Hello everyone!! I appreciate all the support from my post yesterday! Good news! I cleaned everything I could and feeling a lot better today!
Preface: I am not a therapist! But I’m using my DBT skills Handbook and personal experiences to guide these posts. These skills dramatically changed my mental health, so I’m hoping it will help anyone who needs it!
My previous post on DBT was the Describe skill, which talked about describing our observations on our emotions and external realities. The participation skill really focuses on accepting those realities as they are. This skill took me a lot of practice and I really didn’t understand it until my second round. It’s not like it was a brand new thing though. Even before I started DBT, I would participate when I painted.
The goal of participation is to focus on the moment, because although it seems like we have a lifetimes worth, if we’re always focusing on tomorrow, we lose today. Participation taught me gratitude for the moments I had, while I was living in them. It allowed me to enjoy moments more thoroughly. I used to hate going to concerts, but after learning this skill I really started to like them and enjoy them.
So what is Participation?
Participation is a pretty simple concept, it’s essentially living in the moment. It’s being yourself in the moment you are living. Awareness and enjoyment of it.
Ok so?? How do i do it?
Become immersed in the moment. This happens when I change my mindset. Sometimes when I go dancing, I’m super self conscious about how I look, but once i switch on that participation skill, the moment is for me and not everyone else. I’m enjoying the act of dancing and I don’t give a damn if I look good or not. Remember wise mind? The balance of logic and emotion mind? This comes back in. A huge element of wise mind is being intuitive. I never had dance lessons, actually I’ve always been told I’m a terrible dancer. A huge part of that is I stay in my head “trying to make it look good” and worrying if it does, or if people are laughing at me. However, when I’m at a club with my friends, I don’t care anymore and do my best to challenge those thoughts and just intuitively dance, whatever makes my body feel good. And what’s funny? I actually have a good time! And my confidence makes me a better dancer!
Ok,ok so you got moves. My life isn’t a dance floor. I’m not going clubbing, how do I do this in my life?
Here’s a few ideas from the book!
1. Focus on everything that’s touching you at this moment. Your clothes, how your hair is laying, the feeling of your body against whatever object you may be resting on. Are your feet touching the floor? What does that feel like? Focus on this until that feeling hits. For me that feeling is kind of like happiness, or euphoria. My mind is usually empty in this state.
2. Singing! If you like to sing, or play an instrument, there’s a sense of nothing else in the world matters at that moment. That is participating. Sing in the car, the shower, middle of the woods. With no one else around no one is there to judge you.
3. Ok, ok, maybe singing isn’t your thing. But playing in sports can be an act of participation! Just running and focusing on your breath and the pace of your feet on the ground. Or, if you like to play sports that’s definitely an act of participation.
I was able to participate when I was doing yoga today! Just focusing on my body and my breath and that was it! Feel free to comment a time when you participated!
Hope this helps! <3
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