sarah mclean - Elevated Existence

Each month, a ton of new spiritual and self-help books hit the market. It’s easy to get overwhelmed or miss out on some new releases.

We created Elevated Existence Monthly Book Picks to help our readers narrow down their search, and make sure they don’t miss some great options!

Here are the picks for January 2017. They are listed below in alphabetical order. Click on each title to go directly to Amazon and find out more about the book.

“Essential Kundalini Yoga: An Invitation to Radiant Health, Unconditional Love, and the Awakening of Your Energetic Potential,” by Karena Virginia & Dharm Khalsa
Created for the modern practitioner, this book by kundalini yoga teachers Karena Virginia and Dharma Khalsa, offers clear, comprehensive instruction — and step-by-step pictures — in the key insights and practices of kundalini yoga, including kriyas, breathing techniques and more. From philosophy and lifestyle and working with anatomy and physical asana, to activating our energy bodies, Essential Kundalini Yoga is a practical and in-depth manual for the beginner or advanced practitioner.

“The Five Side Effects of Kindness: This Book Will Make You Feel Better, Be Happier & Live Longer,” by David R. Hamilton, PhD
Scientific evidence has proven that kindness changes the brain, impacts the heart and immune system, is an antidote to depression and even slows the aging process. We’re actually genetically wired to be kind. In his new book, David Hamilton shows the effects of kindness are felt daily throughout our nervous system, and when we’re kind we feel happier and our bodies are healthiest. Learn how kindness makes us happier, is good for the heart, slows aging, improves relationships, is contagious and more.

“Inkspirations Love by Design: Coloring the Divine Path to Manifest Your Soulmate,” by Arielle Ford
Twenty years ago, author Arielle Ford created a system to manifest her soulmate using the principles of the Law of Attraction: techniques, visualizations, rituals, and prayers. Within six months, she found her soulmate and now husband, and she set out to teach others to do the sema with her book “The Soulmate Secret.” Now, her miraculous methods are paired with the romantic artwork of internationally acclaimed artist Manja Burton in this first of its kind transformational coloring book. This step-by-step guide contains simple, yet specific exercises and information to create the frequency of love in your life. By coloring each page with a clear intention, readers will mindfully and creatively raise their awareness to make their deepest desires for love come to fruition.

“Let It Go: Downsizing Your Way to a Richer, Happier Life,” by Peter Walsh
Whether selling your family home, blending households into a new home, or cleaning out your aging parents’ home, decluttering guru Peter Walsh aims to help with his new book. He recently went through the process of downsizing his childhood home and dividing his late parents’ family possessions and realized making these decisions about mementos and heirlooms creates strong emotions and can be an overwhelming chore. In “Let It Go” he shares how to understand the emotional challenges that accompany downsizing; establish a hierarchy of mementos; calculate the amount of stuff you can bring into your new life; and create strategies for dividing heirlooms around family members without drama.

“Miracle Mindset: A Mother, Her Son and Life’s Hardest Lessons,” by JJ Virgin
Celebrity health expert and four-time New York Times bestselling author, JJ Virgin reveals how one life-altering event — when her 16-year-old son was in a car accident with a hit and run driver who left him for dead — taught her to tap into a new mindset, trust her instincts and defy the odds, ultimately saving her son’s lif and her own. She shares the lessons she learned that can help others create their own resilient mindset, and how to transform daily habits to endure the difficult battles in life.

“Miracles at Work: Turning Inner Guidance into Outer Influence,” by Emily Bennington
Author and career expert, Emily Bennington takes on the viewpoint of “A Course in Miracles” and merges it with mindfulness practices, social and emotional intelligence, and her own proven strategies for on-the-job success. Learn how to anchor in your aware self on the job; use the Course method for reorganizing your energy in each moment; navigate conflict with ease; and more.

“Napoleon Hill’s Power of Positive Action,” by Napoleon Hill
Those who enjoy the power of positive action have been shown to accomplish more, have less stress, live with fewer regrets, become more self-disciplined, and demonstrate personal persistence. These qualities contribute to making our world a better place to live, and this book, published by the Napoleon Hill Foundation based on the writings and work of “Think and Grow Rich,” author Napoleon Hill, will provide the tools to help adopt a positive attitude, achieve better physical health, gain freedom from fear, find harmony in relationships and more.

