Mindfulness Skills and DBT Therapy

 

Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT is a complex treatment of personality disorders and other mental illnesses. There are many steps and they are all equally important, but the one that is first in the list is mindfulness.

 

Mindfulness sound a bit like a catch word that people have started to use when discussing meditation and other bits of well-being. And while it has become a bit overused, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t important. The fact that it is overused is a disservice to how important it actually is.

 

Now mindfulness is hard to explain, while at the same time it kind of says what it is in the word itself. It is being mindful of every moment that you are in. While that sounds very easy, and most of us are likely to say that we already do that, I think you’ll find that it’s more difficult and that you don’t do it as often as you think that you do.

 

To be mindful of the current moment you have to accept the situation that you’re in. Sometimes that’s very easy, other times it is extremely difficult. In those times that it’s easy, to be able to smile and say that you’re in the moment and you’re able to handle the things that you’re being given. Most importantly you aren’t able to judge the situation that you’re in. You are just there and you are you and there isn’t any fault to the situation that you are in.

 

However, during the times that are more difficult such as during loss, or a bad day, or day where the snow has totally locked you in your house and you have nothing to do but sit there and think, mindfulness is extremely difficult. It’s hard to be in a situation where you are experiencing pain, and think about just being. It requires not blaming anyone for the situation, to acknowledge that sometimes things happen that are beyond your control.

 

This is just one small part of what DBT is in total, but it is an important part. While everyone should practice being mindful, we often get bogged down in the day to day events of life. When mental illness is part of the equation we can further get locked into our own minds. Learning how to be mindful is an important part of the healing process.