Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics: A 10% Happier How-to Book
$0.00
Related Products
This book will get you to meditate. Minus the pan flutes.
ABC News anchor Dan Harris used to think that meditation was for people who collect crystals, play Ultimate Frisbee, and use the word namaste without irony. After he had a panic attack on live television, he went on a strange and circuitous journey that ultimately led him to embrace a practice he’d long considered ridiculous. Harris discovered that meditation made him more focused and less yanked around by his emotions. According to his wife, it also made him significantly less annoying. He wrote about his experiences in the bracingly candid and extremely funny memoir 10% Happier, which became a number one New York Times best seller and landed Harris in the entirely unexpected position of being one of meditation’s most vocal public proponents.
Here’s what he’s fixated on now: Science suggests that meditation can lower blood pressure, mitigate depression and anxiety, and literally rewire key parts of the brain, among numerous other benefits. And yet there are millions of people who want to meditate but aren’t actually practicing. What’s holding them back? In Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics, Harris and his friend Jeff Warren, a masterful teacher and “Meditation MacGyver”, embark on a cross-country quest to tackle the myths, misconceptions, and self-deceptions that stop people from meditating. They rent a rock-star tour bus (whose previous occupants were Parliament Funkadelic) and travel across 18 states, talking to scores of would-be meditators – including parents, military cadets, police officers, and even a few celebrities. They create a taxonomy of the most common issues (“I suck at this”, “I don’t have the time”, etc.) and offer up science-based life hacks to help people overcome them.
The book is filled with game-changing and deeply practical meditation instructions. You’ll also get access to the 10% Happier app, where you can listen for free to guided audio versions of all the meditations in the book. Amid it all unspools the strange and hilarious story of what happens when a congenitally sarcastic, type-A journalist and a groovy Canadian mystic embark on an epic road trip into America’s neurotic underbelly as well as their own.
Includes two bonus guided meditations.
Daniel –
Amazing Book
This was a quick read and not my first time reading about mindfulness meditation but Dan Harris puts it in such a relatable and funny way. I wish everyone could read this book.
N. Hamlin –
help for meditators
no nonsense help for meditators. I gave it as gifts to several people who aren’t okay with more in depth spiritual guidance.
Cecil Yount –
Harris and Warren Shed Important Light on Mindfulness and Meditation
Having read and recommended Harris’s early book 10% Happier, I was eager to read this one upon receiving notice it had been released. I was particularly interested in hearing the feedback from “the field” so to speak as to the barriers faced by those folks who struggle to establish a consistent meditation practice. I was also interested in hearing more from those who couldn’t even get started. The book did a fine job of clarifying issues and putting forth solutions. I found the access to the 10% Happier app to perhaps be the best aspect of the book as it not only recounts the book in video format but actually provides the meditations in audio format. I sometimes had to drop back and figure out whether I was reading the voice of Harris or the voice of Warren. I believe the font and typeface changed when it was Warren. Most of all, I appreciate the demystification of Mindfulness and meditation that Harris has taken upon himself. I also appreciated his recounting of how he falls short of his own goals at times. As an addictions counselor, I frequently attempt to get my consumers to add these Best Practices to their tool bags for recovery. I have recommended both books to my clientele. I’ve also been appreciative of the email follow-ups from the 10% Happier staff since registering on the site. The contacts have been sufficient and avoid feeling like spam.
