Mindfulness Made Easy: Learn How to Be Present and Kind - to Yourself and Others

by Ed Halliwell

An introductory book on mindfulness that will help you to understand this popular technique and cultivate a daily practice.Mindfulness is a powerful antidote to the stresses of modern life and teaches us how to be still in the present moment, to pay attention to ourselves and our surroundings and cultivate peaceful clarity and openness. Ed Halliwell teaches mindfulness to prestigious global organizations, advises the UK government on creating mindfulness-based policies and works on mindfulness campaigns for the Mental Health Foundation. In this week-by-week guide, packed with practical exercises and suitable for all levels of experience, Ed presents traditional mindfulness teaching alongside scientific evidence that shows these techniques have huge potential for enhancing our health and key mindfulness practices- the science of mindful attention and neuroplasticity- how to cultivate a mindful attitude- seeing with awareness and approaching challenges- when to let go and when to take mindful actionThis book was previously published under the title Mindfulness (Hay House Basics series).

242 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 8, 2019

Reviews

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

"... attention is a skill we can learn."

A very solid, practical introduction to mindfulness through meditation. Well written and structured, the book is designed to be read one chapter per week with the reader implementing new practices/routines each week. I told myself I was going to stick to the one chapter per week schedule and "do the homework" (I have a bad tendency of reading self-help, how-to books, or tutorials on a wide variety of subjects and not actually doing anything suggested). I did stick to the schedule. I only halfway did the homework (and that's probably me being generous with my assessment). I would say it's probably much easier if you use some audio guidance for the meditations (Halliwell offers them on this website--I get the impression they were free when this book first came out, but they are now sold individually). That being said, there are wonderful free apps for meditation (I think Insight Timer is among the most popular) and you can find guided meditations relatively easily that fit right in with this book. (I'm given to understand that you can join others in pursuing this type of thing... I think they call this social interaction. There are like these things called "communities." But that involves other people... And, just... No.)

"If I were to draw a V-shape on a piece of white paper, what would you think was there? A lot of people see a bird. Very few people say they see the sky, perhaps with a bird flying through it. We automatically focus on things, and we miss the space that contains things.

Awareness sees the whole picture. With it, we can experience life with a more open lens. From the narrow perspective of the autopilot, we might think it's a bad thing to notice the mind drifting, but actually the reverse is true. The fact we can see it means we're opening to greater consciousness."

[Mythiraye K · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is all about discovering your light bulb moment about widening your perspective of living your life.
Although, it has very useful techniques to develop Mindfulness as a skill, it takes alot of time and effort, and I found the book quite overwhelming especially when the title mentioned "Made easy".

Honestly, it's just me, perhaps in the days to come, I might actually incorporate what I learned and update my review lol