Looking at Mindfulness


Book Description

A book to help you achieve mindfulness and practice meditation while looking at the world's greatest works of art. Psychiatrist and leading meditation practitioner Christophe André guides you through the art of mindfulness, beginning with art itself. Looking at Mindfulness collects classic and esoteric paintings, from Rembrandt to Hopper to Magritte, and offers a lucid commentary on the inner workings of each. André describes the dynamic on the canvas, and turns to the viewer's own reactions, exploring the connection between what we see and what we feel. Moving beyond the art on the page, André teaches us what it means to consider our surroundings, our daily interactions and obligations, and their effect on our inner well-being and mental clarity. The paintings are a visual and tangible first step to understanding mindfulness and the benefits of living in the moment. In practicing mindfulness, within ourselves and out in the world, each of us can make immediate, meaningful, and permanent changes in our well-being and the well-being of others. Beautifully written, wonderfully accessible for any novice or expert, Looking at Mindfulness delivers practical steps and a comprehensive understanding of the practice and meaning of mindfulness and meditation. An authentic and effortless voice, André brings clarity to what it means to live mindfully and how we can make a more conscious effort to do so.




Mindfulness for Everyday Living


Book Description

Explains the principles of Mindfulness and shows how its simple practices can help you live a calmer, happier life.




Handbook of Mindfulness


Book Description

This handbook explores mindfulness philosophy and practice as it functions in today’s socioeconomic, cultural, and political landscape. Chapters discuss the many ways in which classic concepts and practices of mindfulness clash, converge, and influence modern theories and methods, and vice versa. Experts across many disciplines address the secularization and commercialization of Buddhist concepts, the medicalizing of mindfulness in therapies, and progressive uses of mindfulness in education. The book addresses the rise of the, “mindfulness movement”, and the core concerns behind the critiques of the growing popularity of mindfulness. It covers a range of dichotomies, such as traditional versus modern, religious versus secular, and commodification versus critical thought and probes beyond the East/West binary to larger questions of economics, philosophy, ethics, and, ultimately, meaning. Featured topics include: A compilation of Buddhist meditative practices. Selling mindfulness and the marketing of mindful products. A meta-critique of mindfulness critiques - from McMindfulness to critical mindfulness Mindfulness-based interventions in clinical psychology and neuroscience. Corporate mindfulness and usage in the workplace. Community-engaged mindfulness and its role in social justice. The Handbook of Mindfulness is a must-have resource for clinical psychologists, complementary and alternative medicine professionals/practitioners, neuroscientists, and educational and business/management leaders and policymakers as well as related mental health, medical, and educational professionals/practitioners.




Xiu Yang


Book Description

'Exquisite... for anyone interested in building a sustainable life that is imbued with vibrant healthy, mental and emotional clarity, and the most basic human need of all: happiness' - Donna Farhi, author of Yoga Mind, Body, Spirit 'A treasure chest for the heart and mind, a potent tonic for body and breath, and a vibrant life essence for the spirit' - Simon Low, Principal of the Yoga Academy 'A beautiful and timely gift' - Sifu Matthew Cohen, Sacred Energy Arts Founder 'Profound and powerful' - Noman Blair, author of Brightening Our Inner Skies For centuries, Chinese sages, rulers and spiritual seekers have embraced a simple yet powerful principle to enable them to live in harmony with the Source of nature and all life; the art of 'self-cultivation' or, xiu yang. Xiu yang works with the idea that we can steadily nurture our capacity to being fully human and fully awake. Like a field that is patiently cultivated to optimally grow the nourishing and healthy crops, we can undertake practices aimed at smoothing out the roughness and irregularities in our bodies, minds and spirits in order to produce a deep, lasting spiritual happiness. Xiu yang promotes the idea that inner balance leads to outer radiance: in order to be in harmony with the world, we must first be in harmony with ourselves. By tending to the field of our own bodies, hearts, minds and relationships, we can start making positive changes within our lives and in the lives of others. In this nurturing lifestyle guide, Mimi Kuo-Deemer champions the contemporary value of adopting this ancient approach. Through a combination of practices from meditation and mindfulness to yoga and qigong, Xiu Yang offers a fresh approach to finding balance and bringing peace into your life, home and community. Part I: The Art of Xiu Yang Part II: Xiu Yang for a Healthy and Harmonious Body Part III: Xiu Yang for a Balanced Mental and Emotional Life Part IV: Xiu Yang for a Happier Place in the World




The Mindfulness Toolbox


Book Description

A Complete Guide to Mindfulness Tools for Clinicians At last, an authoritative book filled with mindfulness tools that deliver an essential set of engaging, practical strategies along with key research and evidence-based information. The awareness boosting methods in this guidebook offer participants a means of reappraising and observing negative and anxious thoughts, habits, pain, and stress in fresh ways that produce new insight, positive change, and a sense of hope. Featuring over 40 easy to use, reproducible handouts and expertly crafted, guided scripts—such as working with the breath, overcoming depression with here and now pleasantness, calming the anxious mind with sense grounding, expanding a client’s strength narrative, the stress pause S-T-O-P technique, and meditations for peace, acceptance, and re-envisioning pain—this book is ideal for clinicians wanting to integrate mindfulness into their work.




Handbook for the Soul


Book Description

America's most celebrated spiritual writers offer inspiring words on the state of the soul today. This collection of more than thirty original essays addresses both the importance of caring for and nourishing the soul and the ways in which these individuals tend to their own souls on a day-to-day basis.




An Artful Path to Mindfulness


Book Description

An innovative, creative approach to help you break free from the fear and uncertainty that stand in the way of genuine happiness. When you look at your life, do you feel it’s working just the way it is? Or do you feel overwhelmed, stressed, depressed, and uneasy? So many of us are stuck in a pattern of living reactively rather than proactively, and feel exhausted and uncreative as a result. Fortunately, there is another way. It requires stepping off the fast track, and no longer going through your days on “autopilot.” It requires slowing down and tuning in to the present moment and seeing things as they really are. Mindfulness-based self-expression (MBSE), offers a way off the fast track. Drawing on mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), MBSE fuses art exploration—including drawing, mark-making, and creative self-expression—with meditations, gentle yoga, breathwork, and body scans. These daily practices are designed to help you cultivate a mindset of awareness, patience, trust, acceptance, and vulnerability. This unique workbook invites you to draw, tear, mark, play, and take risks. There is no plan, no goal, and no preconceived idea to follow. The process is simply communicating to yourself who you are in this moment, following the thread one mark at a time. The book also serves as a journal for recording your curiosity, vulnerability, and creativity. When completed, it becomes an artistic expression of life as you celebrate the profound gift that is now. Tapping into our creative self-expression empowers us to be who we are in the world, to come into deeper contact with our authentic selves, and build the self-confidence needed to take risks. The Artful Path to Mindfulness will help you find your own creative heart, and use it as a tool for living a joyful and fulfilling life.




Handbook of Mindfulness


Book Description

An authoritative handbook, this volume offers both a comprehensive review of the current science of mindfulness and a guide to its ongoing evolution. Leading scholars explore mindfulness in the context of contemporary psychological theories of attention, perceptual processing, motivation, and behavior, as well as within a rich cross-disciplinary dialogue with the contemplative traditions. After surveying basic research from neurobiological, cognitive, emotional/affective, and interpersonal perspectives, the book delves into applications of mindfulness practice in healthy and clinical populations, reviewing a growing evidence base. Examined are interventions for behavioral and emotion dysregulation disorders, depression, anxiety, and addictions, and for physical health conditions.




Mindfulness in Good Lives


Book Description

Mindfulness is celebrated everywhere—especially in health psychology and spiritual practices, but also in the arts, business, education, environmentalism, sports, and the use of digital devices. While the current mindfulness movement may be in part the latest fad in a narcissistic and therapeutic culture, it is also worthy of greater philosophical attention. As a study in ethics and moral psychology, Mindfulness in Good Lives remedies the neglect of this subject within philosophy. Mike W. Martin makes sense of the striking variety of concepts of mindfulness by connecting them to the core idea of value-based mindfulness: paying attention to what matters, in light of relevant values. When the values are sound, mindfulness is a virtue that helps implement the kaleidoscope of values in good lives. Health psychologists, who currently dominate the study of mindfulness, often present their research as value-neutral science. Yet they invariably presuppose moral values that should be made transparent. These values, which lie at the interface of morality and mental health, form bridges between philosophy and psychology, and between literature and spirituality.