Imagine the following.  You’re sitting at home alone, amid a rare chunk of free time.  You stop scrolling through Netflix aimlessly and decide to do something “productive.” A million ideas come to mind of things you could do.  Run an errand? Pay a bill? Call your mother? Nothing feels like the right thing to do with this precious gift from the gods of modern living.  

Suddenly, it clicks.  Mindfulness! All these monks, therapists, and TED talkers seem to think it’s the cat’s pajamas.  Let’s give it a whirl.

You review a trusted protocol on how to be mindful.  You know, the one that starts with “Find a comfortable position with your back straight…” You focus on your breath.  You watch your thoughts. You notice yourself drifting off.  

*Dinggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg* 

The meditation timer rings and you don’t feel at all transformed.  You want to get it, but you just can’t see what the fuss is about. All those enlightened gurus can’t be wrong though? You think, “What’s wrong with me?”

If this story sounds familiar, then this post is for you.

Cheri Huber’s book above, Nothing Happens Next, is a lovely read and approaches this phenomenon from a deep, spiritual, and profound philosophical perspective.  It’s certainly worth a read. It’s heady, yet has a typeface of like 36, with childlike font, and is presented in a digestible Q&A form.  I love ALL of this author’s books and she is an amazing teacher.

But…

At this moment, I don’t want profound.  I want a return on the time invested. After all, how often do I have a spare 20 minutes to do nothing?  I’m not seeking enlightenment, but I’d like to feel a little less anxious and stressed.  I’d like to feel rejuvenated and a little more spiritually full–perhaps even more rooted in my body.  

Unlike monks, I don’t have the luxury of abandoning all my earthly possessions to sit silently in the Himalayas. So where does this leave me?  What am I to think about this mindfulness mumbo jumbo, and where will it fit in my life?

The Problem with Mindfulness

Search online and you can find thousands of mindfulness exercises.  But what you won’t find is much guidance on which exercise is most likely to make you feel like the 20 minutes you are about to spend is worthwhile.  The last feeling you want to have after committing precious spare moments to self-care is that the time was a waste. Or even worse, you don’t want to be left feeling inadequate, ashamed, and/or envious of those who “get it.” 

Sorting Out Who Gets What

The main point I want to make is that you will get different benefits from different types of mindfulness practices depending on your personality style.  This could get quite complicated given the diversity of distinct personality types. So, for the sake of simplicity, let’s broadly classify people into one of two distinct personality types: externalizers and internalizers.

Externalizers vs. Internalizers

The easiest way to classify yourself into one of these categories is to remember yourself as a child.  Children are much easier to sort into basic temperaments since their emotions tend to be closer to the surface.  What did you do when you were emotionally upset? How about bored?

Externalizers are the kids who couldn’t sit still.  They are impulsive, jittery, and have difficulty tolerating under-stimulation.  The externalizers are the ones who show distress and/or boredom through impulsive, and sometimes, destructive action.  The function of this “acting out” is to prevent too much self-reflection, since doing so hurts. Boys tend to be externalizers more often than girls.

Internalizers are the opposite of this.  Internalizers deal with emotions by turning inwards.  If an internalizing child becomes bored, she is likely to be both quiet and more visibly upset.  A common response for internalizers in the face of boredom is to daydream and imagine herself at some fantasied location engaging in a more stimulating activity.  Rather than taking out distress onto the world, internalizers favor self-reproach and feeling down and discouraged. Girls tend to be internalizers at higher rates than boys.

Aspects of Mindfulness

Now that we’ve differentiated between two basic character styles, let’s look at some different ways we can be mindful.  Marsha Linehan, a major proponent of mindfulness as a source of healing, created Dialectical Behavior Therapy as a way to help patients with fragile egos to develop strong mindfulness skills.  She made mindfulness accessible by breaking it down into three bite-sized components: Observing, Describing, and Participating.

Observing means assuming a watchful stance of thoughts, emotions, or sensations.  Mindful describing is translating observed data into neutral, just-the-facts, language.  Participating is reminiscent of “flow,” where mindful attention is consumed completely by experience.  Another synonym could be “play.”  

