excerpt from Urban Mindfulness by Jonathan S Kaplan, Ph.D.

Sometimes, we get stuck in a rut and just can’t break out. We need a little extra help to disengage from automatic pilot. We might resist sitting in meditation, or find ourselves too distracted when we actually do sit down to meditate. At these times, it can really help to turn to something we previously created or compiled to support mindfulness practice. It might be a collection of songs, a photo album, or a poetry compilation. You can also create a “mindfulness first-aid kit” to use in such situations.

During my clinical internship, I worked with gifted psychologist Lorraine Allman, who used mindfulness in group therapy for people with chronic mental illnesses. As part of the program, she advised participants to develop a “sensory first-aid kit” (Allman 1999, 30), which included items that appealed to each of the person’s five senses (that is, sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch). For example, one participant loved to go to the beach, so she put together a box of things reminiscent of her favorite place, including a postcard (sight), a CD of ocean sounds (hearing), suntan lotion (smell), and saltwater taffy (taste). She then filled the box with sand (touch). When she felt stressed or overwhelmed, she went through her kit and spent several minutes immersing herself in the sensory experience of these objects. Like other people in the group, she not only found herself feeling less stressed, but also really enjoyed taking time out for her mindfulness practice. In fact, she came to see feeling stuck as a positive thing, because it meant it was time to deliberately practice mindfulness! Here are some tips for creating your own mindfulness first-aid kit:

excerpt from Eating Mindfully

skill builder: mindfulness of cravings

1. What do you usually crave? If it is chocolate, find a way to satisfy your craving in a mindful way. Keep a mini-candy bar or a handful of Hershey Kisses to fill that craving. Bring food with you. Having a plan makes you less susceptible to losing control. 2. Remember the adage, “Whatever you resist, persists.” Approach cravings consciously. What do your cravings suggest about your eating? Are your food desires an indication that you are too restrictive with your food? Do your cravings suggest that you are seeking comfort? Discover what your cravings mean, and find healthy ways to satisfy them. Ask yourself the following questions whenever you find yourself craving a particular food:

• How will satisfying my craving affect my body?
• How will satisfying my craving affect my mood?
• How will satisfying my craving affect my thoughts about myself?

excerpt from Eating Mindfully

skill builder: create new eating habits

1. Make two lists, one of the foods you eat “mindfully,” and the other of the foods you eat “mindlessly.” Foods eaten “mindlessly” are those you avoid, restrict, define as “bad,” those that produce strong emotions of guilt, and/or induce over- or out-of-control eating. Mindful foods may produce emotions, but they are mostly positive or neutral emotions. Mindful foods are eaten willingly, without reservation or fear. If youdon’t divide foods into these categories consciously, you may have an internal sense of your emotionalreactions (carefree eating versus eating that results in guilt, stress, or fear). Getting in touch with the wayyou react to each of these categories of foods is important. The first step to changing any behavior is to become more aware of it. Bring these categories into your conscious, deliberate thoughts.
2. Next, think about how to take food out of the two categories. Remove the “bad” label from a cookie by giving it a purpose. Is your intention to have a snack? If so, eat the cookie in mindful bites, or use it to satisfy a raving for sweets. Or, give yourself a prescription for a once-a-day dose of a cookie. Start with the foods you eat mindlessly. As you begin to be more comfortable, start to experiment by sampling foods you’ve completely cut out of your diet, or foods that you are intensely afraid of or are reluctant to eat. Conquer your fears.
3. Break out of your standard routine. Whether you go to the grocery store and buy the same items week after week, or zoom down the aisles looking for the Specials, do something different. Examine and buy an exotic fruit like a mango, papaya, or an Asian pear. Or, try a loaf of gourmet whole wheat bread. Add a touch of spice and variety to your meals. Walk through the store mindfully examining each item. Be aware of products you’ve never noticed before. Touch and turn over packages, smell the fruits, examine everything, and buy a new food.

Calming Your Anxious Mind

Anxiety, fear, and panic are indeed upsetting. A central theme in this book is that most people have not been properly educated about the nature of these feelings (they are not you and not permanent), and certainly have not been properly trained to handle them in a skillful, meditative way (using affectionate, non-judging attention to alter the old mind-body habits of struggle and reactivity). The result is that there is a tendency to identify with anxiety, fear, or panic, and to become lost in the aversion to them as it arises, fills your awareness, and drives your consciousness moment by moment.

