DEVELOPING THE HABIT OF SELF-AWARENESS THROUGH MINDFUL
SELF-COMPASSIONRYAN A. MCKELLEY, PH.D., LP, HSP
PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-LA CROSSE
OBJECTIVES
• Identify the biopsychosocial benefits of mindful self-compassion practices for
adolescents & their wellbeing providers
• Describe interventions for deepening and integrating more self-awareness into ordinary
daily activities
• Demonstrate several mindfulness and self-compassion exercises to help adolescents
improve executive functioning, reduce stress and anxiety, and increase compassion for
self and others
OPENING EXERCISE
• Answer the following questions on note
paper:
• A part of me I like is…
• A part of me I struggle with is…
• If I were 10% more accepting of myself, I
would…
• Share with a partner…or give yourself
permission to pass
CULTURAL BARRIERS TO LIVING MINDFULLY
• Technology
• Push vs. pull notifications
• Social media
• Entertainment media
• U.S. work/school culture
• Conflict b/w modern and ancient stressors
• Neuromyths of multitasking*
• Monkey-mindedness*
THE MYTH OF MULTITASKING
• True multitasking involves engaging in two tasks
simultaneously. But…it's only possible if two conditions are
met:
• at least one of the tasks is so well learned as to be automatic,
meaning no focus or thought is necessary to engage in the task (e.g.,
walking or eating) and
• they involve different types of brain processing.
RESEARCH ON DIVIDED ATTENTION
• You and every other so-called multitasker are actually serial tasking. Rather than
engaging in simultaneous tasks, you are in fact shifting from one task to another to
another in rapid succession.
• Meta-analysis shows that multitasking is neither effective nor efficient (takes 40% longer)
• National Academy of Sciences and Stanford University researchers found that
• Those who consider themselves to be great multitaskers are in fact the worst multitaskers
• Those who rated themselves as chronic multitaskers made more mistakes, could remember
fewer items, and took longer to complete a variety of focusing tasks analogous to multitasking
than those self-rated as infrequent multitaskers
MONKEY-MINDEDNESS
• Killingsworth & Gilbert’s “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy
Mind”
• “Stimulus-independent thought” (AKA mind wandering) is
brain’s default mode
• We think about our surroundings, contemplate the past,
anticipate the future, or think about things that will never
actually happen
• Used experience sampling on 5000 people from 83
countries (ages 18-88)
• How are you feeling right now? (0=very bad to 100=very good)
• What are you doing right now? (22 activities)
• Are you thinking about something other than what you are
currently doing? (no; yes, s/t pleasant; yes, s/t neutral; yes, s/t
unpleasant)
Fig. 1 Mean happiness reported during each activity (top) and while
mind wandering to unpleasant topics, neutral topics, pleasant topics
or not mind wandering (bottom). Dashed line indicates mean of
happiness across all samples. Bubble area indicates the frequency of
occurrence. The largest bubble (“not mind wandering”) corresponds to
53.1% of the samples, and the smallest bubble
(“praying/worshipping/meditating”) corresponds to 0.1% of the samples.
Results
1. Mind wandering in 46.9% of samples and in at least
30% of samples during every activity (except making
love)
2. People less happy when minds wandered than not-–
true for ALL activities
3. What people were thinking was better predictor of
happiness than what they were doing
FROM MINDFULSCHOOLS.ORG
WHAT I LEARNED FROM 25 FIRST-YEAR COLLEGE STUDENTS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY
• First-Year Seminar on “The Psychology of
Addictive Technology”
• 10 Life Labs that challenged students to
develop mindfulness about their tech use
• Included smart phone apps, social media,
streaming media, and video games
• Reflective journals that included tracking
use, observing peers’ use, resisting use,
etc.
• Semester-long research projects
LIFE LAB 1 & 2: PREDICTING AND THEN TRACKING USE
• What was the longest duration of smart
phone use over a 6-day period?
• 40 hours
• Mean use?
• 22-25 hours
• Simply tracking reduced many students’
use by 10-20% over the semester
REFLECTIONS ON LIFE LAB #2
• If I were to go out in public and not be on my phone I would feel left out or “weird” because everyone
else is on their phone. I feel like being on your phone is the “normal” thing to do and that everyone does
it. Maybe if other people were not on their phone all of the time I wouldn’t be on mine as much.
• To be completely honest, I wish we could go back to when physically calling people and making plans
was a thing because then people wouldn’t have to worry about being around their phone all the time in
fear of missing out on something.
