I Told My Mind To Shut The F*ck Up “A Fresh Take on Mindfulness.”

Winick’s book is the story of his life, starting with his childhood and early exposure to the principles of mindfulness and learning to detach from suffering by silencing the useless thoughts that are designed to trap us in the past, or sometimes propel us into a mind-created future of disaster scenarios, instead of being in the present. He describes his life as an ordinary guy with his fair share of life experiences, who like many of us, go on to get married and start a family.

Throughout, he explains how his mind created stories that helped him achieve great success and accomplish many goals, but also created stories that kept him trapped in his mind’s negative interpretations of past experiences, holding him back from thinking clearly and living more positively.

The climax of the story centers around his wife and son’s hereditary disease of VHL, which causes the formation of tumors in certain locations in the body, and can require multiple surgeries throughout a person’s life. When Winick realized that his teenaged son would need to undergo one of the most complicated neurological surgeries in medical history, and that the procedure could result in his son’s permanent paralysis, his mind created utter panic and chaos. But his ability to silence these negative thoughts and find his center ultimately allowed him to think clearly and take action to help his son and wife through this ordeal.

Along the way, Winick touches the lives of others, and describes how other people’s lives also impacted his own evolving sense of true self in his ongoing struggle to detach from the ego and, as he puts it, see what was possible. The book is so simple in its approach, yet very gripping, with touches of humor and heart. If you love reading about this stuff but find the usual Zenned-out material too heady, you will love Winick’s no-B.S., and even fun take on the subject. Yes, the book necessarily gets heavy and serious in certain parts, but when you read about Winick telling his mind to “Shut the f*ck up!,” you can’t help but crack a smile and make a note to yourself to try it next time.

Melanie Dunn

ctworkingmoms.com