This is intended to be the seventh article in a series I’m working on about trying different mindfulness and coping skills from the website DBT: Dialectical Behavior Therapy (https://dialecticalbehaviortherapy.com/). I’m doing these practices because my therapist thought they would be good for me—and honestly, I’ve been curious to see whether they actually make any difference in my everyday life.
This time, I experimented with mindful breathing exercises from Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). If you’re not familiar, DBT is a form of therapy that combines cognitive-behavioral techniques with mindfulness. It was originally developed to help people who experience intense emotions learn skills to manage them more effectively.
I went into this exercise expecting it to be pretty straightforward, but it turned out to be a little stranger—and maybe more helpful—than I anticipated. Here’s my unfiltered reflection.
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Mindful Breathing Reflection
When I first watched the video about the first two techniques, I gagged at the thought of doing them. I thought, “I have to count my breaths for 10 f-ing minutes?! And then I need to feel my deviated septum and dry airways for another 10 minutes?!! F this!” But the third technique was really appealing to me, so I wanted to do that one.
What was funny, though, was that as I was doing that one, I automatically started doing the other two at the same time. I was counting my breaths the entire time while I was also feeling my nose (it was cold on the right side) and my dry upper lungs. Even when I was thinking about a new macrame bracelet design I wanted to create, I was still counting my breaths. I never lost count. It was as if one part of my brain was doing technique 1, one part was doing technique 2, one was doing technique 3 (my hand was still going up and down on my abdomen), and I was thinking about something completely different.
Pretty much right away, my mind split into the four “tasks,” and I was able to “check on the status of” each task by focusing my attention on it. And each task was humming along just fine.
Physically, I felt neutral—pretty relaxed before, during, and after. There wasn’t any difference in my stress level or mood afterward, but that’s just because I was already calm.
I thought about a new friendship bracelet pattern that I want to get down on paper ASAP. That was surprising to me, because I had no intention of even thinking about a design when I started this breathing exercise. I wanted to focus on my diaphragmatic breathing because it’s something I need to improve on. So I lay down, put my hand on my abdomen, and started breathing, and of course, immediately started counting. I even noticed that and thought it was funny, and then I felt my nose and then my dry lungs and thought, “Well, shit, I might as well do all three.”
So I did that smoothly for about 30 seconds, and then a diamond shape with a tiny gold bead in the center popped into my mind. The design kept building from there. It was as if occupying 3/4 of my brain with “sub” conscious stuff allowed the remaining 1/4 to be free to do the job it’s been wanting to do for days.
So maybe I didn’t do it right, but I think I stumbled on a designer’s block hack, possibly. I don’t know. Maybe it was a freak coincidence. If I had to pick three words or phrases to describe the experience, they would be: subconscious multi-tasking, designer’s block hack, freak coincidence.
