This beautiful little hardback book has a simple but beautiful design and is full of inspiring words of wisdom and mindfulness quotes.
Each chapter contains a collection of mindfulness quotes, proverbs, sayings and snippets of advice to help us on our mindful journey. The book is perfect for dipping in and out of whenever you need a reminder to stay present. The mindfulness quotes are inspiring and calming. This book is a great resource for anyone wanting to live more mindfully who is too busy to study the practice and read long heavy books about the subject.
The book starts with an introduction, which explains what mindfulness is. The author tells us that ‘we don’t need to sit cross-legged meditating on our own for hours because mindfulness is an attitude we can practice any time’.
The book is divided into 8 chapters each with a different theme
1. Being in the moment
This section focuses on having a mindful outlook on life. It opens with a quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn ‘Mindfulness means being awake. It means knowing what you are doing.’ Each of the quotes in this section explain a little bit more about what mindfulness feels like and how to go about achieving it. Some of the quotes may be familiar, such as, ‘Why is the present called the present? Because it is a gift’. To more unusual words of wisdom such as ‘Chase butterflies and they will never be caught; watch butterflies and they will come to you.’
2. Finding peace and calm
As you would expect, this chapter is full of mindfulness quotes on being calm and peaceful. Most of these are quite short, but they provide powerful reminders that we can choose how we want to feel. Many of the quotes remind us of this such as, ‘Choose to be calm. It is an option.’ But the author also reminds us that this is not always as easy as it sounds with words like, `It’s easy to be an angel when no one ruffles your feathers’.
3. Minding our thoughts
This chapter encourages us to realize that we have more control over our thoughts than we might think. It includes classic advice such as, ‘It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters,’ as well as more challenging advice such as, ‘You wouldn’t fill your house with garbage. Treat your mind with the same care.’
4. Facing fears
This section on facing fears is inspiring. As well as calming our fears, it encourages us to go forward in our lives with courage and self-belief. The most useful piece of advice in this chapter for me was ‘Learn to accept that you are not perfect – nobody is.’ There is also a lovely page on walking in nature being a solution for many troubles. I also loved, ‘Let wonder replace fear’ though this seems like it might be harder to do than to say!
5. Loving kindness and self-compassion
The classic advice in this section is a quote by Soren Kierkegaard –‘Don’t forget to love yourself.’ The quotes in this chapter are all warm and life affirming. It was also lovely to be reminded of the following passage from 1 Corinthians, ‘Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.’ Another short but powerful quote is ‘Love grows by giving.’
6. Creativity and success
I eagerly looked forward to reading this section as creativity is such an important part of my life. I was not disappointed. The advice was inspiring. ‘One cannot live a creative life without first letting go of the fear of being wrong’, being a great example. Another inspiring example is, ‘Don’t give up on your dreams. With passion and attention, you can’t go wrong.’ I sincerely hope that this one is true!
7. The wisdom of patience
I readily admit that patience is not one of my strong points. So I delved into this chapter with some trepidation. I needn’t have worried. As with the other sections of this book, the mindfulness quotes are comforting and compassionate. I found particular solace in the following, ‘Patience comes into being when the brain discovers its fallibility and forgives itself.’ This section is full of many more gems of wisdom on the subject of patience.
8. Living with awareness
My favorite mindfulness quote from this section is, ‘Where you are, with what you have, do what you can’. With all the pressures of modern society to be the best and most successful person and to be perfect at everything, I found this quote very reassuring and comforting.
The final quote of the book is from Sharon Salzberg, ‘Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.’
Liz Dean has created a wonderful book for anyone feeling stressed or anxious or anyone that just wants to stop and smell the roses from time to time. With this little book close at hand I feel I will be reminded to be a little more mindful every day.
Overall Rating: I enjoyed this book so much and only giving this book 10/10 will do justice to this book.
