Explaining joy and meditation as complementary things that naturally reinforce each other, Meng explains how these two skills form a virtuous cycle, and once put into motion, become a solid practice that can be sustained in daily life. For many years, meditation has been taught and practiced in cultures where almost all meditators practice full-time for years, resulting in training programs optimized for practitioners with lots of free time and not much else to do but develop profound mastery over the mind. Seeing a disconnect between the traditional practice and the modern world, bestselling author and Google’s “Jolly Good Fellow” Chade-Meng Tan has developed a program, through “wise laziness,” to help readers meditate more efficiently and effectively. Meng shares the three pillars of joy (inner peace, insight, and happiness), why joy is the secret is to success, and demonstrates the practical tools anyone can use to cultivate it on demand.

    It’s a deep dive into what lies behind our self-criticism, whether it is about the size of our thighs, the expression of our thoughts, or the shape of our ambitions. And it’s about stopping the search to fix ourselves by realizing that on the other side of the “Me Project” is spaciousness, peace, and the capacity to reclaim one’s power and joy.This Messy Magnificent Life explores the personal beliefs, hidden traumas, and social pressures that shape not just women’s feelings about their bodies but also their confidence, choices, and relationships. After years of teaching retreats and workshops on weight, money, and other obsessions, Roth realized that there was a connection that held her students captive in their unhappiness. With laugh-out-loud humor, compassion, and dead-on insight she reveals the paradoxes in our beliefs and shows how to move beyond our past to build lives that reflect our singularity and inherent power. This Messy Magnificent Life is a brilliant, bravura meditation on who we take ourselves to be, what enough means in our gotta-get-more culture, and being at home in our minds and bodies.

    What would it be like to experience our life directly, truly and completely, and to live it as it actually is? Before we die, wouldn't it be worth knowing this human existence of ours in its fullest possible measure and extent? For many of us, life consists almost entirely of what we know conceptually through the mediation of the linear, conceptualizing mentality of our left brain. The mainstream Western world view privileges thinking over direct experience; and this fuels the increasingly disembodied, disconnected lives of so many of us today. Reggie Ray offers six fundamental body-based meditation practices that connect us back to the literal reality of our body and our most elemental experience of being human. The true richness of our life is in the raw and rugged reality of a fully present and embodied human life. The practices can be done seated or lying down. Reggie includes modified practices that can be done when falling asleep at night, or in the midst of insomnia. The book will also include links to online audio recordings of the guided meditations."

    . . . We do what we can. Yet so much comes up to complicate this natural response: "Will I have what it takes?" "How much is enough?" "How can I deal with suffering?" "And what really helps, anyway?"In this practical helper's companion, the authors explore a path through these confusions, and provide support and inspiration fo us in our efforts as members of the helping professions, as volunteers, as community activists, or simply as friends and family trying to meet each other's needs. Here too are deeply moving personal accounts: A housewife brings zoo animals to lift the spirits of nursing home residents; a nun tends the wounded on the first night of the Nicaraguan revolution; a police officer talks a desperate father out of leaping from a roof with his child; a nurse allows an infant to spend its last moments of life in her arms rather than on a hospital machine. From many such stories and the authors' reflections, we can find strength, clarity, and wisdom for those times when we are called on to care for one another. How Can I Help? reminds us just how much we have to give and how doing so can lead to some of the most joyous moments of our lives.

    His radical new approach, that he sometimes calls self-help in a shot glass is easy, real, and to the point. He helps people make changes to their lives so that personal growth happens organically, just by living. Let s face it, therapy is a luxury. Few of us have the time or money to devote to going to an office every week. With anecdotes illustrating principles in action (in relatable and sometimes irreverent fashion) and stand-alone practices and exercises, Kim gives readers the tools and directions to focus on what's right with them instead of what's wrong. When John Kim was going through the end of a relationship, he began blogging as The Angry Therapist, documenting his personal journey post-divorce. Traditional therapists avoid transparency, but Kim preferred the language of "me too" as opposed to "you should." He blogged about his own shortcomings, revelations, views on relationships, and the world. He spoke a different therapeutic language open, raw, and at times subversive and people responded. The Angry Therapist blog, that inspired this book, has been featured in The Atlantic Monthly and on NPR."

