An inspiring new voice in resiliency, Dr. Robyne Hanley-DaFoe believes that our modern conception of resiliency as "fighting" or being "tougher" is misguided. Learning happens when we are able to trust and feel safe; fear and shame are barriers, not facilitators, for authentic growth, acceptance, and change. In Calm Within the Storm: Resiliency for Today, Tomorrow, and Always (Page Two, 2021), Dr. Robyne maps out a kinder approach to taking on the challenges of life and developing authentic self-alignment and balance.By focusing on research-informed, sustainable, and achievable personal development practices, Dr. Robyne presents a new, attainable model for everyday resiliency--one that everyone can use to feel more grounded and capable. She identifies the obstacles that derail us and keep us stuck, and shows us how to enact our resiliency through stories, research, and practical strategies. This book offers a tender, powerful, and achievable path to the everyday resiliency we all need to navigate the uncertainty in our lives. Described as one of the most sought-after, engaging, thought-provoking, and truly transformative international speakers and scholars in her field, Dr. Robyne Hanley-Dafoe is a multi-award-winning education and psychology instructor, author, resiliency expert, and philanthropist. What sets Dr. Robyne apart is how she learned resiliency from the ground up, as a person who has experienced significant obstacles yet forged her come back. Dr. Robyne has over 16 years of university teaching and research experience and brings a refreshing and researched informed perspective to our understanding and practices of resiliency and wellness. Dr. Robyne’s work is accessible and relatable while offering practical strategies that are realistic and sustainable. For more information, check out her website. Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

New Books in Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness

Robyne Hanley-Dafoe, "Calm Within the Storm: Resiliency for Today, Tomorrow, and Always" (Page Two, 2021)

In this episode of Life Wisdom we speak with yoga and meditation instructor, Darren Main, who is author of Inner Tranquility: A Guide to Seated Meditation, Yoga and the Path of the Urban Mystic, and River of Wisdom, among other titles. We have a fascinating conversation ranging from his personal journey to mythological storytelling, ancient and modern. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Darren Main on Inner Tranquility

In These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home (North Atlantic Books, 2017), leading edge thinker and post-activist Bayo Akomolafe embraces some of the world’s most profound questions through the intimate lens of fatherhood. Creatively using memoir and the epistolary format, Dr. Akomolafe offers an engaging, thought-provoking look at a range of timely subjects, including the myths of modernity, climate change, food systems, and what it means to be human. Dr. Bayo Akomolafe is a writer, lecturer, and public intellectual. He is Executive Director and Chief Curator for The Emergence Network and host of the online writing course “We will dance with Mountains: Writing as a Tool for Emergence.” He is co-author and co-editor of “We Will Tell Our Own Story!” and creator of a new work called “I Coronoavirus, Mother, Monster, Activist,” which is available at bayoakomolafe.net.  Dr.Susan Grelock Yusem is an independent researcher trained in depth psychology, with an emphasis on community, liberation, and eco-psychologies. Her work centers around interconnection and encompasses regenerative food systems, the arts and conservation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Bayo Akomolafe, "These Wilds Beyond Our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home" (North Atlantic Books, 2017)

Empowering Mindfulness for Women (Routledge, 2021) is centered around a a 5-day intensive mindfulness course attended by eight women from different backgrounds. The reader is invited to imagine they are actively participating in the teaching and learning moments and turning points encountered in teaching and learning mindfulness around themes such as making space for mindfulness, safeguarding mindfulness for women, engendering mindfulness, mindfulness dreaming and a mandala of wisdoms. Evocative accounts of experience bring to life the women’s growing awareness that mindfulness can be both a separate practice and a natural part of life and that it can help them to nurture what they have neglected in themselves by not tapping into the full spectrum of their experience. Each chapter provides useful follow-up activities and questions for individual or group reflection, journaling, sharing and conversation. Empowering Mindfulness for Women is aimed at those who teach mindfulness to women in educational, community or clinical settings and at women who want to learn mindfulness in a manner that positions them as experts in their own learning. Dr. Leigh Borrows is Senior Lecturer at the College of Education, Psychology and Social Work, Flinders University. She has been teaching, researching and publishing on mindfulness for over a decade, but believes she was practicing mindfulness from a young age without realizing it. She has a particular interest in assisting women and men to access the empowering potential of a ‘full spectrum’ of mindfulness possibilities rather than being locked into limiting binaries of ‘masculine-feminine’, ‘east-west’, ‘spirit-nature’, mind-body and ‘active-passive’. For more information you can access Dr. Burrow's profile at Flinders University. You can also read her blog by visiting mindfulness-dreaming.net. Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Leigh Burrows, "Empowering Mindfulness for Women" (Routledge, 2021)

