Deeper Mindfulness

Deeper Mindfulness: exploring feeling tone frame by frame allows people who have already completed an 8-week mindfulness programme to explore an aspect of mindfulness that isn’t covered explicitly in such courses: ‘feeling tone’. Feeling tone is a sense of the positive or negative that every human experience has, and is the tipping point for our mood.”

Deeper Mindfulness: exploring feeling tone frame by frame is a new eight-week course developed by Mark Williams and colleagues, designed for those who have already completed a mindfulness-based programme and want to explore mindfulness more deeply.

It is 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’. Feeling tone is the moment-by-moment ‘read-out’ of how much 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.

During the eight weekly sessions, you will learn meditations that prepare you for, then help you tune in to feeling tone frame by frame. This provides 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 will learn the following skills:

  • How to ‘find your ground’ by exploring different ways to anchor your attention
  • How to 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
  • How to 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
  • How to allow feeling tone to be present for longer without reacting, so the mind is freed from habitual cascades of stress and exhaustion
  • How to see when and how the body gears up for action unnecessarily, and how to allay the busyness to allow wise action to emerge
  • How to use mindfulness of feeling tone to help turn towards difficult emotions and concerns
  • How to 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)
  • In the final session you will learn ways to sustain your mindfulness practice, including a template for a year of practice you can use or adap

Ready to take the next step…