Mindfulness: Connecting with the Real You

by Vinay Dabholkar

Like it or not, a large part of our thinking is wasteful be it guilt, fear, anxiety or stress. This drains our energy and hinders our decision-making. Mindfulness is an eye-opening take on how to stay in the moment. Not a reheated fix for our daily struggles, this book serves as a guide for intelligent readers and urban professionals to focus and practise mindfulness.

208 pages, Paperback

Published October 25, 2019

Reviews

[Harshita Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, if you ask me, what’s the most searched term I looked this year, read numerous articles or watched videos on the internet, it is about the conception of Mindfulness. This term has been acclaimed to improve one’s mental well-being and reduction of stress. Mindfulness has always been treated as the act of meditation, adoption of meditation techniques by sitting upright, closing eyes and maintaining the correct body posture.
But Vinay’s book on mindfulness advocates the practice of mindfulness as not only an act of meditation, but as a simple exercise of being present in the current moment. He offers various anecdotes, short stories, references from Bollywood movie scenes explaining the identification of wasteful thoughts, repetitive thought patterns and practicing focus on the present moment. He says, ‘Mindfulness is a continuous process, like a diet of mind.’ It is not once in a while activity.
He proposes to watch out for wasteful thoughts and being aware in the present moment. What you should do if you’re living in your train of thoughts or chasing a future dream? One of the chapters in the book, ‘Stepping out of a train of thought’, also one of the interesting chapters, try to suggest ways to clear one’s mind from unnecessary thinking. At the end of each chapter, there are few experiments to try out to ask things to yourself on your thoughts.
Mindfulness is an easy and quick read. Though a lot of things one must have read on the internet, but explanations through movie scenes, short stories are something new to read and to gain comprehension of the mindfulness.

[Anuradha Goyal · Rating 3 out of 5]

At the intersection of films, shows, popular media and human behavior - https://www.anuradhagoyal.com/mindful...

[Urvashi Tandon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found the book very interesting. A refreshing take on mindfulness. Experiments and references to movies,etc make you sit up and introspect.

[TomeRaider · Rating 2 out of 5]

The examples from the movies didn't work for me. They felt belaboured and stretched a tad too much. Give it to me straight. There really was no need for allegories and complicating things. Mindfulness is a simple enough concept. Also, while the book couldn't have added anything new, it could have perhaps tried to present it uniquely in a way that works better, which I can see it has tried to do with the help of Bollywood and failed in its approach. Hey, I'm just being mindful, not prejudiced, so sue me!

[Roy Van Den Brande · Rating 4 out of 5]

It gave me some new and very useful metaphors for working on my mindfulness. He sometimes uses Indian movies as metaphors which makes it harder sometimes to make it useful for me, but it does work. I expected a more esotheric and spiritual approach but was pleasantly surpised by the practical and grounded approach.

[SciPsy Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful Exploration of mindfulness by examples which can appeal to young generation. Good flow and easy read.

[Pushpendra Singh]

powerful ideas in simple descriptions.

[Laxmi Mallya · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read..creates a nice tinging sensation in the head and a settled feeling while you can relate to whatever has been written....