• Picturing myself spending over an entire day doing nothing but sitting on my phone makes me rethink
my personal belief from last week of my screen time not being something that consumes a big part of
my life, because clearly, it does.
• Another thing holding me back from spending less time on my phone would be the fact that everyone
else is always on there’s. What am I supposed to do when everyone else is on their phone but I'm not?
LIFE LAB 4: MINDFUL BOREDOM (PART 1)
• Step 1: Spend a couple of days paying attention to moments when you are bored and you feel the impulse to reach for your device (it
could be a phone, video games, streaming media, etc.). Don't stop yourself--go ahead and give into the impulse. However, just begin to
notice if you observe anything interesting in your heart, body, or mind. Use these following reflective questions for guidance:
• In my HEART: What am I experiencing emotionally right now in this very moment?
1. Specific feelings—“Feeling x.”
2. General mood—“Feeling x.”
3. Use words of emotions such as “joy”, “peace”, “discomfort”, “bored”, “fear”, “anger”, “frustration”, etc., as “x”.
• In my BODY: What am I experiencing sensationally right now in this very moment?
1. Posture—“Feeling x.” or “Noticing x.”
2. Senses—Sights, sounds, tastes, skin sensations, and points of contact with the ground/floor/earth, your chair, etc.—“Experiencing x.”
• In my MIND: What am I experiencing mentally right now in this very moment?
1. Thoughts—“Thinking about x.” or “Noticing my mind going to x.”
2. Qualities of the mind—“My mind is doing x.” or “I’m mentally feeling x.”
LIFE LAB 4: MINDFUL BOREDOM (PART 2)
Step 2: When you have a short block of time to do so, catch yourself being bored and RESIST the
behavior of reaching for your device. Start a clock and just be mindfully bored for 15 minutes--no
interruptions, no exceptions. Please answer the following questions in your reflection. Be sure to
spend a few paragraphs getting in depth with your responses.
1. What bores you? When are you most bored? What is the most boring time of your week?
Why?
2. How does boredom make you feel? What do you do if you are bored? What role does
technology play in your boredom?
3. What was it like for you to spend 15 minutes mindfully resisting escaping your boredom?
4. Is boredom necessary? Do we sometimes need boredom? Yes or no? Why?
5. Based on The Psychology of Self-Management content from Monday's class, what are
one or two things you think would work to reduce your screen time? What did you learn
from the Judson Brewer TED Talk that might help?
REFLECTIONS ON LIFE LAB #4
• Top three themes from 15
minutes of doing “nothing”?
• Feelings of loneliness
• Feelings of anxiety/stress
• Guilt about “not being
productive”
MINDFULNESSREVISITED
“Mindfulness means paying
attention in a particular way;
on purpose, in the present
moment, and
nonjudgmentally.”
- Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-
Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
BREAK IT DOWN
• Choose the intention of your
attention
• Breath?
• Thoughts?
• Feelings?
• Body?
• Object?
• It doesn’t matter!
PAYING ATTENTION
BREAK IT DOWN
• Just be aware of the ways things are
NOW
• Your experience is valid
• Monitor how you are doing
• If you drift off, gently return
PRESENT MOMENT
BREAK IT DOWN
• Default mode is to judge experiences one way or
another
• “I want to feel happier.”
• “I wish that didn’t bother me so much.”
• “I want them to like me.”
• Cultivate practice of saying, “Isn’t that interesting?”
• “I notice that this bothers me. Isn’t that interesting?”
• “I notice that I really want to be accepted. I wonder
why that is?”
• “I don’t want to feel anger, but it is part of life. Huh.
Like every emotion, it will pass.”
NON-JUDGMENT
PRO TIP: JUST LIKE FEEDING A BABY
• Babies get distracted when
feeding—just like we get
distracted…All the time
• What do you do?
