Hey guys, it's me Dr. May here on DBT. TV. Today we're gonna do with mindfulness skill called house skills. Okay? So that's what we're going to cover. I'm gonna hold that up for us. Here it is. Ha, ah, okay, so this is part of the mindfulness module. Okay, so what is mindfulness? So mindfulness is fully awake and embodied awareness that arises through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, has to do with focused attention, open awareness, and also kind intention. Okay, so, before you do the house skills, it's important to review the video for what skills that's observe, describe and participate, because the house skills are how you could do those skills more effectively and even better.
Okay, so how do we observe, describe and participate by doing the house skills?
First, non judgmentally.
If you're judging something, you're not really observing it, clearly. You're just observing your judgment.
It's really important when you are doing mindfulness and observing to do it in a non judgmental fashion.
Okay, so just a jet actively acknowledge what's going on. Just notice it. Try to accept each moment as it is, and see the reality clearly.
When you do judge, and I'm saying when not if, because we all do judge, at least sometimes because we're human, right?
We have to at least recognize that our judgments or judgments, but sometimes we think, well, if I think it must be true, so for example, if I judge myself, and I say, Well, I'm no good.
I can't just assume that's true. That's just my judgment. Or if I say, you know, that guy's a jerk. And someone might say, Well, yeah, that's true. You'd like Yeah, well, it's a judgment. Maybe you both have the same judgment, but it's still a judgment. Alright. So we have to recognize what's a judgment and what's effect. Okay, that's super important.
If you're working on this skill, be patient with yourself. No one's going to be 100% judgment free. And if you do, Judge, don't judge the fact that you're judging. just acknowledge it and keep moving on. Okay. Oh, yeah, that's right. I was judgmental. Okay. All right. So next time, I'll try a little harder and be a little less judgmental. Okay, so don't beat yourself up or judge yourself over the judging. Alright, so um, another thing I want you guys to keep in mind is that chances are, if you're in DBT, you're struggling with your emotions, and regulating your emotions. So non judgmental thinking is super important if you want to be better at regulating your emotions.
Because if you start judging a situation, it's like throwing logs on the emotional fire. And it just makes the emotions more intense. So if you think about somebody, and you start to, you know, ramp yourself up by saying, oh, man, he's such a jerk, and I can't stand him. He's such an idiot. Why did he do that? What's wrong with him?
The more you keep layering that on, like, the more upset you're going to get, okay?
So if you catch yourself in that mode, it's time to step back and try to get back to a non judgmental stance.
If you're non judgmental, it's like, it's letting the emotional fire die back down. It doesn't make it worse. Like we say, in distress tolerance, it kind of just lets it pass.
Whereas you keep reigniting it, if you keep bringing the emotions, I mean, in the the judgments back.
So here's a little test for us. A little practice. So here's a few pictures that it's probably pretty easy to judge.
Alright, so just notice right now the judgments that might be coming to your mind as you look at these three pictures, okay. And it's okay, if you're judging most people do, but just recognize the fact that those are facts are just your judgments. So next, try to look at the pictures again. And then try to observe them in a non judgmental way. What kind of words would you put to them? If you were being non judgmental? You would just describing like, we say, in the what skills, what's actually in these pictures, okay? And you might come up with something very different. And the feeling you get judging them versus not judging them might be very different.
The next house skill is one mindfully, okay? So this is about eliminating the multitasking that we often do, which kinda could create more stress for us, and to try to slow it down and do one thing at a time, mindfully.
Okay, so like the picture there. Let's say you're Enjoying a bowl of strawberries, okay, and you really just like, enjoy taking in the experience of eating the strawberry one at a time as you eat each one.
Sometimes when we eat, and I know I can be accused of this too, I'm doing multiple things, maybe I'm eating and watching TV, or eating, and I'm playing on my tablet, or I'm eating and talking to somebody you're eating and working at my computer, okay? So it's hard to be mindful when you're doing a lot of things at once. So if you try to slow it down, do one thing at a time, you can get that benefit of a mindfulness practice doing that activity. So that's super important one mindfully.
And if you find that if you're trying to do that one activity and you get distracted, it's okay, you just let it go. And bring your mind back to that one thing. Okay, and, as we talked about, with focused attention, which is one of the three pillars of mind, this helps to calm and center the mind. So doing one mindful practices with focused attention, kind of like, gives us more clarity, more calm.
Alright, so here's some examples. All right. So when we do mindfulness practice in a one mindful way, we might choose to just focus on our breath, right, our breath is always with us, it's always available for us to focus on. And you can even narrow it down by saying,
Well, I'm just going to focus on the breath. I'm at the point of my nostrils, and just the feel of it in and out right there.
