Well done for clicking on this or googling this.
I know that mindfulness in DBT can be a confusing topic. I’ve been there, done that. What the hell does it even mean anyway? And what the heck are mindfulness skills?
I struggled to understand it the whole way through DBT.
I felt like this.
So, I’ll explain simply what mindfulness is and HOW & WHAT to practice.
Using mindfulness, you’ll master all the other skills in dialectical behavior therapy [1], and—get this—it will help you control your feelings, be happier and be in the present moment. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
YES. PLEASE.
And when someone is dangling you by your ankles from the Empire State Building demanding a definition for mindfulness, you’ll know what it means. (God, please, NO!)
Ok, are you ready? Let’s get to it!
Table of Contents
What’s all the fuss about? (What is mindfulness?)
Okay, hear me.
Mindfulness is being in the present moment [2].
I’ll say it another way.
Mindfulness is doing one thing at a time and fully committing to it. You’re not distracted thinking about anything other than what you’re doing.
Mindfulness empowers you to EXPERIENCE everything you go through in your daily life.
It enables you to be comfortable with uncomfortable situations and tolerate what’s happening around you or to you. (But if someone comes at you with an axe, maybe run away?)
The benefits are HUGE. Imagine living your life calmer, happier, and more productive. Mindfulness has this potential. It is a game-changer when it comes to your mental health.
It amplifies awareness of your needs and assists your distress tolerance and emotion regulation.
Do you need to slow down or be grounded? Do you want a broader perspective and to see more of what’s happening around you?
Mindfulness enhances your recognition of all of this. It means that you’re living your life with intention. EXCITING!
So, if you’re combing your hair, you’re combing your hair.
If you’re brushing your teeth, you’re brushing your teeth.
If you’re having a shower, you’re thinking about cats. Joking. You’re having a shower.
Ok, I get it. So what ISN’T mindfulness, then?
Well, lemme tell you!
It’s not clinging to an experience or pushing it away; you just let it sit for as long as it’s there.
(Even if the ‘experience’ is you letting one rip in a crowded lift).
You don’t pick and choose the feelings you do or don’t want. You don’t say: “Well, I like this feeling, so I’ll focus on that, but I don’t like that one, so I’ll push that away.”
It’s not like a pick-and-mix sweetie cart where you’re like, “Ooh, liquorice, I like that. But I don’t like raspberry bootlaces.” (I hate liquorice – that’s a judgment – seewhatIdidthere?)
You just recognise that there are DIFFERENT TYPES of feelings, even if one is more uncomfortable than the other.
Doing this allows you to feel and experience what’s happening rather than escape.
You can be mindfully sad, mindfully grieving, mindfully angry. Feel what you’re feeling. Whether they’re painful emotions or not.
You recognise that each feeling is equally valid and adequate. That’s what being mindful is.
Mindfulness is not about getting rid of all the painful, icky feelings you might have or reaching a zen state where nothing is sad or bad.
So if you’re upset because Man United lost another football match (yet again), you don’t say I’m uncomfortable with this and try pushing it away.
You just let the sadness, the grief, the joy, the delight happen – you feel it, and then it drifts away as well, just like waves come and go.
Ok, cool. But what’s the point?
Why do I even need mindfulness anyway?
Oh, I’m glad you asked.
You may be going through DBT, Dialectical Behavior Therapy if you’re reading this.
If you’re only starting, your therapist will discuss mindfulness left, right and centre.
Adopting mindfulness supports learning all the other skills. (It’s also right at the start of the book they all use, go figure!)
So, it’s hella important. No joke. [3]
Mindfulness skills are the most essential skills you’ll learn in DBT. (There, I said it).
If you’re present (the whole point of mindfulness), you’re conscious of your feelings and can regulate your emotions (the entire point of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy).
If you’ve been diagnosed with BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder, then you might know that another name for it is emotional dysregulation.
You can use mindfulness to stay in touch with yourself and better manage your life experiences. Who wouldn’t want that!?
All of that means you can live more effectively and be HAPPIER!
(If you’re not going through Dialectical Behavioral Therapy and you’re reading this, I’m glad you’re here.
I’m sure you’ll still find mindfulness valuable to learn.)
For me, I know I need mindfulness to:
Enjoy my surroundings more,
Live life with more positivity,
Keep my attention on whatever I’m doing – even if I’m having my ass kicked playing Tekken with my cousin,
Check in with myself and see how I’m doing,
Strip away judgments,
Stay focused on one thing at a time.
Sounds incredible, right?
