Mindfulness skills are the foundation of all Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) skills training. The problems addressed by core mindfulness skills are knowing who you are, where you are going in your life, and the inability to control what goes on in your mind. Mindfulness encourages you to live in the moment by focusing on the present.

DBT is all about Dialectics, the concept that two things can be true at once. Walking the Middle Path is finding that synthesis between opposites. It’s a “both, and” mentality. Both of these things are true and there is a balance between them.

Here are some examples of walking the middle path.

Reasonable Mind and Emotion Mind

Both of these states of mind make decisions based on reason and help regulate your actions. And they consider values and allow you to experience strong emotions.

Doing mind and Being Mind

Both do what is needed in each moment. And they allow you to experience the uniqueness of each moment. 

Intense Desire for Change and Radical Acceptance of the Moment

Both allow you to have an intense desire to experience something different than what you are experiencing in this moment. And they are willing to radically accept what you have in your life right now.

Self-Denial and Self-Indulgence

Both practice moderation. And they satisfy the senses.