Mindfulness for Compassionate Living: Mindful Ways to Less Stress and More Kindness

by Patrizia Collard

Self-compassion is a life-changing way of thinking that is rooted in Mindfulness. By learning to have more loving kindness and forgiveness for ourselves, we have more empathy and compassion for others. The self-compassion movement has been growing rapidly over the past two years with recent research into the neuroscience of compassion showing that changing our thinking habits makes new neural pathways in the brain - and that compassion can be learned.

The benefits of this practice are personal and global, from learning how to manage chronic pain to relieving stress, boosting the immune system and circulation, along with improving relationships as we connect more authentically with others. With gentle exercises to try, meditations, visualizations and inspiring case studies, Awakening the Compassionate Mind is your first step in applying loving kindness first to yourself, then others, releasing negativity and living joyfully from the heart.

Genres: Psychology

144 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2014

Reviews

[Scout Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mindfulness for Compassionate Living is a short book that argues the importance of compassion and mindfulness. Filled with images, stories, research and meditations, the book is a pretty quick read.

It's obvious that the author was inspired by Kristen Neff, author of Self-Compassion, as she mentions what "author and psychologist Kristen Neff" said all the time. Considering how much the author mentioned her, it as annoying that she reintroduced Neff every time.

The stories of compassion were the best part of this book - they were interesting and surprising. I wish there were a lot more of them. Some of the research was good too, but a lot of it wasn't new if you've already read about self-compassion (especially Kristen Neff's book).

What I didn't like were some of the weird meditations and mantras; it felt like the main actions to take to be more compassionate were those, and I wasn't really interested in that. Sometimes, the way the research was presented was boring and hard to get through.

For example, the exercise Forgiving and Asking for Forgiveness
1. Take a seat
2. Make contact with your heart
3. Forgive someone who has wronged you by saying "I forgive you/May you be forgiven" (as if there is someone else to be forgiven by)
4. If you've caused someone pain, say "May I be forgiven/Please forgive me" (109).
>> I get this if you will never see the person again, but in real life, if it's someone close to you, you need to tell THEM you've forgiven them or ASK THEM for forgiveness. A meditation won't magically fix that. If you want to do the exercise for a stranger, sure.

There were 3-4 typos in this book (one was on pg 122)

Would recommend to those who enjoy meditation, want a short self-help read, and/or know very little about self-compassion (and want to know more). It wasn't amazing but it was worth a read.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It's a great insight into Mindfulness, lots of little activities for you to try, I'd definitely recommend it, I have another of Patrizia Collard's works and look forward to getting into them.

I particularly love practising Mindfulness through the art of books.

[Phill · Rating 3 out of 5]

A really nice book that gives practical instruction on many methods for cultivating compassion. I found it bizarre that near the end of the book was included a quote from Colin Powell, one of the least likely names that would ever come up in consideration of compassionate people.