Emily Horn - Mindful as F*ck: 100 Simple Exercises to Let That Sh*t Go!

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First Adams Media hardcover edition October 2020

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If you sleep through yoga, hate the taste of green juice, and have never said a mantra with a straight face, Mindful As F*ck is here for you!

This book has one hundred simple exercises for embracing mindfulness in a way that works for you. (And that way is easy and entertaining.) Youll find lessons and learnings on everything from how to actually sit still with your thoughts to finally figuring out just what a chakra is to setting an intention that youll actually follow. Its the perfect way to embrace mindfulnesswithout losing your mind.

So if youre stressed out, Mindful As F*ck is just the friend you need. With this book by your side youll always remember to take a deep breath, stand up straight, and let that sh*t go.

The world is stressful, and what makes it worse is that there are just too many goddamn ways to relax. Some of these are expensive, some are confusing, and some are just dumb. (Ever heard of yoni eggs? Shudder.) Luckily, there are a few ways to break through the noise of the world and pursue a more aligned life with minimal embarrassment and only a little bullshit.

It turns out you dont need to abandon everything you know about breathing or start adding essential oils to everything in order to get in touch with a more mindful life. Mindful living happens one step at a time, so cut yourself a break and start slowly.

The exercises in this book are fun-sized by design, and like most fun-sized things, you can either enjoy them all at once or save them for when you really need a treat. Think of them as building blocks for an eventual routine, instead of as a hundred things you must do right at this moment or else be sent to a mindfulness prison staffed by people with amazing abs taking a break from their beachfront acro-yoga sessions. For the most part, these exercises wont rearrange your day or even require you to put on pants. All you have to do is chill the fuck out.

Mindfulness didnt just materialize out of the air as a way to sell expensive moisture-wicking leggings and candles that smell like a barnyard. Mindfulness is popular because our world of constant stimulation makes it easy to disconnect from who we are on the most basic level. And quite frankly, that sucks.

Living with intention and all that shit is a way to maintain a healthy sense of self and sanity in a world that moves NASCAR fast. There are tons of different ways to go about this, so lets dive in! In this book, were going to draw on seven unique disciplines:

1. Meditation
2. Yoga
3. Buddhism
4. Ayurveda
5. Reiki
6. Chakra healing
7. The Law of Attraction

Lets break them down one at a time.

Meditation sounds so simple on paperyou sit down, think about nothing, and voila! Enlightenment. But in practice, its a totally different story. It feels like the second you sit down every force in the universe conspires against youyou cant get comfortable, theres an annoying buzzing sound coming from your lamp, or youre just so tired you fall asleep. Meditation is fucking hard.

Part of what makes meditation feel so challenging is that theres a ton of bullshit surrounding it that makes it seem especially hard to even get started. For instance, if you think that meditation requires you to sit alone for hours on a mountaintop with no other obligation other than to seek enlightenment, then yeah, that shit is going to feel impossible. The reality is that you can meditate anywherethose spare five minutes between meetings, waiting in line for your cappuccino, that time before bed while youre waiting to fall asleep and thinking about how you probably should have meditated.

Youre going to notice that some words crop up over and over again when talking meditation. Heres a quick glossary so you can wise up and get to chillin.

• Awareness: Awareness is how you go from numbing out to tuning in. Its all about turning on your five senses to really engage with the world around you.
• Contemplation: Contemplation is all about using your senses to learn something new through total immersion. Its going to involve a lot of creepy staring and stoner-in-philosophy-class-style revelations.
• Focus: Paying attention, but like super attention.
• Visualization: Using your mind to create imagesfor instance, there may not be an existing memory of you nailing every word to Baby Got Back at karaoke, but through visualization, anything is possible.