Urban Mindfulness: Cultivating Peace, Presence, and Purpose in the Middle of It All

by Jonathan S Kaplan

Overview

Discovering an Oasis of Calm in the City

The city is an exciting yet demanding place to live. Although you love the tremendous energy and diversity of the urban environment, the day-to-day grind of going to work and navigating crowds, traffic, and lines can leave you feeling weary and disconnected.

Respectful of the challenges and advantages that arise when you live or work in the city, Urban Mindfulness provides practical advice for transforming everyday experiences into opportunities for contemplation, stress relief, and fulfillment. Filled with insightful reflections and exercises you can do at work, at home, or even while riding the subway, this guide will help you achieve and maintain the sense of peace and calm that you've been seeking. You'll find yourself returning to this guide again and again for gentle reminders that will help you create stillness within yourself as the outside world rushes crazily by.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781608821396
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	10/01/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	230 KB

About the Author

Jonathan S. Kaplan, PhD,, is a clinical psychologist and founder of UrbanMindfulness. org,. He specializes in the application of mindfulness and meditation to psychotherapy and maintains a private practice in New York City where he provides psychotherapy, professional training, and clinical supervision. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two children.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
At Home.
Meditation at Home: A Dialogue Between Inner and Outer Spaces
Mini Mindfulness Masters at Home
Change Your Brain, Change Your Roommate
Talkin’ Trash
Apartment Envy
Spot Cleaning
Thanks for the Noise, Neighbor!
Chairman Meow Is So Soft
Day of Silence
Ghost Town

At Play.
Exercising Acceptance
Can You Smell That?
A Walk In the Park
Flecks of Green
Toddler Time
Mindfulness Master
You See ‘Em, Museum!
The Clothes Make the City, Man
Mindful Online Dating
Urban “Winefulness”

At Work.
Coffee with Milk, Sugar, and Mindfulness
When Does Your Workday
Begin and End?
Thanks, Stapler!
“Work” Is a Four-Letter Word—So Is “Play”
Mindfulness First-Aid Kit
Pushing Buttons
Sensory “Quintathlon”
Going Up and Down, Mindfully
Fern Meditation
Have a Nice Day!

Editorial Reviews

"What if your city were converted into a Zen practice center overnight? How would you manage take-out food, apartment envy, online dating, and waiting for the bus? This delightful book can make your city shine, and if you don’t live in the city, you’ll wish you did. It’s about mindfulness as it’s truly lived—deep, curious, and full of fun."
—Christopher K. Germer, PhD, clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School and author of The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion

"Jonathan Kaplan’s Urban Mindfulness is an engaging, useful, and enlightening guide to living in a world that often seems filled with pressure, chaos, and tension. This is a book that you can use every day to help you find peace and purpose in the smallest but most important moments of your life. There is peace out there, and it comes from within."
—Robert L. Leahy, PhD, director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy and clinical professor of psychology at Weill Cornell Medical College

"Although city living can be stressful, it also provides us with many opportunities for reflection and insight. This book reminds us that we can discover tranquility within ourselves and connection in the city itself. It is an excellent guide with many helpful suggestions on how to do just that."
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness

"In Urban Mindfulness, Kaplan provides a host of ways to practice being aware, without judgment, in the present moment, in the midst of busy, complex, city-based lives. This book can serve as a useful, practical resource for anyone interested in cultivating mindfulness within the context of their lives, as opposed to during a remote retreat. The wide range of exercises, such as the subway meditation and mindful texting exercise, ensures that readers will find several practices that speak to them."
—Lizabeth Roemer, PhD, professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Boston and coauthor of The Mindful Way Through Anxiety

"Many thanks to Kaplan for offering so many practical and rewarding ways to be more mindful in urban environments. In this easy-to-use book, he reminds us that being mindful is simply about being aware and present and it is not dependent on, or limited by, where we are or what we are doing."
—Jeffrey Brantley, MD, author of Five Good Minutes and Calming Your Anxious Mind

From the Publisher