Living With Intent

Practical and accessible, Mallika Chopra offers readers a very "do-able" tool for centering and reclaiming the essence of life.

I started meditating a year ago and while I extol the many benefits this practice has afforded me, I am also familiar with Chopra's dilemma of the competing demands and expectations of modern life which threaten to overwhelm each of us and steer us away from those things which are most important to our core being. Chopra argues that the way to remain centered is through our intentions. Putting our essential needs and values out to the universe and believing that something greater than ourselves is working on our behalf (and that of all beings) is what this book helps readers to understand and practice.

She breaks the process into the acronym INTENT. A chapter is dedicated to each. I loved that each chapter ends with some ways to practice as well as a meditation practice!

After having incubated the idea of how to get more books into the hands of children and adults in my town for over a year, I finally put the idea out to some of the leaders in my community. Several embraced the idea and a year later, my small city of 25,000 has nine Little Free Library locations with more in the works as we speak! Chopra's belief that intent makes a difference is valid in my experience!

If you are looking for a way to feel less stressed and more confident that life is unfolding in a way that makes a difference for you and your world, you need to read Living With Intent. Chopra's gentle, honest, and down-to-earth guidance is invaluable!

From the Publisher . . .

“I’m trying to meditate one day but urgent thoughts keep intruding. Don’t forget to take cupcakes to school! I have to prepare for my presentation for the wellness conference! Is that lunch with the other moms tomorrow or next week? My to-do list is stampeding through my mind, trampling any chance of tranquility. I feel overwhelmed, yes, but there’s more: I feel…guilty. Guilty that I’m taking on too much, guilty that I’m not doing anything well, guilty that I’m giving short shrift to my kids, my husband, my job. And what about you, Mallika? a quiet voice asks. How are you shortchanging yourself?”

Living with Intent is a chronicle of Mallika Chopra’s search to find more meaning, joy, and balance in life. She hopes that by telling her story, she can inspire others with her own successes (and failures) as well as share some of the wisdom she has gathered from friends, experts, and family along the way— people like her dad, Deepak, as well as Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Williamson, Arianna Huffington, Andrew Weil, and Dan Siegel. She also provides a practical road map for how we can all move from thought to action to outcome. Each chapter is devoted to one step on her journey and another piece of her INTENT action plan: Incubate, Notice, Trust, Express, Nurture, and Take Action. Chopra’s insights and advice will help us all come closer to fully living the lives we truly intend.

About the Author . . .

MALLIKA CHOPRA is the successful author of two previous gift books for parents, 100 Promises to My Baby and 100 Questions from My Child. She is a busy mom of two, a successful entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of Intent.com and Intent Blog, a social media site and its sister blog. Mallika enjoys speaking to audiences around the world at venues like TEDx, Ideacity, the California Women’s Conference, and Prevention’s R3 Summit. She has degrees from Brown University and the Kellogg School of Management.

Life-Changing Magic

Thanks to Blogging For Books who provided me with a free copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Konda for this review.

I suspect that Japanese norms for housekeeping and interior design may be regarded as spartan by American standards. Nonetheless, this reader was drawn to Marie Kondo's book because my living space is in need of some serious help as the "stuff" of my 48 years threatens to overwhelm my home.

Kondo's advice for tidying your living space, and subsequently your life is this: forget finding the right storage system. What you really need to do is get rid of most of your stuff.

Perhaps I have oversimplified and slightly exaggerated my summation, however that was my first impression of Kondo's words. (And I will admit I was at once horrified and convinced she had hit the nail on the head.)

The book is uncluttered and neat, streamlined in its advice. As I read Kondo's precise and methodical account of her own discovery of her KonMari method for keeping her living spaces tidy, I frequently looked around at my own living room only to realize I was, in fact, in possession of many items that held little, if any real meaning to me.

According to the book, the standard for deciding what to keep (and thus what you will need to have room for) are those things which bring you joy. Kondo advises actually handling each and every possession, from clothing to books to mementos and asking yourself, "Does this give me joy?" If you hesitate or the answer is "no," get rid of it.

I suspect that many of us are guilty of collecting items for the sake of acquisition only and that many of the items in our homes and lives do not serve to bring us joy. I know that is the case for myself. I suspect that is why so many people have tidied their living spaces only to find themselves surrounded again by clutter within a few weeks or months.

If you find yourself in that position, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up may be the solution you are looking for. You may find it inspiring to hear Kondo say that once you tidy, truly tidy according to her method, you will never have to do it again. (Be warned, it may take up to six months of dedicated effort if your possessions are overwhelming your space!)

I find this succinct little book to offer a promising solution to the clutter accumulating in my home. I am going to re-read Kondo's advice and then I am going to take on the life-changing project of tidying up my home!

From the publisher . . .

This best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing.

Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).

With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller featuring Tokyo’s newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

About the author . . .

Marie “KonMari” Kondo runs an acclaimed consulting business in Tokyo helping clients transform their cluttered homes into spaces of serenity and inspiration. With a three-month waiting list, her KonMari Method of decluttering and organizing has become an international phenomenon. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up is a best seller in Japan, Germany, and the UK, with more than two million copies sold worldwide, and has been turned into a television drama for Japanese TV. She has been featured on more than thirty major Japanese television and radio programs and in the Sunday Times, Red magazine, You magazine, and the Times, who has deemed her “Japan’s preeminent guru of tidiness, a warrior princess in the war on clutter.”

Goodnight Mind: Turn Off Your Noisy Thoughts & Get a Good Night's Sleep

If you are embarking on a new journey of self-help in regards to difficulty sleeping, Goodnight Mind: Turn Off Your Noisy Thoughts & Get a Good Night’s Sleep by Colleen E. Carney, PhD and Rachel Manber, PhD is a good place to start.

The small (4.5"x 5.75") and succinct (only 181 pages) tome offers solid, basic knowledge to readers who may not have studied or read anything from a scientific point of view about sleep. If you have read anything else in regards to sleep patterns and how to make sure you are getting good, healthy sleep, you likely will find this book repetitive and lacking in the way of new insight.

The authors offer readers several “introductory” chapters about what makes for a good night’s sleep physically. The first five chapters of the book provide a good refresher of quite basic information. Since I believe there is a connection between the body and the mind, I was not quite as frustrated with this as some other reviewers who wondered whether the title of the book (which implies help with the specific problem of racing thoughts/busy mind in preventing sleep) was misleading. One would hope with the body relaxed and tuned for sleep, the mind would follow. Chapter Six offers advice for relaxing the body. I was disappointed that there was nothing in the suggestions that I had not heard or read before. (Perhaps there is simply nothing new to add and a review of the standard advice (PMR, guided imagery, focused breathing, yoga, massage, meditation, etc.) was all there is to offer readers.

As far as specific advice regarding worrying and rumination as the problems of the mind that prevent sleep, I did not find anything new: schedule a time to worry well before bedtime; write it out; practice mindfulness; be in the now; occupy your mind with other thoughts; rethink how you think about having gotten less sleep (it’s not the end of the world); don’t watch the clock; get out of bed when you can’t sleep. All of this is stuff I would consider to be standard advice. It’s good advice; I’ve simply heard it all before.

In the end I’m thankful to GoodReads’ First Reads for the free copy of Goodnight Mind. I would recommend it as a good place to start for people who are wanting to learn some strategies for overcoming sleep difficulties. It’s not for those who are already well-read on the topic.