This Week in Adolescent and Family Group...

This week in Adolescent and Family DBT group, we reviewed the Three States of Mind (Emotion mind, Reasonable mind, and Wise mind) and taught the What skills.  The What skills have to do with what you can do when you "hit the pause button" of mindfulness.  Mindfulness is an active skill, not passive; therefore when you "hit the pause button" of mindfulness, you can Observe, Describe and Participate.  Observe means to just notice your experience, for example, watching your thoughts and feelings come and go like clouds in the sky.  Describe means to words on your experience, such as, "I feel anxious right now."  Participate means to throw yourself fully into an experience, without being self-conscious.  For example, playing baseball without worrying if you are holding the baseball bat correctly.  The homework for this week is to use one What skill to help get into Wise Mind.