• Speak invitingly and encourage a
return to the task
SAMPLE TRAINING PROGRAMS
Program Target Population Delivery URL
Mindful Schools K-12 15-min lessons 2/week www.mindfulschools.org
Mindful Education Teachers & Admin Online www.mindfuleducation.com
MindUP™ K-7 schools 1-year curriculum www.mindup.org
Mindfulness Without
Borders
High school Online or f2f www.mindfulnesswithoutborders.org
Mind Body Awareness
Project
At-risk youth <18 in
schools, community,
or incarcerated
Online or f2f www.mbaproject.org
Source: Mindfulness With Children by Daniel Rechtschaffen
TEACHING MINDFULNESS TO TEENAGERS: 5 STEPS
1. Model mindfulness
2. What’s in it for them?
• Share research benefits (e.g., improved
test performance, reduced anxiety)
3. Teach teens about their brain
• Dan Siegel’s TEDx talk, “Brainstorm: The
power and purpose of the teenage brain”
4. Teach teens about their mind
• Analogy of monkey mind
5. There’s an app for that!
• Stop, breathe, and think
• Smiling Mind
• Take a Break!
Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-rudell-beach-
/teaching-mindfulness-to-teenagers_b_5696247.html
RESEARCH: PSYCHOSOCIAL
• Reduces loneliness in older adults in RCT (Creswell et al.)
• Improves relationship satisfaction in adult couples based on daily reports (Carson et al.)
• Reduced fear of negative evaluation in social and performance situations (Goldin &
Cross)
• Immediate drop in cortisol for musicians practicing mindfulness vs. controls (Dorjee et
al.)
• For parents of children with special needs, MBSR reported more satisfaction in
parenting, improved interactions with children, and less parenting stress (Singh et al.)
RESEARCH: EDUCATION
• Improved executive functioning in 2nd and 3rd graders (UCLA)
• In over 800 students (90% w/ free or reduced lunch), improvements in self-care, class participation, and
showing care for others (UC-Davis)
• Sitting meditation in classrooms reduced negative behaviors in 16 different studies (Black & Sussman)
• Reduced symptoms of ADHD in adolescents (Zylowska et al.)
• Teachers in MBSR program (UW-Madison)
• Reduced burnout and distress
• Increase in self-compassion
• More effective classroom management behaviors
PUBLIC ENEMY #1 TO SELF-COMPASSION
USING THE SELF-COMPASSION SCALE
• 26-item self-report on thoughts, emotions, and behaviors associated with:
• Three components of self-compassion (self-kindness, common humanity, and
mindfulness)
• How often people respond to feelings of inadequacy or suffering with each of six
components (3 above + judgment, isolation, and over-identification)
• 12-item Self-Compassion Scale—Short Form
• Best correlation with overall score for SCS—not each component
SCS RESULTS
• Improves self-reported emotional well-being in adolescents and adults (Bluth & Blanton, 2012)
• Reduces self-judgment, feelings of isolation, and over-identification (Neff, 2016)
• Mediates impact of body dissatisfaction and unfavorable social comparisons on psychological quality of life (Duarte,
Ferreira, Trindade, & Pinto-Gouveia, 2015)
• Can assist in the reduction of compassion fatigue and burnout in practitioners and caregivers (Beaumont, Durkin,
Martins, & Carson, 2015)
• Significantly reduces shame-proneness, irrational beliefs, and symptoms of social anxiety (Candea & Tatar, 2018)
• Is negatively associated with procrastination and maladaptive perfectionism (Barnard & Curry, 2011)
• Results in more motivation to change for the better, try harder to learn, and avoid repeating past mistakes particularly
with health-related behaviors such as sticking to a diet, quitting smoking, or starting a fitness regimen (Germer & Neff,
2013)
SELF-COMPASSION INCREASES SELF-IMPROVEMENT MOTIVATION FOR STUDYING
• Breines & Chen (2012) conducted four trials w/ comparison groups (vs. self-esteem or
positive distraction)
• Self-Compassion predicted
• Higher motivation to make amends and a desire to not repeat transgressions
• Greater desire to spend more time studying after an initial failure
• Greater preference for upward social comparison after thinking about a personal weakness
• Greater sense of motivation to change that weakness
BUT…BEWARE THE BACKDRAFT
DEMO: MIND-BODY CONNECTION
DEBRIEF
• What was happening in your
body?
• Is this an example of a mind-
body connection?
• What are other examples in
your life?
DEMO: FRIENDLY WISHES
DEBRIEF
• What kinds of wishes did you
send?
• How did it feel to send wishes
to others?
• What is difficult about this
activity?
DEMO: 5 WHYS
DEBRIEF
• What surprised you?
• What was challenging?
DEMO: 3 THINGS IN COMMON
DEBRIEF
• What surprised you?
• What was challenging?
RESOURCES ON MINDFULNESS FOR ADOLESCENTS
Q & A
• COMMENTS?
• QUESTIONS?
• CONCERNS?