mindfulness: Walking the Middle Path with Wise Mind
This week is our second talk on Mindfulness we're discussing the importance of building a tool box of Mindfulness skills so that we can move forward with building more skills in DBT. If we have the basics of Mindfulness down we can talk about Emotion Regulation, Distress Tolerance and Interpersonal Communication with the bare bones skills in our tool box.
So what is "Wise Mind?" It's the middle path between what we call Reasonable Mind and Emotion Mind (or Doing and Being Mind). Wise mind is the wisdom within each person when we are able to move away from extremes such as being completely rational and mood dependent. When we are able to enter our Wise Mind, we can see the value of both reason and emotion.
There are many ways to get into Wise Mind - we go through a few that the DBT Workbook (https://a.co/d/hhug3vC) but you may already have your way to focus on bringing reason and emotion together. I personally use Box Breathing and expanding awareness during breathing (I focus on a small orb in my chest and expand it out so that I can relax my shoulders and jaw - the places I hold stress the most).
Moody Talk #3 Mindfulness: Talking Hold of Your Mind - the "What" Skills
Today we take a look at the "What" Skills which are a cornerstone of the building of your Mental Health Skills.
Observe asks that you notice the world inside of you and outside in the world. By paying attention intentionally we are better able to understand the situations we are in and the feelings we have while in those situations.
Describing your experience also helps for us to understand purposefully ourselves and also how our world moves around us - labeling what we observe helps us to get into Wise Mind when we are called on to interact.
When we Participate in the moment we can act intuitively from Wise Mins, as well. Participation asks us to go with the flow, which is really important for those who feel they are threatened when not in control.
Moody Talk #4 Mindfulness: Talking Hold of Your Mind - the "How" Skills
Today we take a look at the "How" Skills which are a cornerstone of the building of your Mental Health Skills.
Nonjudgmentalness asks us to see a situation without evaluating it - just the facts, ma'am! Sometimes we can even be judgmental of our own judgments! Nonjudgmentalness wants us to see a moment exactly how it is - without attaching "good" or "bad" labels.
One-Mindfully wants you to be completely present in the moment. When you are eating - just eat. When you are walking - just walk. Let go of distractions and when you feel distracted, acknowledge it and get back to the one thing you were doing. It asks us to concentrate in order to fully understand what is happening in situations.
Finally, we want to be Effective in a situation. Not trying to change it to make it better for you or more comfortable. This one really relates to Interpersonal Communication for me because it's asking you to play fair with the situation which I read as "do the right thing."