10 Best Mindfulness-based Gifts to Give Yourself or Someone You Love

10 useful tools to help you have greater peace in the new year

Mindfulness is a lovely gift to gift yourself with, or if you’re feeling generous, it’s lovely to bestow some mindfulness tools on the important people in your life. The benefits of mindfulness last much longer than the actual minutes spent meditating or doing it. If you’d like to give a gift that keeps on giving, you might like to try something off of this list. I have compiled a list of the top ten mindfulness-based resources that I have been impacted by this year. You can gift yourself or someone you love.

1. The Mindfulness app – This is the original mindfulness app I had heard about, and this year I have recommitted to it and use it every day without fail. This helps me to easily and immediately upon waking up, to access a thirty-minute meditation that starts my day in a grounded and present way. I believe this impacts the rest of my day in a very profound way. To read more about how I use it, click here.
2. Mindfulness daily – A lovely online course, taught by Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield, of 40 days of teaching and guided meditations that last 12 – 15 minutes each. Easy to listen to each day as you start your morning and it provides wisdom and mindfulness that will last throughout the day. Good for learning the basics of mindfulness and compassion, or going to the next level and creating and sustaining a daily practice. mindfulness daily  $37.They also have a follow up daily practice that focuses on mindfulness daily at work for $47. Equally lovely and useful.
3. Sitting Still Like a Frog book and CD – Mindfulness Exercises for Kids (and their Parents) by Elaine Snel. $18. Simple mindfulness practices to help your children deal with anxiety, concentrate better, and handle difficult emotions, with an accompanying CD of guided meditations. Practical and fun introduction to mindfulness for kids and easy for parents to join in too.
4. “Listen” book by Patty Wipfler, the founder of Hand in Hand Parenting (Parenting by Connection). She describes five very practical tools that parents can use to build a stronger connection with their kids and to help them become more resilient. These tools include practices that involve things like listening to and letting your children cry so they can get to their real emotions at the bottom of their tantrums and outbursts. She directly offers things that parents can say that actually make a difference in the relationship with the child and the child’s well being. One of my favorite parenting books.
5. Mindfulness for Teen Anxiety Workbook by Christopher Williard – A workbook for “overcoming anxiety at home, at school and everywhere else” with exercises to stay calm in the face of panic and help to let go of your fears. For Teens who suffer from panic attacks, chronic worry, and feelings of isolation or just sometimes feel anxious, this easy-to-use workbook helps to cope and feel more ease with friends, at home, in class, and in social situations.
6. Something for Relationships: JUST LIKE ME’  PRACTICE – For More Compassion and understanding in your Relationships. This ‘Just Like Me’  practice helps us to remember what we share as human beings (yet is not a replacement for appreciating our differences—those are incredibly important, too). You can do it by bringing to mind a friend, a colleague, someone you feel neutrally toward, or someone who is difficult. It can also be done live with a partner sitting across from you. Download the practice here. Free.
7. Stop, Look, Go: A Grateful Practice Workbook and Gratitude Journal by Brother David Steindl-Rast – a beautiful workbook with exercises like the ABC’s of Gratitude  in the foreword that really help you to deepen and broaden your experience of daily gratitude – even when times are hard or it’s not apparent that there’s something to be grateful for. A regular practice of gratitude can help with feelings of depression.
8. Susan Stiffelman’s ‘Parenting without Power Struggles ’ online course ~ $200. She offers an excellent way of bringing more peace and calm into the daily struggles of parenting and provides tools to be supportive but firm with our children, while also taking care of parent’s need for support. She is down to earth, really knowledgeable, practical and heartfelt.
9. Recovery 2.0 membership community and lifetime access to Recovery 2.0’s online 2017 conference, with Tommy Rosen $140/year. Includes weekly webinars, a library of teachings, daily yoga and meditation practices, and a safe community dedicated to healing and thriving in your life, as you move away from the additions of substance, or food, or relationships, or technology, or money. Recovery 2.0
10. Jim Kwik’s Memory Masterclass $1000, or podcast (free) KWIK podcast Kwik Learning – speed reading and memory improvement / brain training. Jim is down to earth, has a lot of humility, and provides so much useful and practical information to improve one’s memory. His tips really work, and he cares deeply about sharing information with others. His suggestions for good brain development and learning start with mindfulness and presence.

Of course, the best mindfulness gifts you can give to yourself or to those you care about are the following: your full presence is the best present :), and your gratitude and compassion (including self-compassion) are the beautiful ways you can wrap up your package.

If you would like to deepen your capacity to live with mindfulness in your daily life, improve your relationships, and reduce your painful emotions, I invite you to try out my course “Hot Mess to Cool OASIS” that will be updated and available in late January 2018. Learn mindfulness skills to feel better and more peaceful in your busy life, with six lessons of easy-to-access tools that are simple but profoundly impactful. Each week’s lesson contains a combination of talk about the benefits of mindfulness in daily life, along with my favorite and most impactful guided meditations, writing practices and videos designed to help you create an oasis of calm in your busy life, and includes a combination of do at your own pace practices as well as a group call to learn, practice and integrate what you’ve learned into a regular practice that works for you. $197. Check out the Hot Mess to Cool Oasis Course here. If you’re interested in receiving the updated information click here. I’ll send it to you in a couple of weeks.

You can also sample mindfulness with me by signing up for my free Mindfulness Ecourse.