Zen Meditation for Beginners: A Practical Guide to Inner Calm by Bonnie Myotai Treace

 

I got this book, ZEN MEDITATION FOR BEGINNERS, because I have anxiety, and sometimes when I'm fretting I end up staying up for most of the night unable to sleep and feeling literally sick to my stomach. Several people have recommended meditation to me, so when I had the chance to obtain a copy of this book, I was very excited since it seemed like one of those fated moments.

This book seems to be more for spiritual meditation than for psychological/wellness meditation, and while there is some overlap between those two things, I'm not sure that all of these exercises will necessarily benefit someone who is prone to anxiety. One of the exercises is to examine whether you have a habit of negative self-speak. You're not supposed to correct it, just to sit there and acknowledge it. Um. Yeah, I do. That's part of the reason I'm up until 4am some nights. Because I'm acknowledging my negative self-speak. I have, shall we call it, an over-indulgence of "acknowledging my negative self-speak."

Another exercise is to meditate on a time that you felt insulted and how it affected your self-identity. I can see how this might be a beneficial exercise to someone neurotypical, but again, for someone with anxiety, I'm not sure this is a great tip. One of the things about anxiety is that you sometimes fall into the negative cycle of revisiting past incidents that made you feel bad and I think that this exercise could send someone down that spiral.

There were a couple good tips in here, like breathing exercises and meditating on kind things you can do for other people, but overall this book wasn't what I hoped it was or needed it to be. I'm sure it will work for someone else.

Thanks to the publisher for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review!

2 out of 5 stars