Will you still read this post if it's title is "Mindfulness"?
I wouldn't blame you if you didn't...
Are you tired of hearing about mindfulness? Pop psychology, self-help, not to mention ACTUAL psychology and numerous forms of health and wellness aids boast the importance of mindfulness. When my therapist in grad. school kept hammering it in to me, I got tired of hearing how important it was for me to practice, too. But dang it if it isn’t actually THE MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do if you want to feel better, think better and do better.
So, here we go- I’m gonna write about it again, because it is legit a portal into a better way of being, like it or not.
Being mindful prevents broken records from running our thought patterns.
And, since we are exploring DBT skills, we are starting with Mindfulness skills because they are a pre-requisite for anything else DBT can do for you.
Mindfulness is one major pillar of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. I always explain that the reason mindfulness is emphasized in so many realms of health: psychology, yoga, somatics, Christianity, Buddism, Judaism… is BECAUSE, if we aren’t present in our thoughts, if we aren’t aware of what is happening inside of us, we can’t use any of the other skills DBT (or CBT, or any other skill you’ve learned to help yourself in difficult moments). We have to be mindful enough to stop and notice we need to use a skill. Without a strong mindfulness practice, it doesn’t matter what other skills you know because you won’t have the present-moment awareness that you need a skill, so that you can use it.
Mindful breathing is an excellent way to practice mindfulness. But so is doing anything with 100% focus. This is the opposite of how many of us spend free time: scrolling through our phone with the TV on so we can kind of catch up on a show while we listen to our partner share about their day, and simultaneously think about what to make for dinner… No shade, but since you are not doing anything 100% in this scenario, the 4+ things you are doing, your brain likely won’t retain. And you can’t get the emotional benefits of any of them.
So if you’d like to practice mindfulness, choose an activity and do absolutely nothing else except that activity. If it is your shower, you are feeling the temperature of the water on each body part that it hits. You are fully embracing the smells of your soap and your shampoo. You are listening to the sounds of the water hitting the floor or the tub as though you are listening carefully to a symphony for the very first time. If you open your lips, you not only notice the taste of the water, you experience it.
Mindfulness practices involve ALL of your senses as completely as possible.
If you are willing to do a 4-5 (or longer) breathing meditation this week, try it once or twice. If you are like me, when this was first encouraged for me to do, it was SO hard to sit still and focus for even that long. And since I didn’t notice any immediate benefits, I felt like it was pointless. If that’s where you are, no worries. You can still develop your mindfulness practice with trying the 100% focus idea with folding laundry. Or with cleaning out your cat’s litter box. Or when you go for a walk. Try to completely focus on what you are doing and the sensations involved without getting caught up in what you are thinking.
Even if you don’t feel different afterwards (though you may!) this practice will set you up for success with all the other skills DBT has to offer.