It can be helpful to remember that your inner life—distressing or not—is worthy of attention, and so are you! In fact, your best hope for changing the distress you feel is by trusting that turning toward the experience is the way home. The processes of anxiety, fear, and panic may generate doubts and discouraging thoughts that distract you from actually turning attention toward the unfolding experience, but don’t let yourself be fooled! There is a different way to relate to the pain of anxiety, fear, or panic besides taking them as an identity, or making war on them.

Excerpt from Calming Your Anxious Mind

Worry is another way thoughts and feelings can affect health. We have seen how worry can be understood as the patterns of thinking driven by feelings of anxiety. Often, the content of the thoughts reflects a person’s attempt to cope with or eliminate the discomfort and ill ease present as part of their experience of anxiety.

• About two-thirds of Americans classify themselves as worriers.
• About half of that group classify themselves as moderate worriers who worry between 10 and 50 percent of the day.
• The rest of the worriers report that they worry more than eight hours a day.
• Worry has been related to health problems. These include cardiac arrhythmias in patients who have had heart attacks, increased blood pressure in laboratory animals, and asthma in both adults and children.
• Uncertainty as an aspect of worry is particularly potent and toxic. When people are confronted by situations of high uncertainty, when they do not know what will happen next or how they should act, they can experience destructive feelings of helplessness and frustration. Uncertainty keeps people in a constant state of semi-arousal, unable to relax, and the price of this ongoing tension and stress is high.

excerpt from Grieving Mindfully

It is extremely important to remember that the lessons of grief are at their most potent not when they are being learned, but when they are being integrated into your life. It is one thing to read about these ideas, but it is quite another thing to put these ideas into practice. Grief has the power to radically change your life, to encourage a more meaningful, richer life, but only when its lessons are manifested in the way you live your life every day. This means becoming a more active and more mindful participant in your life.

One of the hardest steps in this process can be putting the lessons of grief into practice. Many people I have worked with have a passive appreciation of the concept of mindfulness and the positive transformation of suffering long before they integrate these ideas into their everyday life. By exploring specific areas of their lives, they help this passive appreciation to develop into a more active, dynamic process. It becomes an invigorating, life-affirming task, even though there are still many emotional ups and downs along the way.

excerpt from Mindful Motherhood

First, I want you to know that being mindful is not yet another goal you must achieve to be a good mom. It’s not about becoming a perfect Zen mama who stays calm, cool, and collected in the face of anything that comes; uses only organic baby foods, clothing, and linens; stays on a career path while also being available to her family; and stays fit and trim all the while. The last thing I want to do with this book is put another giant task on your list of “things I must do to be a good mom.” Mindful motherhood is not about becoming someone other than who you already are.

Mindful motherhood, simply put, is being present, in your body, and con¬nected with your baby no matter what is happening. It’s being aware of your experi¬ence from moment to moment, as it is happening, without pushing it away, trying to make it stay, or judging it as bad or good. It is meeting each situation as it is, and over time, more and more often, approaching whatever is happening with curiosity and compassion.

excerpt from The Mindful Woman

I vividly remember a time when I completely understood what the Buddha meant about seeing the miracle of single flower being life changing. My husband, Gene, and I had a trans-Pacific-ocean courtship. To help bridge the miles, he once sent me red roses. After my sons were asleep, I took the time to luxuriate in every aspect of the fullest rose, exploring its textures, colors, and the varying shapes of petals, stem, and stamen. To my surprise, tears of joy began to slip from my eyes, and I felt enveloped in love and connected to both the man who sent the roses and their creator as well.

Although my rapt attention to the flower was the act of a young woman wildly in love, the experience of it has become an enduring touchstone reminding me of the power and joy a few mindful moments can bring. Thirty-some years later, I clearly remember that particular rose and can revisit the pro¬found sense of wonder and awe I experienced while focusing on it.

by guest blogger Dr. C. Peter Bankart, author of Freeing the Angry Mind

The only answer that I have been able to come up with that makes any sense to me anyway is to demand of yourself to pay close attention; to be mindful and respectful of the natural world, to cultivate a wide universe of relationships, and to hold dear to your heart the philosophical and religious truths that sustain you. It is equally hard to let go of the illusion of permanence when things are good, as it is to recognize that the future is full of infinite possibilities, when everything seems stuck in the middle of a black and white winter.