Elder Little Brown Bear (Ernest W Matton) is a spiritual ambassador who blends Traditional teachings with mainstream information to provide holistic healing approaches for Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal community members and professional disciplines. What wisdom teachings does he have to offer for healing and the current state of the world at large? Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Elder Little Brown Bear: Healing Wisdom from a Métis Elder

Design and Spirituality: A Philosophy of Material Cultures (Routledge, 2021) examines the philosophical context of our current situation and its implications for design. It explores how modernity and our constricted notions of progress have contributed to today’s crisis of values, and argues for a re-establishment and re-affirmation of self-transcending priorities, together with an ethos of moderation and sufficiency. A wide range of topics are covered, including material culture and spiritual teachings; sustainability and the spiritual perspective; traditional and indigenous knowledge; technology and spirituality; notions of meaningful design; and how particular material things can have deeper, symbolic significance. There are also reflections on areas such as the language of design; busyness and its relationship to wisdom; design and social disparity; and traditional sacred practices. While not avoiding issues that are controversial, and sometimes hard-hitting, Design and Spirituality gets to the heart of the key issues affecting us today and presents them in a highly readable and accessible format. The author is a leading thinker in the field and he presents his arguments in a manner that invites the reader to reflect and think about where we are going, why we are going there and what really matters. Bryan Toepfer, AIA, NCARB, CAPM is the Principal Architect for TOEPFER Architecture, PLLC, an Architecture firm specializing in Residential Architecture and Virtual Reality. He has authored two books, “Contractors CANNOT Build Your House,” and “Six Months Now, ARCHITECT for Life.” He is an Adjunct Professor at Alfred State College and the Director of Education for the AIA Rochester Board of Directors. Always eager to help anyone understand the world of Architecture, he can be reached by sending an email to btoepfer@toepferarchitecture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Stuart Walker, "Design and Spirituality: A Philosophy of Material Cultures" (Routledge, 2021)

Western Buddhism is still in its infancy, but as it grows, it is evolving, as has been true in every country where Buddhism was introduced over the past two millennia. In this book, Seth Segall asks whether practicing Buddhism in the modern world means letting go of certain Buddhist teachings.  In Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), he suggests the possibility of blending Buddhist teachings with the teachings of Aristotle, who described what it means to cultivate human flourishing. The goal of such a modernized Buddhism would be what he calls eudaimonic enlightenment. In a clear and open way, he investigates what this would mean, presenting it as a kind of thought experiment, but one that he feels is consistent with what is happening for Buddhism in the West today. Jack Petranker, MA, JD, is the founder and Senior Teacher at the Center for Creative Inquiry and the Director of the Mangalam Research Center. www.jackpetranker.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Seth Zuihō Segall, "Buddhism and Human Flourishing: A Modern Western Perspective" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020)

Explore the science behind your daily living habits and make your day healthier, happier, and more productive. Many of the activities we take for granted are in fact contrary to a healthy lifestyle. In this groundbreaking book, long-held beliefs are exploded by new science: drinking eight glasses a day is too much; breakfast isn't the most important meal of the day; smartphones are not making us all depressed. Bringing to bear the latest research in psychology, nutrition, biology, and physics, Dr. Stuart Farrimond unearths the facts behind the fads, and provides take-away advice on every area of our lives - and all delivered in Dr. Stu's trademark style; approachable, authoritative, and above all, entertaining. The Science of Living: 162 Reasons to Rethink Your Daily Routine (DK Publishing, 2020) debunks pseudo-science and delivers only the facts. One day - one body - over 200 examples of science in action. ﻿Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at galina.limorenko@epfl.ch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Stuart Farrimond, "The Science of Living: 162 Reasons to Rethink Your Daily Routine" (DK Publishing, 2020)

How can the doctrine of nonviolence help us cope with these troubled times? Join us as we speak to Dr. Chris Chapple, Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Loyola Marymount University as we discuss specific, ancient strategies for navigating tumultuous times such as this moment in human history. Chris has been on the NBN a number of times. You can hear interviews with him on various subjects here, here, and here.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Chris Chapple on Nonviolence as Pandemic Wisdom

