Mindsets For Mindful Living
Module I | Session Four
Overview
M1 | Session Four: Mindset For Mindful Living
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Defining Mindful Living
Purpose of Mindful Living
Ways to Live Mindful Living
Session Skill: How Skill Practice
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What Is A Mindful Mindset?
The mindset of mindfulness is to observe, name, and engage in the present moment with an attitude of acceptance, one thing at a time, making the most productive decision for that moment.
Why Use A Mindful Mindset?
A mindful mindset helps you to apply your grounding skills with a sense of self-forgiveness and patience.
A mindset of mindfulness will help you to manage any frustration that may arise.
Ultimately, a mindful mindset focuses you on the now, leaving the trauma of the past, in the past, and the stress of the future, in the future, leading you to live in the moment.
This is important because, as mentioned previously, the lightest and safest place to be mentally is almost always in the present moment.
Source: Hamssa Health
Mindful Mindset
Mindful skills and principles are based on the grounding skills, also called "what skills", which we covered in the previous lesson. The "what skills" help us to know what to do to be more mindful, while a mindful mindset refers to "how" we go about doing these steps of mindfulness.
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Acceptance
Accept Each Situation Without Judgment
As we watch, name, and engage, it is important to do what we do with an attitude of acceptance.
Accept your thoughts
Accept your feelings
Accept your experience
Do not make good or bad
Do not make value statements
Rejecting your experience makes it a source of stress. For example, if you experience a thought of anger or sadness, You are likely to assign it a label of being "bad." When you label your actions as bad, what emotions arise? You may become anxious or frustrated, or stuck in the emotion. Even if well-intentioned, it carries an edge of judgment which adds to your emotional suffering.
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One Thing At A Time
When You Do Something, Do Only That Thing
As you engage in life’s activities, try to do them without going somewhere else mentally or trying to distract yourself.
Use your five senses
What textures do you feel?
What scents do you smell?
What does washing the dishes sound like?
If you experience an unpleasant sensation, accept it for what it is.
Even if the present moment takes you into planning for the future, or reminiscing on the past, focus on that one thing in the moment. This allows you to confine planning and reminiscing to a space, rather than causing it to crowd your thoughts. If you find yourself distracted, accept this as well. Once again, do not make anything good or bad. Accept your distraction non-judgmentally and pick up where you left off. Return to doing one thing at a time.
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Productivity
Do What Is Most Productive To Get The Job Done
A part of being present is the way we handle our situations. You might regularly face situations that are unfair. This means that if you are faced with an unfair situation, focusing on how the situation should be is not being present.
Try not to wish for an alternate reality.
Address your actual situation rather than the hoped for one.
Do not spite yourself or others.
Do not sabotage yourself or others.
Work productively towards your desired objective. This does not mean you must continually take unfair treatment, but if your objective is to be treated fairly, rather than to get revenge or address a hypothetical ideal, also work towards changing your environment so that you will be treated fairly.
Session Skill
The mindset of mindfulness is to observe, name, and engage in the present moment with an attitude of acceptance, one thing at a time, making the most productive decision for that moment.
“How Skills”
Start by thinking of a situation that has overwhelmed or stressed you out lately. Think of why this overwhelms you. Now, visualize yourself using your “what skills” in that situation.
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Judgment Check
What judgments might you have in this situation?
What are you labeling as “good” or “bad”?
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Rewrite the situation in your brain, replacing “good” or “bad” with helpful or unhelpful, or effective or ineffective.
Do you notice any changes in your emotions?
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One Thing At A Time
How many things were you doing?
Were you multi-tasking or trying to tackle multiple goals at once?
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Take some time to order everything by level of priority and start by doing only the first thing first.
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What’s Your Goal?
What is your ultimate goal?
What are you most trying to accomplish?
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Take some time to clarify what you wanted out of the situation initially and what you want in the situation when all is said and done.
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Next time you are overwhelmed or stressed out, use this skill. Try to accept the present moment for what it is, not trying to reject it or change it. It is your weather in that moment- work with it, don’t deny it. This will allow you to feel more empowered and effective, no matter how difficult the situation.
Source: DBT Skills Handbook