Rewire Your Brain for Love: Creating Vibrant Relationships Using The Science Of Mindfulness - Softcover

Marsha Lucas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848504195 ISBN 13: 9781848504196

Publisher: Hay House Publishers, 2012

Synopsis

In Rewire Your Brain for Love, neuropsychologist Marsha Lucas brings together neuroscience and mindfulness meditation in an exciting program to help readers create and sustain better, healthier, juicier romantic relationships.

With a passion for neuroscience and the ability to relay it in a clear, unintimidating -- and entertaining -- manner, Lucas delves into how the human brain works in relationships, exploring the neurological connections that fuel our reactions. In an inviting and reassuring tone, she describes how we developed our current relationship wiring and how to modify it through mindfulness meditation.

Focusing on seven high-voltage benefits -- including everything from being able to better manage your reactions, to improved communication with yourself and others, to an enhanced ability to handle fear -- Lucas shows how a short daily meditation practice can change the way you interact with everyone around you . . . especially those closest to you. Each chapter focuses on one benefit, including an in-depth description of exactly what that benefit is and how it will improve the reader's life. She looks at the science and research associated with mindfulness meditation in relation to each benefit, and then provides readers with a specific meditation to help bring that benefit into their relationships.

Imagine, instead of blowing up at an off-hand statement your partner makes, you are able to stop, breathe, and respond in a thoughtful manner. And as the author says, "You don't have to become a monk, or a vegetarian, or spend hours contemplating your navel" -- you simply need to notice your mind's busyness and not get all tangled up in it. This simple process truly can help you break free of knee-jerk, "autopilot" relationship habits -- the ones where you say to yourself minutes or months later, "Why did I say that?!" -- and move forward into healthier, more vibrant relationships.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Praise for Rewire Your Brain for Love

"This is great stuff. The latest, best mindful brain science in a wildly practical form,
with wise and clear practices that can radically transform your relationships."
--Jack Kornfield, PhD, author The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal
Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

"With entertaining humor and enlightening clarity, Dr. Lucas blends cutting-edge
discoveries in neurobiology and psychology with time-honored practices from
ancient wisdom traditions to help us navigate the challenges of intimate relationships.
A delightful must-read for anyone wanting to get along better with other people."
--Ronald D. Siegel, PsyD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychology,
Harvard Medical School; author of The Mindfulness Solution

"Rewire Your Brain for Love is delightfully engaging and easy to read.
Everyone will find something life-enhancing inside these pages."
--Christiane Northrup, MD, author of the New York Times bestsellers
Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause

"Psych Central's Recommendation: Worth Your Time! Rewire Your Brain for Love is one of those great hybrids between self-help and education. If you're looking for a method to tackle relationship problems (or even just 'life' problems), you'd be hard-pressed to find a better primer."
--Dan Berkowitz, PsychCentral Book Reviews

"Honest, warmhearted, and funny. Marsha Lucas explains neuroscience in plain
English and gives us a wonderful introduction to mindfulness meditation and its benefits."
--Sharon Salzberg, author of Real Happiness

"Marsha Lucas takes the mystery out of two mysterious subjects--the inner
workings of our brains and the successful pursuit of true love. She's a wise and funny
cupid, bringing together our hearts and minds as she explains amygdalas and anxiety,
frontal lobes and commitment-phobes."
--Priscilla Warner, author of Learning to Breathe

"Each of us has the potential to live with an open, loving heart.
This book shows us how meditation awakens our capacity for increased
presence, intimacy, and understanding in our relationships."
--Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance

"Anyone who struggles with garden-variety anxiety about love, all the
way up to full-blown phobia, should read this book, more than once. And it
should be dog-eared and well worn on every therapist's reference shelf."
--Belleruth Naparstek, LISW, author of Invisible Heroes and
creator of the Health Journeys guided imagery series

"This book is like having a best friend who is both savvy
about the brain and a world-class therapist."
--Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddha's Brain

"Rewire Your Brain for Love is a smart and reader-friendly
guide for an exciting journey through our hearts and brains."
--Louis Cozolino, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University;
author of The Neuroscience of Human Relationships

From the Inside Flap:

On the way to finding and creating vibrant, successful relationships, too many of us end up tangled in the same old patterns, tripped up by relationship habits that get in our way whether we "know better" or not.

In Rewire Your Brain for Love, neuropsychologist and psychotherapist Marsha Lucas, PhD, helps you untangle those relationship snarls, bringing together the latest neuroscience with a practice consistently heralded by top academic institutions for its effectiveness in changing the brain: the practice of mindfulness meditation.

Dr. Lucas's clear, unintimidating, often laugh-out-loud style invites you to explore how the brain functions in relationships, helping you understand how your current relationship wiring developed and showing you how you can rewire your relationship brain through mindfulness meditation.

A down-to-earth therapist and self-described neuroscience geek, Dr. Lucas has written a chapter-by-chapter guide with compassion, wisdom, and humor. In Rewire Your Brain for Love, she takes you on a journey through seven high-voltage relationship benefits—everything from keeping your fear from running the show to cultivating healthy, balanced empathy—and offers specific mindfulness practices to help bring those benefits into your life.

With a few minutes of practice a day, you can change the way you interact with everyone around you . . . especially those closest to you. You can transform your brain from an enemy to an ally in all matters of the heart, creating more loving communication, building emotional resilience, and reducing over-reactivity--not to mention enjoying better sex.

You don't have to become a monk, or a vegetarian, or spend hours contemplating your navel--you just need to update the relationship wiring of your brain. The simple practice of mindfulness can help get you there, with Dr. Lucas showing you how.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hay House Publishers
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1848504195
• ISBN 13: 9781848504196
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288