Aware: The Science and Practice of Presence--The Groundbreaking Meditation Practice - Couverture rigide

Siegel M.D., Daniel Dr.

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1101993049 ISBN 13 : 9781101993040

Editeur : TarcherPerigee, 2018

A propos du livre

Extrait

There are three learnable skills that have been shown in carefully conducted scientific studies to support the cultivation of well-being. When we develop focused atten­tion, open awareness, and kind intention, research reveals we:
 
1. Improve immune function to help fight infection;
 
2. Optimize the level of the enzyme telomerase, which repairs and maintains the ends of your chromosomes, keeping your cells— and therefore you – youthful, functioning well, and healthy;
 
3. Enhance the “epigenetic” regulation of genes to help prevent life- threatening inflammation;
 
4. Modify cardiovascular factors, improving cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and heart function; and
 
5. Increase neural integration in the brain, enabling more coordina­tion and balance in both the functional and structural connectiv­ity within the nervous system that facilitates optimal functioning, including self-regulation, problem solving, and adaptive behavior that is at the heart of well-being.
 
In short, the scientific findings are now in: your mind can change the health of your body and slow aging.
In addition to these concrete discoveries, we have the additional, more subjective, yet equally powerful findings that cultivating these aspects of mind—how you focus attention, open awareness, and guide intention toward kindness and caring— also increases a sense of well-being, connection to others (in the form of enhanced empa­thy and compassion), emotional balance, and resilience in the face of challenges. Studies reveal that as a sense of meaning and purpose increase, an overall ease of being— that some call equanimity— is nurtured by these specific practices.
 
These are all outcomes of strengthening your mind by expand­ing the container of consciousness.
The word eudaimonia is derived from the Greek term, and it beautifully describes the deep sense of well-being, equanimity, and happiness that comes from experiencing life as having meaning and connection to others and the world around you. Does cultivating eudaimonia seem like something you’d like to place on your to-do list in life? If you experience this quality of being already in your day-to-day living, these practices of training attention, awareness, and intention may enhance and reinforce where you already are in life. Wonderful. And if it feels like these features of eudaimonia are distant or perhaps unfamiliar to you, and you’d like to make these more near and dear to your everyday existence, you’ve come to the right conversation.
 
The Wheel of Awareness is a useful tool I’ve developed over many years to help expand the container of consciousness.
 
I’ve offered the Wheel to thousands of individuals around the world, and it’s proven to be a practice that can help people develop more well-being in both their inner and interpersonal lives. The Wheel practice is based on simple steps that are easy to learn and then apply in your everyday experiences.
 
The Wheel is a very useful visual metaphor for the way the mind works. The concept came to me one day as I stood looking down at a circular table in my office. The tabletop consists of a clear glass center surrounded by a wooden outer rim. It occurred to me that our awareness could be seen as lying at the center of a circle— hub, if you will—from which, at any given moment, we can choose to focus on a wide array of thoughts, images, feelings, and sensations circling us on the rim. In other words, what we could be aware of could be represented on the wooden rim; the experience of being aware we could place in the hub.
If I could teach people how to expand that container of con­sciousness by more freely and fully accessing the Wheel’s hub of awareness, they’d be able to change the way they experienced life’s tablespoons of salt, and perhaps even learn to savor life’s sweetness in a more balanced and fulfilling way, even if there were a lot of salt present at the time. As I looked down at this table, I saw that the clarity of that glass hub might represent how we become aware of all of these tablespoons of life, each of the varied experiences we could become aware of, from thoughts to sensations, which we might now visualize as being placed on the circle around this hub—the table’s outer wooden rim.
 
The Wheel was designed as a practice that could balance our lives by integrating the experience of consciousness. How? By distin­guishing the wide array of knowns on the rim from each other and from the knowing of awareness in the hub itself, we could differen­tiate the components of consciousness. Then, by systematically con­necting these knowns of the rim to the knowing of the hub with the movement of the spoke of attention, it became possible to link the differentiated parts of consciousness. This is how by differentiating and linking, the Wheel of Awareness practice integrates consciousness.
 
The essential idea behind the Wheel was to expand the container of consciousness and, in effect, balance the experience of conscious­ness itself. Balance is a common term that we can understand scien­tifically as coming from a process that can be called integration—the allowing of things to be different or distinct from each other on the one hand, and then connecting them to each other on the other. When we differentiate and link, we integrate. We become balanced and coordinated in life when we create integration. Various scientific disciplines may use other terminology, but the concept is the same. Integration—the balancing of differentiation and linkage—is the ba­sis for optimal regulation that enables us to flow between chaos and rigidity, the core process that helps us flourish and thrive. Health comes from integration. It’s that simple, and that important.
 
