Keynote with Mark Williams

Deeper Mindfulness: finding new gateways into practice by exploring feeling tone

Mindfulness is used by millions of people across the world, and has been proven effective at treating anxiety, pain and depression and enhancing well-being even in the midst of the chaos of daily life. Mindfulness-based approaches help people to become more aware of changes taking place in their bodies and minds, and to learn how to let go of habitual patterns that make people react to stress through avoidance or overthinking. We are often asked, by participants who have completed an 8-week course: “Is there anything more I can do to deepen and sustain my practice?” In this talk Professor Williams will describe how an aspect of mindfulness called "feeling tone" (vedanā) offers just such a way forward.

Feeling tone is present in eight-week courses such as MBSR and MBCT but it is mostly in the background: None of the meditation practices we learn in those eight weeks focuses directly on it. It is important because unawareness of it can be a tipping point that starts a chain of unwanted emotions and impulses.

Recent developments in psychological science have also awakened interest in such affective tone: Every waking moment, our understanding of the world is dominated by imagining how we can take action within it. These perceptions and plans are coloured by a moment-by-moment ‘read-out’ of how much any sensation, thought, impulse or emotion feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. Based on this ‘read out’, the body allocates its resources as it gears up for real or imagined action. This can prepare us well for action, but it can also put us at risk of becoming exhausted without our realising it.

The Feeling Tone program described in Deeper Mindfulness helps people to become aware of these vedanā tipping points and to let go of over-busyness to find more emotional balance.

Investment: $29 members - $39 non members