First off, mindful is one of those therapy words that gets thrown around but sometimes misunderstood. For the purposes of this, mindfulness is defined as being aware of your thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and actions in the present moment…but here’s the kicker: WITHOUT judging or criticizing yourself or your experience.

1. Mindfulness skills will help you focus on one thing at a time in the present moment, and by doing this you can better control and soothe your overwhelming emotions.

You might try a simple observation of what we are sensing or experiencing without trying to describe it with words, bring it to a faster end, or make it last longer. Try doing this the next time you brush your teeth. By working out this mindful muscle, eventually you can become aware of what is happening when life feels overwhelming but is actually manageable. You just have to slow down to see/hear/feel it.

2. Mindfulness will help you learn to identify and separate judgmental thoughts from your experiences. These judgmental thoughts often fuel your overwhelming emotions.

Using words or thoughts we can describe an experience, event, or emotion. The idea behind this is to label it as a fact, thought, feeling, or opinion. Once this occurs, we now have the ability to separate what we think/feel from what may actually be going on.

3. Mindfulness will help you develop a skill that’s very important in dialectical behavior therapy called wise mind.

The wise mind is the blending of reason and emotion in order to make healthy life decisions. It’s important to take our feelings into consideration but it is not effective to let our feelings motivate us all of the time. An example of using the wise mind quickly can be seen in road rage. Many people experience feelings of anger and frustration on the road. If we are mindful of the facts, we can take into account the fact that in a vehicle it is dangerous and while the emotional mind may want to honk or tailgate, the rational mind knows the consequences of those actions.  We use our wise mind to refrain from retaliating in a way that would be dangerous to other drivers on the road.

Some core mindfulness skills include being nonjudgmental towards our own thoughts and emotions, focusing on one thing at a time without distractions, and effectively doing what works in a situation (even if it’s not easy).

Comment below: What will you try doing mindfully today?