Mindfulness Part Three: The Power of Presence & Learning to Participate

Clinical Director Jessica Heil and Associate Director of DBT Services and DBT Clinician Travis Hauck continue their series on the Mindfulness 'What' Skills. This episode features the Participate skill, which helps to teach us how to simply be in the moment. If you haven't yet listened to the previous two 'What' Skills, please head to episodes 16 and 17 to catch up.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Inner Solutions Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Heil. I own and operate Inner Solutions, a private practice clinic located in Calgary, Canada. Inner Solutions seeks to understand and help our clients by providing empirically supported treatments and evidence-based practices with compassion and expertise. This podcast will provide you with information regarding complex psychological conditions as well as treatments that are available.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for having me back.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Today we're going to talk about participate. And I'm super excited for this one. I think this is probably my favorite of the mindfulness skills, I'd say, because this is the one where I notice that when I throw myself into participate, I generally experience a lot of positive emotion, which is like a neat experience. Obviously, we all want to feel a little bit more positive emotion in our lives.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Yeah, I talk about that quite regularly with folks as well, that we have this ability to find and experience so much joy at uh at the different flow states that we can get in when we're really participating and engaging with our life around us.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Absolutely. So this is still one of the DBT what skills. If you remember for listeners, if you recall from our first mindfulness episode of the series that we're doing, we had talked about how there are mindfulness what skills and then mindfulness how skills. In previous episodes, we talked about the mindfulness what skills of observe and describe. Today is that third what skill, third and final what skill, which is participate. That being said, Travis, how would you define what the DBT skill of participate is?

SPEAKER_01 1:54

I think most often I describe it as a flow state. It's moving from observing and describing into participating fully in the moment with letting go of an outcome. It's if you've ever been in like I think of a sport quite often, where we can get in the zone. When I think about someone saying they're in the zone, whether it's like Badminton, volleyball, any really any sport that you can think of, there's a sweet spot where we're not thinking about ourselves. We're not thinking about the the game itself. We're just allowing ourselves to do the activity and be part of the moment. And it just kind of happens. And there's a point where we're in it, and then there's a point where we lose it, and a point where we're in it, and a point where we lose it. And it's just this continual practice of starting over and throwing ourselves in again and again.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Definitely. It's that like getting in the zone, it's being in flow, it's being fully immersed in whatever experience that we're having in this moment.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

I'll often explain participate as when I'm dancing and I'm dancing in a public space, I'll often close my eyes while I'm dancing and kind of pretend that I'm dancing alone in my living room. And when I'm in flow state, the the way in which I dance is different than when I remember that there's people around me. When I remember that there's people around that may or may not be watching, my self-consciousness comes into play and I start analyzing, judging, considering how I look, what I'm doing, this and that, and I lose my participation in the moment. When we're in the flow, in that zone, there's this free-flowing experience that happens, this trusting that whatever is happening is exactly what's meant to be happening in that moment. There's a nuanced experience of trusting that everything is exactly how it's meant to be. And it's a beautiful experience when it's present.

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, it it truly is. It is, I think, I think about freedom when it comes to truly being in a participatory mode. I'm not feeling self-conscious, I'm not experiencing any judgments. There's generally very little, if if any, self-talk going on. Like I'm just present. My mind and my body are aligned on the same activity. And it's just sort of happening. I'm, yeah, just in, I'm gonna use that word again, that flow state where I'm really just not thinking about anything. I'm just doing.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, and I think it's the middle path between the doing mode and the being mode of I'm just doing this activity. And while that's happening, I'm also being with the activity, being fully present, being in my wisdom. Like wise mind has to be present in that participatory practice where one mindfulness is there, mind and body are in the same place at the exact same time and really just in the experience as it is, without judgment, without criticism, without you've said self-talk, and I think that's one of the pieces that really stands out to me when the experts talk about it so often is that to be in participate, we must block self-talk.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

