The Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance Workbook: An Eight-Week Program for Improved Emotion Regulation and Resilience

(Paperback)

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Are you letting your emotions get the better of you This book offers a breakthrough, eight-week program to help you manage overwhelming emotions before they take a toll on your health and relationships. Experiencing emotions is part of being human. But when emotions become too intense, it's easy to feel overwhelmed. As a result, many of us try to suppress strong emotions such as fear, anger, and resentment--which can end up causing a host of health problems, from a weakened immune system to heart disease. On the flipside, overreacting in the heat of the moment can be detrimental to relationships. Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance offers a unique program using mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) to help you approach your emotions without judgment, understand the source of your emotions, and foster forgiveness and kindness toward both yourself and others. Instead of trying to bury emotions or lashing out and hurting relationships, you'll learn how to achieve true, lasting emotional balance using this powerful, evidence-based therapy. If you're tired of being caught in a cycle of emotional upheaval that is taking its toll on your health, your relationships, and your quality of life, this workbook will guide the way to emotional balance.

Reviews

"The Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance Workbook combines the wisdom of reflection, the beauty of compassion, and the rigor of science. It guides its readers into the capacity of mindfulness to reduce emotional reactivity and cultivate kindness, compassion, and forgiveness. The wealth of ideas and practices in this illuminating work will be of benefit and has the potential to transform our individual and collective lives."
--Shauna Shapiro, PhD, professor at Santa Clara University and author of The Art and Science of Mindfulness and Mindful Discipline

"At last! A truly useful application of mindfulness to managing the emotional storms of everyday life. This eight-step program helps readers steadily change their relationship to their emotions, becoming less reactive and more flexible. The authors unpack the deep wisdom of Buddhist practices into an eminently usable progression of experiential exercises, meditations, observations, and links to audio recordings and other resources. This one book can make one's entire life enterprise more workable. Deep bows."
--Linda Graham, MFT, experienced psychotherapist and author of Bouncing Back: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Resilience and Well-Being

"Bravo to The Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance Workbook! This is a very wise and compassionate book that shows how you can transform difficult emotions by acknowledging and embracing them as a path to greater freedom and peace."
--Bob Stahl, PhD, coauthor of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, Living with Your Heart Wide Open, Calming the Rush of Panic, A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook for Anxiety, and MBSR Every Day

"In an increasingly topsy-turvy world, finding emotional balance is more important than ever--and Margaret Cullen and Gonzalo Brito Pons show you how, walking with you step-by-step, drawing on brain science, ancient wisdom, and the power of mindfulness. Comforting and powerful, down-to-earth and profound, this book is a clear path from stress, frustration, and irritation to calm strength, happiness, and inner peace."
--Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddha's Brain

"It is the nature of the human condition to suffer. For many their suffering is worsened by negative emotional states. Using not only their extensive experience as mindfulness teachers but also the knowledge gained by working with leading emotion researchers, the authors give a step-by-step road map to improve one's resilience and create emotional balance that is accessible to all. For anyone living in today's rushed and stressful world, this book is a must-read."
--James R. Doty, MD, professor of neurosurgery and founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University School of Medicine

"Like other animals, humans evolved with a range of complex emotions that can be sources of joy but also pain and suffering. Unlike other animals though, humans have a capacity for being aware of, observing, and mindfully choosing how to work with these passions of the mind. In this beautifully accessible and carefully crafted book two leading mindfulness teachers have come together to guide us through the sometimes stormy terrain of our emotions. This step-by-step eight-week course is rich in insights and skillfully organized practices for working with and cultivating our minds. Based on the most up-to-date research, this book is a gift for all those seeking emotional balance in the hustle-bustle of modern-day life."
--Paul Gilbert, PhD, FBPsS, OBE, Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust Mental Health Research Unit, Kingsway Hospital

"Practical, hands-on, and clear, The Mindfulness-Based Emotional Balance Workbook lays out a full set of tools for cultivating well-being. Everyone from newcomers to meditation to experienced clinicians and teachers may find something of value here."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness

"Seamlessly integrating the twin curricula of mindfulness meditation and emotion science, this pragmatic and wise workbook provides readers with clear-sighted guidance for self-care when distressing effects loom."
--Zindel V. Segal, PhD, distinguished professor of psychology in mood disorders, University of Toronto Scarborough

"This is an extraordinary book that brings together science, Dharma, and psychology in an accessible, actionable, practical, and inspiring way. Not only is this book a must-read but also a 'must-use' in a time on our planet where there is so much stress and suffering. Margaret and Gonzalo have done a great service in crafting approaches to emotional balance based on the work of Drs. Paul Ekman and Alan Wallace, as well as their years of practice and study."
--Roshi Joan Halifax, Abbot, Upaya Zen Center

"This wise and practical book is filled with wonderful practices that can regulate your emotions and change your life."
--Jack Kornfield, PhD, author of The Wise Heart

Author Bio

Margaret Cullen, MA, MFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and a certified mindfulness based stress reduction teacher. She has also trained with Zindel Segal in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT). For twenty years she has been teaching and pioneering mindfulness programs in a variety of settings, including cancer support, HIV support, physician groups, executive groups, and obesity support. For ten years she has been involved in teaching and writing curricula for several research programs at University of California, San Francisco, including "Cultivating Emotional Balance," designed for teachers, and "Craving and Lifestyle Management with Meditation," for overweight women. In 2008 she launched a mindfulness-based emotional balance program for teachers and school administrators in Denver, CO; Boulder, CO; Ann Arbor, MI; and Vancouver, BC. She has also been a facilitator of support groups for cancer patients and their loved ones for twenty years at the Cancer Support Community, and is currently a senior teacher at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University, where she coauthored the Compassion Cultivation training manual.

Gonzalo Brito Pons, PhD, is a clinical psychologist from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, who has worked with diverse populations in Chile and Peru integrating Western psychological approaches with local traditional medicine, mindfulness, and yoga. As a certified yoga teacher and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) instructor, he has included these practices in his clinical work and workshops for mental health care professionals and educators over the last decade. Brito Pons is a certified teacher of Stanford's Compassion Cultivation Training Program, and obtained his PhD doing experimental research on the individual and relational effects of compassion training in Santiago de Chile. He has led mindfulness and compassion cultivation workshops in English and Spanish in the San Francisco Bay Area, Chile, Argentina, and Spain. He is s also founder of Red Mindfulness (www.redmindfulness.org), a large Spanish-speaking online community that focuses on bringing contemplative practices and insights into education, work, and society at large.

Foreword writer Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD, is internationally known for his work as a scientist, writer, and meditation teacher engaged in bringing mindfulness into the mainstream of medicine and society. He is professor of medicine emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and author of numerous books, including Full Catastrophe Living, Arriving at Your Own Door, and Coming to Our Senses.