A family physician and a professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, Ron Epstein has been working to improve how doctors treat others for decades. Together with colleague Mick Krasner, he has encouraged caregivers to pay attention to what’s happening in their own minds and bodies as they interact with patients—with particular attention to how they communicate and the quality of the time: Are they really “attending” or are they not quite all there? In 1999, Epstein launched a small revolution with “Mindful Practice,” a piece in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association. Ten years later, he and Krasner reported in the same journal on the results of their mindfulness work with doctors: They were more present, less stressed out, and more attentive to patients, and they incorporated mindfulness skills into their everyday lives. (See Mindful, October 2014: “The Doctor is Not Well.”) Now, Epstein has contemplated and compiled all he has learned from using the lens of self-awareness to view the health-care system and the lives of the people in it. Both analytically clear and empathic, he guides us to a vision of a new kind of doctor in a new system: covering everything from how doctors need to pay attention to their mindware (the thought processes they use to make diagnoses and decisions), using meta-cognition (being aware of your own thinking) to healing the healer (how to travel the path from burnout to resistance), to what makes a compassionate and humane health-care system (one where small acts of kindness can make “the unbearable bearable”). Attending is a long overdue book that needs to be read by doctors, caregivers, health administrators, and patients who care about human-centered medicine.
MARROW
A Love Story Elizabeth Lesser • HarperCollins When she learns she’s the perfect match for her sister’s bone marrow transplant to fight cancer, Elizabeth Lesser begins a life journey she never imagined. The cofounder of the Omega Institute and author of the best-selling book Broken Open, Lesser has been a seeker for her entire adult life and a benevolent chronicler of the human condition. But this experience she shares with her younger sister goes far beyond any soul-searching she’s undertaken on the couch or on the cushion. Along the way, the sisters get the rare opportunity to truly explore—and heal—their past, and find themselves on a completely transformed field of friendship, and indeed, love. Beautifully written, deeply poignant in its honesty, this book is far more than a story about sibling relations; it’s a memoir about touching the marrow of life itself.
MINDFUL MONEY
Simple Practices for Reaching Your Financial Goals and Increasing Your Happiness Dividend Jonathan K. DeYoe • New World Library Do mindful and money even belong in the same sentence? Money is such a scary thing, fraught with so much fear and emotion. And most advice about money offered in the mainstream media plays on that fear and anxiety: Are you prepared for retirement? Is your money working hard enough for you? Are you spending too much? DeYoe’s approach to money is honest and free of hype. Money will never make us happy, he tells us right off. It’s merely a tool we need to use to live our life. That said, he goes on to offer very practical, non-preachy, down-to-earth counsel.
MODERN MINDFULNESS
How to Be More Relaxed, Focused, and Kind While Living in a Fast, Digital, Always-On World Rohan Gunatillake • St. Martin’s Griffin Does mindfulness need a redesign? Author Rohan Gunatillake, the creator of the popular buddhify app, says yes. Although there’s never been more interest in mindfulness and meditation than right now, three barriers keep too many people from making mindfulness a lived reality: the time problem (“I just don’t have time to meditate”), the hippy problem (“You have to be spiritual or religious to get into meditation”), and the digital problem (“It’s not practical for me to unplug everything”). Fortunately, each of these barriers is more apparent than real, and in this accessible, readable book, he lays out some techniques for bringing mindfulness into even the busiest of lives. Gunatillake also argues that switching off our devices is not the key to mindfulness. Instead, he makes suggestions for using technology, like mobile phones and television, to actually be mindful.
GOODBYE, THINGS
The New Japanese Minimalism Fumio Sasaki • Norton Imagine you live in a 215-square-foot apartment, with fewer pieces of furniture than fingers on your hand, and about 150 possessions in total. Yes, that’s a bit extreme. But it actually describes the lifestyle of writer Fumio Sasaki, who decided to pare down his possessions to the barest minimum after years struggling with stress, insecurity, and comparing himself against others. As a result, he says, he was able to let go of the emotional baggage that comes from defining yourself by the things you own. Goodbye, Things kicks off by defining “minimalism,” a way of living that has been around for decades but has been gaining popularity over the past 10 years or so. From there, Sasaki explores the psychological underpinnings of our materialistic culture and offers advice for how to shift your mindset around belongings, say goodbye to the stuff, and feel good about it. The book is light and easy to read, dotted with anecdotes from Sasaki’s personal experience transforming from a maximalist into a minimalist.
PODCASTS
TEDMED Episode: “Fulfilling Trauma’s Hidden Promise” James Gordon, a professor of medicine at Georgetown University, talks about using integrative approaches, such as movement, meditation, and relaxation, to help patients with chronic illnesses, US war veterans, Syrian refugees, and families in Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel, Gaza, and Haiti, among others. THINK AGAIN Episode: “Nature, Nurture, Neither” Mark Epstein, a psychiatrist, mindfulness teacher, and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker and The Trauma of Everyday Life, joins host Jason Gots in a wide-ranging discussion on education, free will, trauma, epigenetics, and the nature–nurture debate. 10% HAPPIER Episode: “George Stephanopoulos, ABC News Chief Anchor” Most of us know Dan Harris: the ABC newsman who had a panic attack live on Good Morning America and went on to write best-selling book 10% Happier. Well, Dan also started a podcast. In this episode, he talks with George Stephanopolous about his twice-daily meditation practice. TED: IDEAS WORTH SPREADING Episode: “What Reality Are You Creating for Yourself?” Isaac Lidsky—who runs a construction company in Orlando, starred in a TV sitcom, and served as a law clerk to two Supreme Court justices—lost his sight to a rare genetic eye disease. In this talk, he challenges us to let go of excuses, assumptions, and fears, and accept that we create our own reality. THE ONE YOU FEED Episode: “Emily Esfahani Smith” “Human beings are meaning-seeking creatures,” says the author of The Power of Meaning: Crafting a Life That Matters. “Transcendent experiences are crucial to having a greater sense of meaning in life.”
