A Mindful Year: Daily Meditations: Reduce Stress, Manage Anxiety, and Find Happiness in Everyday Life

A Mindful Year: Daily Meditations: Reduce Stress, Manage Anxiety, and Find Happiness in Everyday Life

Written by two experts in the field of cognitive behavioral therapy--the best tested set of practices for alleviating stress and anxiety--these daily meditations invite you to find contentment, peace, and happiness in place of worry and fear. Each day's reading reveals how the powerful tool of mindfulness can help you to become more grounded, energized, motivated, and satisfied with your life. You'll discover in these pages how to be attentive and open to the present while calmly acknowledging and accepting your thoughts, feelings, and sensations. The authors' deep expertise and clinical experience in the field of psychology lends scientific weight to the mindfulness practices found in this practical and inspirational guide. The daily entries in A Mindful Year will guide you to reconnect with core values: authenticity, compassion, gratitude, simplicity. Each of the 365 readings leads with an uplifting quote from the likes of Kahlil Gibran, Maya Angelou, Alan Watts, Harper Lee, Thomas Merton, Alice Walker, Eckhart Tolle, Rumi, and the Dalai Lama--and is followed by reflections, anecdotes, and timeless insights on all aspects of daily living. Each entry concludes with an invitation, a call to action that will bring the mindfulness practice into your life in a meaningful way. As you spend time each day with the readings you will find yourself feeling less disconnected and empty, and more in tune with what matters most in your life A Mindful Year is a book readers will turn to again and again as it becomes a daily companion in finding wisdom, love, connection, and joy. " A Mindful Year is a conversation between two cherished friends. It is a collection of the authors' back-and-forth correspondence, down-to-earth, practical, and insight-full daily meditations. There are a variety of ways to enhance one's mindfulness meditation practice. A Mindful Year is a very good one." -- Sharon Salzberg, New York Times bestselling author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness " A Mindful Year is jam-packed with entertaining, thought-provoking insights and creative invitations to be mindful as you go through your day, every day, for an entire year. The authors' stories about their experiences demonstrate how often we have opportunities to pay close attention to the events, big and small, that transpire in our own lives. The daily observations are fascinating, deeply personal, and always engaging. After each entry, readers are presented with invitations to be mindful each day, so they can learn to respond with understanding, self-compassion, or action that aligns with their values. Throughout, the principles of mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral therapy are used to show the value of maintaining contact with the present moment, accepting authentic thoughts and feelings, and exploring different ways of understanding experiences. A Mindful Year is a wonderful book." -- Joel Minden, PhD, clinical psychologist and author of Show Your Anxiety Who's Boss "I'd like to say that this blessing of a book grew from the seeds of Dr. Campbell-Danesh and Dr. Seth Gillihan's time that they shared while on the campus that I call home, but that would only be true in part. The wisdom found in the daily readings of this book have grown from their patient study of mindfulness, their personal spiritual practices, and most beautifully from their generous hearts. This book is meant to be read one breath at a time. It will slow you down -- in the best of ways. More importantly it will allow each step that you take to carry you at a more healthy and a more savoring pace. I will be sharing this with many a student and friend." -- The Rev. Dr. Charles Lattimore Howard, University Chaplain of the University of Pennsylvania and author of Pond River Ocean Rain "In this wonderful volume the authors offer many useful windows into the day-to-day practice of mindfulness/presence. With their often insightful, poignant, or just wise observations and stories of how these practices arose for and affected them, they show us how to incorporate small, simple, but meaningful changes toward mindfulness/presence in our own and our clients' lives. A welcome and practical addition to any clinician's toolbox!" -- Kevin T. Kuehlwein, PsyD, coeditor of Cognitive Therapies in Action: Evolving Innovative Practice "The Buddha taught that life is full of suffering but mindful compassion will help us both cope and gain insight into the nature of our minds. Mindfulness asks us to pay attention to our reactions as they unfold moment by moment. In this gentle book, Aria Campbell-Danesh and Seth Gillihan offer 365 reflections and invitations to be mindful in specific ways. They range over paying attention to our thoughts, feelings, and actions; noticing our bodies from our hands to our feet; noticing our sensory capacities and our desires and disappointments; noticing the way we may start each day with a hope, 'a rush to do, ' or a dread. Drawing on a multitude of