To what extent should scholarship foreground the beliefs and experiences of the scholar producing it? Where does the scholar-practitioners fit at the academy today? Join us as we explore such issues in conversation with Dr. Francis Clooney, Jesuit Priest and Harvard Professor of Comparative Theology, specializing in Catholic and Hindu traditions. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Frank Clooney on “The Scholar-Practitioner”

What wisdom does the Roman Catholic Church hold for our modern world? Can it become more inclusive? Join us as we speak to Ruth Roth, a Roman Catholic Woman Priest, who was ordained by a Bishop of the Church as part of one such effort. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Ruth Roth on the Wisdom of the Catholic Church

What does the Mahābhārata – a gargantuan epic tale from ancient India – have the teach about life wisdom? Learn three core themes of the ancient Sanskrit epic – along with a story of one of its most compelling female characters – from Dr. Arti Dhand, Associate Professor at the University of Toronto and host of The Mahābhārata Podcast. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Arti Dhand on The Mahābhārata

What does yoga have to do with wisdom? What do traditional yoga texts teach about the human experience? What relevance does ancient Indian yoga have to the modern world? Learn yogic insights from seasoned scholar-practitioner Dr. Ian Whicher, Professor of Religion at the University of Manitoba. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Ian Whicher on Yoga Philosophy

In The Healing Otherness Handbook: Overcome the Trauma of Identity-Based Bullying and Find Power in Your Difference (New Harbinger, 2021), Stacee Reicherzer—a nationally known transgender psychotherapist and expert on trauma, otherness, and self-sabotage—shares her own personal story of childhood bullying, and how it inspired her to help others heal from the same wounds. Drawing from mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Reicherzer will help you gain a better understanding of how past trauma has limited your life, and show you the keys to freeing yourself from self-defeating, destructive beliefs.  Stacee L. Reicherzer, PhD, is a Chicago, IL-based transgender counselor, educator, and public speaker for the stories of the bullied, forgotten, and oppressed. The San Antonio, TX, native serves as clinical faculty of counseling at Southern New Hampshire University, where she received the distinguished faculty award in 2018. She travels the globe to teach and engage audiences around diverse topics of otherness, self-sabotage, and imposter phenomenon. Website: https://www.drstacee.com/ John Marszalek III is author of Coming Out of the Magnolia Closet: Same-Sex Couples in Mississippi (2020, University Press of Mississippi). He is clinical faculty of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at Southern New Hampshire University. Website: Johnmarszalek3.com Twitter: @marsjf3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Stacee L. Reicherzer, "The Healing Otherness Handbook: Overcome the Trauma of Identity-Based Bullying and Find Power in Your Difference" (New Harbinger, 2021)

Today I talked to Debbie Sorensen about her book, co-authored with Diana Hill, ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (New Harbinger, 2021). When you are faced with life’s challenges, it’s easy to lose track of what’s important, get stuck in your thoughts and emotions, and become bogged down by day-to-day problems. Even if you’ve made a commitment to live according to your core values, the ‘real-world’ has a way of driving a wedge between you and a deeper, more meaningful life. Now there’s a flexible program for learning how to practice a popular, proven-effective therapy protocol on your schedule! With The ACT Daily Journal, you’ll learn all about the six core processes of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)—including mindfulness, acceptance, and values-based living—and even learn about a seventh: self-compassion. If there was ever a time to adopt the ACT approach to living, it’s now. By applying ACT to your life, you’ll learn how to roll with life’s punches, and stay in contact with the present moment, even when you have unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. The gift of being present is becoming increasingly valuable in these uncertain times of conflict and chaos; it’s never been so important to live flexibly, with more meaning, and with a deeper understanding of shared struggles and our inherent humanity. ACT is more than just a therapy—it’s a framework for living well. It helps us accept. It teaches us to make a commitment to what we deeply care about. And it works best when practiced daily. Let this journal guide you toward what really matters to you. Debbie Sorensen, PhD is a psychologist in private practice in Denver, Colorado. I have a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Anthropology from the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Harvard University. See is a co-founder of Impact Psychology Colorado, a collective of therapists in Colorado, and the Healthcare Wellbeing Collective, which provides resources for Healthcare Professionals. She holds a part-time position as a Clinical Research Psychologist at the Rocky Mountain VA MIRECC for Suicide Prevention. She co-created and co-host the popular psychology podcast Psychologists Off the Clock.  Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/spiritual-practice-and-mindfulness

Debbie Sorensen, "ACT Daily Journal: Get Unstuck and Live Fully with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy" (New Harbinger, 2021)

Interviews with Spiritual Practitioners about their New Books

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New Books in Spiritual Practice and Mindfulness

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