Mark Coleman - Make Peace with Your Mind

When I first met Mark Coleman at a retreat at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, I immediately appreciated the clarity he brought to his teachings. This book is written in the same clear voice, providing an easy-to-follow road map to understanding and defeating our inner critic.

Troy Aikman, Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback

and Fox Sports broadcaster

Mark Coleman has written a wonderful and important book. If we can make friends with ourselves, we activate the place inside that has always truly wanted our well-being. Transforming the mind from inner critic to best friend is the key to a more fulfilling life. Make Peace with Your Mind is the perfect guidebook to help us do just that. An excellent offering!

James Baraz, coauthor of Awakening Joy and cofounding teacher at

Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, California

Mark Coleman has written a wonderfully original book, addressing the inner critic that keeps us from our most creative work. He understands that it is often buried deep, and he gives us a wide range of excavation tools, all of which are kind and helpful. Useful for anyone, I will use it especially with college students and young artists and professionals, whose external lives are full of judgments, as well as activists, who feel they can never do enough. This book is a great gift.

Mirabai Bush, senior fellow at the Center for Contemplative Mind

in Society, author of Contemplative Practices for Higher Education , and

coauthor (with Ram Dass) of Compassion in Action

Most of us wait for some champion to show up in our life who supports our dreams, calms our fears, and provides a vision for our future. Mark Coleman reminds us we can be our own champion by building a healthier relationship with our judgmental mind with clear and practical steps. This book can change your life.

Chip Conley, New York Times bestselling author of Emotional

Equations and Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy at Airbnb

In clear and powerful and terms, Mark Coleman offers readers highly practical tools to cultivate lasting calm, contentment, and happiness in any life circumstance. The tools outlined in this book will help readers confront one of the most persistent sources of difficulty anyone may encounter: ones own negative mind states. Make Peace with Your Mind is a uniquely transformational work offered to us by one of the worlds preeminent mindfulness and meditation teachers. It is a must-read for anyone interested in meaningful personal growth and fulfillment.

Rich Fernandez, PhD, cofounder of Wisdom Labs

A beautiful guide to liberating our minds from endless cycles of self-criticism and creating the inner peace that leads to an exemplary life.

Stephen Dinan, bestselling author of Sacred America,

Sacred World and CEO of the Shift Network

As we now know, the world inside and the world outside are not so different and the sneakily destructive inner critic can make a mess of self, other, and the whole world. In Make Peace with Your Mind, therapist, consultant, and Buddhist teacher Mark Coleman does as good a job as I have seen of explaining, deconstructing, and working with the inner critic, until she or he becomes an ally. The book includes many useful exercises for putting its important message into practice: that you need not go on with this misery any longer.

Norman Fischer, Zen priest and author of What Is Zen and Experience

Mark Coleman, an experienced therapist and a profound practitioner and teacher of meditation, has crafted an exquisite path toward peace and freedom with one of the most troubling aspects of our humanity: our inner critic. Drawing upon ancient wisdom traditions, contemporary psychological breakthroughs, and many other sources, Mark weaves these wisdom strands together into a fully accessible practical approach, illustrated with many examples and supported with practices that can build insight and competence. A marvelous guidebook brought to life by a warm, compassionate friend.

James Flaherty, author of Coaching: Evoking Excellence in Others

and founder of New Ventures West and Integral Leadership

Drawing on decades of experience of freeing himself and others from the inner critic, Mark Coleman has written a beautiful, inspiring, and practical book for all who wish to find a way out from under the weight of their inner critic. Filled with wisdom and compassion, this book is a warmhearted guide for applying mindfulness and common sense to alleviate the burden of the inner critic.

Gil Fronsdal, guiding teacher at Insight Meditation Center and

translator of The Dhammapada

In his new book, Make Peace with Your Mind, Mark Coleman shares his own deep understanding of the often pervasive inner critic, and he offers many tools and methods for freeing ourselves from this common habit of mind. His clear style and compassionate wisdom combine to make this book a valuable support on our journey to freedom.

Joseph Goldstein, author of Mindfulness

This book is a rare combination of practical help, emotional support, compelling personal story, scientific foundations, and spiritual insight. Mark Coleman shows us how to let go of feeling pressured, inadequate, or afraid to express ourselves fully and instead feel strong, confident, and worthy. A beautiful, soulful, enormously useful book.

Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddhas Brain

Both insightful and helpful, with gifts of wisdom and many practical tools to work with your own mind and heart.

Jack Kornfield, author of A Path with Heart and cofounding

teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, Woodacre, California

In this well-written book, Mark Coleman presents his personal reflections on how to free yourself from harsh self-criticism, based on his experience as a meditation teacher, coach, and therapist. With pragmatic exercises designed to help you better understand your own inner critic, this is a truly worthwhile read.

Kristin Neff, associate professor at UT Austin and

author of Self-Compassion

The inner critic stops all growth, diminishes our life force, and crushes our soul. With kindness and clarity, Mark Coleman gives us proven practices to tame the critics wild ways and access the more reliable guidance of true wisdom. Everybodys got an inner critic, so everybody needs a wise book like this one.

Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations

In Make Peace with Your Mind , Mark Coleman gently guides us to work with the ubiquitous demon of self-judgment. His kind and clear writing style invites us to see and skillfully relate to this familiar human habit. Through teaching, story, and guided exercises, he inspires us to develop keen and compassionate relationships to the parts of ourselves that often seek to demean or even destroy our self-worth. He offers us the possibility of not only hope but genuine healing. This book on the critic will support anyone who desires stopping the inner war and developing holistic integration with all parts of themselves.

Sarah Powers, author of Insight Yoga

Mark Colemans Make Peace with Your Mind is a great read for all those looking to mindfulness to help them live their best life. Sometimes when life speeds up, it is best to take a few moments to slow down! The benefits of these practices are real and wide-ranging, and it is never too late to start.

Congressman Tim Ryan

What I most love about Make Peace with Your Mind is the range of accessible practices it offers. From his own experience over many years, Mark Coleman has distilled powerful, creative strategies for relating with and transforming your inner critic. Its a wonderful, delightful, and deeply touching book.