Book Outline

Section 1 How Did I Get To Be Like This?

This section provides a brief discussion on how our genes, family lives, environments and inner worlds contribute to who we are at this moment, and why we develop as different and specific individuals.

Section 2 Paying Attention

The pace of everyday living, the extent of demands on us, and the quantity of information available have contributed to us speeding through our lives, forgetting at times to pay attention to them.

Section 3 Remembering your Body

Section 1 looked at people within a context. The focus now shifts to paying attention to the physical body.

Section 4 One Whole not Two Parts

The past four hundred years have promoted an idea that the mind and body are separate parts that have little or no connection. This chapter reminds us that we are a single, integrated and very complex unit.

Section 5 The Life of Breath

The ultimate importance of our breathing is frequently overlooked – if we aren’t breathing we aren’t living. If our breath is what allows us to be alive, then paying attention to it may bring with it other advantages.

Section 6 Blocks and Barricades

We may start out with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the line we can become disillusioned, bored or dismissive. This issue is discussed and how such responses may become hindrances in our lives.

Section 7 Let’s Go For a Walk

Awareness of walking through your world in different ways is considered in this section.

Section 8 Stopping

When we stop distracting ourselves from ourselves we can then move behind the smokescreens and assess our lives with clarity.

Section 9 Me and Me

To walk alone amongst many companions. This section looks at the fear of aloneness and the impermanence of life, but it also looks at how we can adapt to, and engage with, the transience of life.

Section 10 One Breath at a Time

Addressing attachments, looking at our fears, and learning to take life one breath at a time is the focus of this section.

Section 11 No Conclusion

Exactly what it says.