There’s just one problem: You can’t get comfortable (let alone still), and your head is full of way too many thoughts.The problem is not with meditation, or you, though—the issue may be with your approach.When properly understood and practiced, meditation should feel easy, calming, and comfortable. In Bliss More, maverick instructor Light Watkins provides the tools for making it E.A.S.Y. (Embrace, Accept, Surrender, Yield), dispels the biggest myths and misunderstandings, and shares real-world tips and straight talk for hacking into this ancient practice. The result: a happier and healthier you, inside and out. Watkins also shares candid testimonials from people whose lives have been enriched through his method, and extensive resources for transforming a daily chore into an enjoyable activity. Even the biggest skeptic will look forward to sitting for meditation every day.Whether you’re a novice or experienced practitioner, Bliss More will shed light on the path to a clearer mind, better sleep, and more bliss in everyday life.

    But where does it come from and what even is it? With the help of neuroscientist Ash Ranpura, comedian Alice Fraser explores the science, history and culture behind meditation. On the way we will meet the tiny part of the brain that triggers most of our fear and anxiety, the NBA coach who taught Michael Jordan how to meditate, and the writer who says the best way to cope with our polarised politics is to practice mindfulness.

    Now considered a classic, Creative Visualization teaches readers how to use their imaginations to manifest their deepest desires.

    We have tried meditation and found it too difficult. We judge ourselves for being no good at emptying our minds (as if one ever could) or compare ourselves with yogis who seem to have it all together. We live in a steady state of “not good enough.” It does not have to be this way. In Good Morning, I Love You, Dr. Shauna Shapiro brings alive the brain science behind why we feel the way we do—about ourselves, each other, and the world—and explains why we get stuck in thinking that doesn’t serve us. It turns out that we are hardwired to be self-critical and negative! And this negativity is constantly undermining our experience of life. “It is never too late to rewire your brain for positivity—for calm, clarity, and joy,” writes Dr. Shapiro. “I know this is possible because I experienced it. Best of all, you can begin wherever you are.” In short, lively chapters laced with science, wisdom, and story, Shapiro, one of the leading scientists studying the effects of mindfulness on the brain, shows us that acting with kindness and compassion toward ourselves is the key. With her roadmap to guide you, including her signature “Good Morning, I Love You” practice, in which you deliberately greet yourself each day with these simple words, you can change your brain’s circuitry and steady yourself in feelings of deep calm, clarity, and joy. For good.

    Siegel, M.D., introduces readers to his pioneering, science-based meditation practice. Aware provides practical instruction for mastering the Wheel of Awareness, a life-changing tool for cultivating more focus, presence, and peace in one's day-to-day life. An in-depth look at the science that underlies meditation's effectiveness, this book teaches readers how to harness the power of the principle "Where attention goes, neural firing flows, and neural connection grows." Siegel reveals how developing a Wheel of Awareness practice to focus attention, open awareness, and cultivate kind intention can literally help you grow a healthier brain and reduce fear, anxiety, and stress in your life. Whether you have no experience with a reflective practice or are an experienced practitioner, Aware is a hands-on guide that will enable you to become more focused and present, as well as more energized and emotionally resilient in the face of stress and the everyday challenges life throws your way.

    Jan Chozen Bays, MD—physician and Zen teacher—has developed a series of simple practices to help us cultivate mindfulness as we go about our ordinary, daily lives. Exercises include: taking three deep breaths before answering the phone, noticing and adjusting your posture throughout the day, eating mindfully, and leaving no trace of yourself after using the kitchen or bathroom. Each exercise is presented with tips on how to remind yourself and a short life lesson connected with it.

    The same ability that helps ordinary people achieve extraordinary success is also the secret to optimizing your lifespan, letting go of stress, and even enhancing your body's self-healing powers. In Meditation for Optimum Health: How to Use Mindfulness and Breathing to Heal Your Body and Refresh Your Mind, you will join best-selling authors Dr. Andrew Weil and Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn for a practical introduction that makes it simple to enjoy the life-changing benefits of meditation - even if you've never tried it before. How does meditation work? Can anybody do it? What do I need to get started? Is it religious? Does it have the power to heal? In alternating sessions, Dr. Weil and Dr Kabat-Zinn give you straight answers to the most common questions about meditation, and dispel the myths and misconceptions surrounding this time-honored practice. By learning to cultivate the power of your attention through daily practice, you can harness the full potential of your mind, and use it to enrich every dimension of your life. You will learn how meditation can actually unify your mind and body's many related functions - and help you start enjoying the best health of your life. Complete with real-life examples, and a proven program of step-by-step meditations to get you started, here is the perfect introduction to the oldest and most effective system for feeling better, naturally.