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-28” author: “Guillermo Thompson”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2022-11-28” author: “Guillermo Thompson”
A few years ago, ABC News reporter Dan Harris wrote 10% Happier about his unlikely journey from professional skeptic to meditation “evangelist” following an on-air panic attack. A naturally witty, even acerbic, commentator, his take on mindfulness is in-your-face and gritty—with a large dose of mockery of syrupy language or lofty accounts of “finding oneself” through the practice. His latest book, Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, dishes up more “real” talk about meditation, packaged in the form of a travelogue from the 10% Happier Meditation Tour with Canadian mindfulness teacher Jeff Warren, his equal in sarcastic wit and aversion for fluff or naval gazing. Harris aims to make mindfulness even more accessible to people like him, so the book, like the tour, takes its cue from real questions from real people along the way. We hear about not having the time to meditate, thinking you (and you alone) are no good at it, and more, peppered with practices that feel friendly and doable. It’s often laugh-out-loud funny and refreshingly candid about Harris’ and his entourage’s foibles, head trips, and frequent ego crashes. “Just because you’ve started meditating—or even if you’ve written a whole book on the subject—your life is not going to become a nonstop parade of rainbows and unicorns,” Harris writes. “You will, as I do, get caught up in the mindless momentum of doing and getting, of being stingy or distracted. We’re all like schnauzers who soil the rug and need to have our snouts shoved into it.… The Game—and you truly can’t hear this enough—is just to start over, again and again.” MINDING MUM Alison Canavan • Gill Books Former model Alison Canavan struggled with undiagnosed depression most of her life. But after her son, James, was born, the combination of hormones, lack of sleep, and worry for the future sent her spiraling into a postpartum state. It began a life-changing journey to gain control over her mental and emotional health, which culminated in studying nutrition and becoming a wellness consultant. In Minding Mum she offers straight talk about the difficulty of having a child (“I remember thinking how little I had been told about the reality of being a new mum,” she writes), and shares mindfulness practices, among other advice, to help new moms develop their own “happy living formula.” F YOU VERY MUCH Danny Wallace • TarcherPerigree The title may be ironic, but Danny Wallace is quite serious in his concern that our rudeness levels have reached epidemic proportions. And this rudeness not only irritates, it also has weighty individual and social consequences. Case studies, anecdotes, and sociological research back up his argument. With equal parts humor and horror, Wallace delves into the heart of rudeness in society: from internet trolls to “manspreaders” on public transit, pundits to politicians. Is rudeness contagious? And are millennials exceptionally rude, as per their reputation? While the analysis occasionally seems to conflate other cultural problems (such as sheer idiocy or malice) with rudeness, this book packs an entertaining and disturbing punch. WRITING TO AWAKEN Mark Matousek • Reveal Press An acclaimed journalist, author, and writing teacher, Matousek invites readers to know themselves more authentically through what he calls radical truth-telling. “Literary talent is irrelevant here,” he says. “The strengths you need are courage, transparency, commitment to the truth, and a sincere desire to transcend your story.” It’s common that we aren’t (or don’t want to be) aware that we have “stories” to transcend, which is part of what makes this book so thought provoking. Matousek offers both theory—including lessons from his life and former students—and practice, in the form of writing prompts. The exercises are intended to be challenging, leading us to reexamine ingrained beliefs about who we are and who we’re supposed to be. HOW WE EAT WITH OUR EYES AND THINK WITH OUR STOMACH Melanie Mühl and Diana von Kopp • The Experiment We tend not to think about how much we think about food. According to authors Melanie Mühl and Diana von Kopp, we make over 200 food-related decisions every single day. Some choices are conscious and some are not, but all are shaped by factors within our environments—grocery store layouts, celebrities, plate color and size, and social norms are just a few examples. With bite-sized chapters citing plenty of research and offering helpful tidbits of advice, this handy book points out many of the assumptions and mental habits that shape how we relate to food. LEADING FROM WITHIN Gretchen Ki Steidle • MIT Mindfulness is often derided in popular opinion pieces as a selfish and self-involved project of the Me Generation, and perhaps at times and in some contexts, it degrades into that. But the premise that underlies the assertion is a false dichotomy: You can either look after yourself or care for other people; you are either inner-directed or outer-directed. And any inner focus comes at the expense of paying attention to the needs and concerns of the world around you. In this detailed and impressive work, Gretchen Ki Steidle marches right into the middle of the inner–outer ping pong match to demonstrate how each informs the other: A concern for social justice can emerge from and be strengthened by a practice of paying attention to the workings of one’s own mind, and likewise working for the benefit of others can inspire one to further personal transformation. Steidle is the founder and president of Global Grassroots, a nonprofit organization that works with women and girls to be leaders of conscious social change in their communities. Global Grassroots does a lot of work in post-conflict Africa, in Rwanda, Uganda, Darfur (in Sudan), and eastern Congo. Steidle’s work is informed by the view that when leaders make a personal investment in their own self-awareness, they become better leaders. They more readily inspire change in others rather than trying to impose change. They are good listeners who build deeper relationships. And they also draw on creativity in the face of seemingly intractable challenges. Leadership of this kind begins and is sustained through compassion, which leads to a more intimate understanding of the needs of all stakeholders. The term “conscious social change” in the title, Steidle writes, “represents a departure from conventional change.” It works, she goes on to say, “at the root and systemic levels of an issue rather than applying a Band-Aid to the symptoms.” She illustrates how the same kind of exploration of one’s own mind that occurs in mindfulness practice can lead to considering the deep causes of the problem at hand, such as malnutrition or food deserts, so real transformation can take place. In addition to sharing insights from her work, Steidle includes mindfulness practices for individuals and groups and stories of the kind of mindfulness-in-action she advocates for. RAISE YOUR INNER GAME David Levin • Minneapolis Press The best selling book QBQ!: The Question behind the Question, which Levin wrote with coauthor David Miller, explored how stopping the habit of looking for someone to blame and taking personal responsibility can make you more effective and life more workable. In this very pithy book, Levin turns his focus to how we manage the inner resources at our disposal—physical, emotional, and intellectual. He asks us to take stock of how well we’re doing at managing these different “selves” within us and offers skills and tools we can use to get out of our own way. MINDFUL TEACHER, MINDFUL SCHOOL Kevin Hawkins • Sage As a longtime educator and mindfulness practitioner, Kevin Hawkins views mindfulness as one way to achieve greater balance in our education systems. The book itself is well balanced: He takes the reader through an introduction to some history and modern use of mindfulness, moving into how this practice can help a create a healthier, happier environment for both students and teachers, even rippling out to positively effect their families and communities. Hawkins blends emergent research with stories from fellow teachers, as well as many small exercises and an impressive resources list that will serve curious parents and teachers. The chapters on social-emotional learning programs and changing school culture are particularly striking, linking the individual practice of mindfulness with broader societal changes. MINDFUL RUNNING Mackenzie L. Havey • Bloomsbury Reporter Mackenzie Havey’s beat is competitive sports, with a focus on running. She’s also a competitive runner herself, and a USA Track & Field-certified coach. The access she has to the influencers in the running world, whose stories and thoughts pepper this easy-to-read and useful book, is impressive. And perhaps it’s not surprising that so many of them, from international Olympians and “ultra marathon man” Dean Karnazes to professors of sports psychology and the engineers who design running shoes, credit mindfulness in large part for their enduring love for the sport. We go inside the minds of athletes like Timothy Olson, who in 2012 at mile 80 of the 100-mile Western States Endurance Run shifted into mindfulness: “I focused on each step and every breath even if they were a little worn. I arrived at the point in the race that I live for, the simple moments when you’ve reached down to your core and all you can do is keep running.” He won. While most of the anecdotes come from professional athletes, they serve as inspiration, not the message. Havey fully believes that mindfulness can benefit any level of runner, from beginning joggers, to someone training for their first 10K, all the way up through the elite field. She came to mindfulness as a way to manage stress. She studied Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and began applying it to her runs. The result? Her stress disappeared, she stopped getting injured, and she actually began to enjoy running more. “Perhaps best of all, many of the calming and focusing effects of my mindful running practice spilled over into the rest of my life,” she writes. “I don’t get so easily pulled in to my own neurotic misadventures, ruminating about the past or obsessing about the future. Most runs I’m able to simply focus on my breathing and the rhythm of stride and accept the fact that there will be moments of discomfort and suffering. This has made me a happier and healthier runner, but also a more switched-on human being in general.” Havey also provides a research-backed argument for the “symbiotic pairing” of mindfulness and aerobic exercise, and in particular, running. Rounding out the reporting and anecdotes are how-to mindfulness practices, such as a body scan and how to engage your senses, as well as tips for improving both your performance and your enjoyment of the sport.
