Jeffrey Brantley - True Belonging: Mindful Practices to Help You Overcome Loneliness, Connect with Others, and Cultivate Happiness

Curl up with this delicious book. Savor it. Taste the exercises. In a world where we so often find ourselves alienated, disconnected from others and even from ourselves, it can help you reconnect and heal.

Thomas Bien, PhD, author of The Buddhas Way of Happiness and Mindful Recovery

Perhaps one of the most important topics of our time. True Belonging shows us how to connect with what truly matters.

Elisha Goldstein, PhD, coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

In clear, straightforward languageand with unmistakable caring True Belonging shows ways to break through partial truths, mistaken beliefs, and shoddy storylines that mire us in loneliness. On the other side lies a cheerful appreciation of the whole truth of who we really are.

Barry Boyce, editor of The Mindfulness Revolution and www.mindful.org

True Belonging is a true gift. This book is for anyone who wants to connect more deeply and compassionately with themselves, with others, and with the great web of life to which we all belong. No need to wait another momentfollow the practical guidance offered in True Belonging and open your heart now.

Diane Reibel, PhD, is director of the Mindfulness Institute at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and coauthor of Teaching Mindfulness

Whether you already know and cherish a sense of true belonging in this world and would dive more deeply into it or are someone who longs for its embrace, this lovely guidebook to personal transformation will greatly contribute to your life. It offers a true path from isolation and loneliness. You will find here a loving and thoughtful weave of wisdom and compassion, gentle, caring guidance, and many simple yet profound meditations that can awaken in you a deep sense of connectedness in the family of all things.

Steve Flowers, MS, MFT, author of The Mindful Path through Shyness, coauthor of Living With Your Heart Wide Open, and director of the mindfulness-based stress reduction clinic at Enloe Medical Center in Chico, CA

Jeffery Brantley and Wendy Millstines True Belonging is a gift! This book offers a pathway of connection and interconnection into all of life. Read this book, work these practices, and feel the loving embrace of the universe. You have not been forsaken!

Bob Stahl, PhD, mindfulness-based stress reduction teacher in northern California, adjunct senior teacher at the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook and Living With Your Heart Wide Open

The real you is centered, confident, connected, and inspired. Feel it! Read True Belonging. I love this book!

Jill Spiegel, author of How To Talk To Anyone About Anything!

Isolation and loneliness are quite debilitating states of being that can result in difficulties in mental and physical health. Brantley and Millstine offer mindfulness-based skills and insights that can dramatically improve ones quality of life through connecting with others and cultivating happiness.

Gina M. Biegel, MA, LMFT, psychotherapist, mindfulness-based stress reduction researcher and teacher, and author of The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

The poem Tasting Mindfulness from Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D, copyright 2005 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. Reprinted by permission of Hyperion. All rights reserved.

The poem Meditation on the Moment by Mary Kendall used by permission of the author.

The poem John by April Hutchinson used by permission of the author.

Copyright 2011 by Jeffrey Brantley and Wendy Millstine

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Cover design by Amy Shoup; Text design by Michele Waters-Kermes;

Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer; Edited by Brady Kahn

epub ISBN: 9781608824714

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data on file

All Rights Reserved.

This book is dedicated to everyone in our world who feels lost, alone, and hopeless. May you live with peace and ease. May you remember and recover your place in the family of all living things. J.B.

To my ancestors, whose sacred spirits live within me and connect me to the spiraling cosmos and this marvelous web of life. W.M.