Or you might say, Well, I'm just gonna focus on the parts of my body that are moving each time I breathe in and out and settle your mind there, maybe feeling your lungs or your belly move in and out. Another thing is, if you do a mindfulness practice with your eyes wide open, which might help, especially if you're too much in your head right now, just focus on one thing in the room. If you have a candle mitt, like in the picture, just focus on the candle, it might be a spot on the floor, it might be someone's shoe, whatever it is, just focus on that one spot. And if you get distracted, bring it back to that one spot.
Okay, so this is a little more grounding, because your eyes are open.
Another thing you could try is a mantra. So what is a mantra?
A mantra is a word or phrase that you would repeat over and over again, during a mindfulness practice.
In the picture on the right, on that symbol there, it's the word own, which is a popular one.
And you can say owned yourself over and over, is also another one a little longer own money pad may home, this other ones in other languages, but you could also do English.
Okay, one of the advantages of doing ones in other languages is you may not have any emotional associations to it.
Like, if you did the word peace, that's a word that you know very well in English. But if you did, um, it's kind of a neutral word. So maybe it wouldn't trigger anything for you. It's just kind of something neutral, you're gonna try to say, again, every time your mind wanders from that mantra, or word or phrase, you just bring it back to the mantra.
It gives you something, something for your mind to do and focus on the settle your mind in a one mindful way. Okay, the third part of the house skills is effectively, okay, so I see this is most associated with wise mind, of course, when we do mindfulness practice, and we do, what skills and how skills, it helps us to get into wise mind. That's one of the real good bonuses about it.
So as well as doing it during a mindfulness practice, it has a bonus of clearing our minds so that we can make wise mind decisions. Okay, so being effective is super important. And this involves some different things, I just put a few components here. S
One is focusing on our goals and values.
What's the big picture here is the action I'm about to take, going to lead me closer to my goals are further away from my goals. Right, let's say I'm in the hospital I want to get discharged is this action I'm going to take gonna bring me closer to discharge or further away from discharge. Right? The next one is letting go of ego that means like letting go of your selfish concerns are things that kind of revolve around you and your personal needs, in a kind of very self focused sort of a way. So sometimes, you know, it pays to just let go of being right, or letting go of having the last word, or letting go of just having your way just for the sake of having your way.
Sometimes it's more effective in an interpersonal situation, to be more flexible in that regard. And it's better to like give up something to get something. Finally, so not Finally, but playing by the rules. You know, sometimes we get ourselves in trouble and create so much more stress in our life, because we're not playing by the rules. Right? Like if I'm in the hospital, and I decide I want to smoke and then I get caught, then I get in trouble.
Where I live is a privilege, it's going to create so much more stress for me, or it, let's say, I'll get caught with cigarettes. And now they're patting me down, and they're searching me and they're searching my room. And I can be really upset about that, that's going to create more, much more emotional light, right. But if I played by the rules, and I recognize if I have cigarettes, this is gonna happen, you know, it might eliminate that whole thing. Right? Or if I'm in the community, and I decide to speed down the highway 80 miles an hour, and then I get caught by a cop, I might be really pissed off that I have a ticket now. Right?
But if I play by the rules, and was generally in the speed limit, that wouldn't happen. Okay, so that's a great way to be effective and eliminate a whole lot of unnecessary stress.
Next, of course, use your skills, especially DBT skills, okay? If you're acting skillfully in the situation you're in. And when you're clear about what that situation is, it's going to have a much better chance of leading to a positive outcome than if you do something that involves your target behaviors or other kinds of impulsive behaviors. And finally focusing on the long term rather than just the short term.
So this is tied into the focusing on your goals, right? So it's thinking of consequences, and not just what's going to make me feel good right now. But what's going to also benefit me down the road. I recently heard a talk by somebody named Matt Khan, who's a really great speaker, I definitely check him out on YouTube. And he says, with this choice, whose life Am I improving? That's kind of a way to think about it, right? If I do this, am I really improving my life? Am I improving someone else's life? Hmm, good question. Right. Okay. So that's the effectively. And with that, we completed the house skills. did pretty good today. Not too long, but short and sweet, but really important. Okay?
So be mindful, use your what skills, your house skills, try to put it all together and be patient with the progress because it takes a little while. But these are the core mindfulness skills that are going to get you going, that I'm going to get you to be able to practice mindfulness and reap all the benefits that can come from mindfulness.
All right, so good luck with everything, and I'll see you the next time. Bye, guys.