    In his new book, Stillness Is the Key, Holiday draws on timeless Stoic and Buddhist philosophy to show why slowing down is the secret weapon for those charging ahead.All great leaders, thinkers, artists, athletes, and visionaries share one indelible quality. It enables them to conquer their tempers. To avoid distraction and discover great insights. To achieve happiness and do the right thing. Ryan Holiday calls it stillness--to be steady while the world spins around you.In this book, he outlines a path for achieving this ancient, but urgently necessary way of living. Drawing on a wide range of history's greatest thinkers, from Confucius to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius to Thich Nhat Hanh, John Stuart Mill to Nietzsche, he argues that stillness is not mere inactivity, but the doorway to self-mastery, discipline, and focus.Holiday also examines figures who exemplified the power of stillness: baseball player Sadaharu Oh, whose study of Zen made him the greatest home run hitter of all time; Winston Churchill, who in balancing his busy public life with time spent laying bricks and painting at his Chartwell estate managed to save the world from annihilation in the process; Fred Rogers, who taught generations of children to see what was invisible to the eye; Anne Frank, whose journaling and love of nature guided her through unimaginable adversity.More than ever, people are overwhelmed. They face obstacles and egos and competition. Stillness Is the Key offers a simple but inspiring antidote to the stress of 24/7 news and social media. The stillness that we all seek is the path to meaning, contentment, and excellence in a world that needs more of it than ever.

    I was tired of being tired, burned out on busy. And, it seemed almost everyone I talked with was in the same boat: longing for connection, meaning, depth, but settling for busy.I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, neighbor, writer, and I know all too well that settling feeling. But over the course of the last few years, I’ve learned a way to live, marked by grace, love, rest, and play. And it’s changing everything.Present Over Perfect is an invitation to this journey that changed my life. I’ll walk this path with you, a path away from frantic pushing and proving, and toward your essential self, the one you were created to be before you began proving and earning for your worth.Written in Shauna’s warm and vulnerable style, this collection of essays focuses on the most important transformation in her life, and maybe yours too: leaving behind busyness and frantic living and rediscovering the person you were made to be. Present Over Perfect is a hand reaching out, pulling you free from the constant pressure to perform faster, push harder, and produce more, all while maintaining an exhausting image of perfection.Shauna offers an honest account of what led her to begin this journey, and a compelling vision for an entirely new way to live: soaked in grace, rest, silence, simplicity, prayer, and connection with the people that matter most to us.In these pages, you’ll be invited to consider the landscape of your own life, and what it might look like to leave behind the pressure to be perfect and begin the life-changing practice of simply being present, in the middle of the mess and the ordinariness of life.

    When that happens repeatedly, we may feel frustrated to the point of abandoning meditation altogether. Jason Siff invites us to approach meditation in a new way, one that honors the part of us that doesn't want to do the instructions. He teaches us how to become more tolerant of intense emotions, sleepiness, compelling thoughts, fantasies—the whole array of inner experiences that are usually considered hindrances to meditation. The meditation practice he presents in Unlearning Meditation is gentle, flexible, permissive, and honest, and it's been wonderfully effective for opening up meditation for people who thought they could never meditate, as well as for injecting a renewed energy for practice into the lives of seasoned practitioners.

    Christopher Germer has learned a paradoxical lesson: We all want to avoid pain, but letting it in--and responding compassionately to our own imperfections, without judgment or self-blame--are essential steps on the path to healing. This wise and eloquent book illuminates the power of self-compassion and offers creative, scientifically grounded strategies for putting it into action. You’ll master practical techniques for living more fully in the present moment -- especially when hard-to-bear emotions arise -- and for being kind to yourself when you need it the most. Free audio downloads of the meditation exercises are available at the author's website: www.mindfulselfcompassion.org. Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT) Self-Help Book of Merit

    Presented in the form of a personal meditation in verse, it outlines the path of the bodhisattvas--those beings who renounce the peace of an individual salvation and vow to work for the deliverance of all beings, and to attain enlightenment for their sake. The text is beloved by Buddhists of all traditions.Originally written in India in Sanskrit, the text first appeared in Tibetan translation in the eighth century. The fact that it has been expounded, studied, and practiced in Tibet in an unbroken tradition lends the Tibetan version of the Bodhicharyavatara a particular authority. The present version has therefore been translated from the Tibetan, following a commentary by the Nyingma master Kunzang Pelden, renowned for its thoroughness, clarity, and accessibility.

    I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.” —Oliver SacksNo writer has succeeded in capturing the medical and human drama of illness as honestly and as eloquently as Oliver Sacks. During the last few months of his life, he wrote a set of essays in which he movingly explored his feelings about completing a life and coming to terms with his own death. “It is the fate of every human being,” Sacks writes, “to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.”Together, these four essays form an ode to the uniqueness of each human being and to gratitude for the gift of life.

    Recently, however, serious scientists from a range of fields have been uncovering evidence that our thoughts, emotions and beliefs can ease pain, heal wounds, fend off infection and heart disease and even slow the progression of AIDS and some cancers.In Cure, award-winning science writer Jo Marchant travels the world to meet the physicians, patients and researchers on the cutting edge of this new world of medicine. We learn how meditation protects against depression and dementia, how social connections increase life expectancy and how patients who feel cared for recover from surgery faster. We meet Iraq war veterans who are using a virtual arctic world to treat their burns and children whose ADHD is kept under control with half the normal dose of medication. We watch as a transplant patient uses the smell of lavender to calm his hostile immune system and an Olympic runner shaves vital seconds off his time through mind-power alone.Drawing on the very latest research, Marchant explores the vast potential of the mind's ability to heal, lays out its limitations and explains how we can make use of the findings in our own lives. With clarity and compassion, Cure points the way towards a system of medicine that treats us not simply as bodies but as human beings.

    With great compassion and erudition, Gabor Maté demystifies medical science and, as he did in Scattered Minds, invites us all to be our own health advocates.