MINDFULNESS
Square Breathing
Square Breathing
Do this skill mindfully, with full awareness, focusing only on your breathing,. If you notice your mind wandering, just notice and bring yourself back to your breathing. By taking these long, slow, deep breaths you will get more air into your lungs which will get more air to your muscles, which will reduce tension and more air to your brain so that you can think a bit more clearly.
1. Breathe in while counting to 4.
2. Hold your breath while counting to 4.
3. Exhale while counting to
4. Repeat 4 times.
Self-Soothe
Self-Soothing through senses can quickly reduce the intensity of negative emotions; Sight, Hearing, Taste, Touch, Smell, Movement.
Your senses are a tool you’ll always have with you to reduce the intensity of a situation. Try focusing on only one sense at a time to incorporate mindfulness into the self-soothing skill.
Sight: Use your vision to focus on something else. Count how many places you can see a certain color in the room, or focus on an object’s texture. You can also pull out your phone and scroll through some of your favorite photos.
Hearing: Listen to sounds—any sounds. Can you hear birds chirping or the sound of traffic outside? Turn the volume up on your favorite song and just listen. If you prefer soothing sounds, there are many apps you can install on your phone to play on the go.
Taste: A small treat can give you something pleasurable to focus on while you’re getting through a tough moment. You don’t need to prepare a full meal—a piece of gum or a few mints will do the trick.
Touch: Embrace your sense of touch by noticing how a pen feels in your hand, running your fingers through your hair, or using a fidget toy. When appropriate, you can wrap yourself in a blanket or take a warm bath.
Smell: Whether it’s good or bad, focus on whatever scent is in the air. Can you identify the smell, or break it down into its components? For easy access to a scent you find calming, put a few drops of your favorite essential oil onto a cotton ball and keep it with you in a plastic bag.
Movement: While you technically only have five senses, DBT introduces a sixth sense of movement. Your emotional state can be altered by your body’s movements, so take a walk around the block or dance to your favorite song!
Self-Soothe First Aid Kit: Items put together to create a self-soothe first aid kit. Things to help you feel better using your senses, such as small knit swatches (feeling), stained glass coloring books (seeing), colored pencils or crayons (seeing), stress grip (feeling), eucalyptus & spearmint lotion (smelling), gum (tasting), photos (seeing), music (hearing), and a small rain stick (hearing).
What would you include if you made a self-soothe first aid kit?
EMOTIONS
EMOTIONS
Emotions also communicate what we’re experiencing to those around us. We don’t always need words to communicate, as emotions are easily (though not always healthily) communicated through facial expressions, body language, and mannerisms. Both verbal and nonverbal communications of emotions can help us connect with others and build stronger relationships
EXTRA: Examples of Emotions
EXTRA:
Examples of Emotions
LOVE
GUILT
ANGER
SHAME
ANXIETY
SADNESS/GRIEF
HAPPINESS
Non-Judgmental
Non-Judgmental
Being non-judgmental is about not assigning a value to yourself or others such as being good, bad, terrible, unlovable. Making judgments or assigning value to yourself or others causes unnecessary and unhelpful distress and discomfort.
HALF-SMILE
HALF-SMILE
Accept reality with your body. Relax (by letting go or by just tensing and then letting go) your face, neck, and shoulder muscles and half-smile with your lips. A tense smile is a grin (and might tell the brain you are hiding or masking). A half-smile is slightly upturned lips with a relaxed face. Try to adopt a serene facial expression. Remember, your body communicates to your mind.
The muscles in the face communicate to the emotional part of the brain and vice versa. Emotions have a give-and-take relationship with facial muscles. In fact, a change in your facial expression generates emotional change as a smile or a grimace is experienced as a feeling. The half-smile expression physiologically stimulates a serene feeling. When you are relaxed, it is easier to feel serene. Even when you are not relaxed, you can become relaxed by using this serenity and half-smile exercise.
VITALS Skills
VITALS Skills
Validate self
Imagine
Take small steps
Applaud yourself
Lighten your load
Sweeten the pot
Difference Between DBT and CBT
Difference Between DBT and CBT
On the other hand, DBT narrows the focus to the psychosocial aspects of daily life. Many people have trouble with their thought and behavior patterns, but these issues are often at their most disruptive in the context of relationships with others. DBT was created to approach treatment from this angle, one that is often incorporated in general CBT but is not typically the main focus
One-Mindfully
One-Mindfully
This is the skill of focusing on one thing in the moment. While it might seem that multi-tasking is efficient, it is actually more effective to do one thing at a time, focusing on each thing by itself, than moving on to the next task. This can be done slowly or quickly depending on the tasks and your energy level.
Practice living one-mindfully. The next time you are in a conversation with someone, focus all your attention on the very moment you are in with that person. The next time you take a break, actually take a break.
OBJECTIVES
OBJECTIVES
One thing at a time
Be effective
Avoid Judgments
Cope with Emotions
Consider Consequences
Take Time
Use Introspection
Act consistently with Values
Focus on desired Endings
Balance Short-term and long-term goals
ABC
ABC
A - Accumulating positive experiences
B - Build mastery
C- Cope Ahead
REPAIR
REPAIR
Something you do for someone else as a way of repairing the relationship if it has been damaged in some way.
