DBT Mindfulness Skills II

The "What" Skills and the "How" Skills

Moving along in building a solid foundation of Mindfulness skills (on which to add the other Modules of Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness), we will first turn to the “What” Skills to take hold of our mind.

You could imagine your mind as the horse and you are the rider. This one appeals to me because from several early unsuccessful experiences with horse riding, I know just what a runaway horse is. We need to bring that unruly horse into control. In Mindfulness, we need to regain mastery of our thoughts, emotions, and impulses without forcing anything. Huh? That might seem like an impossible task. It’s not.

From the Buddha to Jon Kabat-Zinn who brought Mindfulness Training to the Mainstream by his writings and the founding/implementation of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1992. Patients in the Pain Clinic categorized as “failures to treatment” after surgeries, medications, injections, psychotherapy and counseling and still suffering were referred. They had nothing to lose and in fact, thought they had lost everything necessary to live a life worth living. They were just the people Jon Kabat-Zinn wanted for eight weeks: 1 all-day Saturday retreat and 7 two hour classes. Patients/clients learn much more than from their own on-going engagement in practice than from the MBSR teacher. (“Full Catastrophe Living” maps the entire history and program and is available from wherever books are sold).

So again, this is about skills, not religion nor spirituality.

• Observe:

  Just notice the Experience without getting caught in the experience. Experience without reacting to the experience.

  Have a Teflon Mind letting experiences, thoughts, and feelings come into your mind and slip right out.

  Control your attention but not what you see. Push away nothing. Cling to nothing.

  Be like a guard at the palace gate, Alert to every thought, feeling, and action that comes through the gate of your mind.

  Step inside yourself and observe. Watch your thoughts coming and going, like clouds in the sky. Notice each feeling, rising and falling like waves in the ocean. Notice exactly what you are doing.

  Notice what comes through your Senses-your eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue. See the actions and expressions of others.

• Describe:

  Put Words on the Experience. When a feeling or thought arise or you do something, acknowledge it. (i.e. ‘My stomache is in knots’, ‘I have the thought I can’t do this’, ‘The feeling I want to run out of the room has arisen.’)

  Put Experiences into Words. Describe to yourself what is happening. Put a name to your feelings. Call a thought just a thought, a feeling just a feeling. Don’t get caught in the centent and spin it further.

Participate:

Enter into your experience. Let yourself get involved in the moment, letting go of ruminating. Be One With the Experience, Completely Forgetting Yourself.

Think back, remember there are some or many times when you have found yourself doing just this.

Act Intuitively from Wise Mind. Do just what is needed in each situation…think of yourself on the dance floor, one with your partner or alone, one with the music, neither willful nor resisting the invitation.

Actively Practice the skills as you learn them until they become part of you, where you use them without self-consciousness. Practice:

changing harmful situations

your harmful reactions to situations

accepting the situation and yourself as they are

Work with these “What” Skills. Ask me anything if the presentation is unclear.

Now We Will Continue to “How” Skills

• Non-Judgementally:

  See but Don’t Evaluate. Take a non-judgemental stance. Just the facts. Focus on the “what”, not the “good”, or “bad”, the “terrible”, the “vile”, or “wonderful”, the “should” or “should not.”

  Unglue Your Opinions from the facts, from the “who”, what”, “when” and “where”.

  Accept each moment, each event as a blanket spread out on the lawn accepts both the rain, the sun, and each leaf that falls upon it.

  Acknowledge the help, the wholesome but don’t judge it. Likewise, the unwholesome, the harmful, but don’t judge it.

  When you find yourself judging, DON’T JUDGE YOUR JUDGING.

• One-Mindfully:

  Do One Thing At A Time. When you are eating, eat. When you are working, work. When you are bathing, bathe. When you are brushing your teeth, brush your teeth. When you are in a group or conversation, focus your attention on the very moment you are in with the other person. Put the phone away. When you are thinking, think. When you are worrying, worry. When you are planning, plan. When you are remembering, remember. So Each thing with your whole attention.

  If other actions, other thoughts, other stron feelings distract you, LET GO OF DISTRACTIONS and go back to what you are doing…again, and again, and again.

  Concentrate or Focus Your Mind. If you find you are doing two things at once, stop and go back to do one thing at a time. We think we can do both at once but actually, we can do neither one well at the same time.

• Effectively:

  Focus on What Works. Do what needs to be done in each situation. Stay away from “fear”, “unfair”, “right”, “wrong”, “should” and “should not.”

  Play by the Rules. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. (How many times did I hear that as a child because I was just of that tendency.)

  Act as Skillfully as you can, meeting the needs of the situation you are in. Not the situation you wish you were in, not the one that is just, not the one that is more comfortable, not the one that is…..

  Keep an eye on Your Objectives in the situation and do what is necessary to achieve them. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was to ask myself, “Do you want to be right or do you want to be effective”.

  Let Go of vengeance, useless anger, and righteousness that hurts you and doesn’t work. As above: Do you want to be be right or do you want to be effective?

Cue the applause, the kudos, the confetti, and pat yourself on the back. You, Dear Friend, have made it through to the end of the Module on Mindfulness Skills.

Now you have to practice them until, like all other aspiring practicioners, you become one with the skills and they come naturally. It has happened to thousands before you, it happened to me and it will happen to you.

And if anything/s seems unclear, do ask.