The Oxford Mindfulness Podcast

We were delighted to welcome Trudy Goodman and Jack Kornfield for our June keynote. Keeping with the theme of Mark Williams' series, Trudy and Jack speak about 'The freedom of knowing how you feel'. Trudy Goodman, PhD, is the founding teacher of InsightLA and cofounder of the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. She has taught at universities and retreat centres worldwide for 25 years. Jack Kornfield, PhD, holds a doctorate in clinical psychology, has trained as a Buddhist monk in the monasteries of Thailand, India, and Burma, and is a founding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society, and the Spirit Rock Center. He is one of the key teachers to introduce mindfulness practice to the west.

Join us as we host Mark Williams to offer a taste of his new course which has been developed for those who have already completed a mindfulness course and want to explore mindfulness more deeply. Week by week, we will focus on attention and reactivity, with special emphasis on ‘feeling tone’. Feeling tone is the moment-by-moment evaluation of whether any contact with mind or body feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. This episode was recorded during week 3 of the series of taster sessions.

Join us as we host Mark Williams to offer a taste of his new course which has been developed for those who have already completed a mindfulness course and want to explore mindfulness more deeply. Week by week, we will focus on attention and reactivity, with special emphasis on ‘feeling tone’. Feeling tone is the moment-by-moment evaluation of whether any contact with mind or body feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neither. This episode was recorded during week 2 of the series of taster sessions.

In this episode we are joined by Philippe Goldin, associate professor at the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing at UC Davis, where he teaches, conducts research and mentors students in the areas of health promotion, clinical psychology and cognitive-affective neuroscience. He has worked as a consultant for Google in Mountain View, Calif., and is a founder of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a mindfulness-based emotional intelligence and leadership training program. In this extract, he offers some practical tips for conflict resolution at work.

For our April keynote session, we were joined by Professor Megan Reitz. This keynote explored the choices we all make around speaking up or staying silent. These choices are mediated through our perceptions of power. We ‘label’ ourselves and others (for example, job title, department, age, gender, ethnicity, academic background) and each of these labels conveys status (or not) depending on the context. 

Throughout this Frame by Frame taster series we hosted Mark Williams to offer a taste of his new course, developed for those who have already completed a mindfulness course and want to explore mindfulness more deeply. Week by week, we focused on attention and reactivity, with special emphasis on ‘feeling tone’. Feeling tone is the moment-by-moment evaluation of whether any contact with mind or body feels pleasant, unpleasant, or neither.  This episode was recorded during week 1 of the series of taster sessions. 

Ancient wisdom and contemporary psychological science identify habitual reactivity as the source of much of the suffering, stress and distress in which it’s so easy to become entangled midst life’s ups and downs. Although our immediate reactions may arise from self-protective instincts, they often obscure our clear seeing of situations, amplifying and prolonging difficulty through over-thinking, re-living and pre-living. Mindfulness offers priceless, practical ways to unlearn these habits and so to cultivate greater resilience and well-being in the midst of our lives as they are. In this session we explore a particular way of bringing mindfulness and compassion to difficult emotions, moods and thought-patterns through the practice of ‘G.R.A.I.N’: ‘Grounding, Recognising, Allowing, Investigating, Non-selfing’. Practising in this way can significantly reduce reactivity and enable a greater sense of agency, wise responsiveness and flourishing in the midst of the ever-changing circumstances of our lives. This session is intended to be appropriate for everyone, whether you have an established mindfulness practice or not.

This episode of the Mindfulness in the Workplace podcast series features Megan Reitz. Megan is a facilitator, teacher, speaker, executive coach, researcher and author dedicated to exploring and finding ways to improve the way we interact with one another in the workplace. Working at the intersection of leadership, change, dialogue and mindfulness, she has presented her research to audiences throughout the world and she is listed on the Thinkers50 Radar of global management thinkers and on the 2019 HR Most Influential list of Thinkers.

Dr Lee’s talk discusses compassion and trauma, and includes some mindfulness practices that explore compassion. If you are going through a challenging time or have a history of trauma, please consider carefully if this is the right time to listen to this podcast.

This episode of the Mindfulness in the Workplace podcast series features Michelle Maldonado. Michelle is a former corporate lawyer and business leader who understands diverse industry sectors, mission, and service. She is passionate about learning, helping elevate human consciousness and alleviating suffering in the world. Her work focuses on personal and professional leadership development at the pivotal intersection of mindfulness, unconscious bias, emotional intelligence, authenticity, and compassion.