Full Catastrophe Living summary

Does this sound familiar? Your days are busy with “doing”: work, errands, obligations, commitments. But at the end of the day, when your body stops doing, your mind doesn’t get the memo. It churns over events of the day, makes plans for the future, dredges up anxieties, and more.

Mindfulness makes space for “being” in lives filled with “doing.” But you can’t simply “be” with a “doing” mind. So, how do you quiet a busy mind?

When was the last time you truly noticed the steamy warmth of a morning shower, the unexpected beauty in an arrangement of pens, or the suggestive outline of shadows on a sunny sidewalk?

Once you’ve entered into a completely mindful life, you’ll find that you create spontaneous mindful moments like these throughout your day. You’ll naturally slow down, pay attention, and exist fully in the present. 

Stress can be like the weather, can’t it? It’s something we can’t predict or control. And when it pours down on us, like a sudden rainstorm, there’s no escaping or stopping it.

Stress, like weather, may feel like an uncontrollable force that shapes our lives. Unlike the weather though, we have more control over it than we realize. 

Remember those old Choose Your Own Adventure books? Whenever the narrative reached a turning point, you were prompted to choose what happened next. To take a shortcut through the dragon’s lair, turn to page three. To go the long way through the forest, turn to page seven.

The way we respond to stress can feel instinctive, but there’s actually a “choose your own adventure” element to it: we always have a choice. Having a fight with your partner? You could storm out. Throw a plate against the wall. Talk it out. Turn cold and silent. Or try to see things from their perspective.

Imagine you couldn’t feel any physical pain. Life would be better in every way. Right?

Maybe not. Ever heard of congenital analgesia? People born with this condition simply do not experience physical pain. As a result, they often injure themselves unknowingly. Without pain to warn them of danger, they have great difficulty moving safely through the world.

Are you a truly happy person? No judgment if you answered “no.” It’s hard to feel truly happy. We all carry around grief and trauma. We’ve all been hurt.

But try this: focus on the here and now. Still your thoughts. Be inside your body and mind. Are you happy in this moment? You might find that you actually are.

Have you ever heard the serenity prayer? It begins with, “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can.”

But how are we supposed to know which is which? Pushing to change things that can’t be changed is both draining and futile. Passively accepting things that could be changed is just as bad.