Learning Center - DBT Therapy Training

We have discussed the goal of Mindfulness, to achieve Wise Mind in our daily lives.  Next, we discussed that Observe, Describe, and Participate are the three things we need to do to achieve Wise Mind.  During this section, we'll discuss how to approach Observe, Describe and Participate.  These are called the How skills of Mindfulness.  The three How skills are: non-judgmentally, one-mindfully, and effectively.  This section describes these three skills in detail.

There are many ways to interpret the three What skills in Mindfulness. We will need to approach this in a clean and healthy way, however.  That's where the three How skills come in:

Non-Judgmentally

This is experiencing the world around us without judgments.  We gain more insight and value when we are able to separate our thoughts and feelings from what's actually going on; the bare experience.  We discussed, in the last section, that when our judgments are off, even slightly, we can wind up in some very awkward situations.  To view things Non-Judgmentally we need to train ourselves to separate the bare facts from the thoughts and feelings that we apply to them.  Then learn to let those thoughts just go.

Imagine a conveyor belt in your mind.  The moment you begin to evaluate what you're seeing, rest the thought on that conveyor belt and let it roll out of your mind.  In Dr. Marsha Linehan's book, Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder, she discusses the concept of the "Teflon Mind", where you allow thoughts to come in and slide right out as if it were a non-stick frying pan.  A valuable tool to use to help us experience events non-judgmentally is write out the thoughts that come into your mind.  Then read through what you've written, and look for judgment words (e.g., anything indicating it's value or what it means like good, bad, right, wrong, positive or negative), and strike it out.

One Mindfully

This is essentially to focus on one thing at a time.  Lots of people feel they can multitask, and perhaps even take pride in their ability to do several things at the same time.  Part of mindfulness is to give our all; 100% of our attention to what we're doing, the moment we're doing it.  By definition, if we're doing several things at once, we can't be giving all our attention to any one of them.

While reading, driving, jogging, shopping or doing any number of activities I've caught myself thinking about something else.  I lose my keys.  In fact, the other day, I came home for one purpose, to pick up my dry cleaning to take to the cleaners.  I came in my home, grabbed the dry cleaning, then couldn't find my keys.  Eventually I found them in the refrigerator.... where else would they be?  Evidently, when I came in, I grabbed a drink and put the keys down inside.  Had I given my full attention to what I was doing, I would have known where I put the keys.  I do this sort of thing all the time, and I know many people who experience this as well.  If we can train ourselves to truly focus on the task at hand, one task at a time, we'll be that much closer to doing things MindFULLY, rather than MindLESSLY.

Effectively

All too often, we realize that what we're doing isn't optimal.  Perhaps it doesn't even make sense to us, or it seems like a complete waste of time.  Yet, if we argue about a better way of doing them, or perhaps don't do them at all, we'll wind up in worse shape.

Here's an example.  Several months ago, I rode my motorcycle into the city.  I parked between two parallel parked cars, each with a parking meter.  Believe it or not, I parked right in front of one of the meters at a slight angle, part of my bike in one space, the other part in the other space.  Both meters had plenty of time.  I left the bike and returned about 20 minutes later to find a parking ticket.  The car in front of me, left and the meter expired.  The car behind me still had time in the meter and was still in the space.  The parking cop decided that since there's one car with time in the meter, that I must be parked in the empty space, with the expired meter.  To me, it seemed awfully unfair.  A car could have easily parked in the empty space, so I wasn't actually using that space.  Still, it is what it is.  I could have fought the ticket by going to court, I could have paid the ticket, or I might have chosen to simply ignore it.  In the end, I simply paid the ticket, realizing that fairness aside, it takes less time and effort to pay the ticket than it would to fight it.  And ignoring it wouldn't work at all.  That was an Effective solution, but not really what I would consider the "best", "fair" or "right" solution.

There's real skill in figuring out when to "push back" and when to simply accept and do.  That's what Effectively is all about.  I've heard Dr. Phil refer to this as "right thinking".  He asked his guests, in a damaged marriage, "Would you rather be right or happy

Some people put a negative spin on this concept calling it "giving in" or "selling out".  At times, it can feel this way, in reality, however, sometimes it's simply more effective to do what needs to be done rather than second guessing, and fighting it.  The skill comes in being able to figure out which route to take based on the situation.  The goal is to get it done, not necessarily the way we feel is the "right way" at the time.

Exercise

Try this now.  Look at this picture of spilled milk on this page.  Imagine that's your milk on your table.  In the box below, describe the picture, as if it were on your table. Please note, this box is for your convienience. The text you type will not be saved on the system.

Read over what you wrote. Did you place any values, judgments or opinions about what it means?  Are you feeling uncomfortable when you look at the picture?  In a Mindfulness context, it's simply a glass on it's side, with Milk on the table top.  Not good, not bad.... it just is.

Is there something your boss, spouse, partner, child has asked you to do that you're uncomfortable doing?  Something that you've been putting off.  Pick a time right now, and simply do it.  Get it off your plate.  Do it effectively, not necessarily the way you think is "right".

Right now, this moment, go pick up a book.  Clear your mind, and read one page.  If you catch yourself thinking about anything other than the book.  Pause, acknowledge the thought and let it go.  Back up to where you began the thought and continue reading.  Put all your attention to that page; everything you have.

Practice Assignments

Over the next few days, look for opportunities to practice Effectively.  There are many situations that you can do things the way you'd prefer.  But look for opportunities to do things someone else's way, when it would be more effective to do it their way.

At least once a day, catch yourself doing something mindlessly and focus your attention on the task at hand.  If you need to, grab a small notepad and jot the distracting thought down, then leave it in the notepad.  You can come back to it later.  Get back to whatever it was you were doing and give it your full attention.

Take out a piece of paper, notepad or index card.  Every day, note the date and list which of the six Mindfulness skill's you've used that day.  Did you Observe, Describe, Consciously Participate.  Did you do them one-mindfully (full attention), Effectively (getting it done, not necessarily the "best" way, but the most effective way), and Non-Judgmentally (allowing things to be as they are, not as you judge them to be)?

As a useful reference, you may wish to check out the Mindfulness Cheat Sheet.

When you're ready to move on go to: Section 5 - Distress Tolerance Overview.

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