A B.R.A.V.E. Year: 52 Weeks Being Mindful

I really enjoyed reviewing this book. There are exercises to try and detailed guides as to how to manage the exercises. I can see me adapting elements of this to use in the classroom to ensure that learners have access to calm and safe environments.

“A B.R.A.V.E. Year: 52 Weeks Being Mindful” by Gabriel Constans offers a master class in mindfulness that can be spread out over a year.

The acronym B.R.A.V.E. stands for Before Reacting Access Validate and Explore.

The author explains, “First, the acronym is easy to remember, and reminds us to pause, pay attention, acknowledge what is taking place, and look into its ever-changing character. B.R.A.V.E. is a simple mnemonic for mindful meditation. Secondly, it is a brave act to allow oneself to be still, if even for a moment, to look at one’s present experience, and not be doing something. Thirdly, it takes courage, bravery, to honestly witness what we discover, inside and out, without turning away or getting caught in the content.”

The lessons can be practiced as is or in a series.

The author asserts, “There is no need to ‘prove’ or ‘believe’ that these exercises work. Students, and teachers, are encouraged to use those that resonate, and which they find are making a difference in their daily lives.“

I found the descriptions of each session to be enlightening and easy to follow. However, the plain vanilla text cries out for periodic photos or colorful graphics. Hence, my granting one less star in this review. 4/5

Pub Date 01 Nov 2017

Thanks to BooksGoSocial and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#AbraveYear52weeksBeingMindful #NetGalley

Really lovely book to have. It has a guide to a year of mindfulness that makes it accessible to anyone. The minimalist structure makes this book really easy to use and absolutely resourceful. The tips seem very useful, and I look forward to applying it to my everyday life. Thank you NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I enjoyed this book. The book gives great pearls for mindfulness. I be purchasing this book when released.

Well it has only been 3 weeks into being mindful and some days are easier than others to complete the task. There are lots of great prompts in this book. Overall a good read.

This is a first for me by this author.

52 Weeks Being Mindful... A powerful book full of meditative exercises which are very helpful especially if you suffer mental health issues.

There are fifty-two weekly practices that assist you in becoming familiar with your body in all its magnificence—something I truly believe is key to managing anxiety etc.

I would recommend it to anyone who is starting out, curious but doesn’t want to put themselves out in public practice, or who has dropped off the wagon of self-care—it brings you back to a place of replenishment.

This is a book I'll be returning to as many times as I need to and following the exercises.

Thank-You Netgalley for my ARC.

I think this book is an excellent workbook for someone trying to learn to become more mindful in their daily life. The author has approached mindfulness almost with a "baby-step" approach, with exercises to do each week to help the reader learn how to become more mindful. There are 52 pages of "classes"--each class is designed to teach the reader or student about the concepts and benefits of that class' mindfulness concepts, and explain the exercises. Ideally, the reader or student will follow, review, repeat the class throughout the week, gaining strength and comfort with the practice as the week goes along. The last part of the book is a breakdown of each exercise, with detailed instructions for how to perform each one. This is because as the year goes on, you will go from performing 1-2 mindful exercises per class to 4-5. Many exercises are repeated throughout the year, but they will be different, as you learn more about yourself and get more comfortable with the practice. Having the exercises broken down in detail in a separate section helps keep each week's lesson to one page, and allows the author to only explain each exercise once. I think this is a smart approach. In my digital version, each lesson contained smart links, where I could click directly to the exercise description page for the exercise I needed. Overall, I think this is a smart way to teach someone how to become more mindful. Sometimes, people try to jump into meditation or yoga or mindfulness in big chunks, dedicating an hour and expecting massive change right away. I think these week steps, bite sized incremental pieces are well designed for the novice. I do think each lesson could benefit from a heading: Lesson 1 or Week 1 or something like that. I lost my place a few times and had a hard time figuring out where I'd left off. I ended up counting pages. This may matter more to some than others.

I received an ARC from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Mindfulness is a very good thing to have in this day and age with all the hustle and bustle of daily life. I like to read all I can on the subject as life can really take you into a spiral and mindfulness helps you to center. This book is layed out in lessons and excercises you can do to be more mindful. It is in sections of Habits and Conditioning, Habitual Thinking and Self-Talk, Our In-Common Behavior Traits and Remembering to Stop plus more labels. It is done on a weekly basis and you have things to do for that week to become more mindful. It centers on reducing stress, learning how to live with internal and external awareness and to be in the moment. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mindfulness and learning about it. This is done in a class form but can be done individually.
I received this book in exchange for my honest opinion.

I liked this book. It laid everything out simply and with the right motivation its easy to follow and its follow-able. Its like every self help book though. You still have to do it. I didn't get through the entire book. But I think I will come back to it around New Year and give the 52 week thing a good go.

I would have loved to read the book with a 52-week structure. It was Ok, kind of repetitive, very technical and cold. I would have preferred it to be warmer and subjective.

The author, Gabriel Constans, created a book on Mindfulness that not only is extremely useful for individuals, but also can help teachers with classroom lessons. The units can be copied and given to students to reinforce what they are learning.

I love how this is set up for every week of the year. This book is a goldmine, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to add mindfulness practices to their daily life.

Although I’m generally not a fan of acronyms, I am a big fan of mindfulness so I found this book of a year’s worth of classes and exercises to be an excellent resources for sel care habits. My digital copy worked well for me to review but I’d be tempted to buy a paperback copy too.

I think this book is an excellent workbook for someone trying to learn to become more mindful in their daily life. The author has approached mindfulness almost with a "baby-step" approach. This book laid everything out simply and with the right motivation. It is easy to follow. Its like every self help book though. You still have to do it.

This book was a breath of fresh air, literally and figuratively!

I am not normally a self-help reader, but I kept seeing fabulous reviews for this book and finally had the time to read it. Was I ever surprised!