Awareness Games: Playing with Your Mind to Create Joy

I envy the bookseller charged with categorizing this dazzling, completely original book. It deserves a spot in philosophy, self-help, psychology, religion, and any genre devoted to enriching self-knowledge while at the same time imagining how we might live more joyfully. In playful, lucid prose, this book animates a new approach to experience -- based in play, rather than analysis -- that enables the reader to cultivate new habits of mind. Plus, the games are fun to play. They're simple, and often ingenious.Here, for example, is "Mood Children":"Imagine that all your moods are children that you love equally. Doesn't the bad mood have just as much right to be here as the good mood? Welcome it with open, loving arms, don't banish it, spank it, or send it to bed without supper."Great books occupy a genre of one. Awareness Games is among them.

This book is a gem and I mean this is the sense of it as a unique, multi-faceted delight to the senses and imagination. For me, it’s a must-read, must-try for anyone who’s feeling rigid or stuck or way-too-serious in their meditation practice to learn how to lighten up and get playful, and for anyone in any creative realm to spark their imagination and dwell in the infinite richness of their own mind. Partly zen koans, partly theater games, partly creativity prompts, these exercises are meant not to be read but to be undertaken with an attitude of curiosity and fun. The “mind” games offered in this book allow the reader/practitioner to experience the world in a new light. It’s a slim volume but full of great paradox and wisdom. Just as we never step into the same river twice, so each awareness game is never the same, no matter how many times you give it a try. So give it a try.

I love this book. It's playful but profoundly effective. Brian O'Connor has a lovely way with words and is so humble and non-judgmental in writing about awareness - he opens it up and makes the subject easily accessible and fun. I immediately thought of three people who would appreciate this book, and got them copies. It's great for anyone interested in exploring who they are, whether they are just starting out or are long time spiritual aspirants.Plus I love that I can read it and play the awareness games on the subway!Thanks, Brian O'Connor for writing this!

Insightful and Mind Blowing! I bought this book for my homeschooled teenage son as a novel way to use his critical thinking skills. I couldn't helped but be sucked in by the accessible activities that intrigued us both! It's a lot of fun, but also deep- there's no right or wrong, just other. It made us ruminate and ponder in a way that we hadn't before. "Awareness Games" ended up being a favorite part of our day- highly recommend!

My favorite awareness game in the book is the first awareness game. I seem to have been playing these kinds of games for many many years. It's a fun exploration of awareness and consciousness. I imagine someone with less awareness of these topics may have even more profound shifts. Overall an enjoyable experience and a quick read

A wonderful little book full of reminders, tips, tricks, hints and of course games.. Very light on direct advice (that's good!) but open and honest on many fronts (that's even better).As the friendly and easy to read author writes at the end, read this book and play the games it offers not to improve yourself, but to enjoy the Self (my own capitalization ;-)

Here is a tool to toy with your psyche, to tickle your fancy (if "mindjoy" is your fancy).This tome wasn't built in a day; it is really a very big little book. By big I mean important, and by important I mean, important to you, for this book takes the reader on a different view, an inward journey, based on a true story; and by little I mean nothing of the sort, as the nearly 100 'games' within can equal nearly 100 mountains to climb. Or not. It's up to you. But I bet you can't read just one. Although one a day is probably a recommended dosage. Recommended for writers, mimes, singers, Walden Pond stone-skippers, hand-models and all who consider living an art form, as delving into the delight of your essential being is a universal necessity to be appreciated. And really, if you don't understand yourself, well, then, you know nothing."Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships," Michael Jordan said, having never read Brian Tom O’Connor’s book, which I hope will one day become a board game, calendar, or major motion picture. I'm a sucker for any work where the raison d'être is my joy.If Socrates thought the unexamined life was not worth living, then surely he'd advise us to buy Awareness Games (pick me up, before you ergo; so add it to your Amazon Shopping Descartes and say, "I Play, therefore I'm Aware.") In a continually tumultuous world, I will be buying additional copies of Awareness Games to feed the souls of the phenomena I call my children (at least the intelligent ones).Note: I bought the paperback (I like a hard copy in hand), and then was offered a discount on the Kindle edition which I bought as well (so I can pick a game through my phone's reader).

AWARENESS GAMES is easy to follow, fun to do, and deceptively simple. It provides simple, portable meditations - cognitive deep breaths - you can put to use anywhere, anytime, without anyone noticing. The games are invisible mini-vacations from the pressures of daily living. The more I play them the better I feel. The effect is cumulative. This book is a gift.