Yes. And I think that's a great addition that you added there, that it's like we when you meant, I'm gonna come back to what you said, uh, that's not just doing, it's it's this idea of doing mind and being minds. We're kind of actually bringing in a few other DBT skills that are less talked about actually, but still just as important. There is a difference between doing mindfully and doing mindlessly, like on autopilot. We are not talking about just being in an activity and engaged in it, uh, but not really being present to it. That would be more of like an autopilot. It would be mindless. Uh, that's not participating. Participating is truly being present with it and staying aware that you're doing this thing without necessarily having any internal pressure of I need to get on to the next task or the next event or the next activity. Like we are really in this moment now, presently, and not thinking about past or or future either.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Yeah, I really think of it as embodying and being grounded into this moment with all that is, and and just being really part of that presence in just a such a deep way that I don't think there's any other experience that you can get. And I think the real goal of present moment awareness and mindfulness is to find flow state as often as we possibly can.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yeah. And why would we do that? What's the benefit of trying to be in flow state more often than we perhaps currently are?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

I think you mentioned part of it, like there's a humongous reinforcer in being in flow. When we're in flow state, we have the ability of being really one-mindful, being in wisdom. And there is this experience of pleasantness, often joy or experiences that have been so hard, maybe if we've struggled with mental health, depression, those kind of things that block us from being part of moments and stand in our way. Participate is the skill for those circumstances when avoidance is arising, impulsivity or experiences of the mind telling us that we can't do certain activities because of this, this, and this. When we decide and actually make a decision to fully engage and participate, to throw ourselves in, jumping off the edge and just being in this moment, there's there's a presence, there's a nature that's different. And it's so hard to describe because it is such an experience to just be with and to that that's so different than the other opportunities or the moments that we typically will experience in our day-to-day.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

For sure. I and I think we well, I know actually everybody at some point has experienced this. They probably just don't have a word for it. I think that some of the most common experiences that many people will be like, oh yeah, like I've experienced that before that we could speak about would be things like if anybody has ever been engaged in sports before and they're they're in their sport, they're immersed in that moment. Let's say that whether it's like a team sport and you're on the field or on the ice or whatever it might be, and you're just playing your sport. You're not thinking about anything else, you're just focused on the game, there's no self-consciousness, you're just doing and being at the same time. I also think about people who might be involved in, say, like the arts or theater and in those moments where they're just they're just with their activity, whatever it is, and they're they're not thinking about being with their activity, they're just in it.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, I think you're totally on to it. There's this ability in that moment where I experience as an absence of thought where I'm not really thinking or analyzing, I'm not assessing circumstances, just in that moment where whatever is happening is happening. I think of bike riding, for instance. If I'm mountain biking and I'm participating in the moment, I'm not thinking about what's to come. I'm not thinking about how I look or what the experience is like. I'm not thinking about when lunch is gonna be. I'm in the moment, mind, body, spirit, and soul. All of it is just right here, right now, and it's happening, and I'm with every moment that arises and everything that is present. I am just so fully present, so fully engaged and so fully one with that experience.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Yeah, absolutely. Would you be able to describe how one might get into that flow state, into participating? Because I think that sometimes it's it can be easier to describe it and can be easy enough to explain to people what it might feel like like in times where they've been there in the past. But I think to intentionally try to cultivate that space of participation can sometimes be challenging. Are there any really tangible steps that one might be able to take that would increase the likelihood that they might be able to start to participate?

SPEAKER_01 10:10

I think how it's often described is that there's kind of four processes that are important when it comes to participating. And it's like deciding what the activity is, and in deciding, there's a an intention that's being set of I will practice mindfulness with this particular activity. There's a kind of an assessment or an analysis that happens of thinking through the steps prior, like what needs to be accomplished in this. There's a there's an analysis of how I will practice, right? How I will engage in the activity in some sort of capacity. And we might want to analyze where the potholes, the problems might arise, what might pull me out of participation. And not necessarily that we're going into problem solving, however, that we're trying as best as possible to know what pivot might be effective in that circumstance to throw ourselves in. So there's setting the intention, there's assessment of the experience, and uh accepting that there's gonna be a risk associated, meaning that the likelihood is we're gonna attempt an activity participatorily, and as we participate in that event, there's gonna be an experience likely where it doesn't go exactly according to plan. And so accepting that it's not gonna be perfect, because there is no perfect, that's not the nature of reality, is part of the step so that we can get into practice, knowing that practice is the way to mastery. And that by accepting that there's going to be times where it doesn't go exactly according to plan, is the practice. When we throw ourselves into the activity, we're just doing and being with the experience. And as we do that, we're letting go of outcome as best as possible. So we're in a mindful term, we're non-striving, meaning that we're not going into it with a particular goal other than presence, letting go of this idea that it needs to be a certain way, that I need to achieve a certain speed or statistic or those kind of concepts, because there's evaluation in that. And we're non-judging, we're allowing it to be as it is, one-bodied mind and uh and body. So our brain and our body are in the exact place at the exact moment, doing the exact thing without needing it to be a particular way. It's an allowance, a letting be and a letting it arise exactly as it is.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

