Great work Catherine!
A good book for how to sit with yourself and find mindfulness and begin your mindfulness practice.
The different techniques were helpful to try, especially, as not everyone enjoys the same thing.
I enjoyed this!
Thank you Netgalley for the arc in exchange for this review.

Nice approach to mindfulness. I like the monthly themes. I will order a physical copy, so I can reference weekly. This would also make a great Christmas gift, for it would be a great start to the year!

A good book for how to sit with yourself and find mindfulness and begin your mindfulness practice. The different techniques were helpful to try, especially since not everyone enjoys the same thing.

Good book that encourages you to take time for yourself and also how. With it being based month by month, and with 52 topics (1 for each week of the year), this would make for a nice New Year gift for someone wanting to be more in tune with themselves and getting away from the rush through the coming year
(note - the seasons are geared month-by-month for the northern hemisphere, it seems, so do keep that in mind)

Enjoyed the many options this book offers for ways to show up for yourself and take the time to connect and refuel! Would give this as a gift for someone I know who is burnt out and doesn't take the time for themselves!

I enjoyed this book! I love the author’s approach to mindfulness. The author has a wonderfully unique and compelling perspective and i learned a lot from it

Offering 52 activities broken down by month and theme, this book gives poignant reminders to reflect on the little things in life and to take time for yourself. As the popular saying goes, you can’t pour from an empty cup. A Moment for Me gives cup-filling activities to help you relax and centre yourself in these crazy times.

Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This one was just okay for me. Let's be honest, these types of books are a dime a dozen nowadays, and you really need to have something "special" to set your book apart. This one just didn't. For me, it was the lack of illustrations, or something to give it that "visual" appeal. Apart from that, I enjoyed how it was laid out in monthly themes. And it offered some great information and guidance.

I liked this book. It's helpful and compassionate, but without trying to force you to live your life in a certain way. It's more like a guide who shares little bits of wisdom with you, and you get to decide what works for you or not and what you want to implement.

Definitely a nice book to read in the beginning of the year to bring you closer to living more in the present.

Do you want to start meditation but don’t know where to start?

A Moment for Me by Catherine Polan Orzech is a book about mindfulness. The book has 52 simple mindfulness practices that touch the surface of meditation. In this book, the author mentions that through mindfulness we are looking at our own mind in its ecosystem. We observe how our mind behaves by closing our eyes and being present. There are 52 exercises, one for each week of the year but can be done in any order and will not take more than five minutes per day.

I liked the exercise of ‘mind the gap.’ If you boarded a train, you must be aware of the announcement that asks you to mind the gap between the train and platform. Similarly, our thoughts are trains that travel into the past or the future. But there is a gap between the thoughts. Through mindfulness, we are aware of this gap and practice being in this gap as long as possible.

Thank you @netgalley and @newharbinger for an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. I also purchased a copy of this book for my personal library.

Mind the Gap!

Category: Adult non-fiction
Publication Year: 2021

A Moment for Me by Catherine Polan Orzech shares 52 simple mindfulness practices to slow down, relieve stress, and nourish the spirit. The author has a wonderfully unique and compelling perspective that takes complicated emotions and mental habits and beautifully simplifies them.  A Moment for Me is a great book about mindfulness.

I loved starting the new year with this book. It's broken down by months which will male it so much easier to incorporate into my daily life. It's positive and joyful. I feel preached at so much in real life because of social media and the news so this is a nice break

If theres one thing I am crazy about besides fantasy novels, is self help books. Any kind of self help book you hand me, I'll be happy. Self help books aren't everyone's cup of tea but they always work for me. I picked this up in quarantine, depressed because my uncle had died of Covid, I had lost structure of my days. Frankly, I was lost. I picked this one out of desperation and it helped. It helped me get out of my head, it helped me become proactive. It has a nice, simple and easy prose which sucks you in right away. Exercises that are simple and useful. I think theres something for everyone in this book. And I would highly recommend everyone to pick this up during such an uncertain time as ours!!

The perfect sized weekly reflections. It gives you something to focus on each week and tasks to go along with what to focus on without being overwhelming. A nice mix of different philosophies and religious traditions.

Thanks to Netgalley for an Advanced copy. All opinions are my own.

“Mind the gap.” And there is a gap, a small space that exists between thoughts. What would happen if we really “minded” it? If we really paid attention to what train of thought we were getting on and whether it was where we really wanted to go?’

What better way to start the new year than with this little gem on Mindfulness. A timely reminder to breathe and be present in the small moments of the everyday. Set out in monthly themes, made up of 52 chapters each containing a core concept to contemplate and reflect upon. The reader is then provided with practical suggestions to move from the theory to the practical in making small yet significant changes to their life. For it is in these seemingly mundane everyday activities that real life happens - so it makes sense to pay more attention to the little details as together they combine to make up one’s life.

The author declares that each and every day there are the little moments where we experience both enriching and depleting activities and it is about maintaining a balance between the two. How it is important to seek those moments of stillness, where you can let things go and be at peace with how things actually are.

‘While it may be true that there is nothing we can concretely do right now to change the final outcome of some of our major stressors, we can reclaim our sense of mastery in our lives in myriad small ways in the tasks of daily living - one small step at a time. By reclaiming our ability to take care of things and influence the flow of our lives, we nurture an internal reminder of our competency and lessen the likelihood that we will succumb to being overwhelmed.’

Whilst there are indeed many mindfulness books out there, I think that this one is worth a look.









This review is based on a complimentary copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The quoted material may have changed in the final release.

This is a great book about mindfulness. The author gives us 52 different practices in order to slow down, relieve stress and nourish our soul — one for each week of the year. If you're looking for some exercises to do throughout the year, this is the book for you. I really enjoyed reading it. Rating: 4/5 stars.

I enjoyed this book. The one 'negative ' for me is I don't have the patience to go through a book like this week by week, month by month. I read the book straight through. There is a lot of really good information and guidance through out the book. I like that there is real life examples through the book and different ways how mindfulness can play a part. My favorite quote from the book is this: For a few minutes every day, remind yourself that the people all around you are full of dreams, longings, hopes, struggles and losses. Try to see them as beings who, in other circumstances, could be close friends if you just knew them.

A Moment for Me is a lovely collection of 52 mindfulness practices, one for each year. The reader is free to decide how to implement these exercises in their daily mindfulness practice. The prompts, reflections, and exercises are approachable, but for those who have read two or more mindfulness books, much of the content won't be new. However, this isn't problematic, as the author wrote the book in a manner that encourages a unique, flowing relationship with the content.

I recommend getting a physical copy of this book, because the Kindle version isn't as effective in implementing it in daily practice.

Thank you #NetGalley for a copy of this book for an honest review.

Hats off to the author for this book. The layout and the fact that there's one "moment" for each week makes this book extremely useful. The problem with some self-help books is that it can be difficult to implement. For example, it's easy to read it once and then forget about it what you've read and learned. This is something you can use all year long. I found it insightful but concise.

What I love about this book is the versatility of how to read and use it. It can be used weekly with one focus for each week during the year. It can be used daily in which you would repeat throughout the year, starting at the beginning roughly every six weeks. Or it can be used by topic if you feel a need to focus on something specific. It is formatted for weekly use, but that is by no means a requirement if you need to use it in another way. The topics are easy to navigate to find just what you need to get the most out of your mindfulness practice.
I am so grateful to have come across this book and have been given the opportunity to read through it before making my big personal goals and plans for the upcoming year. I read through the entire book in one sitting because I was so excited about the concepts that I was reading. I have not decided yet how I will be using this book myself throughout the upcoming year, but I will be using it.