Resilience - Book Review
As we all know, life is not always smooth sailing. Sometimes unexpected events can provide rough waters to navigate that present themselves in a myriad of forms: natural disasters, car accidents, the death of a loved one or an unsettling medical diagnosis, just to name a few. While we can't control the waves of life, we can learn how to surf the waves and cope resiliently with any challenge that life offers. In Linda Graham's newest book, Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster, we are offered not only guidance and understanding but over 100 exercises to help us successfully navigate and surf the often turbulent waves of life.
Linda Graham, MFT, is a licensed therapist, author and teacher who integrates neuroscience, mindfulness and relational psychology to bring us valuable tools to build a resilient life. By training us and our brains, Graham states that she can help us learn to "respond skillfully to the most common and the most challenging external stressors."
Modern neuroscience is shedding new light on the ability of the brain to grow new neurons and create new neural circuitry throughout our lives. No matter what age, our brains have the capability to rewire old habits, behaviors, and responses to be more resilient and shift perspective to life challenging events. You might be familiar with the saying, "Neurons that fire together, wire together", by neuropsychologist Donald Hebb. This saying describes the way in which pathways of the brain are formed and reinforced through repetition. Graham states that "when we choose to cultivate experiences that that will create new patterns of circuitry in the brain, we are choosing to change our brains in ways that will change our lives for the better."
This is not the type of book that you read and set back on the shelf. This book is a companion to help you surf the sometimes surly waves of life. With 130 experiential exercises ranging from practicing Somatic Intelligence, Emotional Intelligence, Relational Intelligence, Reflective Intelligence and Full-On Resilience, readers will have the tools, as Graham says, "to cope resiliently, no matter what life may throw at us, no matter what level of disruption to our resilience we're facing...learning tools to create change leads to a realization that I can create change, and that leads to the view of the self that I am someone who can create change. That's empowering, and it's powerful."
Learn more about this life changing title along with a valuable exercise offered in the book in the short interview below with author Linda Graham:
Order your copy of this powerful book here: Resilience: Powerful Practices for Bouncing Back from Disappointment, Difficulty, and Even Disaster
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Cultivating Mindfulness: How to Practice Mindfulness Meditation
Cultivating mindfulness is the key to overcoming suffering and recognizing natural wisdom: both our own and others'. How do we go about it?
In the Buddhist tradition and in Contemplative Psychotherapy training, we nurture mindfulness through the practice of sitting meditation. There are many different kinds of meditation. For example, some are designed to help us relax; others are meant to produce altered states of consciousness.
Mindfulness meditation is unique in that it is not directed toward getting us to be different from how we already are. Instead, it helps us become aware of what is already true moment by moment. We could say that it teaches us how to be unconditionally present; that is, it helps us be present with whatever is happening, no matter what it is.
Mindfulness, paying precise, nonjudgmental attention to the details of our experience as it arises and subsides, doesn't reject anything. Instead of struggling to get away from experiences we find difficult, we practice being able to be with them. Equally, we bring mindfulness to pleasant experiences as well. Perhaps surprisingly, many times we have a hard time staying simply present with happiness. We turn it into something more familiar, like worrying that it won't last or trying to keep it from fading away.
When we are mindful, we show up for our lives; we don't miss them in being distracted or in wishing for things to be different. Instead, if something needs to be changed we are present enough to understand what needs to be done. Being mindful is not a substitute for actually participating in our lives and taking care of our own and others' needs. In fact, the more mindful we are, the more skillful we can be in compassionate action.
Making Friends with Your Mind
Joseph Campbell on the Mythic Symbology of Release
One of our all time favorite teachers is the late Joseph Campbell. Joseph Campbell was a preeminent scholar, writer, and teacher who had a genius for finding the unifying symbols and metaphors in apparently distinct cultures and traditions. Campbell explores the enduring power of the universal myths that influence our lives daily and examines the myth-making process from the primitive past to the immediate present, returning always to the source from which all mythology springs: the creative imagination. He had a profound influence on millions of people--including Star Wars creator George Lucas. To Campbell, mythology was the “song of the universe, the music of the spheres.”
In the video below, Campbell discusses winged fish, the feathered serpent, the Bodhisattva, and the Christ -- all mythological images of a shift in consciousness. This video is a brief excerpt from interviews filmed with Joseph Campbell shortly before his death in 1987, previously unreleased by the Joseph Campbell Foundation.
