278. The Science of Feeling Tones: How they Shape our Thoughts and Actions - Mark Williams and Dr. Danny Penman

Kara Goodwin: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Meditation Conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin, and today I'm so excited to have Mark Williams and Dr. Danny Penman. Mark and Dr. Penman are authors of mindfulness Finding Peace in a Frantic World, and the upcoming book, deeper Mindfulness. Mark is a professor of clinical psychology at Oxford University. He co-developed mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Danny is a meditation teacher, writer and journalist, and in 2014, he jointly won the British Medical Association's best book Award for mindfulness for health.

A practical guide to relieving pain, reducing stress, and restoring wellbeing, which is you [00:01:00] are not your pain in the us. 

 I'm excited for you to hear this episode with mark and Danny. I always find it fascinating to learn about the research that helps us to understand how we work as living organisms. And I couldn't wait to find out more from mark and Danny about these feeling tones that they've been investigating, their insights can help you get a deeper understanding about how you experienced life. 

And these insights can help you to have more intentionality about. How you live and how you respond when you get hit with the unexpected things that pop into anyone's life. So be sure to check out their new book, deeper mindfulness, which has a lot of practical exercises to really get the most out of what they've discovered. 

And quickly before we get started a word about Komuso take control of your stress with this necklace that is not only beautiful But powerful. It works within seconds has zero maintenance. [00:02:00] And it helps you to increase your focus, lower your heart rate, sleep better. And reduce your anxiety. It's such a great product. Check out episode two 40, where I talked to the founder, Todd Steinberg, that episode is packed with useful insights about how to calm your body and mind. Use promo code Karagoodwin15 and get 15% off and check out all of the partners of the meditation conversation podcast which you can get to through themeditationconversation.com. and now enjoy this episode

Kara Goodwin: So welcome, mark and Danny, what a joy to be with you today. Thanks for being here. Oh, 

Dr. Danny Penman: thank you for having us. Yeah, likewise. it's always good to talk about these things.

Kara Goodwin: Yes, absolutely. And I'm really excited about your new book, which talks about. Feeling tones or VNAs. Am I saying that correctly? V Donnas? Yeah. So tell [00:03:00] us about this. Tell us about these feeling tones Right 

Dr. Danny Penman: in the moment that the, unconscious mind crystallizes into the conscious moment, there is a very brief pause where the mind, categorizes everything.

It doesn't judge. It categorizes everything as pleasant. Unpleasant or neutral. And that is like the tipping point for all of the subsequent thoughts, feelings, and emotions that follow. And it's of profound importance because it's this tipping point and it's significance is we never notice it. You know, it's the foundation stone really of, of our entire lives.

You know, everything we think, feel and do is influenced quite profoundly. By the feeling tone, and we are completely unaware of it. All we are aware of is this cascade of thoughts, feelings, and emotions that follow. And this means that in many ways we're not in full control [00:04:00] of our lives at all. We're just pushed and pulled around by, by the feeling tone, totally unaware of it.

Mark Williams: Mm. 

Kara Goodwin: So that feeling tone is that categorization. Yes, 

Dr. Danny Penman: it's a very deep seated feeling. It's almost like a gut reaction. and it appears, and it guides everything. And then, then, well, all we are ever aware of is everything that follows. We're not aware of this moment. And,the significance is,it.

It has control over our lives, and we're just totally unaware of it now. It's very, very important because, really the way, well, would you like to ex explain it a bit more? Mark, I'm gonna pat, I'm gonna dodge the bullet and pass it over to you. 

Mark Williams: Okay. One of the things that, I mean, the vaden idea goes right back to the writings, the early writings of the Buddhist texts.

It's the second [00:05:00] foundation of mindfulness, the first one being the body, which people are very familiar with the sense of using the body as a grounding, as an anchor for your attention. And people are familiar with the mood states and the mind states that we can get involved with. That's which is a third foundation of mindfulness.

But the second foundation is this, be this feeling tone sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness. And as Danny said, it's hidden in plain sight. Actually. It doesn't take much to if you, your toe. You'll know about it and before anything else happens, you'll know it as unpleasant. And then you might curse or swear or blame somebody for leaving a toy on the floor or something like that.

That comes later. But in that very first moment, the unpleasant, so it goes back for, a long, you know, two and a half thousand years. But, what Danny was referring to there was the neuroscience, the latest neuroscience, which shows that actually this sense of affective judgment, they would call it, or affective tone.

