A little over a month ago, I decided to embark on the DBT journey...with help, of course, from my therapist. And within the month time span, I've written a few posts on unhealthy behaviors to decrease and the DBT skills used to help with that. If you haven't done so already or would like a refresher course on the skills, please refer to the following:
Distress Tolerance skills used for decreasing impulsive behaviors.
Emotion Regulation skills used for decreasing emotional instability
Interpersonal Effectiveness skills used for decreasing interpersonal chaos.
Confusion of self consists of what we call in DBT...the "W's." These are the Who am I? What am I doing? Where am I going? Why am I living? What are my needs? What are my values?...type of questions. It's these questions that would consume my mind on a daily basis...practically 24/7.
I wrote two posts that went over cognitive dysregulation, aka distorted thinking. (In A therapist's dream....., I go over the common distorted thoughts and I explain how to change those thought patterns in Undoing the Stinkin' Thinkin' It's important to review these distorted thought patterns so you become aware of what you think). Being aware of what you think allows you to know yourself better. After all, Buddha even said..."All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What you think you become." So if you are looking to change and become a healthier minded person, before even figuring out how to do so, you need to become aware of what to change and it starts with the way you think. So, once you are aware/mindful of your thoughts, you can then work on changing them, which in return will allow you, as a whole, to change.
So by now you may have realized that in order to decrease the confusion of self and cognitive dysregulation behavior, we need to increase our mindfulness skills. For those of you who may still be confused as to what mindfulness is, this is the definition: Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing your awareness on the present moment, while observing one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations. With mindfulness you learn to take control of your mind, rather than giving your mind the power to control you. In order to control our minds, we need to understand the 3 states of mind, as well as the 3 "What" and "How" skills.
In DBT, we are taught that there are 3 states of mind: Reasonable, Emotional and Wise Mind.
The reasonable mind, which is all about the facts is very left brained. When in this mindset, we think logically and see things as they truly are. Reasonable minds question...what are the facts of the situation (what, where, who, etc)? What happened exactly?
Then we have the emotional mind, which many people who are sensitive tend to be in most. Emotional people=emotional mind. As some of you may know, emotional mind is very right brained. Emotional mind is made up of raw emotions (feelings) and emotion-driven thoughts. In this mindset, we tend to see things and think things based on how we're feeling, which often gets us in trouble because we allow our emotions to control us. For example when we are feeling depressed, we are going to experience depressive thoughts and see everything as depressing. This is just how the emotional mind works. Emotional minds question: What am I feeling? How strong is the emotion? What am I afraid of? Based solely on the emotion what would I do?
Now...when you mesh both minds together you get...DING DING DING...WISE MIND! yay!!!
Wise mind helps us make sense of our thoughts and feelings and helps us come up with a balanced and wise response so that the needs of both reasonable mind (what I should do) and emotional mind (what I want to do) are met. Some people who do not understand emotional people may question why a wise mind is even needed considering the fact that the reasonable mind is obviously the correct way to think. The reason for the this (and I hope this makes sense) is because it is extremely hard for a highly sensitive/emotional person to just think rationally...it's near impossible because then we would be neglecting our emotional mind. Wise mind allows our emotions to be soothed and validated as we accept the rational mind's way of thinking.
Overall, our wise mind is the inner part of us that just "knows" what is true or valid (knowing the facts are true, but also knowing our feelings are true as well). Wise mind tells us to "Stop! Take a breath." It asks us to also find out what's the bigger picture and what is going to be the best response to the situation? What will be the most helpful and effective, all things considered?
I found the following site to be very helpful in giving great examples of all 3 states of minds and the thinking process. Have a look and this will help you understand why wise mind is the important mindset to be in!! Example
Now that we understand what wise mind is...we can now move on to the other skills needed to become more mindful.
The following are "What" we need to do in order to control our minds and to achieve wise mind: Observe, Describe, Participate.
1) Observe:
- Observing is all about simply quieting the mind and noticing the experiences/thoughts/feelings without putting words or judgements on anything. In order to observe, it is best to use the metaphor of having a "Teflon mind." This means accepting and allowing experiences, feelings, and thoughts to come into your mind and slide right out. It's about not having anything "stick" to you. There is no attachment to anything when observing. It's just simply watching your thoughts come and go like clouds in the sky. Noticing your feelings rise and fall, come in and out just like waves in the ocean. While observing, you do NOT want to cling on or push away any thought or emotion. Experience exactly what is happening in the moment...notice what comes through your senses. What do your eyes see, your ears hear, your nose smell, your skin feel, and your tongue tastes?
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| The "Teflon Mind" |
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| The "Non-Teflon" Mind |
2) Describe:
- Describing is using words to represent what you observed. A lot of times, our thoughts and emotions can be confused with facts. Because of this, it is important to observe thoughts and feelings and describe a thought as just a thought and a feeling as just a feeling.
