Shalini Bahl
MINDFULNESS COACH, AN AWARD-WINNING RESEARCHER, KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Shalini Bahl, Ph.D., is a mindfulness coach, an award-winning researcher, keynote speaker, and Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Search Inside Yourself teacher. Based on 15 years of research. and a cross-disciplinary approach, Dr. Bahl provides customized solutions to business, education and political clients for building essential mindfulness skills to disrupt default thinking and cope with stress, become more resilient to life’s obstacles, and live with empowered choice for personal and collective fulfillment.
Certified at the Center for Mindfulness, UMass Medical School and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute originating at Google, Dr. Bahl is the Founder of Know Your Mind LLC, a social business with the mission of making evidence-based mindfulness skills widely accessible. Dr. Bahl’s understanding of neuroscience, psychology, and management gives her a deeper understanding of client’s habits and decisions to meet them where they are.
A former successful entrepreneur and business professor, Dr. Bahl’s cultural experiences of living and working in three countries—India, Kuwait, and the USA—allow her to engage with diverse audiences including CEOs and executives at Fortune 500 companies, educators, and students. As an Affiliated Expert at the Isenberg School of Management, UMass, Amherst, Dr. Bahl provides her mindfulness teachings via accredited leadership programs to executive MBAs, faculty, and staff.
Dr. Bahl is a TEDx speaker and a Town Councilor in Amherst. Her research has been published in premier marketing and public policy journals, and won the ‘Best Research Paper’ Award from The American Marketing Association in 2019. Her guided meditations and programs have had over 250,000 plays on the Insight Timer and Simple Habit app and her upcoming book is called Return: 8 Mindful Habits to Return to Yourself for A Clearer, Bolder Life.
EIGHT SKILLS TO LIVE, LOVE, AND LEAD FROM A PLACE OF CLARITY AND CONNECTION
SINGLE DECK
Life is messy. And it’s beautiful. The Return deck offers a mindful lens for everyday life, to find beauty even in the messiness. You can draw cards to gain clarity about what’s happening and what’s important in the middle of a challenging day. You can also practice with the cards when life is good—to deepen your connection with all of life in that moment and make meaningful choices that benefit you, your loved ones, and the world.
Like a mindful friend, these cards are designed to be there for you when you need them.
Practice and play with the mindfulness cards to:
These cards are a work of love combining many hours of meditation, contemplative discussions, research, and a human centered approach to address the question:
What would help meditators integrate mindfulness into their everyday life?
The answers, we discovered, are relevant to everyone—whether you’ve been meditating for years or you’re not interested in meditation. Here’s the thing. Our minds enable us to see clearly, connect deeply, and find creative solutions. The same mind can also cloud our thinking, create divisiveness, and cause harm to ourselves and others.
While we may not have control over our circumstances, we can systematically and playfully strengthen habits of the mind that enable us to return to our innate capacity to know, feel, love, and connect with what’s important while staying open to possibilities.
More specifically, there are eight habits of the mind that empower us to be mindful in the real world:
1. Awareness
2. Compassion
3. Curiosity
4. Energy
5. Appreciative Joy
6. Inner Calm
7. Focus
8. Equanimity
Yup, based on the original mindfulness teachings and modern science, we can strengthen these eight habits that disrupt our default tendencies to rush and react and be mindful. This deck was designed to help you do that!
ABOUT THE CREATORS
Each card in this deck has been lovingly created by Dr. Shalini Bahl and Max Alaghband to meet you wherever you are on your journey.
Dr. Bahl brings her lifelong commitment to mindfulness backed by her trainings, award-winning research, and experience of teaching thousands of people around the world.
Max Alaghband brings his training and expertise in yoga and human-centered design, which informed the development, testing, and trying of this product.
Most importantly, we brought our full selves to the project and hope that everyone benefits from these cards as much as we did in the process of creation and continue to do so as a part of our daily practice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We'd like to acknowledge the mindful energy and creative contributions of the following team members.
Dr. Ankrish Milne ~ Creative OG Team Member
Laureen Andalib ~ Our talented designer for the cards
Jason Garvale ~ Mindful designer of the icons
HOW TO USE THE RETURN DECK
There are many ways to engage with this deck on your own, with a partner, or with a group:
Go through the entire deck, picking one card each day and using it as a reminder to practice and play throughout your day, and/or
Pick a card from a mindful habit you feel you need most in that moment and let it guide you to return to your place of inner knowing, and/or
Pick a random card and trust that that's the mindful habit you most need in that moment to see clearly and act intentionally
If you like, take the free mindfulness assessment to reflect on which mindful habits need your loving attention and which habits you're already strong in: https://knowyourmind.training/take-the-mindfulness-quiz/
Card Deck Genres:
MINDFULNESS , PURPOSE & PRIORITY , PEOPLE OF COLOR , DIGITAL DETOX TOOLKITS , DAILY PRACTICE , JOURNAL PROMPT , DAILY/ WEEKLY CHALLENGES , BOOKS AS DECKS. A UNIQUE TYPE OF , YOGA AND FACE YOGA