It also means I can close my eyes when my wife talks to me. When she asks if I’m listening, I tell her I’m practising mindfulness (but I’m thinking about kangaroos bouncing on trampolines instead – imagine how high they can jump!?)
How does all of this apply to DBT?
Ah, I knew you’d ask that.
Thankfully, DBT doesn’t just tell you that you need to practise mindfulness. It tells you how to practice it and what you should do when practising it. There are mindfulness skills you can practice. [4]
Wanna hear what those skills are?
The What Skills and The How Skills – 100 points, please.
I’ll break it down for you; let’s start with the What Mindfulness Skills.
Wait, WHAT!? Yes, the What Skills
The What Skills are OBSERVE, DESCRIBE, and PARTICIPATE. Let’s go through each of them one by one.
Observe
Observe is being aware of what you’re experiencing. Now, what the hell does that mean?
Well, what was the last meal you ate? Breakfast? Lunch? Dinner? (Mmm, pizza for breakfast)
Usually, when eating, we shovel the food into our gob as fast as possible. We don’t stop to notice what the food tastes like, feels like, or smells like.
We’re multitasking. We’re watching TV, on our phones, or doing something else (But cat pictures are adorable!)
So, the first part of being mindful is to OBSERVE what’s happening.
So, if you’re feeling anxious, you observe, “I have sweaty palms.” or “My heart is racing”. You don’t interpret why you’re feeling anxious; you just notice.
Don’t get me wrong, you won’t be able to do this all day, every day. Noticing how you feel constantly isn’t realistic.
But, even if you do this in one or two activities each day, you’ll see and FEEL the difference.
Pick something out. Observe in small doses. Just notice how it changes your experience of that activity.
To make it easier, think about it from the perspective of your senses.
What am I seeing? What am I hearing? What am I smelling? What am I tasting? What am I feeling? These are all great ways of observing.
You’ll realise that some farts smell AND taste. #eyewatering
Okay, here’s a way to try this.
The next time you walk into a room that you know, look for something you haven’t seen there before.
Maybe a picture hanging on the wall. An aspect of that picture that you’ve never seen.
Maybe the light bouncing off the table or the wall.
Or that weird brown stain on the ceiling.
Just look around you and observe what you see. I guarantee you’ll notice something new, making your experience much more interesting.
Bear in mind: Observing is noticing, not labelling or interpreting. It’s not good or bad; it’s not stupid, indifferent, awful, sad, or happy; it doesn’t have a description yet.
Ready for the next part of mindfulness skills?
Describe
Okay, so what about the describe part?
Describe is linked to the observe skill; sometimes, separating one from the other can be tricky.
Describing is putting words to what you’re observing. But you avoid JUDGMENTAL words.
You’re not judgmental of what you’re noticing, and you’re not judgmental of YOURSELF, either.
So, for instance, if you’re feeling anxious, you’d NOTICE that uneasy feeling. Then you’d say, “I’ve got sweaty palms. I’ve got a tight feeling in my chest. I feel anxious”. That’s you describing what’s happening.
You wouldn’t say, “Stupid anxiety, what the hell? I don’t want to feel this anymore. Why does this keep happening to me?”
You don’t judge what’s happening even though you’re describing it.
You stick to the facts when you’re describing. You’re not interpreting. It’s just what you’re feeling, what’s coming into your senses.
Okay, let’s practice together. Imagine sitting in your room alone, and you rip one out. (Do you see the recurrent theme of farts here?)
You observe a smell: “I sense a smell,” you tell yourself.
You don’t describe it; you don’t label it. Not initially, anyway.
After you’ve observed the smell, then you start to describe it. You say, “That smells like broccoli mixed with baby puke.”
You don’t say it’s a good or bad smell, or it could wake the dead.
You just DESCRIBE what it smells like. You do think you need to see a doctor, though, but then that thought drifts away like the fart gas.
Now, hear me on this.
Everyone finds it hard to just observe without describing. So, be kind to yourself when practising. This is definitely one of the harder parts of dbt skills training.
Your brain is super active. It’s always charging around describing what’s happening. Distraction is part of this process. Don’t be frustrated by this. It’s normal.
You end up thinking about a lot of stuff at the same time. So, this part of mindfulness practice takes a lot of practice—I mean A LOT of practice—but it is a key component of your mindfulness skills.
It’s like going to the gym. You’ve got to do a lot of reps to build muscle, but it’s so worth it because of the benefits it provides. When you regularly go to the gym, you get stronger. (You look fantastic, by the way).
