Deeper Mindfulness: Exploring Feeling Tone Frame-by-Frame is an 8-week course developed by Professor Mark Williams and colleagues, designed for you if you’ve already completed a mindfulness-based programme and you’d like to explore mindfulness more deeply.
It’s informed by recent psychological findings that reveal that every waking moment, our understanding of the world is dominated by imagining how we can take action within it, coloured by what is called ‘feeling tone’ – the moment-by-moment ‘read-out’ of whether a sensation, thought or emotion feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. Based on this moment-by-moment ‘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.
Ancient traditions saw feeling tone (vedana) as a fundamental element of every moment of experience and a central aspect of mindfulness practice. Learning specific practices to help us become aware of feeling tone allows us to see clearly the very instant where we become caught up in pursuing or rejecting something and become entangled in a web of emotional distress. Meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein has said that mindfulness of feeling tone is one of the master keys that both reveals and unlocks the deepest patterns of our conditioning.
During the 8 weekly sessions, you’ll learn meditations that prepare you for, then help you tune into, feeling tone – frame-by-frame. This provides you with an opportunity to see more clearly both the tipping points for distress and exhaustion, and also how to flourish by freeing yourself to appreciate life again, even in the midst of difficulty.
On this course you’ll learn how to:
- ‘Find your ground’ by exploring different ways to anchor your attention
- Take a pause when your mind wanders, and to cultivate a sense of kindness and gratitude for the mind’s activity instead of seeing it as an enemy to be overcome
- Recognise the feeling tone of any contact with mind and body, and how it is the tipping point for reactions that are often self-defeating
- Allow feeling tone to be present for longer without reacting, so the mind is freed from habitual cascades of stress and exhaustion
- See when and how the body gears up for action unnecessarily, and how to allay the busyness to allow wise action to emerge
- Use mindfulness of feeling tone to help turn towards difficult emotions and concerns
- Use mindfulness of feeling tone to notice moments of appreciation in your everyday life and to deal skilfully with the symptoms of exhaustion (e.g., procrastination)
What to expect on this course
This course is delivered over 8 weekly sessions, each one lasting 2 hours with a break half-way through. Each session builds on what’s been introduced before, so it’s important to attend all the sessions if possible. (If you know you’re going to miss a session, please let your teacher know).
You’ll be in a group of up to 16 people, led by one of our experienced mindfulness teachers.
Each session begins with a short, guided meditation, then (with the exception of the first session) there’s a review and inquiry into the past week. After the break, the second half of the session introduces the theme for the week and includes a meditation. There’ll be space to review what you and others experienced or discovered during the practice.
The sessions are followed by suggestions for home-based personal practice of around 20 minutes per day. This includes both recommended guided practices for the week, and also ways to cultivate mindfulness in everyday life.
You’ll have access to guided practices and written materials to support each session.
To help you choose the format of personal practice that best works for you, you’ll have several options of how to do the guided meditations, with 10, 20 and 30-minute versions of practices available each week. There’ll also be a ‘minimal instructions’ format giving a brief summary of the guidance followed by silence, with bells every five minutes, so you can guide yourself.
Full course dates
The dates sessions are running for this course are:
- Session 1: 14 November 2024
- Session 2: 21 November 2024
- Session 3: 28 November 2024
- Session 4: 05 December 2024
- Session 5: 12 December 2024
- Session 6: 19 December 2024
- Week Break
- Session 7: 02 January 2025
- Session 8: 09 January 2025
What you can do after this course
Once you’ve completed the Deeper Mindfulness course, you might choose to explore mindfulness further through our 12-session Taking it Further course.
You might also want to join our live online meditations sessions to maintain your practice or one of our day retreats (Day of Practice).
Entry criteria – who can apply for this course?
You can apply for this course if you:
- Have completed either a Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Mindfulness for Life (MBCT-L) or Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course at some point in the past. Introductory/taster/teacher training courses are not eligible.
- Can commit to attending all 8 sessions of the programme
- Have both the time and motivation to dedicate up to 45 minutes of personal practice each day
- Are over 18 years of age
- Have access to suitable technology (laptop/PC), a strong and stable internet connection, a private space and the technical ability to join an online training programme via Zoom, with your camera on
- Are able to speak and understand the English language (both spoken and written) to a level where you can fully take part in the course without the need for additional translation support.