“Natural Solutions for Cleaning & Wellness: Health Remedies and Green Cleaning Solutions Without Toxins or Chemicals,” by Hallie Cottis
Transform your house into a toxin-free home with this practical guide by Halle Cottis, who goes beyond using vinegar and baking soda and provides powerful recipes to clean the entire house from the inside out. With ingredients such as salt, rubbing alcohol and castile soap, one can create indoor cleaners like the All-Purpose Disinfectant Cleaner, Powder and Liquid Laundry Detergent and Streak-Free Window Cleaner; and outdoor solutions, like Natural Garden Pesticide, Heavy-Duty Grill Cleaner and Screen Cleaner. Halle also uses turmeric, coconut oil and epsom salt to create concoctions that alleviate common ailments such as headaches and migraines, swimmer’s ear, cough and sore throat, and ease even the more difficult-to-treat health conditions such as eczema, poison ivy and poison oak, digestive system troubles and emotional issues like PMS, anxiety and seasonal depression.

“The Power of Attention: Awaken to Love and It’s Unlimited Potential with Meditation,” by Sarah McLean
Acclaimed meditation teacher Sarah McLean shares how to direct your attention toward aspects of yourself and your life you most want to flourish, expand and thrive in her new book “The Power of Attention.” Each chapter offers modern, practical ways of applying the practices of meditation and mindfulness so that you become more intimately connected to yourself, honor your feelings and desires, and express your unique talents and gifts in the world.

“The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity,” by Melanie Greenberg PhD.
Offering powerful, comprehensive tools based in mindfulness, neuroscience and positive psychology, author Melanie Greenberg helps you put a stop to unhealthy responses to stress — such as avoidance, tunnel vision, negative thinking, self-criticism, fixed mindset and fear. Instead, you’ll discover unique exercises that provide a recipe for resilience, empowering you to master your emotional responses, overcome negative thinking, and create a more tolerant, stress-proof brain.

“Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook,” by Tony Robbins
After interviewing 50 of the world’s greatest financial minds and penning the #1 New York Times bestseller Money: Master the Game, Tony Robbins returns with a step-by-step playbook, taking you on a journey to transform your financial life and accelerate your path to financial freedom. No matter your salary, your stage of life, or when you started, this book will give you the tools to help you achieve your financial goals more rapidly than you ever thought possible. Discover how to put together a simple, actionable plan that will deliver true financial freedom; how to protect yourself and family form the inevitable crashes and corrections in investing; the fastest way to put money back in your pocket and more.

“What the Dead Have Taught Me About Living Well,” by Rebecca Rosen
Author and medium, Rebecca Rosen has been a medium for more than two decades, and she knows with absolute clarity that the spirit world is always trying to get our attention. Our departed loved ones and spirit guides intervene in our lives daily to let us know that our real-life struggles have a rhyme, a reason, and a purpose and that we’re not alone to figure it all out. In this new book, which takes you through a day in her life, she shares daily practices and spiritual tools she relies on to recognize and interpret signs from our loved ones on the other side and more.

“You Are the Universe: Discovering Your Cosmic Self and Why It Matters,” by Deepak Chopra
New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra joins forces with leading physicist Menas Kafatos to explore some of the most important and baffling questions about our place in the world. What happens when modern science reaches a crucial turning point that challenges everything we know about reality? Chopra and Kafatos tell share how we have reached just such a point. In the coming era, the universe will be completely redefined as a “human universe.” You Are the Universe literally means what it says–each of us is a co-creator of reality extending to the vastest reaches of time and space.

“You Have 4 Minutes to Change Your Life: Simple 4-Minute Meditations for Inspiration, Transformation and True Bliss,” by Rebekah Borucki
After years of suffering from anxiety and depression, both as a child and as an adult, Rebekah Borucki took control of her mental and physical health by establishing a rigorous fitness and yoga routine that quickly evolved into her own regular, homegrown 4-minute daily meditation practice. Her 4-minute meditations combine mantras, affirmations, breathing and bodywork techniques, and the book includes 27 different practices.

Meditation can increase our creativity, happiness and fulfillment, and is known to have many positive effects on the physical body. It is often the foundation of many spiritual practices and teachings, and assists in calming the mind, enhancing intuition and awakening the soul to connect us with our higher self.