Practising mindfulness this way is like a GYM FOR YOUR BRAIN. (No, you don’t need to strap a 50 kg dumbbell to your head.)
Now, get this. Stay calm when you feel you’re not observing and describing perfectly.
Think of it as an opportunity to return to what you’re doing—another chance to be mindful.
Remind yourself to start again with a fresh perspective. Your thoughts will run away and do what they want to—that’s normal.
But you can take control and keep putting them back on track. You can do it in a gentle, playful way. You don’t lose your temper. You’re not judgmental of yourself.
Want a hack that I use to TURBOCHARGE all of this?
Pick a word that anchors you to your task. When you drift, SHOUT that word at yourself.
Use something like ‘thinking’. Or ‘purple underpants’.
Make a word up. It doesn’t matter.
It’s a remarkably nifty way to return to the moment and reground yourself.
Be proud that you returned to the present. Clap yourself on the back (it’s ok, no one’s watching).
Next up is PARTICIPATE. Time to get on stage and dance, you mother!
Participate
Okay, you’re probably thinking, “Well, how the frigg do I participate? I’m already DOING mindfulness skills with all this other stuff, right?”
Hold your horses there, cowboy!
If you’re present in what you’re doing – that’s participating.
Here’s an example: (Ooh, another example, yummy!)
How do you feel about doing the dishes? I bet you chomp at the bit. (Kidding).
When you do that job, your mind is usually elsewhere. Have you ever wondered why that is? Because you’re used to doing it. It’s familiar to you. You go into autopilot.
But if you PARTICIPATE in it, you engage in it ultimately. You observe and describe what you’re doing.
You notice the temperature of the water, the smell of the soap, the sound the dishes make, the splashing of the water, all that stuff.
When you observe and describe, that’s participation. You’re not doing anything else. You’re just doing this one thing.
You use ‘observe and describe’ to help you remain mindful. You pull yourself back into the activity that you’re doing.
Think of your brain and attention span like a wonky GPS in your car. It’s constantly telling you to go in different directions. Being mindful is like intervening and updating the destination.
When mindful, you return to the present by observing, describing, and participating.
Another ‘sweet-as-a-nut’ hack for you:
Pick times when you want to be mindful to get the full effect of all this.
It could be doing the dishes, showering, conversing with someone, or going for a walk. (Top points if you pick something mundane!)
Observe using your senses each time you do those activities, then describe them. This causes you to participate in them fully.
Order your mind not to wander, and when it does, bring it back to what you’re doing. But be GENTLE with yourself, be kind, don’t be annoyed.
Here are some activities to try by yourself:
The next time you take a shower – be present in the moment:
Wash the opposite way around than you usually do.
Engage yourself in the activity.
What do you sense?
The next meal you have – be present in the moment:
Prepare yourself for the first bite that you take.
Look at what’s on your plate.
Look at what’s on your fork (or in your hand if it’s pizza), smell it, take it all in and then eat it.
What are the textures, what are the feelings, what are the sensations?
Observe all of those things and then describe them.
Incorporating mindfulness into your day-to-day activities is a matchless way to become more familiar.
Okay – observe, describe, and participate are the ‘WHAT SKILLS’, i.e. what mindfulness IS.
The HOW SKILLS explain how you can practice the what mindfulness skills. Say whaaat!?
How the Hell Do I Practice Mindfulness – The How Skills
The how skills are non-judgmentally, one-mindfully and effectively. Lets goooooo!
Let’s start with non-judgmentally in a non-judgmental way (you weren’t expecting that, were you?)
Non-Judgmentally
Before we start, Judging (or evaluating) is part of being HUMAN. It protects us when used in the right way.
You’ve probably asked yourself: Do I feel safe around these people or this person? Do I feel safe in this environment?
Judging or evaluating is part of life.
That said, when you’re mindful, it’s with a non-judgmental stance.
You stick to the facts rather than forming opinions.
Why is that? Why do we not judge things when being mindful?
When you judge, you form an attachment to it. Remember – mindfulness causes you to let things come and go – don’t cling or push.
Interpreting whether something is worth holding onto or discarding would be judgment. We just let everything be what it is.
Example: You see a room’s walls painted orange. When mindful, you only observe and notice the orange.
You don’t say: “That wall is orange; it’s disgusting. I would never paint my house that colour. My dog would do a better job of painting that wall.”
That would be judging it.
And if you catch yourself judging, don’t judge your judging. Be happy that you found yourself feeling judgmental. Take a step back and start again.
Having no judgments all the time isn’t realistic. So go easy on yourself.