PODCASTS
REVISIONIST HISTORY Episode: The King of Tears In this series, Malcolm Gladwell’s prodigious talents as both a free thinker and a storyteller are on display. Gladwell likes to look at things from oblique angles, the better to break us out of fixed ways of thinking and shed new light. A superb journalist, he explores and investigates by talking with people. In Episode 6, season 2, he travels to Nashville in a fascinating quest to account for the difficulties we have in bridging the cultural divide in America by contrasting country music and rock and roll: one pulls at the heartstrings, the other doesn’t go there much. THE EDUCHANGE PODCAST Episode: Ashanti Branch In this episode, Ever Forward Club founder Ashanti Branch relates how neither excelling in school nor showing your emotions are considered cool for American boys. He also talks about his 100k Mask Challenge, which encourages young people and teachers to communicate with one another more authentically. An educator himself, Branch emphasizes the role of empathy in teachers to build constructive relationships with students: “If you care more about the subjects you’re teaching than the subjects who you’re teaching, there’s going to be a disconnect…. Connect a little bit more with your heart.” (For more on Branch’s work, see our feature “Is Your Life Designed For You?”) QUIRKS & QUARKS Episode: Neuroscience says it’s good to daydream When we daydream, science finds, our brains are in the zone for problem-solving and creativity. Neuroscience professor emeritus Dr. Daniel Levitin had Sting compose music inside a brain scanner, and Sting’s brain activity shifted into “daydreaming mode,” the default mode network. This area of the brain, describes psychology professor Dr. Kalina Kristoff, shows “the sweet spot between order and chaos.” She says the ability to flexibly switch between a daydreaming mental mode and more constrained and analytical modes of thought can indicate a highly creative mind.
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-24” author: “Alethea Mitchell”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-24” author: “Alethea Mitchell”
Many of us have heard bits of the extraordinary story behind singer/songwriter Jewel, who came to national attention in 1995 with the multiplatinum album Pieces of You: She was raised on an Alaskan homestead, and spent her childhood singing in bars with the family band before she left home at 15. When she was discovered in a San Diego coffeehouse four years later, she was living out of her car. In Never Broken, she unflinchingly relays the whole tale: the remarkable but unstable upbringing, poverty and struggling to fit with other kids, putting herself through performing arts high school, homelessness, sudden fame, heartbreaking betrayal, and redefining herself as an artist again and again. It’s a real page-turner. But what’s particularly interesting is the revelation that she relied on mindfulness to help her through. Of course, back then she didn’t call it mindfulness. No one did. But, realizing she was on her way to being “a statistic,” as she says, she began crafting a lifeline—reading physics and philosophy; and using meditation, visualization, gratitude, and journaling to watch and question her thoughts and choose where to direct them. It’s the goal of writing this book, and the website she launched with it, she says, to share these practices with anyone who needs them, particularly young people who are struggling. “If they can help you to get where you are going in less time and with less pain than it took me, then this book will have been worth writing,” she shares. “This is an invitation to question your life and, should you desire, to find the courage to erase the lines that imprison you and to reimagine a better you,” she writes. “Be the architect of your dreams.”
EVERY BODY YOGA
Let Go of Fear, Get on the Mat, Love Your Body Jessamyn Stanley • Workman Most people feel awkward during their first yoga class. For Jessamyn Stanley, being the largest woman in the studio only compounded this. Fast forward a few years, and Stanley is an Instagram sensation for chronicling how a “big, black, and beautiful African Queen” can be as yogic as the idealized (and grossly misleading) representation portrayed in women’s magazines. With Every Body Yoga, Stanley, now a certified teacher, takes that a step further. This book—a solid mixture of pose and sequencing instruction, introduction to the history and philosophy of the practice, and beginner’s tips to help you feel slightly less awkward when you start out—also tells Stanley’s story of how falling in love with yoga helped her fall in love with herself. Not only is this an inspiration for anyone who has ever felt different or has struggled with self-image, it’s an absolute testament to what yoga, at its core, is really all about.
FIERCE KINDNESS
Be a Positive Force for Change Melanie Salvatore-August • Yellow Pear Fierce Kindness is an uplifting mash-up of mindfulness skills and “positive thinking” power statements (“Turn a problem into a possibility;” “Be bold and bloom”) that feel a bit like they came off a Lululemon bag. While there’s no deep learning in Fierce Kindness, there is much to like. Author Melanie Salvatore-August, a yoga teacher (and Lululemon ambassador), is earnest in her “fierce” desire to remind us that we have say over how we interact with the world. And she provides some nice tips to help shift your focus, take mindful moments throughout your day, and investigate your thoughts with curiosity and kindness.
PODCASTS
LOVE AND RADIO
Episode: “The Silver Dollar” Daryl Davis is a musician with a deep interest in racism. In this episode, he talks about interviewing and befriending members of the Ku Klux Klan—including one who would become the organization’s Imperial Wizard—and the remarkable transformation that their contact brought about.
LONGFORM
Episode: “#215: Krista Tippett” Tippett, host of radio show and podcast On Being and author of Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living, talks about her journalistic life, the art of the interview and listening, and the state of spiritual coverage. “Good journalists in newsrooms hold themselves to primitive standards when they’re covering religious ideas and people,” she says. “They’re sloppy and simplistic in a way that they would never be with a political or economic person or idea. I mean they get facts wrong. They generalize. Because they don’t take it seriously, and they don’t know how to take it seriously.”
WRITERS & COMPANY
Episode: “Nobel laureate Derek Walcott on voice, place, and finding home” Eleanor Wachtel’s 2006 conversation with the Nobel Prize-winning poet Derek Walcott, who died in March at the age of 87. Walcott was known for poetry that bridged cultures and traditions, making links between his Caribbean and European heritage.
THE MINIMALISTS
Episode: “Mental Clutter” In episode 19, Joshua Fields Millburn & Ryan Nicodemus talk about the connection between physical clutter and mental clutter. “What is the best way to declutter your mind?” they ask. “Are there meditation practices to focus and clear your mind?”
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-13” author: “Gisela Stout”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-13” author: “Gisela Stout”
We’re forever reaching for something that will bring us pleasure: coffee, a Facebook post, a kiss, or something more sinful. We rev up our craving engine in the morning and give it few breaks through the day. What’s up with that? Why so needy? As director of research at the Center for Mindfulness and developer of smoking cessation and mindful eating apps, doctor Judson Brewer has a few things to say about that. Both a lab researcher and a psychiatrist, he has tried to figure out how we get ourselves into habits that adversely affect our health and how we can release ourselves from their grip. A little bit of understanding goes a long way, in Brewer’s view, so it helps us to know that we’re built to crave. Drawn toward what nourishes us, we’re rewarded with a good feeling, and the brain lays down a memory. That mechanism—trigger-behavior-reward—served our ancestors well when it came to learning where to find food and avoid toxins. But then a funny thing happened on the way to the watering hole: We started applying this mechanism to things that made us feel good, like smoking or gorging on sugary snacks, but that had long-term negative consequences. We hijacked a powerful evolutionary system for short-term gain at the expense of long-term pain. The awesome power of this system accounts for why habits are so hard to break. But then along comes mindfulness. Through repeatedly paying attention to how our mind and body behaves, at a moment-to-moment level, we can “see through” our “self-centered reactivity,” Brewer says. We can then interrupt the habit loops ingrained in our memory, and also use our built-in reward engine to foster habits that bring short-term pleasure and long-term benefit.
