30 Days of Me: #8/30

Day 8: A Short-Term Goal You Have & Why

Currently one of my main goals that I am practicing daily is mindfulness. Mindfulness is a mental state achieved by focusing on awareness surrounding the present moment.  It includes acknowledging and accepting ones emotions, thoughts, and body sensations but not dwelling on them for any length of time. It includes the "how" skills of observing, describing, and participating plus the "what" skills of non-judgementally, one-mindfully, and effectively.

Mindfulness is a major part of dialectical behavior therapy as it helps make the other three areas of DBT (interpersonal skills, emotion regulation, and distress tolerance) possible. I try to practice mindfulness daily in both simple and more complex parts of my day and life. Practicing mindfulness may mean something as simple as clearing my mind the shower and focusing only on the water, how it sounds, how it feels, the temperature, the amount. It may also mean something like labeling my emotions then letting them go. It may also mean trying to see different perspectives of an event by looking at the facts, not forming judgments or opinions. It may also be playing soccer with my girls and husband, eating a sandwich in silence, meditation, or even writing this blog post. It's about embracing the moment.

I'm working on mindfulness for several reasons. I'm working on it so that I can be more present in my life. Over the last six months, I've spent so many moments, hours, and days stuck inside my head and not really active in the moments in my life. I'm working on it so that I can have better awareness and control over my emotions. I often become overwhelmed with emotions and can't figure them out, but if I am more mindful I will hopefully be better at seeing triggers, patterns, and identifying emotions. I'm working on mindfulness so that I can stop being impulsive, speaking out of anger, and ruining relationships. I've made family angry, lost friends, and caused tension with many people because of these moments of "word vomit." Hopefully with mindfulness will come the ability to be more aware of my emotions, letting go of things in the past, and realizations when I need to walk away and come back to something I might regret if I speak immediately.

I'm looking forward to my journey into mindfulness!