Just the sheer sense of pleasantness. Unpleasantness is a core process to all emotion [00:06:00] and the way they describe it and the latest neuroscience, it says that basically we are living inside a simulated world. That the brain, I mean, it's very dark in the brain. There's nothing going on but squashy mess there.

And yet we perceive color and shape and form with other people and so on. And the mind is having to create this world, or the brain is having to create this world, and it does so to save energy. It does so by predicting what we're about to see or hear or smell or taste or touch. And even our interception are internal body sensations are predictive in the sense that if you're walking.

Not doing mindful walking. If you're just walking on the street, you imagine that you can feel your feet on the ground, but that's a simulation, you know, the brain knows how it feels to walk and you know, so you feel like you are walking, but actually the brain is creating like a, you know, like a streaming video.

It's creating. Moment to moment what you think [00:07:00] and when things go wrong, that's when it takes notice and, you know, and an error is created and it looks around. it, you come to your senses at that moment now because you are simulating through mental models all the time. Your world.

One of the critical things is what are the elements of that simulation? It turns out this affective, this VA as they called it two and a half thousand years ago now, effective judgment or effective tone, this just sheer sense of pleasantly unpleasant is one of the elements of that, one of the critical elements that gives color to all the creation of the stories we tell about ourselves or the fabrications we make, the sense of the series of mental models that we use that builds up this simulation of the world.

And that's why it's so important. It's important in the history of this field, but it's important in the newest, the recent newest science of this field as well. So 

Kara Goodwin: that, thank you for explaining that. And [00:08:00] I'm really curious about how this research. Has zeroed in on this kind of like, is it precognitive?

Like it's right before we actually have time to form our opinion about things. It's, and like, oh, sorry. Please. Yeah. 

Dr. Danny Penman: It is actually just at the moment,the mind crystallizes really. so it's, if you could imagine there is this huge amount of, processing going on in the brain, and then a small amount of it just tips over into consciousness.

And that's, you know, if something is significant or important in some way, then it appears in the mind, but just as it does. So there is this very brief. Primal reaction. Really primal, understanding categorization, and that is the Vayner. Okay? All we are ever, all we are ever aware of, unless we pay very close attention in a very special way, all we are ever aware of is this cascade of [00:09:00] thoughts, feelings, and emotions that follow.

Kara Goodwin: So is there some sort of marker within the brain that you were looking for, that researchers were looking for to signify that? That moment of crystallization where there's a different part of the brain that was active before the thought and the feelings kicked in or something like that. 

Mark Williams: Yeah. So what's happening is that the brain is creating these models all the time.

So the, there's something called the default mode network, which is what happens when you're at rest in a scanner, which just is just a sort of flowing, activation backwards and forwards in the middle part of the brain. And that, that, connects with these affect systems. So most of the research that's gone on, cuz this is all being done almost as we speak now, most of the research has been gone, has been interested in emotions.

So the emotion of fear and the emotion of sadness and,and it was thought that we knew exactly what the Fear Network was and what the sadden network was and what the surprise network was. There's a [00:10:00] psychologist called Lisa Feldman Barrett, who's written a wonderful book called How Emotions Are Made, that shows that actually all we knew about some of these emotional systems, wasn't quite right.

That it's not always say the amygdala, which was always thought to be the fear, the part of the fear network. And she said, look, you do experiments and you find that half the time people are afraid and you can see they're afraid and they report fear, but the amygdala isn't lighting up. Oh, really? So she's, she says, so what exactly is going on?

And, it's almost by a process of subtraction that you, she argues that there's a core process underneath all these negative states. the, and that's the sense of just the core sense of unpleasantness, whether it's sadness or regret or fear. There's this core process there. 

Kara Goodwin: and where is that happening?

Mark Williams: Well, it's probably not in a particular place in the brain, but in the configuration of the brain, in the network that, in the network. So, and it's partly due with the balance [00:11:00] between,left and right. So there's another psychological called Richie Davison in Wisconsin who's done a lot of work on meditation.

Some of it with, with monks, some of it with people who've trained or novices, which will train up over, over time. And he's looked at the balance between different, parts of the brain, the right and left. And he talks about approach versus avoidance, motivation or prevention. On promotion.

