8 Keys to Practicing Mindfulness

Becoming mindful is about the small, everyday things such as pausing to take a breath before you drive off in a hurry or considering the food that will nourish your body before a meal. Or it can mean checking in with yourself before responding to a challenging email or text. Every moment of our lives can become an opportunity to practice mindfulness. This book will invite you to sharpen your awareness and ask yourself with more frequency, "What do I notice right now?" or "How do I need to respond or be with this situation?" These seemingly tiny moments of noticing yourself can have a major impact on your life as you learn to track habitual patterns and awaken to change. Practicing mindfulness is not about being better by figuring it all out. It is about tolerating the moments when you don't know or learning to be more curious about the struggle. Here you will learn how to establish a basic practice with guidelines for posture and breathing as well as various options for meditations that involve sitting, walking, gently moving or lying down. You can try these exercises at your lunch break, before you rise or fall asleep.But best of all is for you to sprinkle mindfulness throughout your day. Whether you are new to mindfulness or a seasoned practitioner, you can make the conscious decision to change your approach to life. Moment by moment you have the opportunity to cultivate awareness that will make a difference in how you engage with the world on a daily basis.

Manuela Mischke Reeds, MA, MFT, is an international teacher of mindfulness-based somatic psychology. She co-directs the Hakomi Institute of California and teaches in the US, Europe, and Australia. A meditation practitioner for over 25 years, Manuela lectures, consults and trains professionals in mindfulness, attachment, trauma, and movement therapy. She maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Menlo Park, CA. Babette Rothschild, MSW, LCSW, has been a practicing psychotherapist since 1976. Author of 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery and the best-selling The Body Remembers, and member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, she gives lectures and professional trainings around the world. She is the editor of Norton's 8 Keys to Mental Health Series. She lives in Los Angeles.

"Mischke Reeds has developed a clear and comprehensive guide to establishing mindfulness in your daily life! This book will help you feel and sense what is truly happening in the moment so you can make a more conscious choice about how you'd like to respond to daily events, rather than react out of habit. Her heartfelt tone, real-life examples, and 'embodied' exercises make this whole process easily accessible-anyone can do this!" -- Rik Isensee, LCSW, author of Shift Your Mood "A wonderfully clear, concise, and accessible guide to the practice of mindfulness. It is on the cutting edge by showing how mindfulness is grounded in the body and is a powerful method for our emotional healing. Highly recommended for beginners as well as experienced meditators. Bravo!" -- Reginald A. Ray, PhD, author of Touching Enlightenment and Mahamudra for the Modern World "8 Keys to Practicing Mindfulness is a great boon to both the beginning and the dedicated practitioner of mindfulness. Speaking to the needs of contemporary We