(Note: our book is currently out of print as we are preparing for the second edition. In the meanwhile, we have posted the book in entirety on this website
“Life is the sum total of all your choices
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This is a book about choices, or more precisely, this is your personal guidebook to making frequent and consistent small choices that will dramatically reduce stress, anxiety and depression while promoting balance and resilience. Even more important, you’ll be introduced to assessment based choices and decisions that can be transformative, leading to deep satisfaction with life, and an overall sense of well-being.
Welcome to “Mindful Choices for Well-Being,” and Mindful Choices Therapy.
Become mindfully aware, make great choices, and turn those great choices into powerful and positive habits. When mindful awareness is coupled with making great choices, and systematically practicing those choices to the point of powerful and enduring lifelong habits, well-being and thriving result. It’s transformative and Mindful Choices Therapy is designed for that transformation.
We want you to "thrive." We want you to wake up each morning full of enthusiasm about your life. We want you to feel confident, optimistic and empowered, living your values, having compassion for self and others, and finding purpose and meaning in each day. This is the true meaning of “well-being,” experiencing your life with a high degree of satisfaction and happiness.
This is a book about mindfulness and transformation. You will learn to use mindful awareness of your “here and now” reality to consistently choose well-being and quality of life. You will achieve freedom to be conscious and intentional in your choices. You will have powerful evidence based methodology for making healthy choices stick. You will loosen the grip of automatic negative habits while building a healthy and positive lifestyle that becomes automatic and sustainable with practice.
You are a creature of habit – for better or for worse. According to a Duke University study, at least 45% of everything you think, feel, do or say is habitual. You may think your actions are conscious and intentional, but in fact much of your life is habit. You, like virtually everyone else, are largely living your life on autopilot, following your script, and responding much the way you’ve always responded. This “automaticity” can underlie either a life of well-being, or a life of stress, frustration and disappointment.
However, even though much of your behavior is scripted and automatic, you needn’t be discouraged – learning mindfulness skills for personal mastery and well-being is a game changer. You can develop a discipline of being conscious and intentional. You can take charge of your habits, and the choices behind those habits. You can cultivate mindful awareness, consistently make positive choices and literally rewire your brain, making positive and healthy choices that become habitual. You can choose personal mastery, a peaceful mind and well-being, and you can develop mindfulness tools to make positive choices stick!
We work with people who want more out of life. Our clients want to consistently make better choices, and they want those choices to become solid habits. They are ready for change.
We’ve had a very successful psychology and consulting practice for over three decades, but we don’t have a typical client. Some of our clients have high anxiety. Some are depressed. Some have relationship issues. Some struggle with addictions. Some are dealing with food and weight issues. Some have workplace stress. Some are creative people who feel stuck. Some are leaders who want to improve leadership skills. Some want to feel more in control of their lives. Some want to develop a business or launch a new career. Some come seeking life-coaching to help them feel more effective, successful, and happy. All want more out of life.
What about you? Are you struggling with stress, anxiety, depression, food and weight issues, addictive or compulsive behaviors, stress-induced self-damaging reactivity or stressful relationship problems? Perhaps you’re simply feeling overstimulated and overwhelmed by daily frustrations and tensions, not having much fun and not having the life you wanted. Do you find yourself struggling to do the very things you really want to do anyway? Are you much too self-critical, unable to feel that your ordinary self is enough?
Perhaps you’re struggling to break free of bad habits or having difficulty forming positive and sustainable new ones. Time and time again you find yourself abandoning good choices and reverting to autopilot, clinging to bad habits that you wish you’d outgrown years ago. You might be telling yourself: “If only I had more willpower I’d get rid of the bad habits once and for all and adopt the good ones.”
Does it seem as though no matter how hard you strive you’re unable to get what you want? Do you sometimes sabotage your best efforts? Do you find yourself giving up on trying to make changes, abandoning changes that at first seemed all important, but later seemed unattainable? Do you move from one new interest to another, looking for instant happiness. Are you forever looking for the one thing that will finally make you permanently happy, only to become frustrated and disappointed, moving on once again? Do you have difficulty sustaining motivation long enough to transform healthy choices into lifetime habits?
In spite of good intentions, do you put up barriers to being truly successful? Do you keep getting in your own way? Do you find yourself stuck in your own perpetual Groundhog Day?
