Mindfulness and skills

 

I realize this "graph" looks like major shit, but I couldn't do it any other way. I seriously need a new computer. Lol.

This is supposed to depict a mindfulness graph. First, what is mindfulness? Mindfulness is being in the present moment without rejecting or judging the moment and having no attachment to that moment. All too often you read about job postings where one of the skills listed to the job is having the ability to multitask. To be blunt, mindfulness is not multitasking as if you are focusing on the moment, you focus on the one thing that is going on. Everyone has heard the line where "if you want to do things right, do it the first time." You are unable to do this if you are multitasking. 

On Asana.com, there is an article on why multitasking is a myth and doesn't work. Multitasking causes people to overwork and burn out, causing more mistakes and more time when multitasking. Human beings are not mentally capable of multitasking as our brains can only focus on one thing at a time. When you are driving, it is not smart to be texting and driving as it causes quite a few accidents. You are not an effective driver if you are doing two things at once. It is probably why it is now an offense to be caught texting and driving because of the number of accidents caused.

There are more articles located on Psychology Today, Brain World Magazine, and NPR.org that provide other evidence of our inability to multitask and be effective.

That being said, mindfulness can sometimes be difficult to do, especially if our emotions get in the way. In the above graph, there are the numbers 0-100 which is where we might find our emotions at.

For example, if you spotted a bear, you are not going to tell yourself, "How can I be mindful in this situation?" Yeah, that's not going to happen unless you really want to be possibly attacked by a bear. You are going to slowly back up and walk away, or you may have to run and climb a tree. Your ability to be not emotional isn't going to work in this case, as your emotions are probably really high. You are going to use whatever tools you can to get away from the bear.

The squiggly line is the skills breakdown point in mindfulness. Anything above a 70 is that we may not have the ability to think rationally as our emotions are high. Skills used in this area are called "Distress Tolerance" and yes, fight or flight is one of them. Anything below a 70 is where someone would use "Emotion Regulation" and "Interpersonal Effectiveness" skills. 

Distress Tolerance skills are used when we need to bring our high emotions back down. These are skills to help us get through an emotional or stressful situation and be unable to see a way around the situation that is causing distress. These skills are only used to help in times where emotions feel out of control and the ability to be able to bring ourselves to a place where we can be calm. Does it work all of the time? Hopefully, it does. At the very least, distress tolerance skills keep us from making shit worse.

Emotion regulation skills are used to keep our emotions before our emotions get above 70. We don't want to make shit worse or have emotions really high as using distress tolerance skills are things that are used when we are in crisis. It is not meant to be a permanent state. If we are in crisis all of the time, we are never going to be effective in our daily lives, relationships, careers, school, and anything else that keeps us from being effective. 

Interpersonal effectiveness skills help with our relationships, our wants, and needs, and are things in our lives a priority or a demand while building self-respect and mastery. 

This is just a quick and dirty explanation of what this graph means. Just to be clear, even if we are having high emotions or things are fine, we are constantly trying to practice mindfulness.  Don't worry, I will explain this further. Or try to read Marsha Linehan's material and/or attend a DBT group. It is worth it.

*Yes, I spelled "effectiveness" wrong on the chart. Lol.