    Despite all her good fortune and success, she suffers from anxiety and panic attacks so debilitating that they leave her unable to breathe. She’s tried self-medicating—in high school, with a hidden flask of vodka—and later, with prescription medications—daily doses of Klonopin with a dark-chocolate chaser. After forty years of hyperventilating, and an overwhelming panic attack that’s the ultimate wake-up call, Warner’s mantra becomes “Neurotic, Heal Thyself.” A spirited New Yorker, she sets out to find her inner Tibetan monk by meditating every day, aiming to rewire her brain and her body and mend her frayed nerves. On this winding path from panic to peace, with its hairpin emotional curves and breathtaking drops, she also delves into a wide range of spiritual and alternative health practices, some serious and some . . . not so much. Warner tries spiritual chanting, meditative painting, immersion in a Jewish ritual bath, and quasi-hallucinogenic Ayurvedic oil treatments. She encounters mystical rabbis who teach her Kabbalistic lessons, attends silent retreats with compassionate Buddhist mentors, and gains insights from the spiritual leaders, healers, and therapists she meets. Meditating in malls instead of monasteries, Warner becomes a monk in a minivan and calms down long enough to examine her colorful, sometimes frightening family history in a new light, ultimately making peace with her past. And she receives corroboration that she’s healing from a neuroscientist who scans her brain for signs of progress and change. Written with lively wit and humor, Learning to Breathe is a serious attempt to heal from a painful condition. It’s also a life raft of compassion and hope for people similarly adrift or secretly fearful, as well as an entertaining and inspiring guidebook for anyone facing daily challenges large and small, anyone who is also longing for a sense of peace, self-acceptance, and understanding.

    Now, in A Thousand Names for Joy, she encourages us to discover the freedom that lives on the other side of inquiry.Stephen Mitchell—the renowned translator of the Tao Te Ching—selected provocative excerpts from that ancient text as a stimulus for Katie to talk about the most essential issues that face us all: life and death, good and evil, love, work, and fulfillment. The result is a book that allows the timeless insights of the Tao Te Ching to resonate anew for us today, while offering a vivid and illuminating glimpse into the life of someone who for twenty years—ever since she “woke up to reality” one morning in 1986—has been living what Lao-tzu wrote more than 2,500 years ago.Katie’s profound, lighthearted wisdom is not theoretical; it is absolutely authentic. That is what makes this book so compelling. It’s a portrait of a woman who is imperturbably joyous, whether she is dancing with her infant granddaughter or finds that her house has been emptied out by burglars, whether she stands before a man about to kill her or embarks on the adventure of walking to the kitchen, whether she learns that she is going blind, flunks a “How Good a Lover Are You?” test, or is diagnosed with cancer. With her stories of total ease in all circumstances, Katie does more than describe the awakened mind; she lets you see it, feel it, in action. And she shows you how that mind is yours as well.

    We need help to recover from it, and a friend to walk with us through the difficult times. Jean Vanier, one of the great spiritual writers of our time, has written this simple and clear book about depression. The writing is inspirational and sympathetic as he explores how we can move beyond depression--out of the darkness into the light. In twelve simple but profound chapters, Vanier goes right to the heart of our hurt, clarifying our feelings and offering us hope. On the left-hand page is a succinct thought that is developed in detail on the right-hand page. Seeing Beyond Depression will appeal to: --anyone who has known depression --families and friends of depressed persons --spiritual seekers --fans of Jean Vanier

    Each of us will face some loss, sorrow and disappointment in our lives, and The Courage to Grieve provides the specific help we need to enable us to face our grief fully and to recover and grow from the experience. Although the book emphasizes the response to the death of a loved one, The Courage to Grieve can help with every kind of loss and grief.Judy Tatelbaum gives us a fresh look at understanding grief, showing us that grief is a natural, inevitable human experience, including all the unexpected, intense and uncomfortable emotions like sorrow, guilt, loneliness, resentment, confusion, or even the temporary loss of the will to live. The emphasis is to clarify and offer help, and the tone is spiritual, optimistic, creative and easy to understand. Judy Tatelbaum provides excellent advice on how to help oneself and others get through the immediate experience of death and the grief that follows, as well as how to understand the special grief of children. Particularly useful are the techniques for completing or "finishing" grief--counteracting the popular misconception that grief never ends. The Courage to Grieve shows us how to live life with the ultimate courage: not fearing death. This book is about so much more than death and grieving it is about life and joy and growth.

