Borderline Personality Disorder and Beginner’s Mind

I found this at the Shambhala Sunspace.

Borderline personality disorder is considered by many therapists to be so intractable that when one finds a BPD patient in the consulting room, there is often an urge (or an actual decision) to refer the client to someone else. Borderline people tend to have serious trust issues in relationships (no doubt a result of the trauma that created the BPD in the first place), which makes the therapeutic relationship tenuous at best. Many BPD patients attempt or succeed at suidice, including a close friend of mine, Letitia, who died in 1996 of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

While full-blown BPD is a serious issue, requiring intensive therapy, many people have mild symptoms of BPD. (It's one of three basic personality structures: borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid - these are seen as tendencies in most people, not as disorders, though the potential exists. Most people carry a mix of two of these "types," with the third being minimally expressed.)

In my opinion, the following meditation is suggested for those with the borderline personality structure (not the disorder, though they would surely benefit as well).

Borderline Personality Disorder and Beginner’s Mind

Beginner’s mind is an aspect of mindfulness that’s particularly important if you’re struggling with symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD), says mindful-oriented doctor Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault. “Beginner’s mind means looking at things as if you are seeing them for the first time. Beginner’s mind can help us to see things in a new light, rather than automatically respond to them with the same old patterns of behavior.” She suggests a mindfulness exercise to get us to this beginner state:

1. Look around your bedroom and find one object that you have had for a long time — something that is very familiar to you. It may be a wall hanging, book, plant, or even a piece of clothing.
2. Sit down somewhere you can view the object you have chosen, close your eyes (if this feels comfortable), and take a few deep breaths. Set your intention to cultivate beginner’s mind.
3. Open you eyes and look at the object you have chosen. Imagine you are from Mars and have never seen anything like it before. Really look at the object without judging it.
4. Notice the unique qualities of the object. What does it look like? What does it feel like? Where does it catch shadows or reflect light?
5. Continue to really examine the object. Do you notice anything about it that you hadn’t noticed before?
6. When you are done looking at the object, reflect on this exercise. Did you learn anything new about the object you chose? What would it mean if we were able to approach everything in our lives with beginner’s mind? Are there objects, people, or situations that you tend to react to “automatically,” as if you already know what they are?

Read more on mindfulness and mental and physical health from Dr. Salters-Pedneault at About.com.

Tags: Borderline Personality Disorder, Beginner’s Mind, About.com, meditation, Psychology, Kristalyn Salters-Pedneault, Shambhala Sunspace