Find a Quiet Corner: A Simple Guide to Self-Peace

By Nancy O'Hara

Breathe • Think • Meditate • Renew • Unwind • Relax • Feel at One With the Universe

Rushing through the day drains your precious energy, increases your stress, and makes you feel depleted instead of renewed. FIND A QUIET CORNER will help you change that. It is a caring companion that goes beyond daily meditations to teach you how to unwind, experience a new infusion of energy, and get in touch with the reservoir of strength and calmness hidden within all of us.

In just a few minutes, you can discover how to tap into these resources. You'll be able to enter your own private sanctum any time…in the morning when you wake up…during lunch…at night…even right now. The investment in time is small, but the rewards are strength and inner peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nancy O'Hara
• Release date: Apr 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9780984893829

Nancy O'Hara

Nancy O'Hara is an author, artist and meditation teacher. She is the author of six books on the subject of mindfulness and meditation, including the bestselling Find a Quiet Corner, and two novels in the Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery series. She lives in upstate New York with her perfectly imperfect husband, trees outside her windows and a view of the Catskill Mountains.

Book preview

PRAISE for FIND A QUIET CORNER and SERENITY IN MOTION:

"To pause, to breathe, to sense, to be – these gaps in the busy-ness are what give meaning to activity. Find A Quiet Corner is a precious guide and reminder to live from the spaciousness of our inner beings – to live in the joy and peace that are our birth right."

—Joan Borysenko, Ph.D., author of Guilt Is the Teacher, Love Is the Lesson

"Find A Quiet Corner is a wise and inspirational book, a beautiful introduction to the art of meditation. The book offers a helping hand along the path towards inner peace and happiness. We will all ultimately walk this path. Why not begin now?"

—Brian L. Weiss, M.D., P.A., author of Many Lives, Many Masters

O’Hara helps us find the quiet place inside us where inner peace abounds. In our harried lives, it’s comforting to remember the quiet place can be revisited.

—Michele Weiner-Davis, M.S.W., author of Fire Your Shrink and Divorce Busting

With simple, inspiring advice, Nancy O’Hara shows us how to bring awareness to the thousand and one challenges of daily life.

—Robert Gerzon, author of Finding Serenity in the Age of Anxiety

I can't think of a better guide than Nancy O’Hara to help slow our accelerated world and restore balance. Her elegance as a writer is matched by her elegance as a thinker. This is a wise book.

—Betsy Lerner, author of Food and Loathing: A Life Measured Out in Calories

"There is breathtaking wisdom and strength to be found in a single moment of silence—and Nancy O’Hara offers a kind invitation to listen. Find a Quiet Corner is a gentle opening; it beckons us into fruitful practice. Here, we harvest the compelling grace that is born only in the quiet of our lives."

—Wayne Muller, minister and therapist, author of Thursday’s Child: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood

PRAISE for JUST LISTEN:

This book is a searchlight illuminating the wisdom and power of inner life. It will help anyone discover serenity and peace.

—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Prayer Is Good Medicine and Healing Words

"Further guidance for reducing daily anxieties and heeding inner wisdom from the author of Find a Quiet Corner."

—New Age Journal

This is a clear, beautiful book that can help everyone. O’Hara’s writing is fine, compassionate, and always has a ring of truth.

—Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones

Combining Zen practice with a twelve-step philosophy, O’Hara uses gentle essays and exercises to create a book to do rather than to just read.

—Publishers Weekly

"Men and women alike will find much wisdom and quiet strength in these pages. Just Listen is an eloquent guide to the inner peace we all desire."

—John Gray, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

O’Hara’s practical guide to just listening places a gentle woman’s hand on the daily practice of meditation.

—Perle Besserman, author of Owning It: Zen and the Art of Facing Life

"Breathe deeply, relax your body, empty your mind, and read Nancy O’Hara’s Just Listen. She gently guides you on the path to experiencing greater serenity and discovering the passionate life you were born to live."

—Robert Gerzon, author of Finding Serenity in the Age of Anxiety

PRAISE for WORK FROM THE INSIDE OUT

"Nancy O’Hara’s Work From the Inside Out is a subtle and intimate blend of traditional Zen Buddhist practice and practical wisdom. Clearly emerging from her own experience as both an employee and student of meditation, the exercises she outlines in the book are accessible yet deeply grounded in a spiritual tradition that goes back over twenty-five hundred years. O’Hara’s remarkable gift lies in presenting this venerable discipline in an accessible and thoroughly contemporary voice."

—Perle Besserman, author of Owning It: Zen and the Art of Facing Life

"Unhappiness at work takes a serious toll on our mental and physical health and is a major risk factor for illness. If we want to live life at its fullest, we cannot afford to separate our work from our spiritual life. Work from the Inside Out shows how to weave these two aspects of our life into a seamless whole."

—Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Beyond the Body, Reinventing Medicine & Healing Words

"Don’t be fooled by Nancy O’Hara’s simple and elegant advice. Work from the Inside Out explains why we sometimes make ourselves miserable at work—and what we can do to change that."

—Joanne B. Ciulla, author of The Working Life

Find a Quiet Corner

A Simple Guide to Self-Peace

Nancy O’Hara

Copyright

Copyright © 2012 by Nancy O’Hara

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-0-9848938-2-9

Also by Nancy O’Hara

Just Listen: A Guide to Finding Your Own True Voice

Serenity in Motion: Inner Peace: Anytime, Anywhere

Zen by the Brush: A Japanese Painting and Meditation Set (illustrations by Seiko Susan Morningstar)

3 Bowls: Vegetarian Recipes from an American Zen Buddhist Monastery (with Seppo Ed Farrey)

Work from the Inside Out: 7 Steps to Loving What You Do

One Hand Killing (An Alex Sullivan Zen Mystery)

To Dad and Donge

for bringing my attention to my breath as they lost theirs

Contents

Praise

Introduction

Why a Quiet Corner?

What Is a Quiet Corner?

Breathing

Caring about and for Yourself

Become the Person You Already Are

Get to Know Yourself Again

Trust in the Process

Finding Your Quiet Corner

Be Creative

Morning

Schedule a Meeting with Yourself

Physical Spaces

Avoidance

Lunch Break

Environment

Find the Time

Solitude

The End of the Day

It’s Your Life

If You Think You Already Spend Too Much Time Alone

Procrastination

Spending/Saving Time

Quintessential Time

More about Breathing

Facing Your Quiet Corner

Resistance

Energy

The Paradox—So Easy, Yet So Hard

Who’s Looking?

Acceptance

Projection

Faith

Let Your Breathing Guide You

Quiet-Corner Walking

Is This Meditation?

Light a Candle

Burn Some Incense

Entertain Yourself

Consult the Child in You

Read Quietly Aloud to Yourself

Practice, Practice, Practice

Make It a Habit

Cultivate Your Own Distinct Style

Ritual

Reviews for Find a Quiet Corner

[VickyNonas · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Love this book - easy to understand and inspiring. Thank you Nancy O'Hara ?