How to Notice

Book excerpt: Slow down, notice more in small moments with small things. In How to Notice, Melissa A. Butler draws on over two decades of experience as an educator, leader, speaker, and facilitator of noticing-based practices to share a refreshing guide for expanded awareness, delight, and well-being. As whimsical as it is serious, How to Notice takes you on a slow and surprising journey that starts small (find an object, look closely, wonder about it), and steadily grows as you notice things you didn't quite expect and discover new layers of awareness deep inside yourself. Organized as a series of twenty small moments for practice over time, readers are invited to notice at their own pace and slowly integrate this into their daily lives. There's plenty of space to rest and reflect along the way, and the book includes supplemental material for extension and application. Reading How to Notice is an embodiment of play, with each moment of practice inviting readers to try something new, shift their perspective, wonder with whimsy, and find surprise in the smallest of things. How to Notice is an exploration of overlaps: small-big, whimsy-serious, poetic-practical, simple-deep, you-me, nothing-everything. The book is gentle in its balance of guided direction and open-ended play. The tone is accessible as it infuses light, easy, meandering energy into the ideas it shares. The text speaks into being the playful whimsy of its practices in ways that are subtle and surprising. Readers may bring any of their other practices with them (mindfulness, yoga, prayer, walking, meditation, relaxation, appreciation) and no prior experiences, practices, or understandings are required. No matter what you already know or already practice, this book offers a unique approach that will inspire you to explore and reimagine various practices in your life. How to Notice is a book for right now. This is a decade for play and reinvention, for serious work done lightly, for deep connection to the roots of ourselves and each other, for new ways of understanding energy and matter, for liberation of being, for transforming everything from a place of deep and radical alignment with the wholeness of who we are. Because How to Notice is a small book written in small moments to practice over time, it is a good gift book for friends, family, and clients. The book itself feels like a small object-a friend to hold and keep close. It's a gentle offering, a supportive nudge to help people find more lightness of being in their daily lives. This is a book for conversations and collaborative practice. Perfect for a book club, creative class, mindfulness community, or other small group looking for fresh methods and ideas to support ongoing practice towards deeper collective well-being. Ideal for well-being practitioners, therapists and coaches, educators, creatives, collectors and curators, caregivers, leaders. "An invitation to slowness." "A mental and spiritual retreat." "Joyful practice of observation." "Beautifully written and innocently approachable." "If you want to know yourself better and enjoy life more - grab and read this book..."