    Hawkins will recognize and applies them to the world of business and the psychology of success. Expanding upon the illuminating discussion of the attractor patterns of success from Power vs. Force, this remarkable never-before-published book pulls back the curtain on the inner workings of the successful mind. Success, according to Dr. Hawkins, is an attitude we inhabit, rather than a goal we strive for.      New readers will find this to be a perfect introduction to an incredible teacher and foremost expert on mental processes, providing profound insights and real-world examples to help anyone focus on—and consequently achieve—what they desire. This fascinating book reveals:   ·         The causality formula for success (and deconstruction of so-called failure) ·         How goodwill can actually turn to profit ·         Nine acid-test steps to determine our mode of being ·         How to “get to the top” (and why the destination is really our starting point)           Yet its scope ranges far beyond a mere how-to manual. As Dr. Hawkins says, “Having facts and know-how . . . does not guarantee success. There are other factors involved. It is these other secret factors that we are going to explore.” The secret factors—the energetic power principles underlying success—are decoded here . . . delivering an eternal message of possibility for us all.

    In The Yoga Mind, internationally renowned yoga expert Rina Jakubowicz takes a simple, accessible approach to the complex origins of yoga philosophy. With clear, thoughtful guidance, The Yoga Mind offers everything you need to deepen your yoga practice and discover a meaningful way of life.Your complete resource for bringing yoga philosophy off the mat and into your life, The Yoga Mind includes: Clear explanations of core yoga principles that turn complex theories into memorable lessons Guided meditations and simple exercises that offer clear, tangible instruction for practicing each principle in your daily life A structured approach to vital yoga themes that brings clarity to crucial, but rarely understood, concepts Whether you read The Yoga Mind cover to cover or skip to a certain topic, you’ll find simple actions to incorporate the principles of yoga into a yoga practice that is meaningful to you.

    Your brain knows it's not good to do these things, but it can't help it sometimes--especially if it's obsessing about trauma it can't overcome. That's where this life-changing book comes in. With humor, patience, science, and lots of good-ole swearing, Dr. Faith explains what's going on in your skull, and talks you through the process of retraining your brain to respond appropriately to the non-emergencies of everyday life, and to deal effectively with old, or newly acquired, traumas (particularly post-traumatic stress disorder).

    The three Toltec Masteries of Awareness, Transformation, and Intent are the key to transcending your limitations and experiencing yourself as the creator of your life.Designed to make Toltec wisdom accessible and simple, this book is about change, transforming yourself, and the wildly empowering freedom of personal responsibility. Included in each chapter are exercises and guided visualizations, along with parable-like stories that are powerful sources of wisdomThis new edition of The Toltec Way is part of the Essential Wisdom Library, a collection of books bringing sacred wisdom to modern readers. Refreshed with a new design and a new introduction by the author, along with a foreword by don Miguel Ruiz, The Toltec Way will introduce a new generation of readers to the power of Toltec wisdom.

    Barbara Fredrickson gives you the lab-tested tools necessary to create a healthier, more vibrant, and flourishing life through a process she calls "the upward spiral." You’ll discover:•What positivity is, and why it needs to be heartfelt to be effective• The ten sometimes surprising forms of positivity• Why positivity is more important than happiness• How positivity can enhance relationships, work, and health, and how it relieves depression, broadens minds, and builds lives• The top-notch research that backs the 3-to-1 "positivity ratio" as a key tipping point• That your own sources of positivity are unique and how to tap into them• How to calculate your current positivity ratio, track it, and improve itWith Positivity, you’ll learn to see new possibilities, bounce back from setbacks, connect with others, and become the best version of yourself.From the Hardcover edition.

    The Book of Dharma charts Simon Haas’s journey to India and his “excavation” of the Dharma Code, a powerful system for making enlightened choices and manifesting our highest potential. Haas apprenticed with an elderly master practitioner in the Bhakti tradition for sixteen years and learned from him the system formerly used by kings and queens to effect personal transformation in their life and rule wisely.Sun Tzu’s The Art of War and Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince were written specifically for rulers. While these works have become renowned, the teachings for kings and queens from India remain to this day largely undiscovered. In this ground-breaking book, Haas discloses these teachings for contemporary Western readers, for the first time openly revealing a knowledge that has been passed down in secrecy in a sacred tradition for millennia.