Communicating Mindfully: Mindfulness-Based Communication and Emotional Intelligence, 6th Edition
By: Dan Huston
© 2015 August Learning Solutions
Print ISBN: 978-1-94-162600-9 / eBook ISBN: 978-1-941626-39-9
Print: $68.69
eBook: $54.99
Communicating Mindfully describes a method for improving communication skills that combines the study of communication theory with training in mindfulness. This powerful combination reveals how people often interpret the events of their lives unconsciously and communicate habitually and unproductively as a result. By learning to recognize external and internal influences present in our everyday experiences, we can increase our ability to communicate effectively in each unique situation we encounter and modify unproductive communication habits.
While some communication textbooks mention mindfulness, this one features it. The author invites readers to explore how being fully present to the moments of their lives can help them become more aware of internal and external influences that exist in those moments. As a result, readers become aware of and modify their unproductive habits, judgments, and reactivity. They learn to make more informed communicative choices that result in increased connection (with others and themselves), as well as increased productivity at home, at work, and at school. The book combines anecdotal examples with research in the fields of mindfulness, communication, and emotional intelligence. Readers find it engaging and note that it is markedly different from the stereotypical “dry” textbook. Each chapter concludes with an application journal and a link to a related meditation designed to help readers apply chapter content to their lives.
Chapter 1: Getting Started: Beginner’s Mind
Chapter 2: Conversation and Listening Skills: Paying Attention
Chapter 3: Becoming Better Listeners:More Than Meets the Ear
Chapter 4: Nonverbal Behavior and Physical Sensations: What Our Bodies Are Saying—To Us and Others
Chapter 5: Self-Talk: Getting to Know Ourselves
Chapter 6: Self-Concept: Who Do You Think You Are?
Chapter 7: Assertive Behavior: Tell It Like It Is
Chapter 8: An End and a New Beginning
Appendices
References
Resources
Glossary
Index
Dan Huston, MST
Professor of Communication and Writing
NHTI—Concord’s Community College
Professor Huston teaches mindful communication and writing in the English Department at NHTI-Concord’s Community College. He has been incorporating mindfulness, meditation, and emotional intelligence in his communication curriculum for over twenty years and was awarded NHTI’s 2008 Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence. Huston is the author of the textbook Communicating Mindfully: Mindfulness-Based Communication and Emotional Intelligence, which has been adopted at numerous colleges and universities, as well as other publications on mindful communication. His Communicating Mindfully course is required of students in several degree programs at NHTI and strongly recommended for others. The course has doubled as a form of professional development for faculty, and it serves as the foundation of NHTI’s Mindful Communication Certificate (https://www.nhti.edu/program/mindful-communication/).
Huston has worked extensively with a variety of departments to expand mindfulness in their courses, including information technology, dental, addiction counseling, human services, and early childhood education. This training has inspired curriculum development to infuse mindfulness in courses ranging from cross-cultural literature to internship practicums.
Huston provides training to businesses and educational institutions, and he regularly presents at professional conferences. He has received training at the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
“Once I started reading Communicating Mindfully, I couldn’t put the book down. I read the entire book in three days, and it woke me up to a host of ways I could improve my communication. As a result, I am becoming a calmer, more patient listener as well as speaker. I find myself pausing to engage my brain before engaging my mouth.”
“Dan Huston is doing important work that is grounded in both personal experience and careful research in a field that is growing in importance. As the practice of mindfulness extends into the field of education it is important that the integration be done by informed, skilled practitioners. Dan’s book promises to play a critical role in this process, helping to ensure that mindfulness is used by teachers in a way that is consistent with a practice that is ancient and also contemporary, supported by a growing number of research studies on its effects on health and well-being. If used wisely, mindfulness has the potential to transform schools by transforming students’ lives—helping them to become more self-aware, less stressed, and more engaged in their education. Communicating Mindfully can play a vital role in making that happen.”
“There are now quite a few books on the applications of mindfulness in educational settings. Among them, I find Communicating Mindfully exceptional in the depth of awareness embodied in its perspective. This is the kind of depth needed in fostering significant development in education.”
“When used as a nontraditional Writing Center text, Communicating Mindfully enhanced how my students discussed collaborating with other students and offered them new ways to approach their work in the writing center. Students drew connections between communication, mindfulness, and emotional awareness that influenced how they communicated in their personal lives as well as how they worked with others.”
“I found Communicating Mindfully to be delightful reading. For rookies like me, it may be the perfect introduction to contemplative pedagogy.”
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