DANCING IN THE RAIN
Leading With Compassion, Vitality, and Mindfulness in Education Jerome T. Murphy • Harvard Education Press Human beings are a fearful, self-critical lot who all too often increase our pain by internalizing emotions like fear, shame, and anger. “Everyday discomfort may be inevitable, but mind-made misery is avoidable,” writes Jerome Murphy, the former dean at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “You can learn how to constructively handle the pressures and discomfort you encounter without making them worse.” Murphy uses dancing—preferably in the rain—as a metaphor for living fuller lives in the midst of life’s inevitable storms. So, rather than resisting life’s challenges, focus your energy on seeking inspiration, fostering kindness to yourself and others, and slowing down.
THE MYSTERY OF SLEEP
Why a Good Night’s Rest Is Vital to a Better, Healthier Life Meir Kryger, M.D. • Yale “Are you getting enough sleep?” These days the answer to this question seems almost too predictable, as the struggle for sleep affects the lives of millions of Americans. Yet not everyone’s struggle is the same; many factors can contribute to a lack of sleep. Dr. Meir Kryger, a sleep specialist and professor in the Yale School of Medicine, offers a thorough resource for anyone looking to figure out why they don’t get enough sleep so they can find the right treatment for their situation. The Mystery of Sleep reveals the many nuances of sleep, from body clocks and hormones to how much sleep humans require during each life stage, and why. This comprehensive book offers a solid ground on which to explore what you may need to do in order to get a better night’s sleep.
GRIT
The Power of Passion and Perseverance Angela Duckworth • Collins It may be surprising that a MacArthur Fellow and Ivy League professor ever felt she wasn’t smart enough growing up. But it caused Angela Duckworth to devote her career to researching the psychology of achievement. What she discovered is that wild success in life, in any endeavor, isn’t caused by good genes or extraordinary talent. Instead, it comes down to one overarching trait: grit. Duckworth defines the “grittiest” among us with the following qualities: ferocious determination, unusual resiliency, ability and desire to work really hard, and knowing in a very deep way what you want. Importantly, they also have optimism, the belief that you can change your situation. Best of all, Duckworth tells us, these qualities can be developed. Methodically researched and packed with examples of “grit paragons”—from Olympic athletes and heads of industry to those who’ve made the absolute best circumstances out of very little—this important book is at once fascinating… and hopeful.
MINDFUL GAMES
Sharing Mindfulness and meditation with children, teens, and families Susan Kaiser Greenland • Shambhala Is mindfulness for children? Many teachers say yes. And early research suggests it enhances well-being and improves the classroom environment. But mindfulness for children doesn’t equate simply with sitting meditation, which can be a challenge for young people (not to mention all of us at times). It’s also not just for the classroom; it can be an at-home pastime that can help a child or teen and the adults who read this book and introduce them to the activities inside. Susan Kaiser Greenland knows this work well, having helped to pioneer activity-based mindfulness in her first book, The Mindful Child. Her new book offers 60 road-tested activities built around six life skills— focusing, quieting, seeing, reframing, caring, and connecting—that help children and teens be more aware of what’s happening in their minds and bodies, and wiser and more compassionate. The exercises are also safe and effective for parents, grandparents, teachers, therapists, camp counselors—children of any age.
UNPLUG
A Simple Guide to Meditation for Busy Skeptics and Modern Soul Seekers Suze Yalof Schwartz • Harmony Suze Yalof Schwartz once lived the fast-paced, high-pressure of New York City fashion magazine editing—and then she found meditation. Now the owner of LA’s Unplug meditation studio, Yalof Scwhartz wants to demystify the practice to those she believes need it most: People like her. This simple little book offers a straightforward approach to starting a meditation practice, with tips and tools that newcomers will surely find reassuring. A friendly introduction to the world of meditation, Unplug will make lots of people want to take a seat and try it for themselves.
LISTEN TO THIS!
QUIRKS AND QUARKS Episode: “The Science of Mindfulness” How seriously should we take the claims made on behalf of meditation and mindfulness? How solid are the studies on their benefits? Host Bob McDonald talks to some heavyweights in mindfulness research. The bottom line? Well, it’s worth a listen.
ON BEING WITH KRISTA TIPPETT
Episode: “Maria Popova—Cartographer of Meaning in a Digital Age” “Identity is somewhat like rearranging an attic,” says Popova, the founder and editor of Brain Pickings, a weekly selection of thought-provoking writings. “It’s as much about throwing out the trinkets that no longer serve us as it is about bringing in new ones.”
LOVE + RADIO
Episode: “No Bad News” What would it feel like to abstain from news? Three decades ago, American hypnotist Larry Garrett decided to do exactly that—and learned what it means to live in the present. “I used to have bad hours and bad days,” he says. “I only have bad moments now.”
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-14” author: “John Bonds”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-14” author: “John Bonds”
Mindfulness and Why It Is So Important Jon Kabat-Zinn • Hachette In 2005, Jon Kabat-Zinn published his magnum opus, Coming to Our Senses. At 650 pages and years in the making, it was a monumental achievement. It allowed the founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction to put his life’s work in a larger context. Mindfulness is not a mental trick, an adjunct to regular life. It’s a basic human inheritance that is essential to life. We need to be optimally aware of who we are, where we are, how we are, if we are to survive individually and as communities, and even as a species in Kabat-Zinn’s view. The book amounted to a bold call for us all to quite literally “come to our senses,” to as often as possible experience where we are and what is going on within and around us—and to take up practices that cultivate our ability to do so. Now Hachette has decided to reissue the book as four separate small books, starting with Meditation Is Not What You Think: Mindfulness and Why It Is So Important, followed by Falling Awake: How to Practice Mindfulness in Everyday Life, both of which are available now. The third and fourth books will come out late this year and early next. While the books overall are thick with references to and examples from science, literature, poetry, political thought, and more, the whole is presented in digestible chapters, which is almost certainly the best way to read these books, since trying to rip through them leaves not enough time to reflect and take in what you’ve read. They’re like a box of fine chocolates. Eaten and savored one chapter at a time, they bring delight. If one eats half the box in one sitting, it may lead to indigestion. RADICAL LOVE Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition Omid Safi • Yale University Press This collection of ancient Islamic teachings reveals the roots and nuances of a mystical tradition that conjoins intellectual depth, spiritual humility, and bountiful sensuality. Together with the introduction by the book’s editor and translator, Omid Safi, the writings offer a glimpse into Islamic cosmology and philosophy through the history of a central tenet: radical love, or eshq. Safi, director of the Islamic Studies Department at Duke University, has disavowed “this idea that love is something private. Love is public. It is something that you do.” His collecting, translating, and editing of these exquisitely poetic teachings should be viewed as a public act of love, of service. THE EMPATH’S SURVIVAL GUIDE Life Strategies for Sensitive People Judith Orloff, MD • Sounds True According to research cited by Judith Orloff, the MD who is the bestselling author of Emotional Freedom, one in five people are “highly sensitive.” According to this understanding, “empaths” don’t just feel empathy in the typical way. It’s a kind of whole-body experience. And it can be difficult to get through a world of pain in such a raw, open, state. Orloff offers advice for those of us who feel we’re wearing our heart on the outside of our bodies: a way to live fully engaged and open to others without having to put on the thicker skin that so many people tell you is required. PICK THREE You Can Have It All (Just Not Every Day) Randi Zuckerberg • Dey Street Zuckerberg was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth, but she acquired one in 2004 at age 22 when her brother Mark asked her to join his little startup. In 2011, she left to start her own company, which led to Dot Complicated, a book about how the wired world has changed everything we do and think. In her follow-on book, she shatters the myth of the “well-balanced” life: Things are just lopsided. Out of work, sleep, family, friends, and fitness, she says, “pick three.” (daily, that is). Accept that, be choosy, and thrive.
Podcast
THE GUARDIAN’S SCIENCE WEEKLY A neuroscientist explains: the need for ‘empathetic citizens’ “Empathy is really about emotional resonance,” says Francesca Happé, a researcher at King’s College London. It’s “the ability to feel with another person,” an underrated skill that our increasingly fractured societies need. In studying how children develop empathy (beginning as young as seven months), Professor Happé finds that if we want a more empathic society, “children need to experience a wide range of emotions,” safely, such as through the arts. This nurtures the capacity to recognize and relate to the same emotional states in others, including—most critically—others who seem unlike themselves.
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-22” author: “Ethel Cloyd”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-22” author: “Ethel Cloyd”
The Mindful Way to Stay Sanein a Virtual WorldNancy Colier • Sounds True Having a universal communicator, satellite-driven locator, and encyclope- dia of all knowledge everpresent at our fingertips is making us a little bit crazy, and—according Nancy Colier, one of the newest entrants in the tech-survival guide game—a little bit unkind. As a therapist she has a window onto how a “teched-out mind” can make you unhappy. Her stories are warm, sad, funny at times, and they start to make you think too much “conve- nience” can actually be very unconvivial. Drawing Your Own PAth 33 Practices at the Crossroadsof Art and MeditationJohn F. Simon Jr. • Parallax If you like the idea of mindfulness coloring books but you’re more of a draw-outside-the-lines kind of person, Drawing Your Own Path can give you the best of both worlds. This instructional manual offers a variety of exercises for bringing together mindfulness and creativity, alongside personal anecdotes and musings from author and artist John F. Simon, Jr. Growing Up Mindful Essential Practices to Help Children, Teens, and Families Find Balance, Calm, and ResilienceChristopher Willard • Sounds True According to Chris Willard, in a kid’s world there are three main elements: studying, social life, and sleeping. The problem is that, because of limited time and other constraints, you only get to pick two of those. As a result, kids are more stressed than ever, and their parents are in a very similar boat. And when kids are in pain, they will do things to escape it, and not all of those are healthy. Willard’s book is bursting with skill-developing practices that are easy to bring into the everyday life of a child or teen (and their parents too!). Hello, Bicylce An Inspired Guide to the TwoWheeled LifeAnna Brones • Ten Speed Sometimes the best cure for a cluttered mind or gloomy disposition is to hop on a two-wheeled vehicle and take a leisurely ride to who-cares-where. Bike riding is one of life’s simple joys; it’s also good for our bodies and the planet. Brones’ guide offers something for every kind of biker—hardcore “cyclists,” casual peddle-pushers, those who haven’t mounted a bike in decades—from maintenance advice to picnic tips. Tribe On Homecoming and Belonging Sebastian Junger • Harper Collins Every once in a while a book comes along that takes a topic on everyone’s mind and asks you take a really fresh look. Junger does that for the phenomenon of returning veterans and PTSD. In Tribe, he celebrates something that soldiers learn to appreciate: the value of loyalty and belonging. Why do they have such difficulty reintegrating into “society”? Yes, it’s partly from the trauma they’ve suffered due to the horrors of war, but it’s also because the society they thought they were fighting to uphold has lost the intimacy and caring of true human society. We are not a tribe, he suggests. We are atomized, individualized, and lost in a pursuit of an ever-elusive paradise of material gratification. Isn’t it time to change that, he asks. Isn’t it time to find our tribe? The Mindfulness-Based Eating SolutionProven Strategies to End Overeating, Satisfy Your Hunger & Savor Your Life Lynn Rossy • New Harbinger The “Eat for Life” program outlined in this book emerged when Rossy, a health psychologist, was asked to respond to the needs of people with weight issues who were coming to the Uni- versity of Missouri wellness program. In developing the program, Rossy also measured its effectiveness. She shares these results as well as uplifting stories of people who made a better overall relationship with their body and mind through Eat for Life. This book asks us to examine, through the lens of mindful- ness, our views and habits surrounding food, and presents practical steps for interrupting the autopiloting that is at the core of so many of our challenges with food.
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-14” author: “Teresa Lande”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-14” author: “Teresa Lande”
Having taught and written extensively on the use of mindfulness in university law programs, Scott Rogers is an expert in bringing meditation to busy people. If seated meditation feels like yet another thing you can’t fit into your day, the method in this book offers an alternative, or complementary, practice. Rogers guides you to pay attention to the present moment by simply reflecting on familiar elements of the natural world over the course of a day. You can take their presence, he suggests, as an invitation to check in with the “elements of mindfulness”: body, breath, thoughts, feelings, and awareness. Catching sight of a tree, for example, reminds you to straighten your posture. Hearing a bird singing encourages you to listen deeply. Feeling or hearing the wind (or the air conditioner in your office), you pay attention to the next breath you take. By making these moments habitual, you can take a wider view—that our selves and our world are not so separate: “While our thoughts come and go, our body is here—always here, now. And our body is very much connected to the earth, borne of the earth, and will one day return to the earth.” This book helps to introduce and build the habit of paying attention, especially for those who are new to meditation. More experienced meditators will appreciate that Rogers delves into the ideas of “doing” and “being” and offers a perspective that can enrich their existing practice. With its picture-book-style drawings and focus on nature, the book can also invite children and their caregivers to try practicing mindfulness together. (To read about Scott Rogers’ work sharing mindfulness with young children and families, see “Mindfulness in Preschool” in our Top of Mind department.) LAGOM: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living Linnea Dunne • Gaia “Happiness in a sustainable sense is not about extremes,” writes Linnea Dunne on the value of lagom: a Swedish term meaning “not too much, not too little, just the right amount.” Compact and beautifully designed, this book explains how lagom permeates Swedish lifestyle and culture, and suggests ways for non-Swedish readers to adopt some of these traditions. In Dunne’s enthusiasm to promote lagom, Sweden itself may be overly romanticized. Still, she presents a refreshing vision of harmony and social connection. Lagom isn’t a form of private self-improvement: like Sweden’s beloved coffee breaks with cinnamon buns, it’s something you share. MINDFUL SPORT PERFORMANCE ENHANCEMENT: Mental Training for Athletes and Coaches Keith Kaufman, Carol Glass, Timothy Pineau • American Psychological Association Coaches and scientists alike increasingly recognize that, for peak performance, being “in the zone” requires not only physical training but also mental training. An evidence-based program, Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement (MSPE), promotes awareness, focus, and positive motivation in sports, and was inspired by the work Jon Kabat-Zinn did with Olympic rowers in the ’80s. The authors (also the developers of MSPE) provide a review of the science on mindfulness in sport, as well as lots of exercises that both athletes and coaches will find useful for harmonizing body and mind. PULLING TOGETHER: A Coach’s Journey to Uncover the Mindset of True Potential Jason Dorland • Heritage House This account of coaching a boys’ rowing team has more to do with mindfulness than you might guess. Dorland, an Olympic-rower-turned-coach, describes how he and his young athletes prepared for major competitions by prioritizing hard work, cooperation, and compassion over race results—an approach that flies in the face of the prevailing view of competition as a win-or-lose struggle. Yet his team’s triumphs demonstrate that mindfulness in sports can lead to incredible performance, not to mention greater enjoyment of the game. Dorland’s enthusiasm and conviction make this an uplifting read. MINDFULNESS ON THE GO (CARDS): 52 Simple Meditation Practices You Can Do Anywhere Jan Chozen Bays • Shambhala This deck is a useful way to infuse even your most hectic days with mindfulness. Chozen Bays, a pediatrician and meditation teacher, takes a lighthearted approach to mindfulness practice—and the variety of cards will keep you interested. One card suggests that you “become aware of the color blue.” Others recommend “doing a silly walk of some kind,” or “giving someone close to you a genuine compliment.” These exercises remind us that we can’t force ourselves to be free and open. Instead, we can see what’s already extraordinary in our lives, simply by paying attention.
PODCASTS
CBC QUIRKS & QUARKS Episode: Baseball researcher finds “the zone” in brain wave experiment Anthony Pluta, who earned his masters in neuroeconomics at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, wanted to find out how different types of brain waves correlate to an athlete being “in the zone,” hoping this could predict how well they would play. His research used the Muse™ Brain Sensing Headband, which measures brain waves using EEG (the headband’s designers have touted it as a way to “take the guesswork out of meditation”). The Muse recorded baseball hitters’ brain waves before they went to bat. Did the hitters perform better when their brainwaves reflected intense focus on the game, or when they were closer to a meditative state? The results, while preliminary, may surprise you. Pluta’s next question: Can training—such as mindfulness and/or meditation—allow athletes to optimize their brainwaves? FINDING MASTERY Episode: Dr. Judson Brewer—Habits, Mindfulness, and Addiction In this series, performance coach Michael Gervais talks with people who have achieved excellence in their field. This segment features Dr. Judson Brewer, a leading researcher in the science of mindfulness, addiction, and habit change. What mindfulness seems to offer in this context, Brewer explains, is a novel way to tinker with the psychological mechanisms underpinning our fears, habits, and addictive behaviors: “When something’s uncomfortable, we tend to flee. Well, what if we instead just totally get curious about what that sensation of fear feels like in the moment, so we can see what is exactly driving us?” It’s this curiosity that pushes back our self-imposed boundaries so that we can respond wisely in any situation, truly performing at our best. The full episode is definitely worth a listen. (For a mini-profile of Brewer and his work, see “Probing the Meditator’s Mind” in our “Meditators Under the Microscope” feature.) MINDFUL SOCIAL WITH JANET FOUTS Episode: Mindful Social Media—The ABCs of Attention, Balance and Compassion In a highly topical conversation, educator and author Susan Kaiser Greenland discusses her approach to mindfulness for children, teenagers, and families. She suggests parents use different ways to model or practice mindfulness as their child develops. For young children, a parent can simply be present, “without an overlayer of thinking or analyzing” the child’s activities. Pre-teens and teenagers can incorporate bits of mindfulness into their day, ideally practicing and discussing it with their peers. In a social media context, being mindful can mean we allow ourselves to notice our reactions to the online world and respond with compassion and a sense of humor—and children, just like adults, can benefit from this wisdom.
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-20” author: “Catherine Pike”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-20” author: “Catherine Pike”
Lisa Feldman Barrett • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt This book has made a sensation, since it claims to run counter to the prevailing thinking in the psychology of emotions, what Barrett calls the classical view of emotion. This view holds, according to Barrett, that we have emotion circuits in our brain built in since birth that cover a range of responses. Each of these has a kind of signature in various parts of our anatomy. If we’re experiencing fear, say, our face will show a telltale wide-eyed look while our palms may sweat, and so forth. Leading psychologists have done extensive work cataloging our range of emotions. Barrett first casts doubt on the evidence for these fixed emotions, arguing that the names and ranges of emotional responses differ by culture and that even within a homogenous culture, people show much wider ranges of response than are captured by the research that purports to identify our emotional menu. She goes on to say that emotions are constructed on the spot, not hard-wired. Our brains create emotions based on memory of previous responses to similar stimuli and these are based on culture and a variety of other factors. Further, she claims that clinging to the belief in hard-wired emotions makes us overconfident in assessing how people are feeling. We think we know more than we know. This is an intriguing work that has captured the attention of some mindfulness teachers, who feel this description may be more compatible with how we experience emotion in meditation. It remains to be seen whether she has overstated her differences, and some parts of the book are confusing, such as when she says emotions are not triggered, they are internally created. It’s hard to square that with the experience of someone at work driving you crazy. Also, the second half of the book, where she delves into self-help, shows that the laboratory is her more effective domain. THE HEART OF MINDFULNESS-BASED STRESS REDUCTION A MBSR Guide for Clinicians and Clients Elana Rosenbaum • PESI One of the first instructors in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the Center for Mindfulness at the UMass Medical School, Rosenbaum knows what she’s talking about. The book is also aptly named, since she brings a great deal of heart to the topic. It’s anything but dry. For anyone interested in learning what MBSR is all about, and particularly for those who are learning how to present it to others, the short essays, instructions, and tools in this guide will be invaluable. CAREFUL A User’s Guide to Our Injury-Prone Minds Steve Casner • Riverhead Many of us fear flying but will happily ride our bike on a city street. Even when we intellectually know which poses a greater risk (cycling is much more dangerous), our behavior doesn’t seem to get in line. Author Steve Casner, a research psychologist and safety expert at NASA, has studied the accident-prone mind for years. Accident- and injury-related deaths steadily declined through the 20th century thanks to safety measures like seatbelts, smoke alarms, and air traffic systems. But they have been on the rise since the 1990s. In Careful, Casner shows us how our attitude toward risks—like our tendency to assume accidents are flukes—is adding insult to injury. Ultimately, he says, with a few tweaks to how we see ourselves and the world, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble. THE KNOWLEDGE OF ILLUSION Why We Never Think Alone Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach • Riverhead The message at the heart of this book is simultaneously humbling and inspiring: We don’t know very much individually, but what we know collectively is astounding. Sloman and Fernbach are cognitive scientists who marvel at the power of the human mind but also count it as “pathetic.” Yes, we’ve accomplished great things, but each of us can often be irrational, error-prone, and ignorant. It’s the collective that saves us. As a group, we share knowledge developed by others and we can correct each other’s mistakes. “Intelligence,” they write, “resides in the community and not in any individual.” Their ultimate prescription: Let’s work together. “Unlike beehives, which have operated pretty much the same way for millions of years, our shared pursuits are always growing more complex and our shared intelligence more powerful.” MINDLESSNESS The Corruption of Mindfulness in a Culture of Narcissism Thomas Joiner • Oxford In a freewheeling essay filled with lengthy rants about modern cultural sins (such as the selfie) that have little direct connection to the mindfulness movement, Joiner does manage to pinpoint one of the main traps of meditation practice (and any effort to increase awareness of one’s habits): self-involvement. A society, culture, and media that promote and exploit high degrees of self-regard will inevitably yield people who twist mindfulness around to be “all about me.” But does that justify blanket statements such as “Authentic mindfulness has been perverted into solipsism”? Perhaps it just means that more authentic mindfulness is needed. DRIVING MISS NORMA Our Family’s Journey Saying “Yes” to Living Tim Bauerschmidt and Ramie Liddle • HarperOne This touching memoir chronicles the year-long journey that nomadic couple Ramie Liddle and Tim Bauerschmidt took with Tim’s mom, Norma, after her husband’s death and her cancer diagnosis. Instead of opting for medical treatment in her 90s, Norma chose to hit the road with her family. Together they traveled in an RV across the US and into Mexico, kept company by Tim and Ramie’s poodle, Ringo. Along the way Norma visits a cannabis dispensary, takes a ride in a hot air balloon, eats lots of cake, drinks lots of beer, becomes famous on the internet, and discovers a fresh way of life as her days wind to a close. This book lays bare the fragile reality of human life, the deep strength of family bonds, and what it means to truly take in all the world has to offer. “We got to see the truth in people, including in Norma: her glow, her tenacity, her joy, and her confidence.” THE SELF-COMPASSION DECK 50 Mindfulness-Based Practices Chris Willard, Mitch Abblett, and Tim Desmond • PESI This 50-card deck offers simple, succinct practices to bring compassion into daily life. Creators Abblett, a clinical psychologist, Desmond, a therapist and scholar, and Willard, a psychologist and mindfulness education specialist, came up with the cards to help people regulate emotions, work with anxiety, and generally improve their well-being. Plus, the deck comes with an extra 4 blank cards so you can write your own. ●
PODCASTS
SCIENCE VS Episode: Science vs. Meditation. What is meditation and does it do anything? In this series, host Wendy Zukerman “takes on fads, trends, and the opinionated mob to find out what’s fact, what’s not, and what’s somewhere in between.” The meditation instruction in here by acclaimed researcher Britta Holzel is a good representation of mindfulness, but many of the host’s opening descriptions of what meditation is are distorted and not well-informed. Fortunately, Holzel’s presentation of the results of hers and others’ research is articulate and balanced. Bottom line: Even though there are promising early results, there’s a lot of hope and a lot of hype and the research on meditation is in its early days. That’s no big surprise—as Mindful has made that point many times—but the value of this podcast is the engaging interviews with leading neuroscientists like Holzel, Gaelle Desbordes, and Clifford Saran. It turns out to be a good brief survey of interesting areas of mindfulness meditation research. WEEKLY PODCAST AT THE HAMMER MUSEUM Episode: Practicing Equanimity The Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA presents weekly lunchtime guided meditation practice on Thursdays, with a slightly different emphasis each week, in an auditorium at the Hammer Museum. They’re available as half-hour podcasts. In this episode, MARC’s director of mindfulness education, Diana Winston, focuses on the power of “the willingness to be with what is.” It starts with an intro and then leads into guided meditation. Be prepared for long stretches of silence. EVERYDAY BRAVERY Episode: Everyday Bravery in Love & Loss Sponsorship by Prudential ensures high production values for this uplifting and poignant series that started in March. This episode focuses on stories from a woman going blind, another who steers through her grief by singing, and a group of people who use their imagination to celebrate their memories of a revered theater teacher and producer.
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-21” author: “George Rose”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2023-01-21” author: “George Rose”
Ruth King • Sounds True Long-overdue discussions around race in America are finally having a moment—one that needs to last a very long time. The Netflix series Dear White People recently released its second season, as did Donald Glover’s Atlanta on FX. Both were created by young African-Americans who have a lot to say, and unique and hard-hitting ways of putting problems of whiteness front and center. The “post-racial America” illusionary bubble has been burst. Put simply, to imagine we are (or even aspire to be) color-blind is just to be blind to reality. So, where is mindfulness in all this? Is the spread of this practice, touted as something truly transformational, making a dent anywhere in our understanding and our race relations? If Ruth King has her way, it will. With Mindful of Race, King joins other voices demanding contemporary mindfulness practice go beyond being another luxury of the privileged to become something that enables us to explore deep habits together in ways that effect real change. King calls racism a “heart disease” that can go unnoticed and untreated for a long time. In response, she developed a three-and-a-half-day program with the same name as the book that “brings mindful inquiry to an examination of racial conditioning and social distress.” She unfolds her training on the page in three phases: In Diagnosis, we uncover “the narrative we hold along racial lines”; in Mindfulness—Heart Surgery, meditation practice helps us investigate deeply while “softening the grip of the tension” from emotions triggered by going to rarely explored places; and Recovery is about how we can spread understanding, caring, and equanimity about race from our inner circle to the bigger circles in the world.
The Mindful Day
Practical Ways to Find Focus, Calm, and Joy from Morning to Evening Laurie J. Cameron • National Geographic This book is chockablock with advice and instruction: Its five chapters contain 50 sections in all. The book starts your day with what you do at home in the morning, then it takes you to work and play and love, and then back home again. So, you start with showering and breakfasting mindfully; continue with leading mindful meetings, starting tough conversations, and banishing multitasking; go on to engaging your life and love with curiosity; and land back at home to savor your day and ease into sleep. Hard to imagine anyone being quite this mindful, but for those of us who aspire, this is an easy-to-follow handy guidebook.
Alone Time
Four Seasons, Four Cities, and the Pleasures of Solitude Stephanie Rosenbloom • Viking Books New York Times travel writer Stephanie Rosenbloom makes the (convincing) case in Alone Time for setting out on your own and experiencing the sights and sounds of everyday life from the vantage of a silent, solo observer. Structured as a travelogue of Rosenbloom’s solitary wandering in foreign cities, her musings are supported by insights from psychology and social science about the importance of nurturing our inner lives. It’s no coincidence that the cities she visits are pedestrian-friendly, lending themselves well to slow, schedule-free savoring. This book celebrates the unique pleasures of spending time alone, guided by nothing but your own whims and curiosity.
The Art of Breathing
The Secret to Living Mindfully Danny Penman • Conari Press Danny Penman is a journalist who appears on the BBC and in prominent UK newspapers. He’s also a bona fide mindfulness expert who has collaborated with Mark Williams, a cofounder of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. The Art of Breathing is a little book with a lot of depth. It charts a course from paying attention to the rising and falling of our breath to discerning what’s happening with our emotions to understanding our place in the world. It’s also non-linear and diagrammatic, which makes it a refreshing and breezy read.
CBC’s The Current
How Empathy Can Transform Healthcare For Dr. Brian Goldman, being told by the family of his elderly patient that his bedside manner was unfeeling kicked off a personal quest to be kinder, in his medical practice and his life. Along the way he met Erica, an empathic android, and learned about more compassionate treatments for dementia patients. He finds that while some people seem to be innately empathic, going through painful experiences can cause others to develop their empathy muscle: “If you have pain, use it, because it will make you stronger—and you’ll find your community.”