We’ve all been there. These are simply human qualities and virtually universal. Don’t be discouraged. What you need is a new way of thinking about change and a proven method for making solid transformational changes that take you to a greater sense of well-being and personal mastery. We’ll introduce you to Mindful Choices Therapy, a science and evidence-based process for being aware and focused, and transforming great choices into powerful and enduring life-skills and habits.
Today you are one step closer to a new you, choosing to live a life where you feel aware and alive, and on a positive path to growth and well-being. It’s all about envisioning a positive future, having clarity about self-imposed limitations and habits, and mindfully creating the life you want. Whether you realize it or not, you have the power to create and sustain a high level of personal growth and well-being. It's all about clearly seeing your choices and embarking on a clear, systematic, and active process leading to lasting change. That’s why we created Mindful Choices Therapy for personal growth and transformation.
This is a book about a systematic, holistic, and action oriented process of choosing and creating well-being. It’s a guidebook outlining a process of regularly assessing your well-being across 10 Mindful Choices dimensions, focusing your attention, sustaining a high level of motivation, and creating lasting positive changes through ongoing intention, awareness, focus, and practice. It’s not just another self-help book, but a complete “how-to” manual for life-planning. This book integrates knowledge from mindfulness and contemplative traditions, Buddhist psychology, Stoicism, positive psychology, neuroscience, and acceptance and mindfulness-based behavioral therapies. It will not only give you the tools to manage stress, anxiety and depression, but will take you well beyond “normal” to a life of “thriving.”
Recognizing that 45% of everything you do is habitual, this book utilizes cutting-edge research and a process we call “habitualizing” to help you systematically develop powerful and positive habits that lead to a high level of satisfaction with your life. You’ll learn how to use mindfulness, focused attention, and practice to bring about transformational changes where powerful positive foundational habits seem effortless. You’ll learn how to use your mind to actually change your brain – in other words focused attention leading to changes in your brain’s circuitry, or “experience based self-directed neuroplasticity.” In short, this book is about systematically practicing brain-based behavioral changes that powerfully and positively impact your well-being
We designed this book for you if you are wanting to transcend unwelcome aspects of your life, instead taking charge and transforming a life of good intentions, frustration and disappointment, to a life of action, meaning and satisfaction – a life you choose, a life of thriving! While most people continue into their future by perpetually and frustratingly re-creating unwelcome elements of their past, this book is about redesigning your life and systematically creating the life you want.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Purposes, Core Assumptions and the Four Pillars
PART 1
ABOVE THE LINE: FROM DIS-EASE TO WELL-BEING AND HAPPINESS
Chapter 1: It’s All about Choices
Chapter 2: What is Mindful Choice Therapy?
Chapter 3: The Mindful Choices Model: Cultivating Strengths and New Ways of Being
PART II
ASSESSING MINDFUL CHOICES
Chapter 4: The Mindful Choices Assessment
- Choice One: Breath Awareness and Retraining
- Choice Two: Begin and End Your Day Peacefully
- Choice Three: Mindful Eating; Balance Mind and Body and Connect With Your Life
- Choice Four: Cultivating Mindfulness
- Choice Five: Engage in Self-Reflection and Deal with Negative Self-Talk and Distorted Thinking
- Choice Six: Connect with and Live Your Deepest Values; Purpose, Meaning and Balance
- Choice Seven: Intentional Relating
- Choice Eight: Physical Activity, Mindful Movement and Body Awareness
- Choice Nine: Develop Your Mindfulness Practices Toolkit
- Choice Ten: Self-Acceptance and Self-Compassion
PART III
ACTION PLANNING GUIDES
Chapter 5: Choice One, Breath Awareness and Retraining
Chapter 6: Choice Two, Begin and End Your Day Peacefully
Chapter 7: Choice Three, Mindful Eating; Balance Mind and Body and Connect With Your Life
Chapter 8: Choice Four, Cultivating Mindfulness
Chapter 9: Choice Five, Engage in Self-Reflection and Manage Negative Self-Talk, Distorted Thinking, and Maladaptive schema
Chapter 10: Choice Six, Connect with and Live Your Deepest Values; Purpose, Meaning and Balance
Chapter 11: Choice Seven, Intentional Relating
Chapter 12: Choice Eight, Mind Mindful Movement and Body Awareness
Chapter 13: Choice Nine, Daily Mindful Practices Toolkit
Chapter 14: Choice Ten, Self-Acceptance and Self-Compassion
Chapter 15: Forwarding the Action; Psychological Flexibility, Resilience, and Well-Being