Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics ISBN: 9780399588945
by
Dan HarrisJeffrey WarrenCarlye Adler Published by Spiegel & Grau on 2017
Genres: Self-Help,
Personal Growth,
Happiness,
Meditations,
Success Pages: 304
Goodreads THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF 10% HAPPIER
Too busy to meditate? Can't turn off your brain? Curious about mindfulness but more comfortable in the gym? This book is for you.
You'll also get access to guided audio meditations on the 10% Happier app, to jumpstart your practice from day one.
ABC News anchor Dan Harris used to think that meditation was for people who collect crystals, play Ultimate Frisbee, and use the word "namaste" without irony. After he had a panic attack on live television, he went on a strange and circuitous journey that ultimately led him to become one of meditation's most vocal public proponents.
Here's what he's fixated on now: Science suggests that meditation can lower blood pressure, mitigate depression and anxiety, and literally rewire key parts of the brain, among numerous other benefits. And yet there are millions of people who want to meditate but aren't actually practicing. What's holding them back?
In this guide to mindfulness and meditation for beginners and experienced meditators alike, Harris and his friend Jeff Warren, a masterful teacher and "Meditation MacGyver," embark on a cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that stop people from meditating. They rent a rock-star tour bus (whose previous occupants were Parliament Funkadelic) and travel across eighteen states, talking to scores of would-be meditators--including parents, military cadets, police officers, and even a few celebrities. They create a taxonomy of the most common issues ("I suck at this," "I don't have the time," etc.) and offer up science-based life hacks to help people overcome them.
The book is filled with game-changing and deeply practical meditation instructions. Amid it all unspools the strange and hilarious story of what happens when a congenitally sarcastic, type-A journalist and a groovy Canadian mystic embark on an epic road trip into America's neurotic underbelly, as well as their own.
Praise for Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics
"If you're like many people, you're intrigued by the promise of meditation but don't know how to begin--or you've benefited from meditation in the past but need help to get started again. If so, Dan Harris has written the book for you. Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics is well researched, practical, and crammed with expert advice--and it's also an irreverent, hilarious page-turner."--Gretchen Rubin, author of The Four Tendencies and The Happiness Project
I first came across Dan Harris when I read 10 percent happier. What made me put him into one of my fave authors list is that we both had the same reaction to Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth. Mostly we both loved him but thought that the ideas were waaaay out there, yet we could not help but read A New Earth over and over and force the book on every person that we knew.
I first heard of meditation through a therapist who suggested it may help my anxiety and my moods. At first, I dismissed the whole idea as being too far out there. My curiosity was sparked through. I promptly went to the library and checked out a whole shit ton of books on happiness including 10% Happier. The one thing they all had in common was that they all mediated. People like me who grappled with dilating anxiety among with chaotic moods by bipolar claimed that once they got into the habit of doing it consistently every day that it did indeed give them enough breathing room so that they were not making knee-jerk decisions that turned out to be not so good in the aftermath.
I decided to give meditation a try. My brain on default is always running a million miles a minute. I thought that meditation to be effective you had to sit for hours upon hours with perfect focus with a clear head. I failed to do it like that spectacularly. I was ready to call it quits when I just happened to see Anew Earth on the library shelf and checked it out. I read how smart tolls had a breakthrough so intense he says on a park bench for two years. Say what you want, but I too wanted that level of breakthrough. After all, I have had my share of depressed misery.
And yet every time that I tried to meditate I always felt that I was doing is wrong.. That is what I love about Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. Dan Harris explains how he has a had time focusing and it seems as the brain is always running. I could relate to Dan Harris and feel that if it helps him and he is as fidgety as I am, then there is hope.
I have to admit that the perfectionist in me had a hard time letting go of what I felt were to be the perfect way to mediate. I kept reminding myself that there is no perfect way that many people brains won’t shut off also but at least I could gain control over what my brain is telling me and not let one bad thought spiral out of control and let it ruin my day. I listened to this a couple of weeks ago and seemed to be improving. Dan Harris has an app, but I love headspace, so I am using that.
What I needed to hear what Meditation for Friday skeptics has shown me is that the goal is not to have an entirely clear head devoid of all thought like I previously thought but rather to gain enough control how-how your thoughts make you feel so that you can have enough mental space to make right decisions.
I am still trying to reach that place, but I have a super long way to go. In the meantime, I love books such as Mediation for fidgety Skeptics in that they show me that in the end, we all fight the monkey mind but some of has control over how the thoughts make us feel and that is what Dan Harris meant when he says he is 10 percent happier.
