Don't Feed the Monkey Mind

By: Jennifer Shannon LMFT

Narrated by: Jennifer Lund Jorgens

Length: 4 hrs and 9 mins

Publisher's Summary

The very things we do to control anxiety can make anxiety worse. This unique guide offers a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based approach to help you recognize the constant chatter of your anxious "monkey mind", stop feeding anxious thoughts, and find the personal peace you crave.

Ancient sages compared the human mind to a monkey: constantly chattering, hopping from branch to branch - endlessly moving from fear to safety. If you are one of the millions of people whose life is affected by anxiety, you are familiar with this process. Unfortunately, you can't switch off the "monkey mind", but you can stop feeding the monkey - or stop rewarding it by avoiding the things you fear.

Written by psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon, this book shows you how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over using proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness techniques. By following the exercises in this book, you'll learn to identify your own anxious thoughts, question those thoughts, and uncover the core fears at play.

Once you stop feeding the monkey, there are no limits to how expansive your life can feel. This book will show you how anxiety can only continue as long as you try to avoid it. And, paradoxically, only by seeking out and confronting the things that make you anxious can you reverse the cycle that keeps your fears alive.

©2017 Jennifer Shannon (P)2017 Jennifer Shannon

Great info that can be put to practice immediately

Excellent book! easy to follow along. the info makes sense. I'm using the tools to help me with my anxiety driving. I already have a new perspective and I realize that I was valuing "safety" over independence and growth. I'm ready to use these tools and conquer the anxiety and embrace the unexpected twist and turns while driving and through life!

8 people found this helpful

LIFE CHANGER!

This book really breaks down and simplified our relationship with anxiety disorders. As someone who has lived with health anxiety for 15 years, I’ve tried too hard to reason with my monkey to no avail. Never once thought that trying to reason with said monkey was like talking to a wall. The monkey just doesn’t understand. Thank you for changing my life, I now feel like I can take on the world one day at a time. I’d recommend people with generalized anxiety to first read DARE by Barry McDonagh then read this book to make a strong connection with how Dr. Shannon writes. Both books compliment each other perfectly and Dr Shannon’s book is the necessary finally to drive the point home. 5 star all the way! Thank you Dr. Shannon, you really have changed my life. Cheers!

15 people found this helpful

Helpful!

Excellent book...I highly recommend! Don’t just accept your negative emotions ( fear, anger, panic, unpleasant sensations) welcome them and really experience them. They’ll begin to diminish over time. Begin practicing this technique with situations that are less likely to evoke a full-blown reaction. Excellent examples in the book. This is helping me deal with my anxiety about traveling for work by myself and navigating cities by myself.

6 people found this helpful

Excellent

This book is fantastic and the audible version is great (beautiful voice) with a lot of great advises.
BTW, A very bad book called "Fu..k Anxiety" stole the content of this great book and destroyed it by adding 1000s a bad words.

4 people found this helpful

Thank you

This is the only book I’ve ever understood about anxiety. This book has got me out driving outside of my comfort zone and out of the house in bed. I am so thankful to the writer of this book. I will re read it when needed to stop the “monkey chatter” 🐒😂 as silly as it sounds it’s sooo true

4 people found this helpful

I'd give it 58 starts if I could

This book is brilliant. I wish I could have read it years ago. Instead of fighting negative thoughts, learn to deal with them. Love the "thank you" response to the monkey and setting aside time to worry. Mental illness is nasty and in today's society only seems to get worse. This book gives you tools to help. Bravo!

9 people found this helpful

Great Book! Very helpful.

Great book and very helpful! Recommend to all who want to improve there lives. I will re-listen to it multiple times.

3 people found this helpful

Best approach on anxiety!

This is the best approach on anxiety I have ever read about. The narrators voice is very soothing. Also, the exercise sheets will turn out to be very effective.

2 people found this helpful

The Real Deal is right!

More impressive than the strategies are the analogies and anecdotes that explain the mechanisms behind anxiety. This is exactly what I needed and I plan on listening several more times as I begin to make friends with my monkey.

2 people found this helpful

USABLE TOOL FOR ANXIETY <br />

Compliments dare response by Bary Macdonah
Consise and too the point.
Must read for anxious guys out there

2 people found this helpful

Very fun and interesting concepts

I really enjoyed this book and will be get back to it again and again. Interesting and new strategies about controling and calm your thoughts. At the beginning it looked strange and fun because I doubted it works, but some of them really works although an other ones turned out to be a bit strange for me. Great book and very different from common knowledge repeated in teh other books about the topic.

The only bad thing about it is that the narrating is too fast! I doubt the narrator herself even understand what is she reading! this really interfere with the great concepts of this book.

Didn't realise I needed this.

My daughter is struggling with acute anxiety so I was looking for a decent book explaining what might be happening. As I started listening I realised that I probably needed to address my own issues. This book helped me understand that we all live with anxiety and it can be addressed. The techniques are simple and doable. My daughter has not used it yet, but it has helped me to explain why the uncomfortable sensations she is experiencing are part of a natural process to her fears.

Practical useable methods... great tool.

This book was packed with tools and easy to follow exercises. Really easy to digest and well delivered. Even has links to work sheet downloads etc. One I'll revisit for sure :)