Sarah McLean, bestselling author of the book “Soul-Centered: Transform Your Life in 8 Weeks with Meditation,” and founder of the McLean Meditation Institute in Sedona, Ariz., joined Elevated Existence Magazine founder, Tammy Mastroberte, to kick off the new year as part of the Living an Elevated Existence Mind, Body and Soul Summit, and revealed her 5 Essentials for meditation, sample mantras to use when first starting out, and so much more.

She started by explaining there are a variety of forms meditation can take, including two overall types – Open Awareness, which is where you focus on sights or sounds – and Focused Meditation, where you use a mantra, or focus on a candle flame, sound you chant or movement. The most highly researched form of meditation is mindfulness meditation, also known as insight meditation or breath awareness meditation, and there is also meditation for transcendence.

“Meditation that allows for transcendence is transcendental meditation, primordial sound meditation or other forms of mantra meditations,” said McLean. “When you start the mantra you are aware of where you are and what you are doing, and then you transcend body awareness and breath awareness. You transcend time and even who you think you are and your ideas about yourself and the world.”

However, meditation only works if you do it and if you choose one that you like to do, she said, explaining there are a number of myths that come along with the practice. The first is looking for a mystical or spiritual experience to happen during meditation.

“When we are looking for an experience like that in meditation, it can really inhibit the natural unfoldment of your spiritual awareness,” she said on the call. “The true mystical and spiritual experiences happen as we are living our lives. When your intuition is so strong and you know that you are suppose to go and talk to that person, or you know you are suppose to take a left and you do and it takes you into a magical experience.”

Another myth is meditation is only done correctly when the mind is totally clear. Meditation does help one to clear the mind, but the benefit of the practice often happens when you are not on the meditation mat, said McLean.

“What we learn to do in meditation is to create a different relationship with our mental activity. We learn that it is going to go on anyway because it’s the nature of your mind to think, just like it’s the nature of your mind to see,” she explained. “Your job in meditation is to shift without too much effort, to the focus of your meditation, whether it’s a mantra, the candle flame or breath awareness, and just keep coming back without judgment. Without adding more thoughts to it. There is a coherence created and a clarity created. Even if you sit down and all you do is have thoughts, as long as you keep coming back and refocusing on your meditation with a gentle awareness, then you transform that reactivity center of the brain.”

There is so much research available now showing the amygdala – the part of the brain that is reactive – is where benefits of meditation can be seen. This part of the brain starts to loosen its hold on us in terms of our reaction, and by retraining the brain to go back to the mantra or the breath, we are creating more spaciousness, she said.

“Sometimes we get an impulse in meditation to get up and send that email or make that phone call or go have some food, but if you sit through it, you are transforming your response, you are changing the habits, the neuronal pathways, so that you shift that reactionary response,” McLean noted.

She also shared her 5 Essentials for Meditation, which are:

1. Treat Yourself Well, and Be Kind to Yourself
2. Have No Expectations about What Should Happen
3. Have a Beginner’s Mind Open to Possibilities
4. Don’t Try Too Hard (less is more in meditation)
5. Don’t Give Up

Stress Relief From Meditation
Often when we are the most restless, we feel the least like sitting to meditate, but often that is when we need it most. And when we are in the midst of a meditation and become restless, this is actually a sign we are releasing stress from the mind and body, said McLean.

“Meditation is the perfect antidote for stress,” she said. “As the mind settles down and the body settles down, you start to create this coherence. What happens is this coherence helps to eliminate any built up stress in the nervous system. There is a purification process that goes on, and impurities start to move out as you are sitting there saying your mantra. They start to generate movement, whether it’s movement of the mind, movement of the body or movement of the emotions.”

One key point to remember is when our mind becomes active with thoughts during a meditation, it is often of our to-do list or current, mundane issues we have to do. But these thoughts have no relationship to the stress we are releasing, said McLean.

“The fact that you are having thoughts, the movement of the thoughts, is an indication you are releasing stress, but the content of the thoughts has no particular correlation to the stress you are releasing,” she explained.

To hear more from Sarah McLean, including simple mantras to get you started, register for the FREE Living an Elevated Existence Summit, and get 4 FREE bonuses just for signing up! You will have access to 26 top experts on a variety of mind, body and spirit topics.

Tag: sarah mclean

Elevated Existence February 2017 Spiritual, Self-Help Book Picks

Sarah McLean: Meditation Tips and Awakening