Terminology Tuesday: Mindfulness
I need to work on this one. Right now. Okay, after I finish writing this.
Believe me, with everything going on in our country lately—especially Minnesota—it is really hard to be present and alert instead of hiding and numbing. I’m tired all the time, but that’s also how things go with perimenopause (or whatever), so we’re just radically accepting everything over here. I know, ultimately, that being mindful is the best thing I can do for myself right now. But why? And am I doing it? Or am I just not being avoidant?
I hope it doesn’t sound like I always do the healthy thing or the best-for-me thing out of the pile of all the things. I don’t. And I’m certainly not chipper and happy about making decisions that are better for me than just hiding in bed for days. It’s just knowing that I’ve tried that before, and it doesn’t work in the long run, so I may as well put in the effort to stay plugged in.
Years ago, I sought counseling because I was having trouble remembering things. Whole conversations, meals, even days were just missing. I thought something was wrong with my memory, maybe something neurological. Maybe I was reaping what I’d sown over the years of drinking all that alcohol. What I eventually learned was that I wasn’t encoding those moments in the first place, because I wasn’t present for them. I was rushing. I was trying to control everything, especially through my eating disorder, grasping at food as the only lever I could pull to calm my life.
I was not being mindful.
That was the fever pitch; the point where control stopped controlling anything. Getting help was what rerouted me onto the path I’m still walking now: retraining my brain, remapping neural pathways, and yes, feeling strangely fine, as Semisonic put it.
When Mindfulness Felt Intolerable
When I first started Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, I hated the mindfulness module. Hated it. I hated what I thought was just too touchy-feely. I hated having to be in a group setting because I was part of the “new” eating disorder cohort of fat people who’d finally been recognized as having something other than “poor willpower.” I didn’t feel like I belonged, though. And I certainly didn’t want to picture myself as a leaf on a stream. I was avoidant, to say the least.
“What are you tasting right now?” Hate.
“What are you smelling right now?” Disappointment.
“What are you feeling right now?” The stupid institutional chair I didn’t want to sit in because someone else got the good spot.
I didn’t want to slow down. I didn’t want to notice things. I definitely didn’t want to feel. (Cue the machine‑gun crying from an earlier article.) To be mindful, back then, meant: once I knew what I was feeling, I was now responsible for doing the “right” thing about it. Judgment was baked in. Action or inaction, there was always a correct and incorrect way to respond.
There was no such thing as an impartial witness. No internal scientist. No neutral ground. Just performance. Just “am I handling this correctly?” I didn’t have what I now call my inner anthropologist—the part of me that can study my own thoughts, words, and deeds with curiosity instead of a red pen. I didn’t have mindfulness; I had preoccupation. And I needed to do some fact-checking.
What Mindfulness Actually Is (for Me)
These days, I define mindfulness much more simply: mindfulness is paying deliberate, nonjudgmental attention to what’s happening right now—in my body, my mind, and around me—without immediately turning it into a problem to solve.
It’s the skill of being inside the moment instead of hovering above it with a clipboard. It sounds like:
“My chest is tight.”
“There’s a sinking feeling in my stomach.”
“I feel heat in my face and an urge to bolt.”
No commentary, no verdict, just data.
I’m not doing so hot at it right now while things are so chaotic.
In DBT language, mindfulness is what lets me see the choice point: that tiny sliver between trigger and response. That’s where skills live. That’s where remapping becomes possible. Without that sliver, everything is just old pathways firing off on schedule. And, I am saying this out loud right now, by giving myself over to the chaos, I rob myself of the points when I get to choose what I want to do.
Analysis vs Experiencing
Here’s where my brain likes to stir the pot: I want to analyze everything in real time. I want to narrate the movie while it’s playing.
When I’m in “analyze everything” mode, I’m in my head:
What does this mean?
How will I explain this later?
How does this fit my story, my work, my patterns?
How can I language this so it makes sense?
That part of me genuinely cares about truth and coherence—but it’s also a control strategy. If I can diagram it, maybe I don’t have to fully feel it. If I can turn it into a paragraph, I don’t have to sit with the un-captioned version.
Experiencing is different. Experiencing sounds like:
“There’s a lump in my throat.”
“My shoulders are up by my ears.”
“I feel grief sitting behind my eyes.”
“My hands want to clench.”
No story. No spin. Just contact.
If analysis is me standing over my life with a clipboard, experiencing is me standing inside my life, getting rained on. One is commentary; the other is participation.
The problem isn’t analysis itself. I need that part—it writes, it teaches, it connects dots. The problem is when I drag analysis into moments that are asking to be felt, not dissected. When I’m sobbing and simultaneously composing a think‑piece on why I’m sobbing, that’s not insight; that’s distance. That’s me trying to stay safe by staying half a step away from my own experience.
