Mindfulness is a word that you hear thrown around a lot these days, but is often misunderstood. It does everything from decrease depression to improve relationships to making pain more manageable… but how? This season of ATTHO, going is all about demystifying mindfulness, what is it? How is it helpful? And how exactly do you use it in your daily life? I’ll break it down into manageable steps and I’ll interview people with interesting perspectives on mindfulness. Hopefully along the way we can all become more mindful. 

 I spend my days teaching my clients mindfulness skills, and trying to stay mindful myself but mindfulness is an ever- evolving practice and like everyone else, I’m trying to do better. This is ATTHA.  In today’s episode David and I discuss how mindfulness is defined from a DBT perspective.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is paying attention on purpose to the present moment. To mindfully experience your internal world you notice thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. To mindfully experiencing the external world use your five senses, sight, sound, smell, taste and touch. Notice without judgment and without criticism or pushing away.

How does mindfulness help?

1.    Mindfulness changes the experience of pain, emotional as well as physical by teaching acceptance of uncomfortable sensations and stimulating the relaxation response.

2.    Mindfulness gets you out of your head and into your life. So much suffering is caused by thoughts, judgments and interpretations playing on repeat without awareness. Mindfulness helps reduce repetitive thinking.

3.    Mindfulness helps increase compassion for self and others.

What is mindfulness practice?

Mindfulness can be practiced many ways. Mindfulness can be practiced with meditation. You can sit and notice your breath or the sensations in your body. Mindfulness can be practiced in everyday life. You can eat mindfully, you can brush your teeth mindfully or wash the dishes mindfully. Mindfulness practice with movement. Yoga, martial arts, Tai Chi, dancing, taking a nature walk are all excellent mindfulness activities.

PRACTICE IDEAS: 

Connecting to Wise Mind

There are a number of different activities or exercises that help to connect you to wise mind. One of my favorites is closing your eyes and breathing and asking wise mind a question. This works when you’ve got a decision to make. Start your own business or take that job? Remain in a relationship or breakup? Stay or move? Whatever the question is, you can close your eyes, focus on your breath and imagine accessing the center of wise mind just sitting and calmly breathing. When you are relaxed and calm ask the question and allow the answer to come into your consciousness. You may have to do this exercise a few times, but I’ve found it to be an effective practice when there’s a question to be answered. 

Notice yourself in the 3 States of mind

Another more basic practice is to notice yourself in different states of mind. Notice when you're in reasonable mind, emotion mind and wise mind.Think about how it feels and how do you behave in each state of mind. 

If you connected with what you read here and you want to work with me, send me a message through my contact page.

To learn more about DBT group therapy with Rebekah Shackney LCSW, go to https://rebekahshackney.com/groups