Mindfulness of Others: Through a DBT Lens

Mindfulness of Others: Through a DBT Lens

By Nikita Patel, Psy.D.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” The moral of this infamous metaphor we’re told as children is to be curious to those around us rather than assuming we know everything about everyone. 

Sounds pretty simple, no?

Heightened emotions and inflexible beliefs can make it difficult to meet new people or be vulnerable with others. Mindfulness of others is a skill from DBT that helps us to be more present in our interactions with others in order to help build new relationships and strengthen existing ones.

Marsha Linehan, the creator of DBT, outlined what we can do in order to be more mindful. She defines mindfulness as the act of being fully aware and present in each moment. The following three skills are what to do to be more mindful:

Observe:

Notice through your five senses and pay attention to your internal world without holding on or pushing away emotions or thoughts

Describe:

Stick to just the facts and label what you’ve observed

Participate:

Throw yourself fully into each moment as it comes

We can incorporate these skills into interactions with others.

Imagine being invited to a birthday dinner where you only know the host and one other person. You are seated next to someone you don’t know and would love to get to know them.

Observe: Be curious and open. Take in through your senses, nonverbal body language, and facial expressions, what the other person is saying and doing. If you notice judgments about yourself or the person, notice them and let them go. Sometimes when we experience intense emotions when speaking with someone new, our focus turns inward. This can reflect outwardly like we are uninterested and negatively impact the dynamic of the interaction. Additionally, we can lose sight of what the other person is saying or doing because we are too focused on ourselves. Refocus your attention back to them, observing what you see and hear, and let go of urges to plan what you’re going to say or do next. Put down the phone! In order to be more present with others, we need to let go of distractions.

Describe: Once you’ve observed what you are seeing and hearing from the other person as well as your own emotions and thoughts, label them as just that. “I’m having the judgment that this person does not think I’m funny;” “I’m feeling anxious;” “I see that they started talking to the person across the table.” It can be easy to jump to assumptions about yourself or the other person. Stop! We can’t observe another person’s inner workings, including how they feel, their thoughts, or their intentions. Given that, avoid interpreting the situation and give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Go back to being curious and open. Judgments and assumptions take us out of and skew the current reality. Acting on assumptions often makes the situation worse and hinders the ability to get to know the other person.

Participate: Allow yourself to go with the flow. Keep at the conversation and let go of judgments, worries, and control. Be one with the interaction.

Understanding Executive Functioning

By: Dr. Nikita Patel, Psy.D.

Do you find yourself putting off errands or tasks unless there is an immediate deadline? Is it difficult for you to organize your thoughts and clearly explain them to someone else? Time management and organization are examples of executive functioning.

Executive functioning refers to the cognitive processes that help us meet the demands of our life. This can look like getting started on an assignment, tolerating anger that intensifies during an argument, and problem-solving when things go wrong. These processes sit in the prefrontal cortex, which is located at the front of the brain. This area is the last to fully develop in your mid 20’s. 

According to Thomas Brown (2005), there are six major areas of executive functioning that work together to help us meet a goal or accomplish a task:

1. Activation This is everything that we do before initiating a task. For example, getting to work requires you to prioritize the task of getting yourself to work on time by getting dressed and ready, organizing your bag, checking the weather, checking traffic or train delays.
2. Action This occurs during the task. For example, when commuting to school or work, it’s helpful to engage in self-monitoring to ensure that you’re on the right train and on time. In addition, you have to be ready to course-correct if your train suddenly goes express by evaluating the change and redirecting to another route.

3. Working Memory This factor is helpful with short-term memory tasks that require us to take in information and manipulate it. Taking notes requires both the capacity to remember what is being said as well as being able to jot down the information for later review. Imagine how much memory is required to engage in a back-and-forth conversation with a friend.

4. Emotion Regulation Can you imagine what would happen if we leaned into all of our emotional urges? The ability to manage and tolerate difficult emotions is important in staying effective towards meeting both short- and long-term goals without derailing from the task at hand.

5. Sustained effort Have you ever found yourself full speed ahead on a task and fatigued halfway through? Effort helps us to sustain our pace while working so we can get through a task.

6. Sustained focus We’ve all drifted into our thoughts during a work meeting or during class. This area helps us to shift our attention to what’s important in the moment and maintain that focus to help us effectively achieve that task.

You may find yourself having trouble in some areas and not others. However, weakness in any of these areas tends to generalize to different aspects of your life. For example, you may find yourself struggling with managing your time at work, with friends, and at home.

You may have noticed that you probably struggled with many of these areas as a child since the prefrontal cortex was still developing. Parents and teachers often took the role of being the source of our executive functioning to help us meet tasks. Think back to all of the reminders you received from parents and teachers to complete chores or homework assignments. If you find yourself having difficulties in any of these areas, there are skills and strategies that you can use to help such as, keeping planners to organize deadlines and events, keeping to-do lists, setting alarms to manage time, and using coping skills to manage intense emotions.

For individualized help, there are executive functioning coaches who can tailor skills to your specific needs. Below are two resources for both children and adolescents and adults:

Children, Adolescents and Adults

Children and Adolescents