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Quiet Your Mind: An Easy-to-Use Guide to Ending Chronic Worry and Negative Thoughts and Living a Calmer Life
Never before has the psychological whistle been blown so clearly on the detrimental effects of chronic worrying, anxious problem-solving, and the general non-stop mental chatter of our thinking minds. John Selby, researcher, therapist, and educator, points out that we are indeed a nation of unwitting thinkaholics. In his essential new book, Quiet Your Mind, he offers us an easy-to-follow mind-management process through which we can learn to let go of fear-based mental habits and enter a more heart-centered, intuitively-clear, and spiritually-peaceful engagement with everyday life.
With solid scientific grounding, yet written in a heart-to-heart tone, Selby offers a precise exposé of how anxious thoughts focused on mental judgments, beliefs, and attitudes generate emotions such as irritation, worry, guilt, anger, and despair – leaving little room in our lives for positive spontaneous engagement with the world. In this definitive guidebook, Selby teaches how we can transcend such fear-based ideas and attitudes that hold us back in life, through potent yet easily-mastered techniques to quiet over-busy thoughtflows and nurture more present-moment, love-based mindstates.
With solid scientific grounding, yet written in a heart-to-heart tone, Selby offers a precise exposé of how anxious thoughts focused on mental judgments, beliefs, and attitudes generate emotions such as irritation, worry, guilt, anger, and despair – leaving little room in our lives for positive spontaneous engagement with the world. In this definitive guidebook, Selby teaches how we can transcend such fear-based ideas and attitudes that hold us back in life, through potent yet easily-mastered techniques to quiet over-busy thoughtflows and nurture more present-moment, love-based mindstates.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 14, 2004
45 people are currently reading
461 people want to read
About the author
John Selby
149 books19 followersI was lucky enough to grow up on a cattle ranch in Ojai California, and I still feel deeply grounded in country life. Then at 16 I spent a remarkable exchange-student year living in the bustling city of Durban, South Africa. Ever since, I've felt an integral part of the world community.
Then I went off to Princeton , mostly to satisfy my mother and grandparents. I received a great education, especially in English literature and history - but majored in Psychology, and ended up doing early EEG brain research for NIH studying the cognitive dynamics of meditation and psychedelics. I was my eating club's token cowboy, and fenced on Princeton's varsity team.
Rather than going to Vietnam, an unjust war which I opposed strongly, I went to the San Francisco Theological Seminary and became a Presbyterian minister (my family's faith) and a spiritual therapist. But my driving interest in Buddhist meditation, and my budding friendship with the philosopher Alan Watts, led me away from church work.
Instead I went to L.A. and participated in the American Film Institute's early internship program, studying screenwriting for several years, getting a film agent (Reese Halsey) and working in Hollywood. But there was little interest in my spiritually-grounded screenplays, so I attended the Radix Institute for Integral Therapy, finished my grad work and then worked as a therapist in San Luis Obispo.
All along, I was also developing a cowboy/jazz band with my brother, and working on my fiction and song-writing, A bit bored with the life of a therapist, I headed way down to Guatemala to spend a year at Lago Atitlan, writing songs, researching shamanic practices, and writing my first published book, Powerpoint (Warner). Barely escaping death in Guatemala, I spent almost a year up on my parents' new ranch in Idaho. On a whim I accepted a lecture/seminar tour in Europe - I went for 3 weeks and stayed for 7 remarkable years.
They loved me in West Berlin in the mid-eighties, and I set up a thriving therapy practice, wrote 2 dozen self-help books for the German market - and met my wife Birgitta, who I've been together with ever since. Moving to Switzerland, Birgitta and I developed a new idea (for then) called the self-help cassettebook (100 pages of text leading to an embedded cassette with audio guidance). We sold the concept to a major publisher there, and spent the next 4 years producing 24 cassettebooks. During that time we moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, then Santa Barbara, then over to Kauai - where we raised our two sons. After the hurricane, we hand-built a sugar shack and lived a quiet country life, writing more books, producing self-help audio and video content, and briefly heading an early online therapy company called BrightMind.
