HOW TO BE A GOOD DOG: Meditation for skeptics, dog lovers, and people who can't sit still.
Author Bio
Phyllis Coletta is a local author who raised three boys in Ocean City, as a single mom, driving her straight to a crossroads in her early 40s where “it was either booze or Buddhism.” She found traditional meditation teaching semi-annoying and not a good fit for an unholy, loud girl from Philly. After a brain bleed in November of 2023 forced her to sit still for months, she decided to write a book about meditation for people who can’t stand books about meditation.
Phyllis has been a litigation attorney, high school teacher, EMT, writer, cowgirl, and Zen Buddhist chaplain. She lives in Somers Point (currently dogless in her empty nest), acting just like her beloved labs: following her nose and napping in the sun.
Book Blurb
The human mind is like an untrained puppy - running amok, shredding everything in sight, causing chaos - exhausting and destructive. Some days it never stops: judgment, criticism, commentary, worry, and fear. You name it, the mind will bring it right to you, like a chewed-up shoe.
Meditation fosters peace of mind, but it’s shrouded in mystery - mantras, mudras, Sanskrit, and the kind of “woo woo” that doesn’t really speak to a 34-year-old mom with a belly roll and bills. How can we learn to sit in silence so our natural wisdom arises? Turns out it’s not rocket science, but canine science.
HOW TO BE A GOOD DOG, Learning to Sit, Stay, and Heal, uses the tenets of dog training as a relatable, effective way of learning to train our minds. We teach puppies with love, patience, and focus, and we can do the same with our feral thoughts, bringing peace and transforming the wild mind from enemy to ally.
The book is a hilarious romp through the park, with the author shamelessly sharing stories from her seriously unenlightened life and her journey from frantic Chihuahua to old black lab.
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