•The relationship we have with each other is central, and should be based on trust, respect, and cooperative work on common and individual goals.
•If anyone should break any of the agreed upon rules and or agreements (because sometimes people do make mistakes) then a Repair will be expected.
•Repairs can come in a variety of different forms – you are encouraged to be creative should you need to make a repair.
The reasons we do repairs are
Human relationships are very important.
It is important that when you have hurt someone, you make an effort to make it up to that person or people that you have hurt.
No one is perfect, and everyone deserves a chance to make up for a mistake.
It reminds us to respect and value each other.
It feels good to do something nice for someone else
The “What” of Mindfulness Skills
The “What” of Mindfulness Skills
Observe
As weird as it sounds at first, the first skill to learn in mindfulness is to just observe states without trying to change anything. The idea is to let yourself experience whatever is in the moment rather than running away from a situation or trying to get rid of the feelings. This can sound counter-intuitive; if you’re experiencing emotional pain you have a natural inclination to get rid of it. Does this mean you should spend hours and hours observing your sadness, no, but it is worthwhile to spend some time observing it. Usually when we approach things with an open, curious state we open ourselves up to learn about our self or gain clarity about the situation.
Describe
Learning to describe things can also be hard at the beginning. You might not have the language to describe your experience, but as you practice this will become easier. This part is important to help people learn that just because you feel something, it doesn’t mean it is something. For example, you might feel anxious about going to a party. Because you feel afraid, you may think there actually is something to fear even when there isn’t. By Describing the situation, (I.e. My stomach muscles cramp and my chest constricts) you can work towards taking some of the judgment away. It’s just factual, no judgment required.
Participate
Have you ever had the experience of playing an instrument or sport where you were focused, able to respond to the task with flexibility and you totally let go of being self-conscious. At that moment you were participating in life mindfully. It’s that wonderful space where you lose yourself in the moment, and find flow. This is what we’re ultimately hoping to grow through mindfulness.
Crisis Survival Skills
Crisis Survival Skills
It's important to distinguish a crisis where you need crisis survival skills and a life problem where you need to use problem solving skills. Most of the time in life we need problem solving skills.
What is a crisis? Generally crises are highly stressful; very intense and immediate. Crises are short term. They don't last forever. And, in a crisis, there's a really intense pressure to resolve the problem now or right this minute.
When do you need Crisis Survival Skills? In any situation that doesn't have an immediate problem solution, it's really intense, and you have a really strong desire to do something that's going to make your life worse
LOVE DANDELIONS
LOVE DANDELIONS
I have a choice in lovingly accepting my intense emotions, the many past choices that I regret, acute grief, the cat throwing up on the freshly-washed duvet cover, and what feels like a million other little things that come up every single day or I can continue to struggle with wanting someone else to clean up their side of the street.
The truth is, that any personality trait you can point to in any person can be seen as a good or a bad thing, depending on how and when it is expressed. We all have our dandelions and we all have to manage them in order to achieve our goals for happiness and peace.
Is it possible to accept that the dandelions will be there, and even to love them, while at the same time deciding to keep the destructive part of their nature to a minimum because they interfere with your goals and dreams?
Love Dandelions helps you address the dilemma of change and how you see yourself. Why would change be a dilemma? Because the motivation to change often comes from seeing yourself as flawed. But if you judge yourself and see yourself in such a negative light as people with BPD are apt to do, this can actually deplete your motivation to change because you become like the burned out gardener
“DEAR WOMAN”
“DEAR WOMAN” is an interpersonal effectiveness skill that helps us work more efficiently in our relationships with others.
D = Describe what is wanted (what is your intention for the conversation, or what do you want the end result to be?)
E = Encourage others to help (“You can help me by….”)
A = Ask for what is wanted (“I want….”
R = Reinforce others (“It is helpful when you…..”)
W = Willingness to tolerate not always getting it my way
O = Observe what is going on inside and around me
M = Mindfully present in the current moment
A = Appear confident
N = Negotiate with others
Mindfulness “How” skills
Mindfulness “How” skills
Non Judgmental Stance
This can be a hard one for people. It means observing your reactions with curiosity rather than judgement. We often see things as totally good or bad, but taking a non-judgmental stance encourages us to simply be curious about our reactions. This includes even positive judgments, which, when we’re upset, can easily turn into negative ones. This non judgmental stance provides us the permission we sometimes need to feel anger, sadness, or certain thoughts and being okay that they are part of the human experience.
Focusing on one thing in the moment
Have you ever sat down to study, but then catch yourself cruising facebook, eating an apple and talking on the phone all at the same time? As much as some people will praise the skill of multi-tasking, it really isn’t that good for us. A huge part of mindfulness is to allow yourself to truly focus, with all your energy on one thing at a time. The quality of things become much richer and even simple tasks can become more rewarding. It’s teaching ourselves to really live in the present-something most of us take for granted or believe we don’t have control over.
