Tag Archives: #clarity

Best Mindfulness Books on the Market 

Continuing Booko’s August focus on self-care, this week we are looking at some recent releases on Mindfulness. Mindfulness is a form of meditation borne of Buddhist tradition – yet you don’t need to be spiritual or “the meditating type” to benefit from this practice. Mindfulness asks us to focus on the present moment without judgment, and can be as simple as focussing on our breathing for one minute. There is much evidence to show that mindfulness can improve our physical as well as mental wellbeing, helping to relief stress and anxiety, improving mental clarity, and helping us get more out of personal interactions. If you have ever felt too busy, overwhelmed, or distracted, then you may benefit from mindfulness practice – and here are some great guides to get you started:

Becoming Aware: a 21- Day Mindfulness Program for Reducing Anxiety and Cultivating Calm by Daniel J. Siegel

Cover for Becoming Aware by Daniel J. Siegel
Cover for Becoming Aware by Daniel J. Siegel

This companion to Daniel J. Siegel’s bestselling Aware offers a 21-day, step-by-step guide to adopting his Wheel of Awareness meditation practice. Siegel developed Wheel of Awareness after reviewing current scientific research, which shows that mindfulness offers physical as well as mental health benefits. Using a series of meditation instructions, practical exercises, and everyday tools and techniques, Becoming Aware enables readers, including children, to focus attention, open awareness, and develop compassion, leading to an enduring sense of calm and quiet.

The Resilience Project: Finding Happiness through Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness by Hugh van Cuylenburg

The Resilience Project is more of a memoir than an instruction manual, yet Hugh van Cuylenberg’s life stories are sure to inspire you to make a habit of the simple yet transformational practices of gratitude, empathy and mindfulness – behaviours that lead to resilience and happiness. With humour, poignancy and clear-eyed insight, Hugh van Cuylenberg shares the personal experiences – including his sister’s eating disorder, and his time volunteering in northern India – that has led to his discovery of the link between gratitude, empathy, mindfulness and happiness, which in turn has inspired him to work to help people live a happier and more fulfilling life.

Now Is the Way: Simple Mindfulness for Modern Times by Cory Allen

Cory Allen, host of the popular Astral Hustle podcast, adds author to his resume with this practical, highly readable guide to the why, what, and how of mindfulness. As in his podcasts, Now is the Way mixes mindfulness, neuroscience, philosophy and music; it includes a detailed review of current research; discussion of trends in the mindfulness movement; no-nonsense exercises such as deep breathing; as well as how to use “binaural beats”, a form of sound therapy. There is also a detailed bibliography for further exploration. Cory Allen thinks of mindfulness as “strength training for the brain” – it can help us take control of our thinking, stop merely reacting to life and start to live it the way we want.

How to Focus (Mindfulness Essentials) by Thich Nhat Hanh

The late Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh is best known in the West as the “Father of Mindfulness”. He also developed the concept socially-engaged Buddhism, and was an active proponent of nonviolent activism. The Mindfulness Essentials series is a pocket-sized collection of Thich Nhat Hanh’s writing that focuses on key elements of mindfulness practice. How to Focus offers a set of simple meditations, written with his characteristic kindness, that can help us overcome constant distraction and regain our powers of concentration, and thus foster the conditions that bring insight and understanding.

Gutsy: Mindfulness Practices for Everyday Bravery by Leah Katz

Dr Leah Katz is a clinical psychologist who uses a mix of behavioural therapies and mindfulness techniques in treating anxiety and depression. In Gutsy, she shows how mindfulness can be part of a broader toolkit that helps us make bolder, more fulfilling choices;
by adopting a mindset of joy, gratitude, and resilience, we can learn to identify what is holding us back, to overcome our fears, and move past society’s unrealistic and often harmful expectations to create the self-loving and compassionate life that we all deserve.

Attention Hijacked: Using Mindfulness to Reclaim Your Brain from Tech by Erica B. Marcus

Attention Hijacked offers invaluable advice to steer teens towards healthier tech-use habits, without resorting to “screentime is bad” scare tactics. Erica B. Marcus acknowledges that technology offers many benefits, including education, entertainment, social connection and personal expression; yet some technologies are designed to be addictive, and can interfere with cognitive abilities and mental and physical health. Attention Hijacked shows how mindfulness can help us reassess our technology use, leading to a more conscious, balanced approach. A great resource for teens as well as their caregivers and teachers.

Top six books for those who want to learn to meditate

Meditation is known and followed by many who delight in the calm and clarity it brings them when they need it most, though others can find it lacking in science and complete woo-woo. In these crazy times we are living in with a climate crisis, global pandemics, spring inflation and even a war, Team Booko has found six amazing books that want to help ease your mind and may even change the mind of the strongest sceptic. Whether you are looking for quick suggestions to relax during the day or answers to deeper questions about the direction of your life, these books each aim to work towards a positive impact on your life while drawing on science and practice. 

