A short(ish) review – for reasons we’ll get into – that we really could boil down to ‘just read it’. It’s that good.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, a professor emeritus of medicine and respected author himself, positions this book perfectly in its foreword. “The world is all-abuzz nowadays about mindfulness”, he begins, foreshadowing the questions he and the authors know awaits anyone choosing to write on this subject: what does it actually mean, why is it so relevant to the twenty-first century human condition, how do we apply it in our daily lives?
The illustratively-titled opening chapter, Chasing Your Tail, neatly frames a central theory: we can’t stop unhappy memories, self-critical thoughts and judgmental ways of thinking, but we can control what happens next and stop potentially negative spirals from forming. It is here, Williams and Penman explain, that mindfulness slots in, helping build the awareness needed to interrupt ourselves in those situations.
They then do something quite surprising: they invite those readers who want to begin a programme of mindfulness practice straight away to jump to Chapter Four. This appears to lean into the exact ‘quick fix’ mode of thinking that many would argue fuels the impatient pace of modern life, and feels potentially self-defeating in this context, but their motivation is charitable: they’re acknowledging that for many of their audience, buying their book will have amounted to a call for help, so why not let them get going? It also conveys a confidence that by the point at which they make this suggestion, most readers will be sufficiently invested to take in Chapters Two and Three anyway.
And they are indeed worth your time. Why Do We Attack Ourselves? (Chapter Two) examines the role our personal histories have on current thoughts and feelings, specifically the way in which memories of negative responses in the past to certain emotions can colour our reactions to them in the present, and cause a cumulative, cascading effect. Waking Up To The Life You Have (Chapter Three) effectively makes the case for mindfulness and begins to explain in more detail what, in their view, it entails.
And then we’re at Chapter Four which, as mentioned above, is where Williams and Penman introduce an eight-part, chapter-per-week programme for readers to work through. It would be doing them – and indeed mindfulness itself – a huge disservice to even try and summarise it here, hence the early disclaimer about this being a fairly brief review. It would also be pointless: the book is designed as a gently paced learning course, teaching self compassion and care piece by piece through positive routine-building and familiarising yourself with altered ways of thinking.
If there was a mentalitee curriculum, this would be on it. The book is free of any spiritual pretensions or lofty pronouncements and the prevailing sense throughout is that the authors genuinely want nothing more than to help people improve their state of mind. A quote from Sir Kenneth Branagh, deservedly printed on the cover of the 10th anniversary edition, summarises it perfectly: ‘A deeply compassionate guide to self-care – simple and profound’.
About the author:
Husband, father, IT Security guy, mental health advocate, golfer, dog owner. And now blogger, by the looks of it.