I wrote a post I like, On Mindfulness and Changing the World, on one of my three Tumblr pages. Here’s an excerpt:
My daughter is 22 months old and changing everyday. Everybody says that the time moves so quickly, blink and she’ll be eighteen and out. My husband even said that just last night, something along the lines of, “We have 16 years with her and then she’s just, poof, gone,” and I reminded him that 16 years is actually a very long time. And when I’m mindful, time stretches. It’s easy to be happy. I’m catching everything, and when I am present, my daughter shines with the attention. Until yesterday, I would beat myself up for all those times I miss, when I am in my own head and far away, when I am inattentive.
Tan changed that for me. Mindfulness is like a muscle, he says, and the more you flex it, the stronger it gets. Each time you recognize you have drifted into daydreams, ruminations, or worries and have left your body behind on autopilot, you can just come back and start over, no big deal. In fact, good job for noticing. It will only get easier from here.
So far, Tan has used this compassionate approach in his description of awareness in meditation, but I’m extrapolating from the tone of the book and what I’ve seen from the table of contents, and slapping on my own ideas of radical-self-forgiveness. I’m only on page 65. But I think that’s the point: I am only on page 65 and I can already tell my worldview has shifted for the better. I have read a third of the book and I am changed.
The book I’m referring to is Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan. Here’s a sample, and I will leave you with the same disclaimer I made in the original post:
I’m not getting paid to endorse it, or to provide opinions, or profit in any way. It’s simply that good so far. But fair warning: don’t let all humble-bragging get in the way of its message.
Heather Senz 