Finding Peace: Meditation and Wisdom for Modern Times by Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche

Finding Peace is a practical guide to the life-changing benefits of meditation from leading Buddhist master Lama Yeshe Losal Rinpoche. Rinpoche is the leading Buddhist monk in the UK, who shares his collected wisdom on how we can all overcome negative thoughts and calm our minds with simple meditation practices. His teachings have transformed the lives of people all over the world and, in our modern chaotic world, have never been more pertinent.

He teaches us that our minds are infinite like the sky, which can easily become clouded with stress and emotions, but with meditation we are able to clear away these clouds. By freeing our minds of those obstacles we can find peace in every moment and live a truly fulfilled life. With practical steps on breathing, posture, forgiveness, relationships and routine, this is the definitive guide for beginners and experienced meditators alike to learn from the wisdom of a globally revered meditation master.

Breathe Like a Badass by Hannah Jane Thompson

Breathe Like a Badass is a practical handbook that shows you how to harness the power of meditation, covering everything from comparison and office politics to body image and relationships. This practical handbook teaches you how to start and stick to a non-woo-woo, scientifically based, zero-BS meditation habit that you can turn to again and again when life and work gets tough. Qualified meditation teacher and certified life coach Hannah Jane Thompson has been practising meditation for over 11 years, after discovering the difference it made to her own life. As an ambitious but chronically anxious journalist, Hannah suppressed all feelings of not being ‘good enough’ until one day she was hit with chronic depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. At her absolute lowest point, she discovered meditation, and it quite literally saved her life. Breath by breath, meditation taught her to stop, breathe, accept who she was, and question those negative thoughts and transform them into something a little more kind, positive, and mindfully productive. Drawing on her own story, her teaching practice and experiences of her clients, Hannah shows you how to harness the power of meditation. Breathe Like a Badass is your no-BS guide to creating a life-changing, burnout-busting emotional toolbox of your own.

Total Meditation: Stress Free Living Starts Here by Deepak Chopra

Times are hard. Meditation doesn’t have to be. Meditation leads to transformation. It affects every aspect of your wellbeing and can bring about positive change in your body, affect your mental outlook, increase your decision-making ability and eliminate worry and anxiety. The master of modern meditation Deepak Chopra draws on his 30 years of practice and reveals how to achieve blissful awareness by waking up to who you really are. Perfect for beginners, sceptics or those looking for a new approach to stillness, his simple 7-day programme offers a life-changing path to a quiet mind.

The No-Nonsense Meditation Book by Steven Laureys

Rigorously researched and deeply illuminating, world-leading neurologist Dr Steven Laureys works with celebrated meditators to scientifically prove the positive impact meditation has on our brains.

Dr Steven Laureys has conducted ground-breaking research into human consciousness for more than 20 years. For this bestselling book, he explores the effect of meditation on the brain. He uses hard science to explain the benefits of a practice that was once thought of as purely spiritual. The result is a highly accessible, scientifically questioning guide to meditation, designed to open the practice to a broader audience. A mix of fascinating science, inspiring anecdote and practical exercises, this accessible book offers scientific evidence that meditation can have a positive impact on all our lives.

Strong, Calm and Free: A modern guide to yoga, meditation and mindful living by Nicola Jane Hobbs

Heartfelt and deeply practical, Strong, Calm and Free brings alive the possibility of a life of inner peace, compassion and joy. Grounded in both modern science and ancient wisdom, this beautiful and inspiring book demystifies the philosophy and psychology of yoga, making the 4000-year old practice accessible for modern life. Whether you’ve never stepped foot on a yoga mat before or want to deepen your home practice, this beautifully-illustrated book is suitable for all abilities, gently guiding you through a ten-week journey of yoga sequences, meditations and mindful living practices that will build strength, bring insight and offer a path to healing and freedom. Written by holistic counsellor and international yoga and meditation teacher Nicola Jane Hobbs, Strong, Calm and Free shares the tools to help you navigate the peaks and valleys of modern life, to dispel the “I’m not good enough” myth that holds so many of us back and to experience the miracle of being yourself. By sharing her gentle wisdom alongside simple, practical exercises, Nicola invites you on a path of inner transformation. A mindful adventure of self-discovery. A journey towards health, happiness and wholeness. Towards strength, peace and freedom. Towards becoming fully and fearlessly who you are.

A Monk’s Guide to Happiness: Meditation in the 21st century by Gelong Thubten

We’re all on a search for happiness, but we’re looking in the wrong places. Everyone looks externally to find contentment, we think material possessions will unlock our happiness. A Monk’s Guide to Happiness  explains how and why we need to look within, and connect to our true essence, in order to find peace. Everyone has the potential to be happy, after all, we’re all ‘hardwired’ for happiness. But how do we get there? By meditating. Not just in the morning, but throughout the day by introducing micro moments so we never drop the mindfulness ball, even when we’re busy. Meditation is more than just a stress-reduction tool or a relaxation therapy, it is the key to finding long-lasting happiness. Gelong Thubten, a Buddhist monk who has worked with everyone from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs to Ruby Wax and Benedict Cumberbatch, explores the theme of happiness in his debut book and explains how to bring meditation into our busy 21st century lives with simple exercises.