I'm having a thought about where this particular skill will connect so well with a skill we haven't actually yet spoken about. So I'll say to listeners, stay tuned when we get around to doing our non-judgment podcast episode, because the I think the the tricky part, and we're gonna we're gonna talk about troubleshooting here in a little bit. So I'm giving a bit of a preview to that as well. But the the hard part with participating is that piece of letting go, like assuming that it letting go of assuming that something should look a certain way, those judgments of like, oh, I'm not doing it right, can really take us out of flow state. And so learning how to be able to acknowledge when a judgment arises and actually let it go is really, really important as part of this practice.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

I mentioned like almost blocking self-talk earlier. And sometimes thought blocking is going to be one of the most effective things to use in that because when thought arises in a participate practice, what we're actually asking participants to do is notice that we've lost flow. Notice that there is thinking that is involved in this moment, and that thinking is distracting from the practice, and then begin going back to grounding by observing and describing those two base skills that we were talking about earlier in other podcasts, that we can get back into our engagement with the participation practice. We can be in that moment by actively going back to just noticing with curiosity, describing the experience as we start again, and then letting go of it needing to be a particular way and going back to that flow, that allowance, the letting be kind of experience that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

I want to talk a little bit about what's what might be an experiential practice that those who are listening might be able to engage in. And yet it's it's funny because I'm I'm well aware that it's hard to run a participation practice online when we are not live and and people might be listening to this whenever, right? It could be sometime soon after we have recorded this and it could be months from now. So tricky to do participation when we're not kind of in that present moment together. So I'm wondering if maybe we can apply some effectiveness to doing a participation exercise, and perhaps you can walk our listeners through how we might be able to engage with participation with just like a common activity that most people are likely to do at some point in their near future. Would that be okay?

SPEAKER_01 15:38

A couple pop into my mind. One that could be more accessible for some folks might be like participating in mindful walking. We can observe mindfulness and presence in walking when we're bringing curiosity to the points in which our feet are connecting with the earth, where the movements happen, how we fall forward with each step, and that there's there's a kind of a constant progression that's happening and a tension in certain areas. And we can practice the describe skill by practicing and noticing the areas in which and actually putting words to the things that we have observed with that curious beginner's mind. And then to participate in that flow state is to allow all of those things to happen and let go of the words that come to mind. And it's it would take an intention again, right? A decision that says, for this period, for this walk down the hallway, I'm going to, as best as possible, set the intention to participate as fully as I can, to let go of thinking mind and to be in the moment. It might take some analysis and then some understanding of like what problems might arise. So assessing if the mind wanders, when the thinking mind comes online again, how we might non-judgmentally, one mindfully notice and gently bring our minds back without criticism and ridicule, without a harshness and a gentleness, a compassionate way, and then to engage fully in the activity again, to allow ourselves to be present with it, to take each step, moving it forward without needing the steps to be a certain way. And some people might even choose to practice participating in mindful walking by maybe walking a little bit differently than they normally would, or finding that ability to allow it to happen and trusting that each step they take is as heavy as it's meant to be, is as wide as it's meant to be, as fast as it's meant to be, without deciding how fast. The decisions in participate are let go of. And there is flow state. There is a trusting that the earth is going to catch me each time I step, no matter how it is. And sometimes that takes setting it up, right? That we're not walking on areas that are uneven where we're likely to fall. So we accept risk in that and assume that we're not going to experience difficulties. And when they happen, they happen and we start again.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