Instead, you adopt a mindset that judgment won’t drive the bus. It won’t dictate how you feel.
When you’re non-judgmental, you know when you are being judgmental. Wow, that’s so meta. (What an awful cliche).
Being non-judgmental is the first step of the HOW skill of mindfulness.
The next part is being one-mindful.
One-Mindful
Being one-mindful is just doing ONE THING AT A TIME. Fully present and engaged.
Now, that’s hard to do because there’s so much coming at us regularly. Life is so BUSY!
It is even more challenging when the task doesn’t GRIP your brain fully!
Take a step back: When you’re eating, eat. When you’re planning, plan. If you’re worrying, worry. It’s okay.
Just do one thing at a time.
I do this when I’m having a scatter-brain-and-I-can’t-bebothered kinda day. It grounds me.
Another way of looking at one-mindful would be a state of ‘flow’.
When artists or musicians create, they call it a state of flow. Time fritters away effortlessly, and they’re hyper-focused.
So think about something that you like doing, that you can do one mindfully.
It could be making music, completing a puzzle, painting a self-portrait (why not give yourself a mohawk, the legs of a ram, or the body of a gazelle), or even cleaning.
What do you love doing so much that it feels like ZERO effort to surround yourself with?
Do that thing and do it one-mindfully to practice this.
If you do all of the above, you’re doing it effectively, which is the final part of this skill.
Effectively
Being effective is accomplishing whatever you set out to do.
At times, though, your emotions and desires dictate the outcome, and that causes you to sway from your goals.
So, being EFFECTIVE means doing what’s necessary to reach your goal or endpoint.
Example: You’re at a party. You feel uncomfortable. Would it be effective to sulk in the corner with your arms folded?
Probably not.
If you’re being effective, you’d throw yourself FULLY into your environment and put John Travolta to shame with your funky dance moves. Doesn’t that sound like WAY more fun!?
Another way to think about it. If you’re non-judgmental and one-mindful, then you’re acting effectively.
Let’s double down on THAT.
Observing, describing, and participating in a non-judgmental and one-mindful way is the very pinnacle of EFFECTIVENESS. Wowzers, that’s a ‘mind-blown’ moment right there. Cue Tim and Eric.
When you’re effective, you’re balanced. You’re not doing too much or too little. You’re not being wilful or digging your heels in.
You do something even if you don’t want to because that’s being more effective.
That’s a wise-mind decision.
You’re mindful of your goals and do just what is necessary to achieve them. You’re present. That’s being effective.
Do it like a child would – practice like this
The BEST way to practice mindfulness is in your daily life, acting like you’ve never done it before.
Imagine you’ve never washed dishes or taken a shower before. Now, look at that activity with a completely fresh perspective.
How would a child look at it? They’d be mindful of their actions, experiences, sights, sounds, and smells.
To practice this, look at whatever you’re doing through the eyes of a child. Ask yourself: How would a child do this?
We push so much of our adult stuff onto our daily activities. We split ourselves in different directions repeatedly, which makes it much harder to be mindful because we constantly think about other things.
So try this.
If you’re about to have a new experience—something that scares you—such as going to a new place or meeting new people, rather than going into it with worry, go in with a sense of WONDER or CURIOSITY.
Be fully engaged in that activity. Fully participate in it.
Be there. Take in as much as you can.
Notice what that does to the experience, especially if the experience is unpleasant.
Show me the money! Lay the benefits on me!
You want some benefits!?
How about:
Being PRESENT (less time worrying about other stuff),
Sponge-like ABSORBTION in what you do (get more sh*t done),
Less JUDGMENTS of yourself, your environment, and others (remove your burdens!)
Mindfulness [1] makes new neural connections in your BRAIN (improves your thinking ability), causes you to feel less overwhelmed [5], and you make better decisions (no, brown jumpers are not okay).
Mindfulness helps make everything better. Don’t you want some of that? I know you do. You want it.
So try it out. Even if you do it poorly, it doesn’t matter. Try mindfulness and be mindful of the results.
So, what can you do next? Start practising mindfulness as often as you can. It will make a huge impact on your mental wellbeing, I promise!
I recommend you take a look at some of the other posts on this site; I’ve listed some suggestions below.
Further Reading:
A ginormous list of DBT Group activities to try
References:
- [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10084181
- [2] https://www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/
- [3] https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2012/01/mindfulness-matters
- [4] https://psychcentral.com/health/dbt-skills-therapy-techniques
- [5] https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/explore-mental-health/a-z-topics/mindfulness
