66 The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook
knew it,” he thought, “I knew she wasn’t really interested in me.” But at the expense of being right,
Lee’s unmindfulness and self-criticism had cost him another opportunity to meet a potential friend.
WHY ARE MINDFuLNESS SKILLS IMPORTANT?
Now that you have a better idea of what mindfulness is—and isn’t—it’s probably easy to see why
this skill is so important. But for the purposes of this workbook, let’s be very clear about why you
need to learn mindfulness skills. There are three reasons:
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.2. Mindfulness will help you learn to identify and separate judgmental thoughts from your
experiences. These judgmental thoughts often fuel your overwhelming emotions.3. Mindfulness will help you develop a skill that’s very important in dialectical behavior
therapy called wise mind (Linehan, 1993a).Wise mind is the ability to make healthy decisions about your life based on both your ratio-
nal thoughts and your emotions. For example, you’ve probably noticed that it’s often difficult—or
impossible—to make good decisions when your emotions are intense, out of control, or contradict
what’s rational. Similarly, it’s often difficult to make informed decisions when your thoughts are
intense, irrational, or contradict how you feel. Wise mind is a decision-making process that bal-
ances the reasoning of your thoughts with the needs of your emotions, and it is a skill that will
be discussed further in chapter 4.
ABOuT THIS CHAPTER
Throughout this chapter and the next, you’ll be presented with exercises to help you become more
mindful of your moment-to-moment experiences. This chapter will introduce you to beginning
mindfulness exercises to help you observe and describe your thoughts and emotions more carefully.
In dialectical behavior therapy, these are called “what” skills (Linehan, 1993b), meaning they’ll
help you become mindful of what you’re focusing on. Then in the next chapter, you’ll be taught
more advanced mindfulness skills. In dialectical behavior therapy, these are called “how” skills
(Linehan, 1993b), meaning they’ll help you learn how to be both mindful and nonjudgmental in
your daily experiences.
The exercises in this chapter will teach you four “what” skills:
1. To focus more fully on the present moment2. To recognize and focus on your thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations