Befriending Your Body


Book Description

A step-by-step holistic approach to eating disorder recovery, using self-compassion and embodiment practices to reduce symptoms, increase body awareness and acceptance, reconnect to others, and step back into an integrated life Those who struggle with disordered eating often find themselves in an unrelenting cycle of harsh self-judgment, painful emotions, and harmful behaviors. Seeing the body as an adversary, these patterns can lead many people to become withdrawn or isolated. Ann Saffi Biasetti’s powerful holistic approach to liberating people from disordered eating focuses on growing self-compassion and embodiment. This insight, informed by yoga and mindfulness meditation, views the body not just as something to be healed or restored but as a source of great wisdom and knowledge. Dr. Biasetti offers yoga-based movement, body-awareness practices, meditations, and journaling exercises to help release long-held habits of self-criticism and perfectionism. Her step-by-step program will rebuild self-compassion, self-care, body awareness, acceptance, and connection to the self and to others.




Befriending Your Body


Book Description

A step-by-step holistic approach to eating disorder recovery, using self-compassion and embodiment practices to reduce symptoms, increase body awareness and acceptance, reconnect to others, and step back into an integrated life Those who struggle with disordered eating often find themselves in an unrelenting cycle of harsh self-judgment, painful emotions, and harmful behaviors. Seeing the body as an adversary, these patterns can lead many people to become withdrawn or isolated. Ann Saffi Biasetti’s powerful holistic approach to liberating people from disordered eating focuses on growing self-compassion and embodiment. This insight, informed by yoga and mindfulness meditation, views the body not just as something to be healed or restored but as a source of great wisdom and knowledge. Dr. Biasetti offers yoga-based movement, body-awareness practices, meditations, and journaling exercises to help release long-held habits of self-criticism and perfectionism. Her step-by-step program will rebuild self-compassion, self-care, body awareness, acceptance, and connection to the self and to others.




Embodiment and the Treatment of Eating Disorders: The Body as a Resource in Recovery


Book Description

Tools for the clinician to help clients turn their bodies into resources for healing from eating disorders. Embodiment refers to the lived attunement of the inner and outer experience of self. Cognitions are aligned with the sensing and feeling body. Further, in an attuned experience of self, positive embodiment is maintained by internally focused tools, such as self-care practices that support physiological health, emotional well-being, and effective cognitive functioning. For those who suffer from eating disorders, this is not the case; in fact, the opposite is true. Disordered thinking, an unattuned sense of self, and negative cognitions abound. Turning this thinking around is key to client resilience and treatment successes. Catherine Cook-Cottone provides tools for clinicians working with clients to restore their healthy selves and use their bodies as a positive resource for healing and long-term health. The book goes beyond traditional treatments to talk about mindful self-care, mindful eating, yoga, and other practices designed to support self-regulation.




Your Body Knows the Answer


Book Description

A manual for Mindful Focusing—a new integration of Western psychology and Buddhist mindfulness techniques for accessing your inherent wisdom and solving life’s problems Ever come up against one of those moments when life requires a response—and you feel clueless? We all have. But there’s good news: you have all the wisdom you need to respond to any situation, even the “impossible” ones. It’s a matter of tuning in to your felt sense: that subtle physical sensation that lives somewhere between your conscious and subconscious mind and that can be accessed through Focusing—the well-known method developed by the psychologist Eugene Gendlin. David Rome’s technique of Mindful Focusing unites Gendlin’s method with Buddhist mindfulness practices to provide a wonderfully effective method for accessing your felt sense—so you can problem solve, deal with challenges, and respond honestly and creatively to the world around you.




Befriending Your Ex after Divorce


Book Description

If you are divorced, or are contemplating divorce, you’ve probably heard the diatribe: Divorce is messy. Divorce is a tragedy. Divorce will scar your children for life. Befriending Your Ex challenges many of these destructive myths about divorce, and sets out to change the way we think about the process of divorce and its ultimate outcome. While divorce certainly can have negative effects upon children, when they occur, these effects are likely to result from a hostile and combative relationship between ex-spouses. This uplifting book reminds the reader that all divorces need not follow this unhappy script, and that ex-spouses can collaboratively co-parent and be a source of support, not only to their children, but to one another as well. Author Judy Rabinor’s ability to write as both a divorcee and a psychologist gives her a unique perspective on the subject, and in the book she artfully and thoughtfully combines research, clinical practice, and the everyday reality faced by a divorced parent. As a guide for parents, this book is filled with practical exercises, suggestions and strategies for coping with anger, grief, and loss, as well as the myriad of day to day issues involved in co-parenting after divorce. Story after story—including Judy’s own story—reminds the reader that once the emotional tsunami of divorce settles back down, exes can be connected and supportive to one another as they share a major joy: loving and raising children and grandchildren, enjoying the family they have created, and creating a new family unit to evolve in the wake of divorce.




Anchored


Book Description

Discover your body’s neural pathways to calmness, safety, and connection. An intense conversation, a spat with a partner, or even an obnoxious tweet—these situations aren’t life-or-death, yet we often react as if they are. That’s because our bodies treat most perceived threats the same way. Yet one approach has proven to be incredibly effective in training our nervous system to stop overreacting and start responding to the world with greater safety and ease: Polyvagal Theory. In Anchored, expert teacher Deb Dana shares a down-to-earth presentation of Polyvagal Theory, then brings the science to life with practical, everyday ways to transform your relationship with your body. Using field-tested techniques, Dana helps you master the skills to become more aware of your nervous system moment to moment—and change the way you respond to the great and small challenges of life. Here, you’ll explore: • Polyvagal Theory—get to know the biology and function of your vagus nerve, the highway of the nervous system • Befriending Your Nervous System—attune to what’s going on in your body by developing your “neuroception” • Using Your Vagal Brake—discover key techniques to consciously regulate the intensity of your emotions • Connection and Protection—learn to recognize and influence your internal cues for safety and danger • Your Social Engagement System—find ways to create nourishing relationships with others and the world around you • Practices and guidance to gently shape your nervous system for greater resilience, intuition, safety, and wonder Through guided imagery, meditation, self-inquiry, and more, Anchored offers a practical user’s manual for moving from a place of fear and panic into a grounded space of balance and confidence. “Once we know how our nervous system works, we can work with it,” teaches Deb Dana. “We can learn to access an embodied, biological resource that is always present, available, and there to guide us toward well-being.”




The Body Keeps the Score


Book Description

Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.




Self-Compassion For Dummies


Book Description

Become your own best friend and reap the life-changing benefits! Being kind to yourself might sound simple, but self-compassion can change your life dramatically (and most of us are WAY kinder to others than to ourselves) Self-Compassion For Dummies will help you discover self-critical thoughts and self-defeating behaviors that are holding you back from fulfilling your potential and explore how you can learn to work around these things to find your way to more joy and satisfaction. We often think being hard on ourselves will help motivate us to be better people, but Dr. Steven Hickman’s review of the research finds that just the opposite is true. When you learn to love and appreciate yourself completely (as an imperfect human with messy feelings and uncomfortable thoughts), you free yourself up to achieve great things. This book will show you how! Befriending yourself and coping mindfully with the challenges of everyday life is easy with this practical guide. You’ll learn how to give yourself a taste of your own medicine by turning understanding, acceptance, and love—stuff you already do for others all the time—inward. Discover the research behind self-compassion and learn how it can help you face your insecurities and life a fuller life as a result Cultivate feelings of self-worth, acceptance, and love for someone who really deserves it—you! Explore the potential of self-compassion to address self-criticism, perfectionism, shame, self-doubt, anxiety, and anger Work through evidence-based exercises and practices to easily master the art of self-compassion as a daily way of being and not just an esoteric exercise Now more than ever, we need to offer support and love to ourselves. Thankfully, this is a skill we can all develop with a little help from Self-Compassion For Dummies.




Embodied Inquiry


Book Description

"Embodied Inquiry is offered to all who want to deepen the connection to their bodies. Here is the inspiration to see your body as a place of inquiry, learning, understanding and perceiving. Listening to the sensual knowing and aliveness within the body can inform our personal and professional lives and reveal the connections between living, being, and creating. Snowber writes this book in poetic and visceral language as a love letter from the body wooing readers to inhabit their own skins and celebrate the beautiful and paradoxical place where limitations and joy dwell together. Touching on the vastness of our body’s call to us, Embodied Inquiry explores solitude, paradox, inspiration, lament, waking up to the sensuous, ecology, listening, and writing from the body. This is not a manual, but a book to accompany you in befriending the body and let your own gestures, stories and bodily ways of being lead you to listen to your own rhythm. Whether an artist or educator, researcher or administrator, performer or poet, seeker or scientist, you will find this book as a companion to sustain a vibrant life and co-create a better world. “A beautiful, creative and highly original book. Written with passion and wisdom, this book makes significant contributions to arts-based research, artistic research practice, embodiment, and living artful, intentional and connected lives. A stunning achievement.” – Patricia Leavy, Ph.D., author of Method Meets Art and editor of the Social Fictions series “Snowber offers wisdom for learning to live exotically, erotically, emotionally, and ecstatically. Reading Embodied Inquiry is like walking on a wilderness trail, in sunlight-infused rain, learning to embrace the possibilities of vitality and vulnerability, joy and grief, love and loss.” – Carl Leggo, Ph.D., poet & professor, University of British Columbia “Weaving prose and poetry, Snowber awakens our sensual and embodied self at the very roots of living. This deeply personal work will move educators, researchers, artists, and those for whom lived experience is core to their creative processs.” – Daniel Deslauriers, Ph.D., Professor, Transformative Studies Doctorate Program, CIIS" /div




Body Kindness


Book Description

Imagine a graph with two lines. One indicates happiness, the other tracks how you feel about your body. If you’re like millions of people, the lines do not intersect. But what if they did? This practical, inspirational, and visually lively book shows you how to create a healthier and happier life by treating yourself with compassion rather than shame. It shows the way to a sense of well-being attained by understanding how to love, connect, and care for yourself—and that includes your mind as well as your body. Body Kindness is based on four principles. WHAT YOU DO: the choices you make about food, exercise, sleep, and more HOW YOU FEEL: befriending your emotions and standing up to the unhelpful voice in your head WHO YOU ARE: goal-setting based on your personal values WHERE YOU BELONG: body-loving support from people and communities that help you create a meaningful life With mind and body exercises to keep your energy spiraling up and prompts to help you identify what YOU really want and care about, Body Kindness helps you let go of things you can't control and embrace the things you can by finding the workable, daily steps that fit you best. Think of it as the anti-diet book that leads to a more joyful and meaningful life!