Using this framework, let’s consider what may be happening when mindfulness is NOT helpful.  

Copyright 2019, Michael Kinsey Ph.D.

Internalizing

The ruminative qualities of anxious worry and depression are reasons why some people try mindfulness.  The idea goes something like: well, if you can just notice the thoughts and not take them personally, then mindfulness can improve your mood.”  True enough. However, observing thoughts for internalizers takes attention away from where it’s most needed: emotions and pure experience.  

Anxious and depressive rumination are byproducts of avoiding feeling more basic emotions, like anger and sadness.  Mindfulness can be helpful though in connecting more deeply with feelings. Instead of falling into the trap of starting with following thoughts (this can be a useful practice, but is a more advanced application of mindfulness), start by focusing on a specific body part, physical sensation, or listening to a guided body scan.

Ruminative states are most damaging in the way they remove us from the mindful state of participating.  For my anxious and depressed thoughts, I find most relief in engaging in an activity that consumes all of my attention and brings me into a healthy state of flow.  For example, one of my go-to hobbies is birding. Walking, scanning, listening, and attuning to nature contains multiple organic antidepressants, but mostly it helps me through channeling my attention into an all-consuming state of mental play.  

Writing, crafting, sewing, woodworking, athletics, running, lifting weights, etc. are other examples of activities that extract our attention away from indulgent rumination.  

As for the mindful state of describing, if your goal is to maximize returns on 20 minutes, describing practices are too thought-based to be helpful in most cases.

Externalizing

With externalizers, bad moods tend to be more disconnected from patterns of thinking.  Externalizers regulate moods through action–action that observers would call impulsive.  Action occurs because thought does not dampen the connection between feeling and action. In internalizing states, the tendency is just the opposite; thinking suppresses feelings and blocks action, thus becoming more active (i.e., participating) is the most helpful response. 

If your personality best aligns with the externalizing profile, traditional meditative forms of mindfulness provide the most bang for your buck.  Observing thoughts and describing (or labeling) emotion states helps to build a barrier of healthy thought between feeling and action. While externalizers benefit most from observing thoughts and describing body and affective states, the externalizer will find mindfulness practice most challenging.  He will likely feel overcome by agitation or restlessness.  

Borderline personality disorder, ADHD, and other forms of maladaptive impulsivity disorders (e.g., oppositional defiant disorder in children), have the most to gain from contemplative mindfulness.  The benefits of mindfulness are so well-suited to these types of externalizing characters that mindfulness is the core of Linehan’s Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). But because mindfulness can be so hard to bear for externalizers, Linehan broke down mindfulness into more digestible pieces.  Short, guided mindfulness practices are most helpful for externalizers with no experience with mindfulness. As tolerance builds, the externalizing mindfulness practitioner can increase intervals and remove structure.

Conclusion

All forms of mindfulness can be useful to all people.  The problem is that new practitioners begin mindfulness without consideration for what types of practice will yield the most benefits.  Starting with a more advanced or ill-fitting strategy to start means setting yourself up for frustration. Getting immediate benefits is important to build the motivation, habit, and persistence required to reap rewards from mindfulness over time.  

This article recommends types of practice for certain personality types.  Using Linehan’s categorization of mindfulness “what skills,” Observe, Describe, and Participate, I suggested which among these skills best matches personalities characterized by internalizing and externalizing, respectively.  Internalizers, a broad personality label that is marked by active thinking, inhibition, and attention focused inward, benefit most from directing attention outward into an all-consuming activity. That is, internalizers are best served by participating. 

The second personality type I referenced is externalizers.  Compared to internalizers, externalizers are uninhibited in behavior because they are quick to act when an emotion arises.  Externalizers benefit more from observing and describing thoughts, gradually increasing their tolerance for strong emotions over time.  Observing and describing increases the amount of thought in-between feeling and acting, providing a buffer against impulsive action.

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