Mindfulness, for me, is the negotiated truce between the two:
“Right now, I’m experiencing. I can understand this later.”
It doesn’t exile analysis. It just tells it to wait its turn.
Awareness vs Mindfulness
Which brings me to right now: I am not being very mindful. I am extremely aware—hyperaware, even—but not particularly mindful.
I can see myself doing the thing: explaining in the moment, narrating my own internal state while it unfolds, trying to pin it down so I don’t “lose” it. I can name the patterns, track the functions, lay out the conceptual map. Awareness is not the problem. I’m clocking myself in real time.
But awareness and mindfulness are not the same thing.
Awareness says, “I see that I’m spiraling, and here are four reasons why and three metaphors for it.”
Mindfulness says, “I see that I’m spiraling, and I’m going to stay with the sensations of that for a minute before I do anything else.”
Right now, I keep skipping that second part. I’m like a museum guide sprinting past the paintings, giving accurate descriptions without ever stopping to actually look at the art. I know about my experience; I’m not fully in it. [Hoo boy. I am feeling a little hot and embarrassed about that as I type it. I’m going to sit with that a sec.]
This is what it looks like, in practice, to be aware but not mindful:
I can name my emotions, but I don’t give my body time to feel them before I move to meaning‑making.
I treat every sensation like data for a future essay instead of a thing I’m allowed to inhabit for its own sake.
That’s not failure. It’s just information: my analysis part is loud and scared and trying to help. Mindfulness here isn’t “shut up and stop thinking.” It’s, “Thank you, we’ll need you later. Right now, we’re just going to be in this.”
The Skill of One-Mindfully
One of the DBT mindfulness HOW skills is called one‑mindfully. I don’t love the term, which takes me directly out of mindfulness, but here we are. It basically means: do one thing at a time, with your whole attention, on purpose.
I know. As if.
And yet.
For me, one‑mindfully is the antidote to live‑blogging my own life.
If I’m crying, one‑mindfully means: just cry. Feel the tight throat, the wet face, the weight in my chest. No side commentary.
If I’m writing, one‑mindfully means: really write. I’m allowed to analyze there, to shape and name and connect dots.
If I’m drinking coffee, one‑mindfully means: actually taste the coffee, feel the warmth in my hands, notice the swallow.
It’s deceptively simple: pick the lane you’re in—feeling, or doing, or thinking—and actually be in that lane for a few breaths, instead of weaving across all three.
Right now, one‑mindfully for me often looks like micro‑commitments:
“For the next 30 seconds, I’m only going to feel my body in this chair.”
“For the length of this song, I’m just going to experience the music, not turn it into content.”
Afterward, the analyst can come back. I can reflect, write, map, share. But I’m trying to give myself at least a few un-commentated seconds first, so there’s an actual moment to remember—not just a set of notes about what it would have been like if I’d been there.
The Trailhead, Again
I still picture my habits as trails in the woods. The old ones—the over‑analyze trail, the control‑through‑food trail, the self‑critique trail—are deeply worn. My brain can walk them in the dark.
Mindfulness is the moment at the trailhead when I catch myself and go:
“Oh. I’m not just aware; I’m already halfway into dissecting this.”
“Oh. I’m about to go down the ‘explain everything so I don’t have to feel it fully’ path.”
That’s the moment to practice one‑mindfully:
Pause.
Pick one thing (feel the wave, notice the breath, listen to the sound in the room).
Stay with that one thing for a few breaths.
Every time I do that, I’m cutting a slightly different path: one where awareness and mindfulness coexist, where analysis gets to do its job after contact, not instead of it, and where I stand a better chance of actually being present for the life I’m working so hard to understand.
Exercise: Catching “Mindfulness Needed” Moments
The first step in making change is being able to see it what needs changing. Here’s an exercise to help you identify the cue that says, “I’ve left the scene; I need to come back into it.”
Identify your personal flags.
When I’m in my head and not in the moment, I tend to: (e.g., over-explain, scroll, numb, speed up).
In my body, I know I need mindfulness when I feel: (a tight jaw, buzzing chest, numb, shallow breath, etc.).
Emotionally, the red flags are: (sudden shame, urge to disappear, flatness, panic, etc.).
Make a tiny checklist: Turn those into a quick check you can run in under 15 seconds.
“Right now, am I…”
Talking about my experience instead of feeling it?
Replaying this on loop?
Treating this moment like content instead of contact?
Tight, numb, or buzzing in my body?
Name it, silently or out loud.
“I am not being mindful.”
“I’m aware but not mindful; I’m coming back into the scene.”
Then do one tiny mindful action.
Feel your feet on the floor and your seat in the chair for 5 breaths, or
Name 3 things you see, 2 you feel, 1 you hear, or
Take one sip of water and only notice taste and swallow.
30 seconds is enough. After that, you’re allowed to go back to thinking, planning, writing.