EP 93: Mindfulness for Depression: Dr. Mark Williams on Quieting the Inner Critic & Breaking Rumination

Send us a message! I talk with Oxford clinical psychologist Mark Williams about why mindfulness is not about emptying the mind and how MBCT helps people stay well by changing their relationship to thoughts and feelings. We share simple practices that fit real life, including how to notice feeling tone and step out of the inner judge that always calls you guilty.  • Mark’s path into depression research and relapse prevention  • How mindfulness based cognitive therapy reduces recurrence risk  • Why shorter practices can work better than long sessions  • The hardest part of meditation being the start and the mode shift  • Dissociation and rumination as patterns that mindfulness can interrupt  • Using sounds as a gateway to seeing thoughts come and go  • Separating what happened from the story we add to it  • The predictive brain model and why it can drive emotional spirals  • Feeling tone as pleasant or unpleasant before judgment appears  • “No action needed right now” as a reset for racing mind loops  • “It’s okay not to like it” to drop moral judgment and add space  • Mindfulness as preparation for prayer and compatible with faith  • Practical anchors and an end-of-day appreciation practice  Links Website: www.mbct.co.uk Books: Mindfulness: An Eight-week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World              Deeper Mindfulness Bio Mark Williams is Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford, UK. The main focus of his work is to understand how to prevent depression and suicide. With Zindel Segal and John Teasdale, he developed Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and was founding Director of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, which works to prevent depression and enhance human potential through the therapeutic use of mindfulness across the lifespan. His books with his colleagues include The Mindful Way through Depression and The Mindful Way Workbook. He also wrote (with Danny Penman) an accessible guide to MBCT called Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World (aka Mindfulness: An Eight-week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World)  His most recent work explores how to sustain and deepen mindfulness through becoming aware of "feeling tone", explained in his recent book Deeper Mindfulness. Feeling tone is the immediate "flavor" of any experience as pleasant or unpleasant. It's an essential part of who we are; but can sometimes trigger a cascade of reactivity in an instant. Deeper Mindfulness shows how we can become aware of feeling tones, learn how to work with them, and unlock the deep habits of our conditioning that can so easily overwhelm us. FREE Mood Cycle Survival Guide: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/free/  The Upside of Bipolar: 7 Steps to Heal Your Disorder: @upsideofbipolar | Linktree website: https://theupsideofbipolar.com/ email: [email protected] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theupsideofbipolar/ TikTok: theupsideofbipolar (@theupsideofbipolar) | TikTok Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theupsideofbipolar/