So the promotion versus, or just positive, negative. So it's very unlikely to be, oh, that we can see that's part of the brain. It's more likely to be a balance, a configuration. but one of the things is that, that, and this is the case we make, and that case that, meditation teachers have made for many years, that you can train people to become aware of these instant, these moments.

which. Very obvious in the stubborn toe example, or banging your head or hitting your thumb with a hammer when you're banging in a nail. [00:12:00] Those are obvious, but actually this ancient philosophy and indeed this neuroscience says every single moment we are aware of some slight,pleasantness or unpleasantness, whether it's taste or touch or sound.

there's a little balance, a little ripple going on, and that will determine the color of our mood in the next moment. 

Kara Goodwin: That's fascinating. So is there, I. Is there a difference in the research between like the pleasant, unpleasant, or like that categorization that Danny was talking about in the very beginning where he was saying it's either kind of good, bad, or neutral?

does it look different to the researchers? I, in terms of that initial kind of precognitive perception? 

Mark Williams: It seems to be a dimension. So, although it's easiest to think of it, and it's, the simplest thing is that just there's the pleasant unpleasantness or neutral in the middle, and that's the way we teach it.

Just notice if this sound or this sensation is pleasant or unpleasant. [00:13:00] underneath, however, it's probably a dimensional thing. it probably goes from extreme pleasantness to extreme unpleasantness with a zone of indifference in the middle. And, and typically the meditation teachers would say, if something is unpleasant, then you react to it by trying to push it away.

I don't want this, I, you are resisting it. And that's certainly people's experience. And so, for example, in the book, we show how it's possible to notice it and just label it unpleasant and then allow it to be. To have its voice as it were, without trying to resist it and getting,and bargaining with it and pushing it away.

it typically, if it's pleasant people,it's said, want more of it, you become attached to it. And that's true up to a point. But what many people report is that if pleasant things happen, people actually begin to. Feel, oh, this can't last. So you don't get your hopes up. And there's a whole scale that, have been [00:14:00] used to ask people when pleasant things happen.

When you feel happy and excited, what do you say to yourself? Many people say, oh, I say to myself, don't get your hopes up. Don't get too excited. Things won't last. It's almost as if some people get their disappointment in first and they negate any positive feelings. as Rick Hanson has observed, you know, taking in the positive, taking good things actually takes longer sometimes than taking in bad things.

So we need to cultivate the skill of being able to savor, positive moments without getting attached to them. And that's what, that's how the meditations unfold in the book. First of all, grounding, then noticing how to befriend the mind and then introducing people to feeling tone va. Through the body first and then through sounds and then thoughts and feelings.

Are they pleasant or unpleasant? And then restoring balance in the mind by allowing them saying, it's okay to like this, [00:15:00] it's okay to dislike that. And in that way to allow people to experience the positive and negative without being hijacked by them. 

Kara Goodwin: That's fascinating. and so wise, because there's, there is a lot of.

You know, spiritual wisdom in that too. There are a lot of spiritual teachings that talk about the new, you know, the coming into a state of neutrality and out of duality. And, it makes me think too culturally like, has this, I presume that the. The majority of the studies have been on Western culture because some of that is like a cultural thing of like, you know, well, let's not get too excited.

Let's, you know, let's look at this from all angles. And, you know, some cultures are. Less inclined. You know, it just, and it's for better or worse, you know, there are positives and negatives to all of that, but has it been primarily, is this more of a Western study, I [00:16:00] presume? 

Mark Williams: Yeah. The studies of what's called dampening, which is the idea of let's not get too excited.

those have been studies in the western world predominantly. Mm-hmm. But it's interesting that, when these ideas have been shared with our colleagues in, in Hong Kong and China, in New Zealand where there's, the indigenous population as well as the western population, there is a sense of recognition of just these little tendencies to, To get involved.

I mean, I was listening to a New Zealand teacher, talk, teaching about v her and feeling tone recently, and she said, we're always arguing and bargaining with pleasant unpleasantness. I thought a lovely expression arguing or bargaining. And I think that's a sort of sense in which anything that reaches, as Danny said, reaches a threshold of pleasantness or unpleasantness.

There's always, the mind wants to get involved and do something other than just allow it to pass by. And, yeah. Yeah. What do you think of the cultural thing, Danny? Well, very 

Dr. Danny Penman: much so. I [00:17:00] mean, it's not just Western. I think it may be not accepting the pleasant reaches its pinnacle in, in British culture.