Enjoy!

Six Books that Help Us Create a Personal life Philosophy

Do you have any rules, beliefs or principles that you live by? Many of us do – even if we don’t realise, or can’t articulate them yet. These rules or principles are components of a personal philosophy that can contribute to our wellbeing by giving us clarity and direction in our daily lives. If you are interested in discovering your personal life philosophy, or explore how it can benefit your life, here are a few tools to get you started:

How to Live a Good Life: a Guide to Choosing your Personal Philosophy edited by Massimo Pigliucci, Skye C. Cleary and Daniel Kaufman
If you were inspired by last week’s blog post about using philosophy to solve life problems, then How to Live a Good Life will offer further guidance. This essay collection introduces fifteen schools of thought – from ancient Eastern and Western philosophies, to religious traditions, to modern philosophies – and what it is like to live according to those philosophies. Each contributor offers lively, personal accounts of what it means to live an examined life in the twenty-first century. How to Live a Good Life offers a clear, accessible guide, backed by deep academic expertise, for anyone considering their life-choices and looking for options for change.

Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: and Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who’s Been There by Tara Schuster
This hilarious and relatable memoir has gone straight onto my To Read list.  Tara Schuster is a successful playwright and entertainment industry executive; but beneath that high-flyer veneer, she was a self-medicating mess trying to deal with depression, anxiety, and shame borne of parental neglect. Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies tells the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a “ninja of self-love.”  She shares how she learnt to establish simple, daily rituals that helped to bring her mind, body, and relationships back to good health.  This is the book Tara wished someone had given her – and so she wrote it, hoping it will help other people feel less lonely in their experience.  A terrific guide to self-care for these times.

Be Bold: Manifest your Dream Life by Alexis Fernandez
Alexis Fernandez loves to understand how the mind works – so much so, that this Pilates instructor and personal trainer returned to uni to study neuroscience. She has been weaving her knowledge about body and mind into a successful podcast (Do You F*cking Mind?) and now her first book – Be Bold: Manifest your Dream Life. Alexis suggests that our brains are often conditioned to be more avoidant and protective than is necessary; and by realising how much control we have over our thoughts and our emotions, we can learn (and unlearn) how to unlock the best version of ourselves. Full of tough love, practical advice and ‘mindset hacks’, Be Bold: Manifest your Dream Life can help us set healthy boundaries, move on from regrets, and overcome feelings of self-pity.

The Success Experiment: FlexMami’s Formula to Knowing what you Really Want and How to Get It by Lillian Ahenkan
DJ / Podcaster / Entrepreneur / “Professional Opinion-Haver” and now Bestselling Author: Lilian Ahenkan, aka FlexMami, is an Australian social-media star with a global following. She thinks of her current success as an experiment; having transformed herself from “a uni dropout with poor time-management skills” to highly sought-after media personality, within the space of a few years, while retaining her unapologetically fierce and funny self. The hypothesis at the heart of The Success Experiment is that anyone can create a unique formula for their own personal success. You don’t have to be exceptional – you just need to learn the algorithm. FlexMami will help you discover yourself – what you want, what you value, where you want to be, and why; and turn these into goals based on what actually fulfils you, instead of what feels easy or achievable.

Emotional Intelligence: a Simple and Actionable Guide to Increasing Performance, Engagement and Ownership by Amy Jacobson
This is a great primer about the What, Why and Hows of Emotional Intelligence, written by an expert on emotional intelligence and human behaviour. As organisations around the world put greater focus on the mindset and wellbeing of staff, they are also placing greater value on Emotional Intelligence as an essential attribute of high performance. Amy Jacobson, an experienced EI specialist, shares a range of tools and tips to help us identify and manage our personal emotions and the emotions of those around us, using the five key concepts of self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy, social skills and motivation. This guide is a practical, easy-to-use resource that offers powerful tools and actionable steps to create successful outcomes not just at work, but in personal and social situations as well.

Belonging: the Ancient Code of Togetherness by Owen Eastwood
Owen Eastwood is a performance coach who has worked with some of the most prestigious teams in the world, including national soccer and cricket teams, Royal Ballet School, the British Olympic Team, as well as the Command group at NATO. In Belonging: the Ancient Code of Togetherness, he explains how he helps teams to succeed by drawing upon the idea of Whakapapa from his own Maori heritage. Whakapapa is a powerful spiritual belief about belonging and identity that helps people connect and find a shared purpose. Belonging is not just about sports psychology; Owen Eastwood’s unique approach, which also weaves in insights from evolutionary science, personal development and philosophy, can unlock high performance in many different group contexts.