But Kauai was a hard place to advance a writing career, even though we made lots of breakthroughs guiding people in meditation and emotional growth via audio/video support.
In 2010 we moved to our current home in Santa Cruz, where we attempted to interject short-form mindfulness meditation into the Microsoft community, then shifted to Plantronics where we co-produced several at-work mindfulness apps. Realizing the need for professional guidance in the rapidly-expanding cannabis community, we then raised capital and developed the Mindfully High program which includes the Cannabis For Couples book and audiobook, and the High Together App.
I've spent most of my adult life developing a fiction style and genre that's only now matured into serious English literature - it's just taken me that long to realize my deeper vision in fiction. I'm blessed with a great film agent who's shopping the miniseries in Hollywood, so I seem to have come full circle. Right now I' m also helping authors to manifest and publish their books, while continuing to develop new audio and video programs to expand the High Together App. I look forward to your perspective on both my fiction and nonfiction writing!
Then I went off to Princeton , mostly to satisfy my mother and grandparents. I received a great education, especially in English literature and history - but majored in Psychology, and ended up doing early EEG brain research for NIH studying the cognitive dynamics of meditation and psychedelics. I was my eating club's token cowboy, and fenced on Princeton's varsity team.
Rather than going to Vietnam, an unjust war which I opposed strongly, I went to the San Francisco Theological Seminary and became a Presbyterian minister (my family's faith) and a spiritual therapist. But my driving interest in Buddhist meditation, and my budding friendship with the philosopher Alan Watts, led me away from church work.
Instead I went to L.A. and participated in the American Film Institute's early internship program, studying screenwriting for several years, getting a film agent (Reese Halsey) and working in Hollywood. But there was little interest in my spiritually-grounded screenplays, so I attended the Radix Institute for Integral Therapy, finished my grad work and then worked as a therapist in San Luis Obispo.
All along, I was also developing a cowboy/jazz band with my brother, and working on my fiction and song-writing, A bit bored with the life of a therapist, I headed way down to Guatemala to spend a year at Lago Atitlan, writing songs, researching shamanic practices, and writing my first published book, Powerpoint (Warner). Barely escaping death in Guatemala, I spent almost a year up on my parents' new ranch in Idaho. On a whim I accepted a lecture/seminar tour in Europe - I went for 3 weeks and stayed for 7 remarkable years.
They loved me in West Berlin in the mid-eighties, and I set up a thriving therapy practice, wrote 2 dozen self-help books for the German market - and met my wife Birgitta, who I've been together with ever since. Moving to Switzerland, Birgitta and I developed a new idea (for then) called the self-help cassettebook (100 pages of text leading to an embedded cassette with audio guidance). We sold the concept to a major publisher there, and spent the next 4 years producing 24 cassettebooks. During that time we moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico, then Santa Barbara, then over to Kauai - where we raised our two sons. After the hurricane, we hand-built a sugar shack and lived a quiet country life, writing more books, producing self-help audio and video content, and briefly heading an early online therapy company called BrightMind.
But Kauai was a hard place to advance a writing career, even though we made lots of breakthroughs guiding people in meditation and emotional growth via audio/video support.
In 2010 we moved to our current home in Santa Cruz, where we attempted to interject short-form mindfulness meditation into the Microsoft community, then shifted to Plantronics where we co-produced several at-work mindfulness apps. Realizing the need for professional guidance in the rapidly-expanding cannabis community, we then raised capital and developed the Mindfully High program which includes the Cannabis For Couples book and audiobook, and the High Together App.
I've spent most of my adult life developing a fiction style and genre that's only now matured into serious English literature - it's just taken me that long to realize my deeper vision in fiction. I'm blessed with a great film agent who's shopping the miniseries in Hollywood, so I seem to have come full circle. Right now I' m also helping authors to manifest and publish their books, while continuing to develop new audio and video programs to expand the High Together App. I look forward to your perspective on both my fiction and nonfiction writing!