- Describing is also about welcoming and accepting the thoughts, experiences/feelings. For example: if you feel anger you can say to your mind "Why hello there anger." You can also ask angry how it is feeling today...which the response will be "angry." You can also then say "I'm sorry to hear that"...OR...you can ignore everything I just said and just say in your mind "I am feeling anger." "The thought of wanting to ask how anger is doing has come into my mind." These are facts.
- To participate means to let yourself get involved in the moment; become one with your experience, thought, and/or feeling. Remember to use the skills to tolerate and handle whatever the experience, thought, and/or feeling is. The more you practice the skills for any of the behaviors, the more they become a part of you. The more the skills become a part of you, the more likely the behaviors will decrease.
- For example: I've observed the feeling and described the feeling as anger. Now that I have been able to describe what it is exactly I am feeling, I can think to myself "What zone am I in with my anger? Am I in the Red zone- where I'm about to explode and need to use distress tolerance skills or am I in my blue zone, where I need to use my emotional regulation skills?" From this I can then participate in whichever skill that my wise mind thinks is necessary.
(You can use the following as a practice of the Observe and Describe Skill:
Just notice something without putting words to it.
What was I trying to observe or be mindful of? For how long?
When did I notice my mind wandering? Where to? How many times?
What (if anything) made it easy to control my attention?
What if anything made it difficult to control my attention?)
Just notice something without putting words to it.
What was I trying to observe or be mindful of? For how long?
When did I notice my mind wandering? Where to? How many times?
What (if anything) made it easy to control my attention?
What if anything made it difficult to control my attention?)
Observing and describing allows us then to participate. Participating is being active: It's walking the walk; it's using the skills to change the unhealthy behavior.
**It is important to practice the "What" skills on a daily basis with everything we do..whether it is brushing teeth, eating, working out. Striving to be mindful, keeps you in the present...it keeps the weeds from overgrowing and destroying the rest of your beautiful garden.So...now that we went over "What" to do to practice being mindful, we can now figure out "How" to approach our "What" skills.
"How" skills are: non judgmentally, one-mindfully, and effectively.
1) Non-judgmentally
- In order to gain more insight of the world around us, we base everything on fact. (We see but not evaluate the thought, feeling, experience). For example: if there is a purple wall...you'll state that "there is a purple wall"...not a "pretty purple wall"...just "a purple wall." Abstain from using words like "good" or "bad," the "terrible" or "wonderful," "should" or "should not," "pretty" or "ugly." Be aware that we can get caught up sometimes believing judgements are true. Basically, you want to unglue your opinions from facts.
- Another important note is to not judge your judging. For example saying something like "what's wrong with me for saying something so stupid like that" is judging a judgement. This does nothing but waste time, is ineffective and leads to constant negativity.
- Be kind to yourself and remind yourself that as humans we have been conditioned to make judgements. To become non-judgmental takes a lot of practice. Be patient and kind. Be aware of what thoughts are judgmental.
- To practice being less judgmental figure out what the judgements were.
- Ask yourself: "How did I feel as a result of this judgement? Why did I use this judgement? Was it away to 1) describe consequences 2)compare something to standard of ideal or 3) get out of responsibility?
- Focus now on using the non-judgemental stance: This is when you observe and describe the situation that prompted your judgement. State just the facts.
2) One-mindfully
- Being one-mindfully means focusing on doing one thing at a time and with all of your attention. For example: when you are eating, eat. When you are walking, walk. When you are bathing, bathe. Turn the mind to what you are doing right now.
- In today's society, however, it is tricky to be one-mindfully especially when it comes to work. You and I, as well as many other people know that in America and in many other places...work requires multitasking. However, it is possible to multitask and be one-mindfully...the key is to prioritize. When things are prioritized, you can work more efficiently and effectively while focusing on one thing at a time. So overall, it's about prioritizing and using time management skills.
- If you get distracted whether it's at work or not, let go of the distraction and go back to what you are doing...turn the mind. Remember not to judge yourself and beat yourself up for getting distracted. It's natural to get distracted. Even dogs do it...have you seen the movie "UP"?? (Pop quiz...turning the mind is used as what other skill? If you don't know..don't worry..the answer is provided at the bottom of the page)
3) Effectively
- Focus on what works. Do what needs to be done in each situation. Stay away from "fair," and "unfair," "right" and "wrong," "should" and "shouldn't." Remember...those are judgements.
- Act as skillfully as you can. Meet the needs of the situation you are currently in and not the situation you wish you were in. Focus, focus, focus.
- Keep an eye on your objectives in the situation and do what is necessary to achieve them.
- Let go of vengeance, useless anger, and righteousness that hurts you and doesn't work.
- Ask questions such as
- "Is that a judgement?"
- "Would I rather be right or happy?" (Remember that 'right' is a judgement and 'happy' is a feeling- feelings are truth; judgements are not facts."
- Ask for help!
Lastly, the other ways to increase mindfulness:
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