I think America's a bit better at accepting good things where we're always a bit suspicious over if something good happens over here. Well, 

Kara Goodwin: it's funny because I catch myself that way and you know, I was. Sharing with Mark before we started recording that. I lived in England for, four year and I four years, and I've been married to a British man for 20 years almost.

so I'm very familiar with the culture there. yeah. And you know, it does have that overlay to it of just caution, you know? Yeah. But. I find my, I was noticing this like just a couple of months ago where I was having a bad day. I mean, I had labeled it. I had just a couple of things had gone wrong and I decided that this day is bad.

Yes. And I started looking for ways to validate. You [00:18:00] know, things around, I was like, it's like I took put on my cloud colored spectacles and I wanted to be right, and I wanted to prove to myself, you know, that yeah. This day is out to get me, or whatever it was. And I realized what I was doing. I was like, why do I want to be right about this?

You know, there's still room for good things to happen, but you know, it's, It's, we're funny creatures. Yeah, 

Mark Williams: we're totally funny creatures. One of the things that the neuroscientists are discovering is that when, while the brain is doing all this action, that the brain is never tied, it never sits there waiting for something to happen.

It's always working, just like the liver is always working and the heart's always working. So the brain's always working, and one of the questions said, well, what's it doing while this time it's making predictions. It's sorting out memories. it's creating counterfactuals of what might happen if, what might happen if.

And one of the elemental sort of aspects of what the brain's doing is it works through creating and simulating action. What action am I gonna take here and there and [00:19:00] everywhere we even see the world through possible actions. So we don't see the world just as a passive thing. We're always, as it were, on the move.

always seeing what should I do with this? And, So you could see action as a fundamental particle of the mind, as it were just like it's a fundamental particle of all stories. You know, stories, children's stories, novels go from action to action. That's what keeps the story going.

That's what keeps the mind engaged action. And one of the things that happens is as we are tossing and turning, or in a busy day or a difficult day, The mind is creating many, many actions, many of which we will never actually take. Cause it's creating the sort of the counterfactual. What if, what if, what if?

I mean, classically, of course, if we worry, but also if we're ruminating and brooding about the past, that's all the actions we think we should have taken. And the body's system is being geared up for action that it's not gonna take. So when we've introduced feeding tone during the book, there comes a point when.

[00:20:00] The meditation is focused on just saying to yourself on an out breath, no action needed right now. No action needed right now on an out breath. And it's extraordinary that just, it can really, you can almost feel the shoulders going down. and it seems to not only calm the mind, but also give.

The insight, which is, well, I didn't know how busy my mind was until that moment, but it's made this shift, so there must have been so much action going on that I didn't even know about because the mind, the brain is really good at, you know, giving us all this information and having it ready to hand.

But in order to do that, it creates all these, you know, little action loops that we're not gonna need. So it's really nice occasionally to say no action needed. Right. An hour and just, Yeah, 

Dr. Danny Penman: Medicare. Yeah, I mean, it really makes sense when you, we mentioned earlier about we live [00:21:00] inside a, I suppose, a personal stimulation.

You know, we conjure up these entire worlds for ourselves, and it is absolutely real. This is how we do make sense of the world that the mind is predicting. What is about to happen? and that makes perfect sense because most of the time the world is predictable. It allows the, it frees up an awful lot of, mental space.

You know, if the mind is predicting what is about to happen, it gives us the time and mental space to make sense of the world. And in fact, we only ever really pay attention and notice the world when something goes wrong. If we trip over suddenly, we are aware that we have tripped over. And, whereas if we hadn't tripped over our simulation of the world would've just carried on seamlessly, we would've just carried on, and not noticed the world at all.

We would still be living inside this, [00:22:00] wonderful w almost perfectly accurate simulation. The data from our sensors. it's only really used to check the accuracy of the simulation. And if it notices that the simulation isn't, almost perfectly accurate, the new data is incorporated into our simulation and we just carry on barely noticing is any, when we make a, you know, a, you know, a reasonably big mistake that we are aware 

Mark Williams: of the world.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah, and then it's interesting how. that comfort and predictability Yeah. Affects us. Because of course alar, like you say, a large percentage of the time, we know what to anticipate and that is what absolutely gets reflected back, but not always. Yeah. And so it can, and it's kind of like the more we see this repetition of like, I know what's gonna happen and then it happens and I know what's gonna happen and it happens.

