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Ryan authors book about mindfulness
YOUNGSTOWN
For U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan, life was moving way too fast.
The historic November 2008 election of President Barack Obama had just ended with Ryan actively campaigning for the Democratic candidate.
A year earlier, Ryan, of Niles, D-17th, had landed a seat on the then-powerful House Appropriations Committee (when its members could still steer millions of dollars to projects in their congressional districts), and had tirelessly campaigned in 2006 as part of the Democratic takeover of Congress and Ohio government.
“I was starting to feel like I was going to be burned out from running too hard,” Ryan said.
That led to Ryan attending a Power of Mindfulness Retreat in upstate New York.
Mindfulness is a meditative practice that focuses on “the present moment” instead of worrying about the past or the future, Ryan said.
Wanting to draw attention to mindfulness, Ryan wrote a book, “A Mindful Nation,” shopped it around and sold it to Hay House, a publishing house that focuses on self-help, inspirational, spiritual and health-and- healing books.
“Mindfulness is about finding ways to slow down and pay attention to the present moment — which improves performance and reduces stress. It’s about having the time and space to attend to what’s right in front of us, even though many other forces are trying to keep us stuck in the past or are inviting us to fantasize or worry about the future,” Ryan wrote in his book.
Ryan spends about 40 to 45 minutes a day relaxing and calming himself while in a half-lotus position.
Schools, the Marines and major businesses such as Google, General Mills, Target and Procter & Gamble all have mindfulness programs, Ryan said.
Ryan acknowledges he’s not an expert in the field.
“The book is me as a policymaker and the impact it’s had on me,” he said. “I saw something and experienced something, and I wanted to spread the word. I have a chapter on the science behind it and the studies that show it works. We need to look at it as a new way to do things. We better teach our kids how to concentrate and pay attention.”
As of Tuesday, Ryan’s book, released March 27, was a respectable 9,657th on the Amazon Best Sellers list. The book can be purchased online at Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com.
Critics of mindfulness say the practice is essentially Buddhism adapted to Western culture taught to people who don’t understand its origins.
Plenty of religions include the practice of meditation, but Ryan said mindfulness isn’t religiously based.
“Meditation is like sports: There’s a ton of them,” he said. “This is a basic breathing technique that cultivates mind fitness. There are no tenets you have to follow.”
Ryan said he’s not concerned with being labeled as New Age or weird because of the book and his practice of mindfulness.
“I know it’s helping kids and helping soldiers,” he said. “Companies use it. Professional athletes us it. This is about as mainstream as it gets. ... What we’re doing now is not working. This book is my proposal of the direction we need to move in.”
The practice is “not a silver bullet. I hope if we slow down, we can ask ourselves, ‘Do we really want to go down the road without time for family and just try to make ends meet?’”