MitchRyder58 –
LOVE This Book / A Book For Our Times (By An Unlikely Author On The Subject Lol)
This book about meditation that was put together by what might be considered an unlikely author on the subject is one of THE BEST I have ever read which is just crazy lol. I didn’t even know who Dan Harris was but I am PLENTY familiar with the practice of meditation…a practice which like a lot of folks I have gone in and out of for years after spending considerable time reading some of the most highly regarded texts on the subject. Well this Dan Harris just really NAILS it in a way that is so refreshing and engaging and while he is super articulate his style and delivery are completely relatable…in other words he doesn’t talk above you and is even pretty funny at times like you’re hanging out with him. I just love his transparency and honesty and his fresh approach to meditation where he breaks it all down in a way that really takes the pressure off (CRITICALLY important to a meditation practice), is understandable and even fun. So glad I stumbled across this book this is truly a book for EVERYBODY who wants to get into meditation:)
Julie –
Dan Harris’ honesty makes this book, his podcast, and his app truly worthwhile
I did not get this book for free. I have been meditating for about two years. I started listening to the 10% Happier podcast after seeing Dan speak at a panel for the “Lost Art of Good Conversation” book tour in New York. I find Dan’s honesty, the way he talks about relationships, his inner turmoil, and his connection with others to be fascinating and helpful. I have found comfort in reading the book and listening to Jeff’s meditations. This book makes me want to be friends with both of them. As a psychotherapist, I would encourage anyone to try out this book (or meditation in general) in order have less suffering. It has helped me tremendously in conjunction with therapy. This book, the app, and the podcast have amplified my meditation experience quite a bit. I actually want to take better care of myself. Thank you guys 🙂
Gary Moreau, Author –
If you don’t meditate and you appreciate flippancy, this book might get you to try
Meditation has gone mainstream. And for good reason. Itâs a great way to focus and energize the mind and body. I do it, and if you donât, you should try. Simple as that.Perhaps more than anything else this book is a testament to just how mainstream it has gone. Thatâs not a criticism. But letâs face it, a bus tour is pretty mainstream. Wanting to be 10% happier is very mainstream. And putting it all together in a convenient app is the essence of mainstream in the 21st.I donât watch television, so Iâve never seen or heard the name, Dan Harris, the ABC news anchor and correspondent behind the book. He is obviously witty, bright, high energy, very enthusiastic, and clearly sincere in his hopes for this project. And in many ways that makes him perfect for this book. He is a very good pairing with Jeff Warren, the professional meditator who represents the âletâs hugâ branch of meditation that the mainstream associates with the practice, who is every bit as sincere and earnest as Harris. Itâs a bit like pairing Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in Twins, but I make the comparison in the most positive way.Their strategy for taking meditation mainstream is to: 1. Make it effortless. (One minute a day will get you started.); 2. To expand mindfulness into a path to patience, compassion, generosity, and, ultimately, happiness. All while keeping it secular without offending the religiously inclined.Itâs a tall order. And they achieve it more successfully than I would have guessed if I had picked up the book with any preconceptions, which I didnât.The problem with both meditation and attempts to mainstream much of anything, however, is accepting that line on the horizon. Where does the ground end and the sky begin? There is, as a result, a tendency to overshoot the mark; to extrapolate meditation or whatever you are trying to mainstream into something more that it really is or can practically become.That line on the horizon, however, is perceived differently by each of us. If you draw it at a level similar to where Dan and Jeff draw it, you will probably love this book. And since you are the one who is likely to be considering this book having read the summary, my rating is for you. I think you will enjoy the book.I draw the horizon in a different place, however. That doesnât make me better or worse, but the book, as a result, is much less of a fit for me. I found the book to be far too long and repetitive, too light on the philosophy, too heavy on both the hugging and the flippancy, and far too quick to reference the 10% initiative. While Dan and Jeff clearly come down on the meditative side of Buddhist meditation, to try to explain, I come down on the Buddhist side. While I practice meditation, I am much more interested in understanding what gives our lives meaning and purpose.But thatâs just me.
Viergiebel –
First I was overwhelmed with the sheer overload of information. I think it would have been better if the book would have had more graphic layout with some pictures or information boxes, Some colors or something that would make the reading more easier. But when I started to read more slowly and underlying important sentences the whole book made sense. Now I think it is the most motivating and encouraging book ob meditation I ever read.
Eva –
Really enjoyed reading this book. Simple, concrete and reground to the true essence of meditation, itâs purpose and benefits. Love Jeff Warren and Dan Harris no nonsense style. Particularly enjoyed Jeffâs welcome to the party meditation.
Oran Kane –
Dan writes just how he speaks. This book carries his sense of humour throughout
Angela Vargas –
My sister asked for this for Christmas and really enjoyed reading it. She highly recommends it.
Joe –
Light reading. Not bad.