And then when it doesn't work that way, I mean, I'm thinking of like my children, you know, who like. God [00:23:00] forbid that something unpredicted happens. It's like it can really throw things into, you know, it can throw a spanner in the works. Yeah, I'll put it, yeah, I'll put it in ways that British people would appreciate.

We don't say it that way, but But yeah, you can see that how, which kind of begs the question of like, is it almost a disservice that we're doing to ourselves when the more we're in comfort because ultimately life is gonna happen? 

Dr. Danny Penman: absolutely. I mean, the significance really is, Our simulation can drift very, very slowly away from the real world, as it were.

And that is probably the origin of an awful lot of mental distress and maybe even mental ill health, is that when we lose contact with the world, the simulation becomes less and less accurate. And if that, lower accuracy level is, reflecting, a, you know, depressing, stressful, an. anxious situations that are [00:24:00] existing only in our mind, you know, that is going to significantly affect our mental health and general wellbeing.

Mm-hmm. Now, what Varna does is because we become aware of the moment, the foundation stone, really of our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, it means that our simulation of the world is actually accurate or reasonably accurate. And that allows us to, you know, live a, you know, hopefully happier and more fulfilling life because we're actually living in a more accurate simulation rather than an inaccurate simulation.

Mm-hmm.so that's the significance really of va our, and the program in our book, deeper Mindfulness, allows you to reconnect with the, with the real world, you know, at a deeper and more fundamental level. Mm-hmm. No. The one thing I really must emphasize at this point is it sounds like we are saying that if you're anxious, stressed, or depressed or in pain, that you are [00:25:00] somehow making those feelings up.

And actually, no, you are not. They are absolutely real. It's just the foundation stones,or the origins of your mental distress are just different to what you may have expected. 

Mark Williams: Mm, 

Kara Goodwin: yeah. I love that. And I also. Wonder too, as we're talking about this, there's a, there's an element of it and with mindfulness in general of kind of completing the experience of the person.

Because we can be, you know, different people have different orientations in terms of their interaction or their, identification with the physical, with the emotions, with the mental, And it seems like it's this way to I mean, particularly mindfulness in general, maybe, I don't know as much with the feeling tones.

I mean, are you with the feelings, is there a bodily feeling that it comes into play as well? 

Mark Williams: Hmm, yeah. Well, [00:26:00] both things. Yeah. Yeah. So, are you asking there whether. Feeling tone is experienced through the body, or are you asking whether the body has a feeling tone,

Kara Goodwin: with your book and with the research?

if it's taking into account like a physical feeling in addition to kind of the noticing the categorization of feeling. 

Mark Williams: Yeah. So there's two ways in which the body are involved. First of all, the body's involved in the sense that feeling tone. Is very closely linked to interception. Just the internal sense of the state of the body and it's closely related to to the body's need to keep everything in homeostasis and so, and all the organs of the body are keeping the body in a chemical homeostasis.

and the parts of the brain are responsible, especially the hypothalamus, for example, keeping our temperature and our, hunger and thirst all in homeostasis so that we feel thirst. You go to get a drink and it [00:27:00] restores the balance. So, and it looks as if this, just this basic feeling of pleasant, unpleasant is very closely linked to that.

And that's partly because when you think about it, even a single celled organism, Right. The start of evolution in even simple bacteria need to know what's toxic and what's nutritious. So it moves away from one and towards the other. It's not a fear-based thing that hasn't evolved yet. It just, this is where I'll get more food.

This is where I'll get less food, or it's a toxic environment, so every cell in our body, as it was evolved, To recognize some sort of sense of pleasantness or unpleasantness, something that will keep the organism alive or un thriving versus, you know, not doing so. So that's a very bodily thing. Now, whether you can feel every single pleasant or unpleasant in the body, it's got to be there in some way, but it might be so subtle you don't recognize it.

So, for example, if I said to you, [00:28:00] think of the smell of fresh bread. You would probably know whether that felt to you, pleasant or unpleasant. Mm-hmm. Without actually having to think about, where's my, what did my body think about this? Or, yeah. And also if I said, what about the sight of a greasy pan that's unwashed, you know, you'd probably think Oh, okay.

