*Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness* Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of The Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, wrote this book as a complete summary of the 8-Week Course: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction. It is a terrific resource! Click to read more on Amazon.com

Additional Resources (scroll down)
Begley, Sharon Train Your Mind Change Your Brain Ballantine Books,  2007

Burch, Vidyamala Living Well with Pain and Illness Sounds True, 2010

Chozen Bays, Jan Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food Shambhala, 2009

Germer, Christopher The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion Guilford, 2009

Gordhamer, Soren Wisdom 2.0: Ancient Secrets for the Creative and Constantly Connected HarperOne, 2009

Hanh, Tich Nhat The Miracle of Mindfulness Beacon. 1976

Hanson, Rick Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom Harbinger, 2009

Kabat-Zinn, Jon Full Catastrophe Living Delacorte Press, 1990
                              Wherever You Go, There You Are Hyperion, 1994
                              Coming To Our Senses Hyperion, 2005

Kabat-Zinn, Jon and Myla Everyday Blessing, A Guide to Mindful Parenting Hyperion, 1997

Kaiser Greenland, Susan The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become, Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate Free Press, 2010

Kornfield, Jack A Path With a Heart Bantam, 1993

Kramer, Gregory Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom Shambala, 2007

Lozoff, Bo It’s a Meaningful Life – It Just Takes Practice Compass, 2001

Orsillo, Susan et al. The Mindful Way through Anxiety Guilford, 2011

Rosenberg, Larry Breath by Breath Shambala, 1998

Salzberg, Sharon Loving Kindness: the Revolutionary Art of Happiness Shambhala, 2002
                                 Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation Workman, 2011

Santorelli, Saki Heal Thy Self, Lesson on Mindfulness in Medicine Bell Tower, 1999

Williams, Teasdale et al. The Mindful Way Through Depression Guilford, 2007

To purchase a practice CD, contact April or Carol directly at:

Grand Rapids Press Articles
April 3, 2012:
Being Mindful: Stress Reduction Class Helps Take the Mind "to a peaceful place"
April 3, 2012:
Meditation Class Boosts Breast Cancer Patients' Physical, Emotional Health
January 9, 2012:
Experts' Tips for Dealing with Stress

Research Articles
Coming soon! 

“Oh, I’ve had my moments, and if I had to do it all over again, I’d have more of them.  In fact, I’d try to have nothing else.  Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day.”  Nadine Stair, 85-years old, Louisville, KY

Enough
Enough.  These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.

Until now.
-David Whyte 

The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,

Still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-Rumi

Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome
and say, sit here.  Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine.  Give bread.  Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you have ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit.  Feast on your life.
-Derek Walcott

The Real Work
It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.
-Wendell Berry

Birdwings
Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror
Up to where you’re bravely working.
Expecting the worst, you look, and instead,
Here’s the joyful face you have been waiting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
You would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence is in every small
Contracting and expanding,
The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
As birdwings.
-Rumi

For I Awaken
Because I breathe, I am enough
Because I breathe.
For I awaken to each new day,
I am enough
For I awaken.
Since I am alive, I am enough.
I am enough.
And I can sit without moving!
Without doing.
Because I am enough.
And I am whole
Because I breathe.
Because I awaken
Because I am.
That is enough.
-Geof Bell-Devaney / MBSR participant

Stand Firm
Do you believe there is someplace
That will make the soul less thirsty?
In that great absence you will find nothing.
Be strong then, and enter into your own body.
There you have a solid place for your feet.
Think about it carefully!
Don't go off somewhere else.
Kabir says this: Just throw away all thoughts of imaginary things
And stand firm in that which you are.
-Kabir