Mindful Motherhood: Practical Tools for Staying Sane During Pregnancy and Your Child's First Year

by Cassandra Vieten PhD, Sylvia Boorstein (Foreword by)

Overview

From hormones to stretch marks, labor pains to diaper changes, motherhood is an adventure like none other. The rapid changes in your body, your lifestyle, and your very identity call for a certain mental agility. Mindfulness can help you meet the challenge and approach every experience with your new baby with open eyes and an open heart.

Easy ten-minute meditation exercises and yoga poses throughout this book will help you cultivate greater flexibility and mindful awareness during pregnancy, childbirth, and your baby's first year. Whenever you have a moment to spare, open Mindful Motherhood and discover a skill that will help you find balance and fulfillment during those times when you feel most overwhelmed.

Co-published with the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS).

Mindful Motherhood contains what so many other parenting books omit:: the consoling information that each mother has the ability to know, deep within, how to care for her child. Mindful Motherhood is a gem.
-Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom

Wise, soothing, and helpful-this is really good stuff for new mothers.
-Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781572246294
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	05/01/2009
Series:	IONS/NHP
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Cassandra Vieten, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist, president and CEO of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and a scientist in the Mind-Body Medicine Research Group at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute. Her research has focused on spirituality and health, development and pilot testing of mindfulness-based approaches to cultivating emotional balance, and transformative experiences and practices. She is coauthor of Living Deeply (New Harbinger/Noetic Books 2008) and author of Mindful Motherhood (New Harbinger 2009).

Sylvia Boorstein is a founding teacher of Spirit Rock Meditation Center and a psychotherapist, wife, mother, and grandmother who is particularly interested in seeing daily life as practice. She is the author of several books including/; It's Easier Than You Think: The Buddhist Way to Happiness; Don't Just Do Something, Sit There: A Mindfulness Retreat; That's Funny, You Don't Look Buddhist: On Being a Faithful Jew and a Passionate Buddhist; Pay Attention for Goodness' Sake: The Buddhist Path of Kindness; and Happiness Is an Inside Job.

Editorial Reviews

“Mindful Motherhood contains what so many other parenting books omit: the consoling information that each mother has the ability to know, deep within, how to care for her child. Mindful Motherhood is a gem.”
—Christiane Northrup, MD, author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom

“Wise, soothing, and helpful—this is really good stuff for new mothers.”
—Jack Kornfield, author of The Wise Heart

“In Mindful Motherhood, you’ll experience the wisdom of a mother, clinician, and researcher who outlines the accessible, practical steps to take to turn challenge into triumph during pregnancy and the parenting of young children. Read this book, give it as a baby shower present, carry it with you into the pediatrician’s office—but most of all, take it in and savor its secrets for a richer life for yourself and your child.”
—Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of Parenting from the Inside Out and The Mindful Brain

“This book will inspire, guide, and reassure mothers in pregnancy and after childbirth. Nothing could be more important to our families, our children, and the future of the world. Dads will benefit, also.”
—Paul Ekman, Ph.D., coauthor, with the Dalai Lama, of Emotional Awareness

“The connection between mother and baby is one of the most spiritual relationships we have.”
—Baba Ram Dass, also known as Richard Alpert, author of Remember, Be Here Now

“This is a beautiful book—deeply moving, intensely practical, and filled with wisdom.”
—Ruth A. Baer, Ph.D., professor of psychology at University of Kentucky

“This is a welcome and needed book. These practical meditations for women may be a great help with prenatal and postnatal challenges. These essential psychological practices come from a woman who has earned the right to teach a classical path of human development through motherhood.”
—Robert Bruce Newman, author of Calm Birth and Calm Healing

“Mindfulness, when extended from mother to child, weaves a blanket of grounded attunement sufficient for two. Cassandra Vieten’s down-to-earth suggestions will help all newly enlarged families navigate this wonderful, but often disruptive milestone.”
—Zindel V. Segal, Ph.D., C.Psych., Morgan Firestone Chair in Psychotherapy at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, ON, Canada

From the Publisher