Mindful as F*ck by Emily Horn is aimed at people who’ve slept through yoga and can’t stand green juice. It’s lighthearted, and provides 100 mindfulness exercises for readers to try. The exercises draw on meditation, yoga, Buddhism, Ayurveda, reiki, chakra healing, and the law of attraction.
The book is part mindfulness with a big dollop of humour. The hokey pokey and carrier pigeons make an appearance, and from some of the pop culture references, I’m guessing the author is around my age (aka “old” to anyone born in this millennium).
For the first exercise, sit your ass down, the author advises that you wear ugly sweatpants and big, comfy underwear. Sounds good to me! The author assures the reader that mac ‘n’ cheese is on the mindfulness curriculum, so go ahead and have a bowl.
The exercise on lovingkindeness meditation is described as “love, even for shitty people,” which is a rather good way of putting it.
There are a lot of breathing exercises, including one to slow breathing to counteract one of the shitty things anxiety does. None of it is taken overly seriously.
The exercises are all short, typically one or two pages, which makes it very easy to read. Many are broken down into numbered steps, and there’s the odd graphic tossed in for visual appeal.
I’m very non-woo-woo myself, but aside from the occasional raised eyebrow, I still enjoyed the book. The author managed to incorporate the law of attraction without pulling in all the pseudoscience gobbledygook that often goes along with it. I think the lighthearted approach is likely to work well for readers that want to take bits and pieces of the various practices described without having to go all in.
I’m all for swearing, but swearing in book titles is starting to feel overdone, so the novelty isn’t really there anymore. There’s a lot of swearing within the book, but I tend to swear a lot myself, so that aspect didn’t strike me as out of place.
Overall, I think this book delivers on what it claims to do, and it’s a fun read.
Mindful as F*ck is available on Amazon (affiliate link).
I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley.
You can find my other reviews on the MH@H book review index or on Goodreads.
Sounds like a light, entertaining read that has nuggets of good points that are applicable to life. 🙂
Also now I want Mac n Cheese.
Exactly!
Yep, this one almost had me skipping it due to the profane title, but I’m glad I read down to the end, as I agree with your ending comments, and that this book seeems useful.
I hope the trend of this kind of title starts to wane soon.
Likewise.
Sounds like the kind of fun book that’s handy to dip in and out of. And I agree about the swearing in titles.
I’m definitely a fan of books that are easy to dip in and out of.
I think I like the sound of this plus I know some friends that would e joy it as a Xmas pressie. Thanks for the review
I’ve heard of this book before and was always curious about it. It’s on my wishlist now. 🙂
Cool 🙂
I’d certainly be up for giving this a read – I really like these sort of mindfulness books that don’t take themselves too seriously!
👌👌nice