Deeper Mindfulness - by Mark Williams & Danny Penman

About the Book

"Based on Mark Williams's research into the therapeutic powers of mindfulness, and an extension of Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT), Deeper Mindfulness continues the story told by Williams and Penman's Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Where the author's previous book crafted the foundations necessary to live a happier and more fulfilling life, and has proven transformative for many people, many readers have asked whether there was anything more they could do to enhance their practice and resolve their remaining issues. Deeper Mindfulness answers that question with a resounding, yes. It is possible to deepen the effect of mindfulness practice by focusing on what the authors describe as vedana, or "feeling tone," which targets certain core processes in the meditating mind. Over eight weeks, readers will learn to apply this practice to such unpleasant emotions and mood disorders as anxiety, depression, stress, and general unhappiness; when these unpleasant emotions evaporate, readers will be left with a calm space inside from which they can rebuild their lives"--

Book Synopsis

Use the hidden foundations of mindfulness to rediscover calm and reclaim your life in our chaotic world.

There are moments in life that decide your fate. They ripple into the future and dictate how you experience the world in the moments that follow; either positive and uplifting, dark and chaotic, or flat and dull.

What if you could recognize these moments before they seized control of your life? What if you could use them to set sail for a better future? What if all moments, big and small, could be harnessed this way?

In Deeper Mindfulness, Oxford Professor Mark Williams and Dr Danny Penman reunite to present a new eight-week guided meditation program that takes mindfulness to the next level. Deeper Mindfulness reveals how the latest advances in neuroscience, combined with millennia old wisdom, can be used to transform your life. These discoveries open the doors to a deeper layer of mindfulness known as the 'feeling tone'. This sets the 'background color' that tinges your entire experience of life. It is also the tipping point from which you can reclaim your life in an increasingly stressful and chaotic world.

Proven effective at treating anxiety, stress and depression, the practices in Deeper Mindfulness offer a new and more fruitful direction for both novice and experienced meditators. It also allows the rest of us to approach life with renewed strength, vigor and equanimity.

Review Quotes

"This fascinating book is crucial reading for all of us, especially at this time of global mental health crisis. It is a valuable resource for anyone who is struggling with stress, depression or anxiety, or who simply wants to live a more mindful and fulfilling life."--Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge; Award-winning author of Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain

"They've done it again! Read this book as if your life depended on it."--Ruby Wax

"This brilliant, powerful, and important book offers a resilient inner peace for troubled times. Each moment is a tipping point toward happiness or suffering. The key is to experience life's pleasures and pains without getting hijacked by them - and the authors show us how. Their evidence-based approach is both simple and profound, structured and spacious, and practical and heartfelt. You feel their friendly calm guidance in every page, with gentle humor, many examples, guided experiential practices, and numerous effective suggestions. They take mindfulness to a whole new level, and bring you with them each wonderful step of the way."
--Rick Hanson, Ph.D, author of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

"This book walks you gently through the beautiful, messy process of being human, and teaches you how and why all can be well."--Sir Kenneth Branagh

"This book is a remarkable combination of engaging stories, grounded scholarship, and powerful practices that conveys the power of mindfulness. The writing feels fresh and the meditations are spot on. As a clinician who teaches about trauma and meditation, I can also wholeheartedly recommend this work to anyone struggling with stress. It's a book I've been waiting for, could hardly put down, and know will benefit countless people in the years to come."--David Treleaven, PhD., author of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing

"Williams and Penman nail it when they describe how we can run from life (and ourselves) but we'll never escape. Deeper Mindfulness holds true to its name: the authors expertly point out how to identify those critical driving forces in our lives -feelings, and how feelings feel--but importantly have provided a pragmatic path and clear steps that we can take to leverage our minds to live better lives. Based in deep wisdom and written with compassion."
--Judson Brewer MD PhD, New York Times Bestselling Author of Unwinding Anxiety and The Craving Mind.

About the Author

Mark Williams is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Academy. With his colleagues at Oxford and Cambridge, he co-developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) which clinical trials have shown to be as effective as medication and therapy for depression. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), working on behalf the National Health Service, now recommends MBCT as a primary treatment for depression.

Dr Danny Penman is a mindfulness teacher and bestselling author. He is co-author, with Professor Mark Williams of Oxford University, of the acclaimed Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. This book is credited with popularising mindfulness and is now prescribed across the UK's National Health Service for such conditions as anxiety, stress, depression and chronic pain. In 2014, he won the British Medical Association's Best Book (Popular Medicine) Award for Mindfulness for Health: A Practical Guide to Relieving Pain, Reducing Stress and Restoring Wellbeing (co-written with Vidyamala Burch). His journalism has appeared in the Daily Mail, New Scientist, The Independent, the Guardian, and the Daily Telegraph.