on Mental Health
Mindful.org's "On Mental Health" blogger, Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., has recently published a book—The Now Effect: How This Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life. Read Dr. Susan Albers's review of it here on The Huffington Post. The following is an excerpt adapted from The Now Effect.
Dr. Christopher Germer is a friend and colleague of mine who grew up with a great fear of speaking. It wasn’t always easy, but over time he began to cultivate an awareness of the feeling of fear as it arose and practiced systematically relating to it with greater mindfulness and compassion. Chris trained his brain to have what I call “The Mindful Instinct.” What actually happened?
In a chapter titled “Compassion is a Verb” from my new book, The Now Effect, I share how this practice led to an experience that changed Chris’ relationship to his fear of speaking:
Read more »The day Rabbi Harold Kushner was told by a pediatrician that his three-year-old son Aaron would never grow taller than three feet—suffering the symptoms of progeria, or “rapid aging”—his entire belief about God went out the window.
He would go on to wonder how a God that he had been so loyal to could do such a terrible thing to him. Rabbi Kushner went on to make it his life’s work to explore this idea, eventually penning a book about it—When Bad Things Happen to Good People
As this New Year dawns on us, how about we don’t set rigid New Year’s resolutions, but instead see this year as a practice. There is some implied rule within resolutions that we’ll actually stick to them and when we don’t, we set ourselves up for the same old habitual mind traps that have kept us stuck in the past.
“I’ve failed once again,” arises, leading to a sense of sluggishness and the next thought, “What’s the point?”
There’s another way.
Read more »As family and friends begin to gather during the holidays at one point or another may have to face either ourselves or a loved one with addiction. There are really very few people who are not touched by addiction in one way or another. Addiction comes in the form of alcohol, drugs, sex, shopping, eating, sugar, and other compulsive behaviors that are an avoidance strategy and eventually cause distress.
When caught up in the cycle of addictive behavior, there is an inability to accept whatever is being felt in the present moment and the mind is constantly wandering onto the next "fix." So it’s safe to conclude that addiction often builds a wall of disconnection and makes it difficult to actually be present for the holidays.
Read more »I recently had the honor of interviewing Susan Kaiser Greenland, who had the courage to leave a well-paying law career to embrace a calling to teach mindfulness meditation to children as young as four years old.
She is author of the upcoming book The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate
Susan will be speaking at the Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth Conference in San Diego on February 4 – 5, 2012.
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Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and conducts a private practice in West Los Angeles. He is author of the upcoming book The Now Effect (Atria Books, 2012) and co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (New Harbinger, February 2010).