Scary thoughts are spinning. Tummy is hurting. Can mommy’s game really help stop these bad feelings and bring about calm? Niko's mommy takes him through a fun game using his 5 senses to help him ease his worries and build a calm, cooperative mindset. Learning this game can help all children to recognize and manage BIG emotions and gain lifelong skills for self-soothing to help them regain their power over emotions. Join Niko as he learns to play the 5 Senses Game, it's fun for the whole family!!

What is mindfulness? Is it therapy, a religious practice, a philosophy or a practical means of navigating the every day? Using the stories of four archetypal characters - the monk, ninja, doctor, and zombie - this book unpacks the assumptions, motivations and expectations we now bring to the meditative practice of mindfulness. The four types act as our guides through an exploration of mindfulness and the deeply ideological debates surrounding it. The monk stands for mindfulness as spiritual purity, wisdom and enlightenment; the ninja self-mastery and a consummate zen skill and the doctor is the model of meditative practice as used in treatments and professional care. The zombie, far from being an aspirational model, epitomizes a common fear: mindfulness as cult-mentality. Balancing Buddhism, Daoism, Stoicism, contemporary therapeutic paradigms and capitalist imagery with firsthand accounts from teachers and students, this is the story of mindfulness as a various, complex way of living.

She doesn't see dead people, but… She senses when someone near her is about to die. And when that happens, a force beyond her control compels her to scream bloody murder. Literally. Kaylee just wants to enjoy having caught the attention of the hottest guy in school. But a normal date is hard to come by when Nash seems to know more about her need to scream than she does. And when classmates start dropping dead for no apparent reason, only Kaylee knows who'll be next…

“McGonigal is a clear, methodical writer, and her ideas are well argued. Assertions are backed by countless psychological studies.” —The Boston Globe “Powerful and provocative . . . McGonigal makes a persuasive case that games have a lot to teach us about how to make our lives, and the world, better.” —San Jose Mercury News “Jane McGonigal's insights have the elegant, compact, deadly simplicity of plutonium, and the same explosive force.” —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother A visionary game designer reveals how we can harness the power of games to boost global happiness. With 174 million gamers in the United States alone, we now live in a world where every generation will be a gamer generation. But why, Jane McGonigal asks, should games be used for escapist entertainment alone? In this groundbreaking book, she shows how we can leverage the power of games to fix what is wrong with the real world-from social problems like depression and obesity to global issues like poverty and climate change-and introduces us to cutting-edge games that are already changing the business, education, and nonprofit worlds. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, Reality Is Broken shows that the future will belong to those who can understand, design, and play games. Jane McGonigal is also the author of SuperBetter: A Revolutionary Approach to Getting Stronger, Happier, Braver and More Resilient.

In a nightmarish new york city, life is there for the taking in the fourth Cal Leandros novel from New York Times bestselling author Rob Thurman. Half-human Cal Leandros and his brother Niko are barely getting by with their preternatural investigative agency when the vampire Seamus hires them. He’s being followed, and he wants to know by whom. But the Leandros brothers have to do more than they planned when Seamus turns up dead (or un-undead). Worse still is the return of Cal's nightmarish family—the Auphe. The last time Cal and Niko faced them, they were almost wiped out. Now, the Auphe want revenge. And Cal knows that before they get to him, they will destroy everything and everyone he holds dear. Because, for the Auphe, Cal's pain is a pleasure. And they’re feeling good...

Becoming someone is a learning process; and what we learn is the new values around which, if we succeed, our lives will come to turn. Agents transform themselves in the process of, for example, becoming parents, embarking on careers, or acquiring a passion for music or politics. How can such activity be rational, if the reason for engaging in the relevant pursuit is only available to the person one will become? How is it psychologically possible to feel the attraction of a form of concern that is not yet one's own? How can the work done to arrive at the finish line be ascribed to one who doesn't (really) know what one is doing, or why one is doing it? In Aspiration, Agnes Callard asserts that these questions belong to the theory of aspiration. Aspirants are motivated by proleptic reasons, acknowledged defective versions of the reasons they expect to eventually grasp. The psychology of such a transformation is marked by intrinsic conflict between their old point of view on value and the one they are trying to acquire. They cannot adjudicate this conflict by deliberating or choosing or deciding-rather, they resolve it by working to see the world in a new way. This work has a teleological structure: by modeling oneself on the person he or she is trying to be, the aspirant brings that person into being. Because it is open to us to engage in an activity of self-creation, we are responsible for having become the kinds of people we are.

How we experience space by listening: the concepts of aural architecture, with examples ranging from Gothic cathedrals to surround sound home theater. We experience spaces not only by seeing but also by listening. We can navigate a room in the dark, and "hear" the emptiness of a house without furniture. Our experience of music in a concert hall depends on whether we sit in the front row or under the balcony. The unique acoustics of religious spaces acquire symbolic meaning. Social relationships are strongly influenced by the way that space changes sound. In Spaces Speak, Are You Listening?, Barry Blesser and Linda-Ruth Salter examine auditory spatial awareness: experiencing space by attentive listening. Every environment has an aural architecture.The audible attributes of physical space have always contributed to the fabric of human culture, as demonstrated by prehistoric multimedia cave paintings, classical Greek open-air theaters, Gothic cathedrals, acoustic geography of French villages, modern music reproduction, and virtual spaces in home theaters. Auditory spatial awareness is a prism that reveals a culture's attitudes toward hearing and space. Some listeners can learn to "see" objects with their ears, but even without training, we can all hear spatial geometry such as an open door or low ceiling. Integrating contributions from a wide range of disciplines—including architecture, music, acoustics, evolution, anthropology, cognitive psychology, audio engineering, and many others—Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? establishes the concepts and language of aural architecture. These concepts provide an interdisciplinary guide for anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of how space enhances our well-being. Aural architecture is not the exclusive domain of specialists. Accidentally or intentionally, we all function as aural architects.