Are there other things that you think would be important for folks to consider when it comes to potentially troubleshooting? Like when participation, we we set the intention to do it and it goes awry. Are there other ways to bring us back to be able to start again and perhaps have an effective experience of doing that?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I think in many ways there are some potholes that we might run into in engagement and participating. I think there's opportunity for us to recognize what might block us. And I think of the multiple disorders that we work with in clinic, where it might be that avoidance stays in the way of our participation in the moment with activities that block us because the mind might say with a maybe anticipatory anxiety of this needs to go a certain way, I can't start unless it's going to be perfect. I can't stand failure, those kind of ideas that might block or get in the way. And then we don't engage in the activity. And when we don't engage in those activities, the difficulty in that is then we're kind of reinforcing a habit, right? As we reinforce that habit, if we've experienced anxiety or a stress response from the activity prior to starting, and we decide whether intentionally or not to avoid it, what ends up happening is most often people are going to experience some sense and some semblance of relief, uh, a settling in their emotion mind that comes back to a peacefulness in some sort of way. And that that relief is reinforcing. So jumping in, right, we we have to decide I'm going to intentionally not avoid. We can get pulled away from practice about those intentions with emotion mind that arises, right? Mood states. We treat mood-dependent motivation so often in therapy, where it sometimes takes setting the intention and choicefully, mindfully choosing and saying, this is the activity that I'm going to engage with, especially for those clients that are maybe struggling with deep depressions that are persistent or are debilitating, keeping them out of engaging in activities. Participate is the action of doing behavioral activation, which is one of the therapeutic styles and strategies that work so well with depression. Because we ask people to engage fully in the moment as best as possible in small shaping ways. And what can stand in the way is my brain telling me I can't, or the emotion of say it is depression, that walking through tar experience is likely to make it feel like it's harder. And I'll remind everyone that feelings aren't facts. They feel big, and we can we can do different than our emotions are telling us. We can do different than our thoughts are telling us, we can do different than the urges are telling us. Easier said than done. And it's definitely a practice. We have DVD skills for this in other areas, and these are life skills to throw ourselves into the moment so that we can experience that joy that is present in each and every moment that arises.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

So true. Yes. Everything that you just said there, I'm just sitting, nodding vigorously, because I I agree. It's it's tough to do, and it's a practice. The more that we practice, the more likely these skills are going to be able to start to show up for us consistently and when we're going to really need them. And it's still hard. I think ultimately at the end of the day, it still can be really tough to do it, but it is absolutely worth it because what do you get out of being able to participate more? You get this really full, rich life with a wide array of different emotions that you can experience and be able to learn how to tolerate. And in some like sometimes emotions can be really beautiful. Again, knowing that participating can open up the capacity for us to experience things like joy and awe and really feel alive. I really think that there's so much to gain out of practicing the skill so that the fruits of your labor will be much more uh readily available to you after you've been able to practice and be able to experience life with that wide spectrum, right, of emotions that uh is part of the human experience.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

And most of the time when I'm talking about participate, I like to add in in my clinical experience and my personal experience and my practice, I recognize that the ways through anxiety, especially like social anxieties, that might block and cause those avoidance strategies to arise, that the solution to depression often lies with participation, often lies with mindfulness, where we can be in the moment non-judgmentally, one-mindfully, and as effectively as we possibly can, where we can be one with this doing and being mode all at once. And that it does, it comes with joy because so often we are we are missing out on experiences through mindlessness. And the agenda underneath all mindfulness practices is to be one with it, to be present, no matter pleasant or unpleasant. And so if I could offer any encouragement to the listeners, it would be as best as possible, choose an activity. And it actually doesn't matter what the activity is, whether it's washing hands, whether it's washing dishes, whether it's making coffee, whether it's mindfully walking, whether it's breathing with intention for three minutes in a day, the quality of that practice will improve with quantity of practice. And so what's most important is engagement and setting the intention, throwing ourselves in and practicing, right? We we can talk about it all day long, and we get more out of experiential practice than anything else in mindfulness.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

100%. Yeah, we can talk about it all day long. It's the practice that is going to make the difference. I think that is a lovely place for us to stop for today. Our challenge to all of you listeners is that you're going to take this information and you're going to go practice. Because again, hearing it is very, very different than living it. So go try this out. If it goes well the first time, amazing. Maybe that gives you a bit of energy to go try it again and again. If you try it and you find it doesn't go the way that you were anticipating, that's okay. We're going to acknowledge that and then try more. And the more that you do it, the better you'll become. And with time, this skill will be something that is within your repertoire. Thank you, Travis, so much for joining me again. We have officially completed our series on the what skills. And I'm so excited to be able to jump into the how skills with you in future episodes.

SPEAKER_01 25:32

Amazing. Thank you again.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Thanks so much for listening. If you found today's episode helpful, please go ahead and leave us a review. And you can also follow the show so that you don't miss out on any future episodes. For more information about us, you can check out our website, www.innersolutions.ca.