Being Effective
This helps to bring down the tendency to be more concerned about doing what’s “right” rather than what works. Sometimes we have to give in and give up our need to “be right” in order to get things done. Sometimes this can include letting go of a fight that you won’t win and just walking away. Practicing accepting that sometimes we can’t change certain people or situation can go a long way in managing them more effectively.
WILLINGNESS
WILLINGNESS (AND WILLFULNESS)
Willingness is the skill of realizing you are part of and connected to the rest of the universe.
Willingness is all about answering this question: “What I am willing to do to be healthy?” Then I ask myself the question “What am I NOT willing to do to be healthy? Why?”
The DBT Skill “Willingness” is about willingness to do what needs to be done to be the healthiest, most functioning person you can be. It is about figuring out the next few steps you need to take and being willing to try to move in that direction.
The opposite of being “willing” is being “willful”. If we’re being honest – I can be very willful. It is usually motivated by anxiety or fear, but it is my determination to sabotage myself in one way or another. The problem is that willful determination to hold on to control in unhealthy ways only hurts me. So for me practicing willingness is important, and having people like my treatment providers to keep me in check helps a lot too.
Willingness = DOING JUST WHAT IS NEEDED in each situation, in an unpretentious way. A wonderful outcome of Willingness is Effectiveness.
Willingness = listening very closely to your WISE MIND, acting from your inner self.
Willingness = ALLOWING into awareness your connection to the universe – to the earth, to the floor you are standing on, to the chair you are sitting on, to the person you are talking to
Choose WILLINGNESS (over) WILLFULNESS
Willfulness is SITTING ON YOUR HANDS when action is needed, refusing to make changes that are needed
Willfulness is GIVING UP
Willfulness is the OPPOSITE OF “DOING WHAT WORKS,” being effective
Willfulness is trying to FIX every situation
Willfulness is REFUSING TO TOLERATE the moment
Replace WILLFULNESS with WILLINGNESS
STOPP
STOPP
If you’re struggling with controlling your emotions, consider learning how to STOPP
STOPP is a strategy that will help you in the heat of the moment when you are dealing with intense emotions. It incorporates aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), DBT, and mindfulness meditation to help you more effectively address and manage your emotional response to a challenging, difficult, or rage-inducing incident.
STOPP stands for:
S – Stop!
o Just pause for a moment.
T – Take a Breath
o Notice your breathing as you breathe in and out.
O – Observe
o What thoughts are going through your mind right now?
o Where is your focus of attention?
o What are you reacting to?
o What sensations do you notice in your body?
P – Pull Back – Put in Some Perspective
o What’s the bigger picture?
o Take the helicopter view.
o What is another way of looking at this situation?
o What would a trusted friend say to me right now?
o Is this thought a fact or opinion?
o What is a more reasonable explanation?
o How important is this? How important will it be in 6 months’ time?
P – Practice What Works – Proceed
o What is the best thing to do right now?
o Best for me, for others, for the situation?
o What can I do that fits with my values?
o Do what will be effective and appropriate.
EXTRA: Examples of Emotions and Their Functions
EXTRA:
Examples of Emotions and Their Functions
LOVE
Love can let us know that something is going right. It could be that the overall relationship is going well, or maybe it’s just one aspect of the relationship.
GUILT
When we feel guilt, it could be a sign that we’ve done wrong and we can work to correct it. If you’re feeling guilty and you realize something is off in a relationship, the guilt is letting you know that you might need to take action to correct the relationship.
ANGER
Anger is a very common emotion that lets us know we’ve been wronged. We can use this emotion to inform us how to make the situation better. Perhaps we need to confront the person who wronged us, or simply vent to a trusted friend or family member who understands.
SHAME
You may have heard that shame is the only emotion without a purpose. While it might arguably be the most unpleasant, shame does have a purpose. Shame gives us information about our faulty core beliefs. This will look a little different for everyone. For example, if you feel shame when your friends exclude you, your faulty core belief may be “I’m not wanted”. Once you’re aware of the faulty beliefs that cause feelings of shame, you’ll be better able to process through these beliefs.
ANXIETY
There are two types of anxiety: productive and nonproductive. Nonproductive anxiety is so intense that it stops you from getting your daily tasks done. This anxiety is too intense for the situation that surrounds it. Nonproductive anxiety may cause you to feel so overwhelmed that it increases stress and decreases your ability to handle things effectively.
Productive anxiety, on the other hand, is very natural and innate in almost everyone. This anxiety helps us to be prepared and accomplish regular activities. This is the anxiety that gets us to work on time and encourages us to study for a test.
SADNESS/GRIEF
When we’re experiencing sadness and grief, we naturally want to seek out and receive support from those we love. Having support makes it easier to get through the grieving process. When we lack appropriate support, it can be very difficult to process through these emotions.
In addition to the urge to seek support, those around us experience an urge to comfort us when we appear to be sad or grieving. When we try to avoid connection or pretend we aren’t sad, it further complicates our experience and our overall emotional health.
HAPPINESS
When we experience genuine happiness, it is a signal that something is going right. We are able to feel happiness even while we are dealing with difficult life situations.