Eric Maisel PhD - Redesign Your Mind: The Breakthrough Program for Real Cognitive Change

Praise for
Redesign Your Mind

Eric Maisel is at the cutting edge in the field of creativity and health. Ive used the practices and exercises described in Redesign Your Mind myself and they really work! Plus, they are fun to read and easy to use. I highly recommend this must-read book.

Jed Diamond, PhD, author of The Enlightened Marriage

Once again, Eric Maisel has translated complex ideas into everyday language. Using the visual metaphor of the room that is your mind, he presents practical applications that can restore well-being in times of emotional and existential angst . Perfect for creatives and for everyone whose mind could use an upgrade.

Chuck Ruby, PhD, executive director of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry

Within the room that is our mind, many people spread anger, guilt, worry , and resentment. Dr. Eric Maisel teaches us how the mind has the ability to enter into self-conversation and dynamic self-regulation to change all that. The results are profound and bring expanded awareness, insight, inspiration, creativity, and focused concentration .

Lee Jampolsky, PhD, bestselling author of Healing the Addictive Personality

With humor and compassion, Maisel describes more than fifty exercises for trading in ones self-pestering thoughts for healthy indwelling. The books engaging and practical tools teach readers to be gentle with themselves and achieve new heights of understanding and creativity. This book is not just inspirational; it brings profound relief.

Judith Schlesinger, PhD, author of The Insanity Hoax: Exposing the Myth of the Mad Genius

Redesign Your Mind

The Breakthrough Program for Real Cognitive Change

Eric Maisel, PhD

Coral Gables

Copyright 2021 Eric Maisel

Published by Mango Publishing, a division of Mango Media Inc.

Cover Design: Jermaine Lau
Layout & Design: Jermaine Lau

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Redesign Your Mind: The Breakthrough Program for Real Cognitive Change

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: Pending
ISBN: (p) 978-1-64250-511-5 (e) 978-1-64250-512-2

BISAC category code: PSY045070, PSYCHOLOGY / Movements / Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

As a psychologist, academic, and author for forty years, I have read my share of books designed to help in life. A few boxes must be checked to recommend a book: it must be practical and straightforward to apply, immediately applicable, innovative, not put the reader to sleep, increase peace of mind, and expand awareness. Frankly, most books fall far short. In contrast, Dr. Eric Maisel checks all the boxes with Redesign Your Mind.

You are what you think. It doesnt get more straightforward than this. But sometimes simple truths become overly complicated theories, and such is the case with many books on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). As a result, many books on CBT are, to be blunt, dull. Dr. Maisels book is anything but boring. Additionally, although many other books describe CBT well, they read like a cookbook, far from experiencing the many facets of the actual meal. In Redesign Your Mind, we not only learn about cognitive psychology, but we also experience what it is like to have a mind, specifically, what it feels like to inhabit in our own mind.

Dr. Maisel is not a newbie to this subject. His decades of work have profoundly affected the thinking and quality of life of countless individuals worldwide. In his latest book, we not only get insight into how we think, we obtain skills to discover who we are and what we are here to do. This book will help you see both the problems in the way you think and the solutions, and, before you know it, you will be stepping forward with unique honesty and the ability to free yourself from old dysfunctional patterns.

For years, you may have been unknowingly busy building walls with your thoughts and imprisoning yourself behind them. By practicing the exercises in this book, you will be reaching the core of who you are in remarkable new ways and learning that amid your most significant challenges, you can become more calm, effective, and aware of your power to free yourself. You are, quite literally, about to see with renewed clarity and move beyond concepts and constructs in your mind that caused you to behave in ways that limited your happiness and success. By the end of this book, if you practice the exercises, you will discover your mind is extraordinary in what it ca n create.

Whenever I have a chance to talk with a fellow author, I ask them what they wish for the reader, which tells me a great deal. Dr. Maisel eloquently answered me: The book goes deeper than just managing your thoughts, it changes the very source of your thoughtsthe room that is your mindso that you no longer think thoughts that arent serving you. You end up with a much fresher, breezier, nimbler mind. I love this answer and, after reading the book, I can tell you that Eric more than achieves his goal.

If you believe that you are just a product of the world around youthat your happiness is dependent on this thing or that personthen you are always going to be a victim of circumstance to one degree or another. One of the most liberating personal discoveries you will make is knowing that whenever you are upset, you have the power to shift your thinking and discover a peace you never knew existed. When you are unsettled, you most likely dont quickly see the real cause of your upset or the solution. This book helps you stop wasting your life wishing for a better past, blaming your present circumstances, or blindly hoping for a better future. In short, the practice of the exercises frees you to create, grow, succeed, and love.

Gerald Jampolsky , MD

Lets get you a whole new mind, shall we?

It would be lovely if you could do a better job of dealing with all those thoughts that arent serving you. That alone would be a really useful upgrade! But what if you could go a giant step further and stop those thoughts from even entering your mind? Wouldnt that be the best ?

Well, you can do exa ctly that!

For thousands of years, philosophers have tried to describe consciousness and explain how the mind works, but we arent going down that road. We are opting for a super-simple, super-useful model. We are going to picture your mind as a room that you inhabit. Im inviting you to think of it as a literal place where you go to think and be. Thats the metaphor were going to use and the picture were going to paint.

And indeed, the room that is your mind is the most important place in your universe! Now, probably for the first time, you get to redesign it, redecorate it, and really take charge of it. As you do, you will start thinking and feeling differently about your life. Just picture the difference between a bright, sunny room and a drab, claustrophobic room. In which one do you want to live? Wouldnt you be quite the different person if you got to leave that drab one, where youve been living your whole life long , and start living in that bright one? Wouldnt that make a tremendous difference in how you thought and felt? Of course, it would!