Yeah. Not so pleasant probably. And again, you don't have a big bodily reaction to that, you know, you can read out straight away. Yeah. Smiling. Smiling children. Pleasant, fresh bread. Yeah. Pleasant, greasy pan garbage on the street. Blowing around. Unpleasant. Yeah. And you could feel a bit of frown on the face.

Maybe a bit of that going on, but it's very subtle. But there is, so the body's involved, but it may be so subtle that we're even not aware of it, but we can do the readout. Our, we know there's not pleasant. The really good experiment on this that a colleague of mine did, in which he just presented [00:29:00] people with videos of things that were either from the kitchen or from the garage.

 So little things like a coffee mug. Or a drill. Okay. And all people had to do is say, is this from the garage or is this from the kitchen? Is this house sold or garden type of thing. Yeah. but the clever thing was that's what people had to do, but the things they were seeing were either, and these were right-handed participants.

Right? They were either with the, so you could have grasped them. So the coffee mug was with its handle on the right hand side, or the drill was facing so you could pick it up or it was the other way around. Yeah. So you'd have had to turn it around and do more. And he just showed these things in there.

They were going, yeah, that's kitchen. Yes, that's garage. That's, yeah. And, but he was measuring the smiling muscle and even though they didn't recognize pleasant, unpleasant, the, they smiled more if the object was something they could have grasped [00:30:00] easily. That sense of fluency, it shows. It shows how action is important that we see the world through possible action.

So here were people responding with a sort of a small smile that they even couldn't detect themselves, but the instrument could, when the thing that they were observing was grasp upon and not when the thing we're observing, would've taken a bit more effort. So the body's really involved in these things in very subtle ways.

But we don't need to know what's going on the body to be able to make those judgements about pleasant or unpleasant. Yeah, 

Kara Goodwin: that is really fascinating. Wow. So, so tell us how. The research that you've done into the venas and the feeling tones, and the practices that you've developed, these ways that people can utilize, that you talk about in your book and the meditations and so forth.

What are some of the, ways that people [00:31:00] can, could expect that this would help them 

Mark Williams: over to you? Danny, do you want to start on this? Yeah, I mean 

Dr. Danny Penman: there was, mark and his colleagues at Oxford, did,a nice clinical trial spread, well based mostly in, in the uk but also in New Zealand and South Africa, and Hong Kong, so a across cultures.

So, I found that it was, you know, significantly helpful for relieving anxiety, stress, and depression. you know, it's too early to say whether it's more effective than conventional mindfulness, but, the interesting thing is it, you know, it most definitely works and this is a new program that, has only been developed a couple of years ago, and our hunch is it will help.

People who've maybe, gone through a traditional mindfulness program such as M B C T or M B S R, may be used one of the programs from our previous books and it, so it will enhance and deepen their own practice. [00:32:00] But the interesting thing is it's just as effective for novice meditators. And, you know, that, that's really quite significant.

So it can help, you know, a broader range of people. And it's also quite interesting that, you know, many people would've done a conventional mindfulness course and, you know, they might not have found it as helpful, or they might have fallen off the wagon halfway through the course, and it can help those people as well.

So, you know, people. get benefits in different ways from different programs and, you know, if there's another program that people can try, that's great because it will help the people who may not have got, Ben benefit from, conventional mindfulness. 

Mark Williams: One of the things we are able to do with this program is to, because now we are in the period of downloads instead of CDs in 10.

15 years ago, you had to have a CD wrapped in the book, but you could only do a limited number of [00:33:00] meditations there. Now, in the era of downloads and streamable, we've been able to provide shorter, medium, longer meditations that people can fit it in with their lives. Both, you know, going through this eight week program.

asking people to see if they can do 10 minutes and if they can do two 10 minutes a day, that's great, or one period of 20 minutes. There's now research showing that whether you do two of 10 or one of 20 makes no difference and somebody else's lab has found that. so, and then gradually starting with finding your ground in week one, also using not just the breath for that cuz the breath is of course wonderful at stabilizing.

But some people, especially of course over the pandemic, found the breath wasn't a neutral and pleasant thing to focus on. So, and there's a lot of work now by something called David Trien on trauma Sensitive mindfulness that is mindfulness, which encourages people to meditate, but to do it very much at their own pace with a toe in the water just in case.

It just brings difficult memories to mind of [00:34:00] things that are going on with them now or that went on in the past. And so this course has been designed very much with that sensor, reminding people they have choices. So we've given a number of different types of meditation and lengths of meditation that people can use as a gateway into the program.

