*Review* The Mindful Lifestyle by Gary Green

Genre: Self-Help

Published: February 3, 2015

Pages: 60

Ages: 14+

Synopsis

The self-help and inspirational book The Mindful Lifestyle describes mindfulness practices in detail, with the idea that everyone can benefit by learning and practicing mindfulness meditation. Many examples and exercises are provided. While it is a small and concise book, it covers all aspects of mindfulness in an easy to understand way, and suggests that meditation can be more than a practice one does a few minutes a day. It can be a lifestyle choice. Gary Green grew up on a small dairy farm near New London, Minnesota, where he still lives. He worked much of his life in the mental health field and for 17 years was the director of a mental health residential treatment facility for mentally ill adults. He retired in 2013. This is his second book.

Review

I received a copy of this book through the Goodreads First Reads giveaway program in the hopes that I would leave an honest review. 

I don't read a lot of self-help books, but this one was short and started off sounding potentially helpful, like for real. Who wouldn't want to find ways to better deal with the stress in their life?

I found the arrangement of this book a little odd. The first chapter talks about meditating daily and then told me to stop reading and practice that for a week (I'm not good at doing what I'm told and didn't listen.) The next chapter then talks about fitting the meditation into your lifestyle sort of. I really think that information would have been helpful before I spent an imaginary week meditating like the first chapter told me to. I'm also pretty sure the author and I lead very different lives, because I don't see any of his suggestions being useful for me personally. He does stress several times that these are methods he used so for someone that isn't a stay-at-home mom responsible for most of the childcare and housework, they probably do work. I am going to give them a shot, but I'm going to have to figure out how to fit them into my life on my own, because this book really didn't provide guidance for that. 

Overall I give this book 4 out of 5 stars because the explanations and instructions are easy to understand and follow. This rating may change after I put these suggestions into practice. - Katie 

Buy the Book

Amazon

About the Author

I am a Minnesota farm-boy that had to learn about recovery to deal with his depression and alcoholism. I have a Bachelor of Elective Studies degree in psychology from St. Cloud State University. I worked for many years in the mental health services field. The last 17 years I was the director of a residential treatment facility for mentally ill adults. 

I currently live on 50 acres of the farm I grew up on with my wife Tammy, Basil the Westie, Regie the Beagle and Ethyl the cat. I do a little farming, like to fish when I can and write.