Kate Sciandra - The Mindfulness Habit

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

Copyright Information

The Mindfulness Habit: Six Weeks to Creating the Habit of Being Present 2015 by Kate Sciandra.

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First e-book edition 2014

E-book ISBN: 9780738744667

Book design by Bob Gaul

Cover art: www.iStockphoto.com/455341/Zuki

Cover design by Lisa Novak

Hourglass graphic by Llewellyn Art Department

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Contents

: Week 1

: Week 2

: Week 3

: Week 4

: Week 5

: Week 6

: The Nature of the True Gift

: The Mindfulness Habit and Special Issues

List of Exercises

Acknowledgments

Thanks to anyone who is family, by birth or by choice, for providing an invisible but reliable soft landing place that, whether or not I needed it, I always knew was there.

To all my teachers, in every place, of every stripe. Thanks to Mark Nunberg for your gentle encouragement, friendship, and hand-holding, to Richard Valasek for being my evil twin and modeling for me how to embrace my own role as an iconoclast, and to Tim Burkett for holding me carefully in his hands and heart as I struggled and as I blossomed.

Much gratitude for my sangha , and other providers of spiritual home and support for my personal development, especially GOM.

Special thanks to those who were generous enough to tell me their stories and to share their unique insights with me.

Lastly, special thanks to all of those people who have been my students over the years and, by extension, my teachers. Your questions, your enthusiasm, and your insights have made me better every single time. I value the trust you placed in me above all else.

Introduction

Youve probably heard of mindfulness, and you may have heard that meditation would be a good way to improve your health and well-being, but inserting thirty minutes of meditation into your already over-full day seems impossible and, frankly, unappealing.

It is entirely possible to find a place for calming the body and quieting the mind in your schedule, no matter how busy it is. There are more opportunities for you to find a way to become present, centered, and mindful than you ever imagined, and you only need three things to take advantage of them: the ability to recognize them when they arise, the knowledge of what to do when they arise, and the intention and habit of doing it.

These three things are exactly what youll get from discovering the gift of the present moment. What youll get from those three things is a life that is illuminated by a sense of calm, focus, and contentment, that brings joy not only to you but to those whose lives you touch.

Welcome to your world of having a Mindfulness Habit.

I have been in places in my life where I have felt buried by my own distress, distraction, and worry, unable to understand that being without them was even possible. I have found myself up and awake in the middle of the night, my heart and mind racing, riddled with anxiety and worry. I have been so distracted that I had trouble finishing a sentence, let alone a thought. I have felt powerless. I have felt anger so intense that I have literally seen red. I have gone to dark, dark places in my mind and soul.

But now, I rarely get anywhere close to that angryin fact, I dont get angry all that much. When I do, I recognize it, maybe even try to direct it constructively, and then I watch as it slips away. I sleep through the night without anxiety (most of the time), and my ability to be present and focused has taken me into an entirely different realm of functioning. I am more patient. I am more clear. I am more content and joyful.

Whether or not you are concerned about addressing these kinds of emotional and interpersonal issues, or just want to take better care of yourself, improve your concentration, and appreciate life more, you will benefit greatly from what you are about to learn.

You may have picked up this book because in some way you have reached a point where you feel youve had enough: enough tension, enough anxiety, enough stress-related health problems, and it is time for you to do something about it. You have decided that you are done with being depressed, anxious, unfocused, or angry. You are ready to move those feelings out of your life, change how you react to your problems and frustrations, and take the steps necessary to live in a place of joy and ease. You are reaching out for help. Im going to throw you a rope and give you a tug in the direction of being able to have what I have found.

To some extent, we all struggle with anxiety, worry, and anger that we would like to live without. I am constantly amazed by the amount of discontent, suffering, stress, and low-grade anxiety that I see around me. The amount of suffering that good people carry can cause my heart to break. I feel sad, and yet I also feel optimistic.

I am sad because each and every one of us has everything we need to let some of that suffering slip away, feeling the weight lift off of our shoulders, including you. I can see it right there, but those who need it the most cant see it. And yet, it is this very fact that makes me optimistic as well, knowing that just below the surface there is a basic set of knowledge and understanding, tools that are right at hand that you can use to change your life for the better right now.

You may have found out that this need, this desire to move beyond tension, worry, drama, and anxiety often creates its own feelings of distress. Why? Because according to the books, TV shows, and magazine articles, there are lots of options for relieving stress. They all make it sound so easy, but when you give them a closer look, these suggestions dont really seem to be something you can realistically picture yourself making a part of your life, a life filled with too much of some stuff and not nearly enough of the other stuff.