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 2, 2013
Very helpful for me. Gave me practical tools to deal with chronic worry and race brain. Sprinkled in just enough science so I didn't dismiss it as new-age hokum, but it did introduce me to new concepts that I wouldn't have previously been open to. Reading it was easy. The challenge is to continue to practice the methods outlined in the book. So far so good ...
July 20, 2025
Excellent and accessible primer on something so important! Simply written with very practical exercises. Very intrigued by the recommended reading list as well, as it seems to nicely combine neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and Eastern religion.
January 9, 2015
I read this book mainly because a co-worker thought it might be helpful with anxiety in the work place. While I found some exercises to be helpful, I found the book to ignore too many problems.
One can simply will depression away on the basis of facing the negative thoughts they have about themselves. Perhaps some people can do that, but it seems unrealistic as someone who's suffered from depression for most of my life.
Likewise, the idea that an organism will stop doing something that doesn't benefit survival as soon as it realizes it doesn't benefit survival is too simplistic. Even simpler animals go against survival instincts if some cases.
While I found the early breathing and focus suggestions helpful, over all I found that the book was more content to tell me there was nothing wrong with me it couldn't fix when I deal with a disease that modern medicine barely understands. Because I have honestly never told myself I don't want to feel depressed anymore and I'm letting the sadness go. For heaven's sake, this book reinforces the dangerous idea that depression is an illness that can be willed away.
Perhaps the universality should be removed. Quite honestly, I found a lot of the exercises to be very unhelpful and the tone of the book became one of a minister on a pulpit.
One can simply will depression away on the basis of facing the negative thoughts they have about themselves. Perhaps some people can do that, but it seems unrealistic as someone who's suffered from depression for most of my life.
Likewise, the idea that an organism will stop doing something that doesn't benefit survival as soon as it realizes it doesn't benefit survival is too simplistic. Even simpler animals go against survival instincts if some cases.
While I found the early breathing and focus suggestions helpful, over all I found that the book was more content to tell me there was nothing wrong with me it couldn't fix when I deal with a disease that modern medicine barely understands. Because I have honestly never told myself I don't want to feel depressed anymore and I'm letting the sadness go. For heaven's sake, this book reinforces the dangerous idea that depression is an illness that can be willed away.
Perhaps the universality should be removed. Quite honestly, I found a lot of the exercises to be very unhelpful and the tone of the book became one of a minister on a pulpit.
May 8, 2017
It took me FOREVER to read this book. It's totally in the vein of "I have a perfect answer, follow my instructions, download my podcasts and all of your problems will be solved!" It was dismissive of depression and even meditation. And, I finished it because even bad versions of books encouraging a focus on the present moment, breath awareness, and opening closed places is useful.
February 22, 2009
This book is awesome. Not sure if I feel that way because its a mind book and I want to go into psychology, but it really helps if you have a hard time falling asleep or sorting out the mess in your head. I recommend it to you!
August 11, 2017
Excellent book which I found very helpful. I had borrowed this book, but I plan on buying it because it's the sort of thing that's handy to keep around for future reference.
January 7, 2010
Read this 2 years ago and it changed me forever! I live by this book and I'm constantly rereading it.
September 15, 2013
Very helpful, but one I'll have to skim over again and again to get all the information. Too much to recall. So much good information.
October 1, 2023
I appreciate the focus on mind management, and how we manage our minds. Well done! I also like the elucidation of how to quiet/still your mind.
August 15, 2025
My favorite book to return to for reminders on mindfulness and dealing with anxiety. I've gifted it numerous times
July 20, 2015
Some good exercises and tips for mindfulness.
Also a fair bit of pseudoscience too though.
Use the techniques, take the rest with a healthy sized grain of salt.
Also a fair bit of pseudoscience too though.
Use the techniques, take the rest with a healthy sized grain of salt.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews