What's in the book?
The first page begins with Charlie, the main character, sitting in what appears to be a peaceful area with a tree, a bush, a flower, the sun and a cloud.
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The next page reveals that she is in a busy park near a street with lots of activity going on. While she is doing her best to sit peacefully, focusing on her breath, dogs are barking, cats are meowing, cars are honking, etc... Her frustration mounts into full blown anger and just as she's about to call it quits and give up on meditation, a wise bee flies in to see what she's up to. The bee discovers Charlie is quite upset and asks Charlie why she is making herself so angry.
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This is a key pivotal part of the book where Charlie begins to realize that making herself angry is optional. The bee then shows her each "distraction" one at a time and Charlie sees how joyful each thing really is. She learns that these aren't horrible things happening in spite of her good intentions, they are just things that are happening while she is sitting there meditating. She learns how to accept everything that is happening and to just bee!
Why this book? What's this all about?
Just like most kids out there, when I was young I had little to no skills in navigating through the extremely challenging social and emotional situations I was faced with. For example, when I was in high school most of my closest friends were having sex, using drugs/alcohol (partying) and then two of my closest friends passed away in a tragic car accident. The tremendous fear of rejection and being alone combined with heartbreak and depression paved the way for me to escape it all. So I partied... hard! In just a few short years I was sitting in jail facing felony charges. I was graced with a second chance, all felony charges were dropped and I began my life of recovery. It's now been over 17 years since I last had a drink or used drugs. Looking back over the years, I wondered what brought me to that point? Why did I fall into the drug addiction trap? I can tell you now, from my current perspective, one of the biggest reasons was my incapability of handling the heavy emotions I was facing at the time.
Even well into my 5th year of recovery I was still struggling emotionally and it still seemed like something was missing. Then my sponsor introduced me to the practice of mindfulness. This was the game changer! All my life I was a victim of my own thoughts and emotions. Finally, relief! Before knowing how to meditate, my head was constantly chattering away with unnecessary thinking which led to a tremendous amount of emotional pain and suffering. Today I know how to cope better and I really wish someone would have taught me how to meditate when I was younger. If so, I could have known how to show up to embrace my emotions or to know how to calm my thoughts down without drugs and alcohol to try to escape them. I can't go back and change my life, but I know that I can help other people avoid the trap I fell into by equipping them with one of the most powerful tools I've ever experienced: The practice of mindfulness.
That is exactly what Just Bee aims to do. In this very short and simple children's book, kids are introduced to the practice of mindfulness. They learn some basic vocabulary like "relax" and "meditate" but also learn about one of the biggest misconceptions about practicing mindfulness: That it's not all about clearing the mind of all thoughts and having nothing happening around you... It's about learning how to be at peace even with all sorts of "distractions" occurring. Simultaneously, as the pages turn, the reader is invited to "breathe in" and focus on one "distraction" and then look at the next page and "breathe out" while focusing on another. This essentially guides whoever is reading into the practice of mindfulness even if they aren't aware of it!
Why fund this particular book?
- First of all, funding the book means it gets published and helps kids learn about meditation
- Secondly, the publishing of this book means the simultaneous creation of Zen Activist Press which aims to create even more children's books about mindfulness.
- Thirdly, 5% of profits will be donated to charities chosen by the official Save the Bees Campaign
- Lastly, if this book is successful enough, it will help more mindfulness based projects become possible such as The Mindfulness Centers which aims to bring mindfulness into the workplace.
Therefore, in addition to helping protect the bees, mindfulness will be taught to kids, their parents and even to adults in the workplace too! So this isn't just about launching and publishing a book, it's about funding the start of many mindfulness based projects to come!
Wait, remind me why teaching mindfulness is so important.
Well, we all do our best to have a healthy balance with unhealed trauma and the experience of heavy emotions like fear, stress, anger or sadness. Often times we try to run away from or cover up these things by eating, drinking, using drugs, watching TV, gambling and much more because we view these feelings and memories as simply too uncomfortable to experience in the present moment. Mindfulness allows us the peace and concentration that's necessary to be present with these things as they arise, care for them like crying babies and to look deeply into what brought them forward. As we see deeper, we learn how we are contributing to our own suffering and how to steer into a healthier path. As we do this, we are no longer paralyzed and we become free to experience our heart's true potential. This creates healing one person at a time and leads to having a more emotionally intelligent species capable of acting out of love instead of fear.
Rewards
At first I was opposed to having rewards because it just didn't seem to make sense. Why inflate the monetary goal just to provide some garb? I liked the answer, because it's a way to express gratitude. So instead of bare-bonesing it and skimping on rewards, I took the time to design some pretty thank-you's (video chats, mugs, water bottles and signed copies of the book). Here are some pictures of some of the options:
