The Power of Stillness: Mindful Living for Latter-day Saints
By Jacob Z. Hess, Carrie L. Skarda, Kyle D. Anderson, Ty R. Mansfield
The co-authors of a forthcoming book on mindful living for Latter-day Saints have each felt separate nudges to consider a text to explore the mindfulness/Mormonism interface for some time. Although they’ve relished many popular treatments of the topic, including those exploring applications toward a more contemplative Christianity, they’ve also found their texts to be variously foreign to many Latter-day Saint ears. They’ve long desired an exploration that would feel more accessible to our own Latter-day Saint community, communicating insights from contemplative/mindful practice in a way that enhances faith in, and experience with, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
A central aim of the book is to advocate and help foster a meditative space where LDS doctrine and language are embraced as the foundation of contemplative practice—and where teachings from Joseph Smith, David O. McKay, and Gordon B. Hinckley can help illuminate words from Jon Kabat-Zinn, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Thomas Keating. Indeed, one of our central theses is that mindfulness already permeates the Latter-day Saint experience, even if we’re not always aware of it!
There are many ways the skill of mindfulness might bolster and enhance Latter-day Saint spiritual practices. For example, mindfulness cultivates silence, which allows a richer communion in prayer with God. It helps interrupt knee-jerk reactions to misunderstandings in our church and family relationships. It cultivates slowing the mind down enough to rest on a scriptural text, allowing greater relishing of God’s word and better recognition of personal revelation. Practicing mindfulness also has led us to better experience the power of the Sabbath as a retreat, and the temple as a sanctuary escape from the “doing mode of mind.”
JACOB HESS, PhD, is a qualified MBSR Instructor through the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and he has taught both adult and teen classes for years. Jacob is one of the creators of online mindfulness-based classes for those facing serious mental/emotional distress, depression, anxiety, and compulsive pornography use. He is on the board of the National Coalition of Dialogue & Deliberation and has studied mindful listening across socio-political disagreements for a decade. Jacob lives in Paradise, Utah, with his wife, Monique, nine chickens, three cats, and four boys who make sure their daddy’s own stillness gets interrupted every five minutes or so.
CARRIE SKARDA, PsyD, is a psychologist in private practice in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has provided individual and couples therapy, with particular interest in attachment trauma and mindfulness, for the last eighteen years. She was the director for training at the Antioch facility of Kaiser Permanente HMO in California, and has facilitated numerous therapy groups on such topics as depression, personality disorders, work stress, crisis management, and parenting. As a facilitator at Sixteen Stones Center for Growth, LLC, she has taught workshops on mindfulness, mindful eating, and forgiveness. Carrie has been studying and practicing mindfulness and formal meditation for over ten years. She is a bit obsessed with Jerusalem, is joyfully married with two young children, and enjoys serving as Primary president in her ward and remodeling her 1904 house.
KYLE DAVID ANDERSON, PhD, is the Director of the Center of Global Citizenship at Centre College, a small liberal arts college outside of Lexington, Kentucky. Kyle helped to found the college’s Meditation Centre group and hosts contemplative pedagogy workshops for university instructors across the southern U.S. He regularly integrates mindfulness practices into his higher education classrooms and Church callings. Kyle is a world traveler, educator, traveler, and writer. He lives in Danville, Kentucky, with his wife, Jenny, and three daughters who love their nighttime ritual of song and gratitude meditation.
TY MANSFIELD, PhD, is a practicing marriage and family therapist and an adjunct instructor in Religious Education at Brigham Young University. Ty completed his undergraduate work in Asian Studies and has been actively practicing mindfulness for over ten years, and he is currently in the process of certification with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach in their Mindfulness Meditation Teacher training program. Ty has also been actively cultivating space for more mindful listening in the area of conflicting views on sexuality and gender for the last decade through his work at North Star International and the Reconciliation and Growth Project. Ty and his wife, Danielle, and their five children live in Spanish Fork, Utah.