In Marsha Linehan’s formative therapy manual, DBT Skills Training, mindfulness is one of the 4 core nodes of dialectical behavior therapy. The goal of mindfulness practice in the context of DBT is developing Wise Mind, which is characterized as the inner wisdom within each person which seamlessly blends reason and emotion in taking skillful action. Arguably, the eightfold path of Buddhism is also about cultivating this mind state. Central to this endeavor is the distinction between pain and suffering and the truth of impermanence. In this context, it is called the Middle Way.

Linehan’s manual describes three “What” skills (Observing, Describing, Participating) and three “How” skills (Nonjudgmentally, One-Mindfully, Effectively) to use when practicing mindfulness. I have used all of these fairly regularly and some of them quite extensively over the last few years. However, one that I have not practiced much outside of the context of meditation is behaving one-mindfully.

Acting one-mindfully involves riveting oneself to the present moment and doing ONE and ONLY ONE thing at a time. This involves letting go of distractions by not feeding or fighting them. Just acknowledge their presence and then return the attention back to the present action. It also involves concentration to ensure you don’t lapse into multitasking, as simple as the other action may be. Again, acknowledge the shift in attention and then return to the one thing that you are doing.

In the context of one-mindfulness, I am a default multi-tasker. I don’t mean this in the traditional sense of a person doing two different physical processes or two different mental processes at the same time. A physical multitasker could be someone that is balancing their books at the same time that they are in a zoom business meeting with a client. A mental multitasker could be someone that is estimating their grocery bill at the same time as they are seriously pondering the ethics of eating meat.

I’m genuinely skeptical of whether true multitasking in this context is even really possible, and in the few cases where it is possible, if it is truly effective. However, the multitasking I am terminally guilty of is the part-mental, part-physical kind. This is where I am walking to my car but my mind is totally occupied with worrying about something I said earlier in the day. Or I am brushing my teeth but fixedly ruminating on a specific emotion I am feeling.

This is the type of multitasking I do the vast majority of my waking hours, unless I am involved in a project that demands my full and undivided attention, and even then this brand of multitasking generally finds a way to manifest. I don’t know if this is because of my borderline-bipolar, highly sensitive person attributes or if this is generally true of most people.

What I do know is that although this behavior can sometimes be productive and effective, it more often has the tendency of just cluttering up my mind with unskillful thoughts, emotions, and urges. Living one-mindfully means actively courting the opposite of this type of multitasking. It means using practice and concentration to actively be involved in only one thing at a time, at least where this is attainable.

I may not be able to do this when I am actively teaching, which usually involves a combination of effectively communicating the lesson, monitoring for discipline issues, and scanning for student engagement to recalibrate my lesson as needed. However, I can practice acting one-mindfully the moment I stop actively teaching, and definitely all those moments throughout the day where I am just doing normal everyday routines (taking a shower, brushing teeth, driving the car, walking, eating, practicing yoga, etc.).

Because adopting this mentality is so foreign to me, this month’s challenge will be small and manageable. My commitment is to take three actions every day and complete them one-mindfully. These may end up being the same three actions every day, or they might vary from day to day. Below are the specific parameters:

• Begin each meditation practice with at least 2 minutes of mindfulness – My normal daily meditation practice, whether 5 minutes or 45 minutes, generally starts with body scanning, breathwork, and lovingkindness meditation before getting to pure mindfulness. To help me initiate this more effectively with physical actions throughout the day, I want to start all my meditation practices with the same mindset.
• Add one-mindfulness planning to New Day Protocol – Every night at 8:30pm, I begin what I call ‘New Day Protocol.’ I have found it very effective and empowering to view days as beginning in the evening instead of the morning. This usually involves a quick cold shower followed by some body conditioning and exercise, followed by a planning and reflection period. To this last section, I want to purposefully pick out 3 activities for the following day that I will approach one-mindfully.
• Engage one-mindfully for at least 5 minutes at the start of the activity – I am not committing myself to more than I can handle. If after 5 minutes, I want to revert to my default of either mindful distraction or just cluttered thoughts, that is perfectly acceptable.
• Encourage spontaneously adopting a one-mind attitude – I want to allow and foster initiating one-mind in activities I didn’t plan for. This can be substituted for one of the ones I had scheduled beforehand or better yet can be an additional practice.
• Initiate a non-routine activity once during the weekend – Sometime between when I start PAT on Saturday and before 7PM on Sunday, I want to do something I don’t normally do for the express purpose of living one-mindfully.

I think this month’s challenge might have a somewhat unrelated upside: helping to balance out my personality. As an INTJ, my default is to constantly be perspective-shifting, known in the Meyers-Briggs system as introverted intuition. I obviously can’t (and don’t want to) get rid of this baseline, but I would like to have it be more physically and emotionally grounded and less cerebral in origin.

Namaste.