And we, we start with not just the breath, but also the feet on the floor and the body on the chair, and the hands on the lap so that people can experiment with where did they find is most grounding for them. And then work through with befriending the mind instead of rushing back to the breath or rushing back to the body.

When your mind is wandered, you actually see mind wandering. That's just, you might see gymnasium equipment when you go to the gym, you know you go to the gym in order to practice with something. Well, when you meditate, the gymnasium equipment comes to you in the form of mind wandering. So it's not a mistake, it's what you need to start meditating.

So it's not about clearing the mind, it's about using the mind wandering. To your [00:35:00] advantage and say, oh, there's another one. And cultivating a sense of appreciation of what the mind is trying to do for you. As we say, it's working all the time, just like your heart and your liver. So why criticize it when it shows up when you're meditating.

Instead you say, oh, it's an amazing work you're doing when you thank the mind before coming back to the body, coming back to the prayer, and then we unfold the feeling tone and the allowing feeling tone and the no action needed. And then we use all of these new skills to turn towards difficult things, that have been going on with you, and then to how to deal with when your motivation goes, when you've been so absorbed with something that your motivation for everything else is shot to pieces and you just can't get zest into life and show how care had to deal with joylessness, which a lot of people experience when they've been down depressed or busy or exhausted.

And so that's what the unfolding over the eight weeks is with lots of different options for [00:36:00] people to, to download and try out to see what works for them. It would be different for different people we suspect. 

Dr. Danny Penman: Yeah, so I suppose it's a, a more caring and compassionate program cuz it, pulls in an awful lot of the more recent research, which shows actually, you know, kindness and compassion towards yourself is absolutely crucial if you want to make, progress.

I mean, in the various ancient traditions such as Buddhism, that was well known, but it, that was kind of lost in the translation to Western culture really. we felt that, you know, we are such a driven culture that we felt that when we took up meditation, we had to drive ourselves forward with it rather than just letting everything, move at its own pace.

Mark Williams: Mm-hmm. 

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. Oh yeah. I love that. So when you talk about this being a program, is this like an online program that people can join at any time or do you have a start date coming up, or can you tell us a little about that? 

Mark Williams: Yeah, so people can use the book as the program and download, [00:37:00] and there's a, there's QR codes in the book, so they can go straight to the website and download it from the book.

Oh, great. so that's, and then work through week by week. So the book has two or three chapters of introducing the science of it. Sort of a framework and then, people, and then some practicalities, then straight into the week one, week two, week three, and people can just use it to guide and just to take them by the hand and take them through.

And then we've got some examples of people who've done the program that people can. Can see if those are their examples as well. But the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation is also teaching this program and, all the Oxford Mindfulness teachers are able to, and there's basically a program virtually any time of day for people to hop onto, if they want to join a class.

and people do just get to the Oxford Mindfulness Foundation or Oxford Mindfulness Center and then there's Lot, and find it. Find a class and people will, they'll be able to click on to find a class and register for a, for an online program if they want to. Wonderful. But the 

Dr. Danny Penman: book itself [00:38:00] contains the, I said the entire eight week program.

We say eight weeks, but you could do it over eight months if you prefer. You know, the important thing is to do it at your own pace so that you feel comfortable with it. you literally take out your smartphone, point it at the QR code. The meditations will appear on the screen. you choose which one.

You know, if you're feeling,a slightly on the back foot, you might just do a 10 minute meditation. If you have the time, you could do a 20 or a 30 minute version of it. and the program just leads you by the hand, you know, over eight weeks or eight months. however you want to do it.

Kara Goodwin: Oh, beautiful. Wonderful. Well, as we wrap up here, can you just remind everybody, Because the book's not out yet here in the US right? Well actually it will be by the time, yes. this launches. Was it July 5th? You wanna say 

Mark Williams: 17th? I think, I dunno. Sometime second week in July I think. Yes. I think it can be pre-ordered now though.

From all the [00:39:00] bookshops and different places you get the books. So, and it's called Deeper Mindfulness, the New Way to Rediscover Calm in a Chaotic World. Deeper Mindfulness. Yeah. 

Kara Goodwin: Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, thank you both so much. What, uh, rich and delightful discussion we've had today. I really appreciate your time.

Mark Williams: Thank you, Kara. Thank you.