Good morning everyone! Moving on with mindfulness! I’ll be starting a new lesson on the “What” skills. The what skills begins to bring awareness to our surroundings, as well as our internal experience. Learning to observe eventually taught me to observe my negative emotions and thoughts, such as anxiety, depression, and manic states. Once I became aware of my thoughts/emotions I was able to go ahead and use skills to help challenge those. Before I started DBT I used to play horrible thoughts in my head on a loop, barely noticing them. I remember being in art class and constantly thinking “is this good? That person hates me. The teacher doesn’t like me. Nobody wants to hangout with me” on a loop! And than wonder why I always felt so bad. With practice, I am now able to recognize my negative self-thinking and combat that, so if I start thinking “what did I do wrong?” I’ll observe that thought and counteract it with the facts, saying “I didn’t do anything wrong.” But it’s easier to start small!
So what is Observe?
Observe is paying attention to the present moment, not thinking about the past or the future. Just what is happening at this moment exactly, more importantly not attaching thoughts to the present moment. If you’re drinking a coffee and practicing observe, you’re only paying attention to the act of drinking the coffee, not focusing on anything else. Not what you have to do today, just drinking coffee. If you start to think of other things, and you observe that, don’t be hard on yourself, just simply let it go.
This is why observe is a lot like meditation. Because you’re letting go of any thoughts, and not judging yourself for “doing it wrong”.
How to practice observe:
I’ll give a couple examples of things i like to observe. You can try practicing these, but if nothing sticks out to you, you can always look up some ideas
Visual:
1. Pick up an object, and just notice all the details of it. Every tiny thing. Like a leaf, you might just see a leaf, but if you closely observe it you’ll notice the veins, the color, the texture, the smell.
2. Observe people- just notice their features. If it helps, try to describe them. “Their nose is round, their eyes are brown. Their forehead is higher. They are smiling, the corners of their mouth are lifted, they have dimples etc.”
Auditory:
1. Listen to a song, and try to dissect it. Picking out every piece of it, focus on the lyrics, the guitar, the drums, or any other instrument you notice.
2. Just listen. What do you observe i. Exactly that moment? Maybe you’re in nature and you hear birds or crickets. Maybe you’re in a city and you can hear cars, voices. Maybe you’re in your room and it sounds quite, but when you listen closely you can hear the hum of the heater or the fridge.
Smell:
1. If you’re cooking or eating, notice the smell of the food. Maybe you can even smell a spice or two you used.
2. Just smell. Similar to listen. Maybe your house has that certain smell, maybe your pillow smells like your perfume/cologne. If you’re outside maybe you smell the earth.
Taste/eating:
1. When drinking tea or coffee try to observe the taste of it. Hold it in your mouth and just notice the sensation of taste. This can be done with anything really!
2. Notice your urge to swallow.
Urges:
1. Notice any urges, maybe the urge to run, maybe the urge to text someone or check your phone. Maybe life hasn’t been going that great and you notice self-harm urges. Don’t act on this urge, just notice it. Let it flow past you. Just notice the urge and watch it drift away, and if you start to feel like you can’t let this urge drift away, come on here for support.
Feel free to try any of these and comment below something you observed!
Today I noticed I was tapping my foot. I noticed my urge to avoid doing productive things.
Hope this helps <3
OCD what to do with it
What's your favorite pick-me-up song? Here's \"Over The Rainbow\"🌈...thx Twinkletoes🍄🐈❣️
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