title: “Bookmark This”
ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-31” author: “Viola Betancourt”
title: “Bookmark This” ShowToc: true date: “2022-12-31” author: “Viola Betancourt”
Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind Leah Weiss • Harper Wave Let’s face it: Work is broken. Despite numerous attempts to rejigger and modernize and open up the workplace, in the opinion of Leah Weiss—who teaches “Leading with Mindfulness and Compassion” at the Stanford Graduate School of Business—most people work in a toxic environment. She’s not talking about sick building syndrome, though plenty of people still work in buildings cut off from the natural world with bad air, bad lighting, and bad building materials. She’s talking about working hours that stretch out of all recognition, the added ability to field communications at any place or time, and few if any doses of serious downtime to recharge. Weiss cites a study that shows that, in 2015, less than half of workers who received paid vacation days used all or most of them and that 44% of respondents said their job “negatively affected their overall health,” while 40% said it negatively affected family life, weight, and sleep. Chief among our problems is a mindset that creates a false dichotomy between “work” and “life,” causing us to expect life to make up for the damage done at work, when in fact what we need to do, individually and collectively, is learn how to live better at work and everyplace else. We need to transform the workplace and reclaim our lives by learning to pay more consistent attention to how we feel. As the tried and true mindfulness question goes: What is happening right now? If we keep up this kind of investigation, Weiss contends, change will happen. And leaders need to step up and take the initiative to create workplaces that value how people really feel. Be Mindful & Stress Less 50 Ways to Deal with Your (Crazy) Life Gina M. Biegel • Shambhala Publications With mindfulness being taught in an increasing number of schools, many students are learning how mindful practices can help them deal with busy school days, high expectations, relationships, and the omnipresence of social media. Biegel, a psychotherapist and the creator of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Teens, knows the aspects of mindfulness most useful for young people, and this book lays these out clearly. Without talking down to anyone, Biegel identifies simple actions that young people can take for self-care, easing anxiety, and cultivating more ease. This book will help in the vital work of empowering teens to improve their own wellness. The Green Burial Guidebook Everything You Need to Plan an Affordable, Environmentally Friendly Burial Elizabeth Fournier • New World Library It’s long been known that the modern way of death is deeply flawed. The funeral-home-run operations—the retail setting, the extremely costly coffins, embalming practices, burials, and even cremations (which require extreme levels of energy)—“not only fail to provide a satisfying ritual for mourning,” says Elizabeth Fournier, but they also leave behind a “lasting financial and ecological burden.” The seventh generation of morticians in her family, Fournier is a convert to green burials. She offers here everything you need to know about this new and growing set of practices. Breathe Inês Castel-Branco • Magination Press Breathe tells the story of a young boy who is nervous and struggling to sleep. His mother guides him with imaginative breathing exercises to explore lung capacity, as well as some animal-based yoga stretches. With practice, the child discovers how these tools can rob fear and sadness of their power to keep us awake at night. This book speaks to children with the confidence that they can understand how and why attention to our breath is so powerful. Here We Grow Mindfulness Through Cancer and Beyond Paige Davis • She Writes Press Four years ago Paige Davis received a diagnosis every woman dreads: breast cancer. At just 38 years old, and long committed to healthy living, she was devastated—but in a way, she writes in this encouraging new memoir, she’d “been in training for this” for her entire life. From her teens on she’d been exploring the body–mind relationship, leading, among other things, to a daily meditation practice. Over the whirlwind year that includes a double mastectomy, a harrowing bout of chemotherapy, and breast reconstruction, Davis turns again and again to the breath, accessing the well of inner stillness that exists in even the most uncomfortable moments. It’s a powerful reminder of how presence can shift any experience into one of learning—and growth. Relational Mindfulness A Handbook for Deepening our Connection with Ourselves, Each Other, and the Planet Deborah Eden Tull • Wisdom Publications Deborah Eden Tull grew up in a progressive community of artists and activists, whose motivations contrasted starkly with her Los Angeles surroundings. Yet even in this change-oriented environment, she couldn’t help feeling that more was needed in order to effectively address our most pernicious human problems: from personal fear, pride, and stress to social inequality, bigotry, and profit-driven destruction of nature. Tull’s drive to cultivate greater peace and happiness led her at age 26 to Zen Buddhism, where she found meditation to be “a direct means for softening our obsession with productivity and returning us instead to a more vast presence of being.” Through years of monastic practice (which she later left to teach and practice in society), she learned that the social good is served by moving toward what she calls “we consciousness,” and that this shift is innately a mindful one. Gently, lovingly, she shows how bringing mindfulness to how we show up for ourselves, our dear ones, and our wider communities creates the clarity to live with wisdom and compassion in trying and isolating times. Relational mindfulness, Tull describes, is the antidote to our illusion of separateness—which “fuels a way of life that is unsustainable both personally and globally. Every seed of violence in our world—war, social injustice, planetary abuse, and any ism—stems from the seed of this illusion.” This book doesn’t promote an intellectual grasp of what mindfulness is and does, nor is any kind of religious belief indis-pensible to its premise. What it accomplishes is a thoughtful, piece-by-piece consideration of the issues caused by our deeply limited conditioning, by our misperceptions about the world and ourselves—and how we’re capable of realizing our interconnectedness more deeply through relationships. It can be read in a group with shared intention, with a partner, or by oneself. What matters is that we take its compassionate message to heart. In the words of another spiritual teacher and activist, angel Kyodo williams, “Love and justice are not two. Without inner change, there can be no outer change; without collective change, no change matters.” First, We Make the Beast Beautiful A New Journey Through Anxiety Sarah Wilson • Dey Street Books Sarah Wilson, also the creator of I Quit Sugar, hits a beautiful balance in this book between deep reflection and down-to-earth advice for thriving with anxiety and related conditions. A far cry from the bedside manner-y tone common to self-help, Wilson’s warmth and humor will quickly win you over (example: frank talk about her finding that meditation retreats can bring constipation relief). The only deficiency is in the neuroscience, which leans on debunked theories involving the “reptilian” or “old vs. new” brain regions. These inaccuracies are small, however, beside her sound recommendations: from anxiety-proofing your diet to making your bed every day to finding clues in mental illness that evolve the way you care for yourself. Make a List How a Simple Practice Can Change Our Lives and Open Our Hearts Marilyn McEntyre • Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing What could be simpler, what could be more elegant than making a list? And lists have a great pedigree: the to-do list, the shopping list, the laundry list, the top forty, the Bill of Rights. Lists persist because they work: A review of the efficacy of checklists in hospitals showed that the lists improved patient safety with no reported negative effects. We forget stuff. It’s good to have a list. This book offers ample fun (and insight), and it starts out with a great list: reasons to make a list. Just two reasons out of nineteen are to discover subtle layers of feeling and to connect the dots. Sold.
Podcasts
Invisibilia Episode: Pt.I: Emotions / Pt.II: High Voltage This wonderful if offbeat podcast (its title is Latin for “invisible things”) fuses science with narrative storytelling. These episodes investigate psychologist Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett’s case that how we conceptualize (and deal with) emotions is totally backward: “Emotions aren’t a reaction to the world; they actually construct the world.” This is weighed against some true, truly weird stories: Traumatized by a car crash, a man sues who he crashed into—the parents of the child he killed (!). An anthropologist discovers a “new” emotion among a head-hunting tribe in the Philippines. And a woman struggles to find love, due to a seemingly involuntary reflex. Quirks & Quarks Episode: Friends share more than interests. Their brains are similar, too Dr. Carolyn Parkinson, a psychological researcher at UCLA, led a study that interviewed 300 students to learn the degrees of friendship or distance they had to others within the group. Then, students watched an assortment of video clips while the researchers took fMRI scans of their brains. It turned out that how close the students were to one another could be predicted by the similarity of their neural responses to the videos. This leaves open the question of whether we gravitate toward others who already see and process the world similarly, or if we become friends first and, through unknown mechanisms, our mental patterns converge over time. Freakonomics Radio Episode: Here’s Why All Your Projects Are Always Late—and What to Do About It Why do we procrastinate—and why, nevertheless, can we always convince ourselves that we won’t next time? Experts weigh in, from psychology and neuroscience to software design and New York City’s Second Avenue subway that took 50 years to start building. We fall victim to the planning fallacy, which involves our “optimism bias”—believing the grass is greener in the future—and the fact that most of us don’t love data integration. The key to more accurate expectations? “Use data instead of human judgment.” Artificial intelligence: 1; people: 0.
