The Three Components of Mindfulness
United States Department of Homeland Security
Key Points
- Applied mindfulness involves 3 processes.
- Observe one mindfully, or awareness, is the sensory component.
- Describe nonjudgmentally, or acceptance, is the verbal component.
- Participate effectively, or being intentional and using skills, is the behavioral component.
- Mindfulness boils down to awareness, acceptance, and action.
Materials Downloads
Transcript
Greetings and welcome to the second video in this module. In the previous video, we contrasted mindlessness vs mindfulness and explained why and how mindfulness is such a powerful agent of change. In this video, we will look at the 3 building blocks of what it takes to become a mindful person: awareness, acceptance, and action. So, let’s get started.
We can break down this whole idea of mindfulness into 3 basic components. The first component is to observe one mindfully. Let’s break that component into the 2 subcomponents of what does it mean to observe, and then what does it mean to do that one mindfully. Let’s start off talking about what it means to observe. Observe means to notice with the 5 senses, and not just the 5 senses but really to notice with the entire body.
Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT skills training manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.,Muesse, M. W. (2011). Practicing mindfulness: An introduction to meditation. The Teaching Company.
In other words, the 5 senses plus all other sensations. The 5 senses refer to sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing, but we actually have many sensations above and beyond the 5 senses, such as pressure and temperature, and balance. We can also notice our breathing and our heart rate, etc. All of these other sensations combined, we call that the felt sense. So that’s what we mean by observing, observing our senses but also observing our sensations.
Linehan, M. M. (2015). DBT skills training manual (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.,Muesse, M. W. (2011). Practicing mindfulness: An introduction to meditation. The Teaching Company.
