The monkey is the messenger

Body the monkey is a meditator -- Taking responsibility for your own happiness ---- The magnificent mismatch ---- Befriending the body in meditation ---- Evolving the monkey's motivations ---- Mind a monkey molded by model scenes ---- The body of breath ---- Our monkeys, ourselves ---- How you breathe is how you feel ---- The stories we tell ourselves ---- How we get stuck : trauma and the unconscious mind ---- How we get stuck ---- Heart the monkey's ultimate message ---- The challenge of self-love ---- The monkey is a mensch ---- Love : level 10 ---- The gifts of difficulty ---- The family within ---- Working with the inner critic and other harsh inner voices ---- Putting it all together : integrating Buddhist meditation with parts work.--

Hope for all those who want to meditate but feel they can't because they think too much. ; ; 'My mind is so busy, I really need to meditate.' ; ; 'My mind is so busy, there's no way I can meditate.' ; ; Familiar dilemma? These days just about all of us know we should be meditating, but that doesn't make it any easier to sit down and face the repetitive thoughts careening around our brains--seemingly pointless, sometimes hurtful, nearly always hard to control. Rather than quitting meditation or trying to wall off the monkey mind, Ralph De La Rosa suggests asking yourself a question: If you were to stop demonizing your monkey mind, would it have anything to teach you? In a roundabout way, could repetitive thoughts be pointing us in the direction of personal--and even societal--transformation? ; ; Poignant and entertaining, The Monkey Is the Messenger offers a range of evidence-based, somatic, and trauma-informed insights and practices drawn from De La Rosa's study of neuroscience and psychology and his long practice of meditation and yoga. Here at last--a remedy for all those who want to meditate but suppose they can't because they think too much.