Customer Reviews

Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life: A Guide for Everyday Practice

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I am not clear who the audience for this book is intended to be. This is not an instructional book on asanas, not a memoir, nor a how-to for enlightenment.

My sense is the book is intended to gently introduce deeper yogic philosophies - the Eight Limbs, the idea of mindfulness, the establishment of your own practice. In this sense, the book succeeds.

Starting off each chapter with Charlotte Bell's personal experiences provides an accessible access point for jumping into, say, the Fourth Limb of Pranayama. Sutras are quoted, which Bell supports with her own insights. She breaks down complex concepts in a supportive, understandable manner.

Each chapter then closes with a small series of reflective questions for the reader's personal growth.

The book strikes me, most usefully, as a philosophy course textbook for beginning yoga students.

It's not a relaxing bedside read or a gripping story. It's the kind of book you want to read one chapter from after each yoga class, with a notebook to journal your reflective responses to questions asked.

I could readily see highlighting nuggets of wisdom to help better learn/understand the Eightfold Path, using the text as a reference book. I might pull out a chapter later, and then meditate on that theme in Savasana.

One could also possibly use this as focus for a book club, where readers discuss their own insights and anecdotes, relating them to Bell's experience.

Basically, although I at first thought this was to be a sit-down story, memoir-type book, I quickly realized this a workbook in disguise. Not that there is anything wrong with that! :-) It's just not what I was expecting from the Amazon book blurb.

Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life is an open invitation to bring yoga into your life. Drawing on many years of yoga study,the author presents its core teachings, artfully weaving in personal stories from her own journey. Part memoir,part instruction,the result is a warm and accessible guidebook to be sampled, savored, and shared. Receive the book as a gift, whether you are just beginning yoga or have been on the path for years.
Yael Calhoun, coauthor of Create a Yoga Practice for Kids
Executive Director of GreenTREE Yoga

Mindful Yoga, Mindful Life is about developing clarity of mind through a modern approach to the classic Eight Limbs of Yoga.

Charlotte Bell's book is filled with her own personal stories of depression, relationship difficulties, and the regular challenges of living a wholesome life. She goes deeply into the Eight Limbs of Yoga which includes such topics as: deepening personal integrity, healthy care of the body, breathing disciplines, and centering the mind in meditation.

This book is not really about physical yoga, it's about the mental qualities of peacefulness that are possible through physical yoga as well as everyday life.

This is a great book if you want to bring peace of mind into your life in a real way, and/or learn to meditate.

The foreword by Donna Farhi was less than inspiring and seemed off the mark.