42 Don’t Let A nxiety Run Your Life
A key aspect of mindfulness is that none of these com-
ponents (observation, acting with awareness, describing,
nonjudgment, or nonreactivity) is sufficient by itself.
Observation alone, for example, doesn’t quite contribute to
mindfulness (Desrosiers et al. 2014). Observation needs to
be coupled with a nonjudgmental and nonreactive disposi-
tion. Furthermore, embracing mindfulness promotes the
cultivation of two related mental processes: decentering and
acceptance. Decentering entails achieving psychological dis-
tance from your thoughts, your emotions, and the surround-
ing environment, and is critical to emotion regulation.
Instead of placing a great deal of importance on worrisome
thoughts about his or her performance during a speech, for
example, a person who uses mindfulness to decenter may
appreciate that these thoughts can pop up without any con-
sequence or need for judgment. Moreover, this leads to
acceptance of emotional states, or not feeling a strong urge to
control and react to them (Hayes et al. 2006). Trying to inte-
grate into your daily life all of these components at once can
certainly be difficult! For that reason, the skills presented in
this book will build on one another. Little by little, we will
present various exercises that will enable you to foster mind-
fulness and mental equanimity.