Kristin Neff
Associate Professor, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Texas at Austin
Book Recommendations:
Recommended by Kristin Neff
“Tara Brach has an uncanny ability to home in precisely on what we need in the moment, so we can meet that need from within. She teaches a simple but life-changing practice to bring presence and compassion to any moment of shame or longing or struggle, transforming our pain into love. This book is a treasure from one of the most important spiritual teachers of our time.” (from Amazon)
One of the most beloved and trusted mindfulness teachers in America offers a lifeline for difficult times: the RAIN meditation, which awakens our courage and heart Tara Brach is an in-the-trenches teacher whose work counters today's ever-increasing onslaught of news, conflict, demands, and anxieties--stresses that leave us rushing around on auto-pilot and cut off from the presence and creativity that give our lives meaning. In this heartfelt and deeply practical book, she offers an antidote: an easy-to-learn four-step meditation that quickly loosens the grip of difficult emotions and limiting beliefs. Each step in the meditation practice (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) is brought to life by memorable stories shared by Tara and her students as they deal with feelings of overwhelm, loss, and self-aversion, with painful relationships, and past trauma--and as they discover step-by-step the sources of love, forgiveness, compassion, and deep wisdom alive within all of us.
Recommended by Kristin Neff
“As a developmental psychologist, compassion teacher, and autism mom, I can whole-heartedly say this book is brilliant. Traditional methods of shaping children's behaviors typically ignore children's emotional state, at great cost to the child's ability to learn, develop, and form secure relationships. This book provides concrete ways to help understand safety as the foundation for children's learning, working with rather than against natural brain functions to maximize learning potential.” (from Amazon)
A NEW approach to solving behavioral challenges. In Beyond Behaviors, internationally known pediatric psychologist, Dr. Mona Delahooke describes behaviors as the tip of the iceberg, important signals that we should address by seeking to understand a child’s individual differences in the context of relational safety. Featuring impactful worksheets and charts, this accessible book offers professionals, educators and parents tools and techniques to reduce behavioral challenges and promote psychological resilience and satisfying, secure relationships. Neuroscience-based effective tools and strategies for children labeled with: - Conduct Disorder - Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) - Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD) - Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) - Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) - Anxiety & Depression - Autism & Developmental or Learning Differences And children who experience or have experienced: - Aggressive, confusing and unpredictable behaviors - Tantrums and meltdowns - Disconnection or shutdown - Adverse childhood experiences - Trauma and toxic stress
Recommended by Kristin Neff
“A Healing Space is a beautiful, insightful, and moving contemplation of the journey of healing we all undertake as human beings. It illuminates how self-compassion―holding our own pain with love―transforms our experience in a profound way so that we can learn the lessons life offers us moment by moment.” (from Amazon)
A gifted teacher explores how both hardship and joy can lead us back to the sacredness of ordinary life. What does healing mean to you? For many of us, to “heal” is to solve a problem―to remove an illness, put a trauma behind us, or change something we don’t like in our life so we never have to deal with it again. Yet does that idea of healing serve us … or does it cut us off from life’s gifts? “True healing is not a state where we become liberated from feeling, but freer and flexible to experience it more fully,” writes Dr. Matt Licata. “When we experience our suffering consciously, it reveals sacredness and beauty we might not expect. Healing will always surprise us.” With A Healing Space, Matt extends an invitation to explore the endless richness of your life―without minimizing or turning away from hardship, nor by seeking the shelter of comfort or certainty. “I do not have any answers for you,” he writes. “Rather, I see my role as helping to illuminate the immensity and even magic of the questions themselves.” On this journey, you’ll learn to use new tools and perspectives to find your own sources of guidance, including: • Slowness―in a speed-obsessed world, rediscover the revolutionary power of slowing down, listening, and letting the fullness of each moment unfold • Uncertainty―why we often protect ourselves from the unknown at any cost, and how we can gradually learn to open to the gifts of uncertainty • Alchemy―explore the wisdom of transmutation as an inner process of things falling apart and then coming back together in ways that are more integrated and whole • Depth Psychology―integrating modern advances in psychotherapy and neuroscience with the timeless power of a soul-based psychology • Embodied Spirituality―discover the healing potential of an approach to spirituality that honors the body, emotions, relationships, and the shadow • Love―allow yourself to awaken to the revolutionary call to love and participate in the full-spectrum of life, dissolving the “trance of postponement” with the power of an open heart A Healing Space is not a book to be absorbed and processed in one sitting―instead, you will find yourself returning again and again, whenever your soul calls you to examine, transform, and renew yourself. “At times,” writes Matt, “we need to crumble to the ground at the magnificence of it all, awestruck at the bounty that has been laid out before us. To fall apart. To fail. To get back up. To be humbled again. To start over. To be a beginner in the ways of love. To make this journey with our fellow travelers, and the sun, moon, and stars.”