A system that is integrated is in a flow of harmony. Just as in a choir, with each singer’s voice both differentiated from the other singers’ voices but also linked, harmony emerges with integration. What is important to note is that this linkage does not remove the differences, as in the notion of blending; instead it maintains these unique contributions as it links them together. Integration is more like a fruit salad than a smoothie. This is how integration cre­ates the synergy of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. Likewise, this synergy of integration means that the many aspects of our lives, like the many points on the rim, can each be honored for their differences but then brought together in harmony.
 
In my own journey as a clinician, working within the framework of a multidisciplinary field called interpersonal neurobiology, reflect­ing on our mind as a self-organizing way we regulate energy and information flow inspired me to try and find strategies to create more integration in my patients’ lives in order to create more well-being in their bodies and in their relationships. When we integrated consciousness with the Wheel of Aware­ness, people’s lives improved. Many individuals have found the Wheel of Awareness a skill-building practice that empowers them in quite profound ways. It transformed how they came to experience their inner, mental lives— their emotions, thoughts, and memories—opened new ways of inter­acting with others, and even expanded a sense of connection and meaning in their lives.

Revue de presse

“Daniel Siegel counts among the most aware people I know—and now he's shared with us all a brilliant, practical tool for us all to sharpen our awareness.”
—Daniel Goleman, author of Altered Traits and Emotional Intelligence

“An illuminating new view of the nature of the mind and the practices of awareness that lead us to profound wellbeing. Siegel's Wheel of Awareness is an elegant and groundbreaking synthesis of these practices, an accessible tool for inner integration and healing, as well as for realizing the loving awareness that links us to all beings. This brilliant book is poised to transform countless lives.”
—Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge
 
“This is a Dan Siegel masterpiece. He integrates decades of science and wisdom about the nature of our mind and optimal well-being into an easy-to-read personal journey. At the cornerstone is “The Wheel of Awareness,” a simple yet profound visual map of the mind, which enables people, including children, to experience of presence, self knowledge, and compassion. Aware will awaken and enrich your life immeasurably!”
—Elissa Epel, University of California, San Francisco, professor, member of the National Academy of Medicine, coauthor of New York Times bestseller The Telomere Effect

“Dan Siegel, who gave us a succinct and clear definition of mind, now explores the awareness that knows that mind. Read this book if you want true freedom and spontaneous creativity.”
—Deepak Chopra, MD

“Dan Siegel brings us a precious gift that will transform your mind, life, and relationships in a most wonderful way, using an easy-to-learn and revolutionary new system for meditation—one that beginners and experts alike will cherish!”
-Dr. Rudolph Tanzi, Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, coauthor, The Healing Self  

"Dan has produced a masterpiece containing invaluable knowledge in the fields of psychiatry, therapy, interpersonal neurobiology, meditation, and more. Very few people understand the intricacies of the human mind and how it can be channeled to achieve true well-being as Dan does. The Wheel of Awareness is a simple yet profound way for all to learn and advance in their practice of being aware."
—Menas C. Kafatos, Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics at Chapman University, coauthor with Deepak Chopra of The New York Times bestseller You Are the Universe

"A life-changing journey into the deep nature of our consciousness, what it means to be human, and how to truly thrive."
—Arianna Huffington, founder and CEO of Thrive Global and founder of The Huffington Post

“Studies reveal what years of practice demonstrate: training our mind in specific ways brings health to our bodies, clarity to our minds, and connection in our relationships.  Dan Siegel provides an exciting new reflective  practice—the Wheel of Awareness—that offers these research proven ways of cultivating love, kindness, and meaning in our lives.”
—Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Happiness and Real Love
 
“Dan is a brilliant integrator and Aware is a visionary blend of neuroscience, physics, and cutting-edge  psychology combined with creative approaches to mindfulness and compassion. The practice of the Wheel brings together many skillful and wise elements of meditation, all rolled into one.”
—Jack Kornfield author of The Wise Heart

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: TarcherPerigee
• Date d'édition: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1101993049
• ISBN 13: 9781101993040
• Reliure: Relié
• Langue: anglais
• Nombre de pages: 400