Ronald Alexander - Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss and Change

Wise Mind, Open Mind is an outstanding guidebook to applying mindfulness practices to artfully navigate times of change and crisis. Alexander has offered his mind, heart, and soul to illuminate strategies that release destructive beliefs and help readers find more creativity, insight, and flow. A seasoned, loving psychologist, Alexander combines spirituality with gems from his clinical practice in a wonderful contribution to the healing arts.

Judith Orloff, MD, author of Emotional Freedom

In Wise Mind, Open Mind, readers will learn how weaving mindfulness and contemporary psychology can heal, enliven, and free their spirits. Ronald Alexanders three-step process highlights key elements to help readers untangle emotional knots and discover the love and clarity that is our deepest nature. This book is a lucid and inspiring guide on the spiritual path!

Tara Brach, Ph.D., founder of Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC, author of Radical Acceptance

This book contains very sound and creative clinical advice to those trying to change their lives. Alexander melds positive thinking psychology, highly regarded as a major element in personal change, with ideas from a variety of meditative traditions drawn from more than thirty years of experience. This man lives and practices what he says. The book will change your life if you let it.

Stuart W. Twemlow, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, TX

Alexander has done a superb job of making the deep and complex principles of Buddhism and mindfulness practical and available to help people make profound shifts in their lives. There are many recent books based in mindfulness, but Alexander has been immersed in the practice of mindfulness for decades. Beware: this book could have serious side effects of happiness and peace.

Bill OHanlon, author of Pathways to Spirituality and Do One Thing Different

Wise Mind, Open Mind weaves a brilliant tapestry of many valuable and insightful ideas. Alexanders methods integrate contemporary positive psychology, creativity thinking, Buddhist psychology, and mindfulness practices. His book is a step-by-step practical guide for anyone who is undergoing life changes or crisis. Following Alexanders model can help to facilitate inner transformation and bring forth new possibilities for change. A wonderful read for one seeking a new path towards healing!

Marion Solomon, Ph.D., faculty member at University of California, Los Angeles

We have the creativity in us that creates the universeall we need do is be aware of it. This book provides a wise road map to the treasure within.

Ram Dass, author of Remember, Be Here Now

In Wise Mind, Open Mind, Alexander presents a mindful approach to navigating crisis that serves to help us better understand ourselves and recognize our hidden potential. His three-step process allows us to dissolve any resistance to change, immerse ourselves in the present, and eventually emerge strengthened, renewed, and with a deeper sense of purpose.

Alberto Villoldo, Ph.D., author of Shaman, Healer, Sage and Courageous Dreaming

Fusing Western psychology and Buddhist practices, this book provides clear guidance and instruction and helps us to transform our thinking. It is both informative and greatly supportive.

Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness

Creativity often arises either from inner disturbance or from great peace. In this book, a culmination of thirty years of insight from his practice, Alexander explores the latter methodthe flashes of genius that flow from the silence of the heart.

Catherine Ingram, author of In the Footsteps of Gandhi, Passionate Presence, and A Crack in Everything

Alexander offers practical tools to navigate the dark waters of our unconscious resistances to the tides of change with the clear, compassionate, fierce wisdom of a sage. He speaks to our deepest fears, doubts, and desires like an old friend. Every page gives real, transforming insight, written with profound depth by one of the best East-West embodied teachers and psychotherapists in the world. A treasure for all of us in these times of change.

Shiva Rea, MA, yogini at Samudra Global School for Living Yoga

France is the birthplace of hypnosis, and Freud made it the cradle of psychoanalysis. Then Milton Erickson created another revolution. Alexander offers yet another opening, an opening of the mind and of the heart, which made me open my eyes wide. There is no point in describing the taste of a mango; you have to sink your teeth into it, and I suggest we do the same with this book.

Olivier Perrot, psychologist and president of the Association Franaise de Nouvelle Hypnose (French Association for New Hypnosis)

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

Copyright 2008 by Ronald A. Alexander

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Excerpt from Poetry from ISLA NEGRA by Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid. Translation copyright 1981 by Alastair Reid. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Pablo Neruda. Fragment from La Poesa, ISLA NEGRA Fundacin Pablo Neruda, 2009.

The Song of a Man Who Has Come Through by D. H. Lawrence, from THE COMPLETE POEMS OF D. H. LAWRENCE by D. H. Lawrence, edited by V. de Sola Pinto & F. W. Roberts, copyright 1964, 1971 by Angelo Ravagli and C. M. Weekly, Executors of the Estate of Frieda Lawrence Ravagli. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

From The Way of the Bodhisattva, by Shantideva; translated by the Padmakara Translation Group, 1997, 2006 by the Padmakara Translation Group. Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications Inc., Boston, MA. www.shambhala.com .

From Book of Longing, copyright 2006 by Leonard Cohen. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, 57. Originally published in the United States by Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Quote from Statue of Buddha reprinted with permission from Many Rivers Press, Fire in the Earth (Langley, WA: Many Rivers Press, 1992), 85. www.davidwhyte.com .

Excerpt from The Scheme of Things, copyright 1980 by Allen B. Wheelis. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Angeles Arrien as quoted in The Millionth Circle: How to Change Ourselves and the WorldThe Essential Guide to Womens Circles by Jean Shinoda Bolen (Conari Press, 1999). Reprinted with permission of Angeles Arrien.

Quote Dove that ventured outside, translated by Stephen Mitchell, from The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell, translation copyright 1980, 1981, 1982 Stephen Mitchell. Used by permission of Random House, Inc.

All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America

Acquired by Tesilya Hanauer; Cover design by Amy Shoup; Edited by Nelda Street

epub ISBN:9781608824700

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