Making Friends with Your Mind (by Pema Chödrön)
Making Friends with Your Mind: The Key to Contentment, recorded from live retreat sessions at the Omega Institute, features Pema Chödrön’s gentle, humorous, and down-to-earth teachings on meditation and mindfulness. She guides participants to cease battling their thoughts, embrace the mind’s inherent drama—confusion, joy, fixation, and change—and cultivate “unconditional friendliness” towards themselves and their experiences.
Pema responds to participant questions by drawing from her personal experiences and practices from her teachers. I resonated with her as she helps listeners accept situations beyond their control and find peace in the present moment. She shared a relatable scenario of hearing a dog barking in the neighborhood and wishing the owners would let the dog inside, despite lacking the power to make that happen. Throughout a four-and-a-half-hour listen, Pema covers numerous significant topics, including managing chronic pain, expressing gratitude for what we have, navigating mental health, practicing loving kindness, and developing resilience to discomfort.
I purchased the audiobook of Making Friends with Your Mind: The Key to Contentment using my Audible membership. I thoroughly enjoy listening to Pema. Her patience and kindness shine through as she imparts her wisdom.
You’re welcome to read my other reviews for Pema Chödrön, which are linked below.
Embracing the Unknown: Life Lessons from the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living
Bodhisattva Mind: Teachings to Cultivate Courage and Awareness in the Midst of Suffering
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