This self help book by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn comes at the right time for society. We are living in times of economic uncertainty where anxieties about the future is commonplace, wondering whether we will have a job this time next year, or even a home and how all this will effect our families.
Yes, these are real fears and real worries for a lot of people. But before we know it, our thinking about these things can project us into a downward spiral to a pit of depression which can be accompanied by symptoms such as melancholia, energy loss, apathy, disrupted sleep, aches, pains, tearfulness and so on. This self help guides is targeted at sufferers of depression.
However I believe that anyone can benefit from this guided self help book, particularly if they tend to suffer from any kind of self limiting thinking. The authors introduce the reader to using meditation to quieten the mind, without suppressing one's thoughts and emotions. If we can accept that sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations are transient, then maybe we can accept that our thoughts are also passing mental events, and through the practice of meditation we can accept, release them and let them go,thus freeing our selves from the control of negative thinking without suppressing what is going on.
By using the self help skills technique of mindfulness we experience each moment in life in a more direct manner, experiencing peace in the present moment. We observe the content of our mind in a gentle way without having to get involved in the thinking, without judging the thinking.
This book describes an 8 week mindfulness programme and comes with a CD of best self help guided meditation practices which will support you in your practice. You will read a lot of standard practices for mindful meditation such as breathing techniques, body scan, walking meditation, etc. which you can do yourself. You are also encouraged to be mindful whilst carrying out routine, day to day activities such as washing dishes or eating.The self help courses book is peppered with accounts from persons who suffer from depression and how they used the programme described to cope with bad moods, the sense of overwhelm, apathy, negative thinking and so on. Instead of reacting to situations and letting the mind run amok, they were able to use mindfulness to pause and contemplate on the consequences of their thinking. This is a significant shift in ones behaviour from rejecting or avoiding a situation to responding skilfully to a difficult or unpleasant situation.
Ok, If you’ve ever struggled with depression, take heart. Mindfulness, a simple yet powerful way of paying attention to your most difficult emotions and life experiences, can help you break the cycle of chronic unhappiness once and for all.This approach is good for people who aren't really clinically depressed but who get caught up in negative thinking patterns and low self esteem: "Why me?" "I'm a loser", "I'll never get ahead".
I highly recommend The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (Book & CD)
book to people suffering from depression,This is truly an excellent method of working to accept and overcome the problems of depression.It really opens up new perspectives for dealing with suffering, and a path of watching the world with new eyes.* Another very good book for certain types of depression and anxiety that I highly recommend is "Feeling Good" by David D Burn M.D,classic self-help books on depression and cognitive therapy.[ guided self help for depression ]
