Interview With Danny Penman

One of the most widely respected names in the field of mindfulness, Dr. Danny Penman achieved a Ph.D. in biochemistry before beginning a distinguished career in journalism by covering the civil war in the former Yugoslavia. He is the co-author of two groundbreaking books – Mindfulness: Finding Peace In A Frantic World (written with Prof. Mark Williams) and the recently published Mindfulness For Health (with Breathworks’ Vidyamala Burch). Danny was interviewed by telephone in September 2013 and November 2015.

 

EVERYDAY MINDFULNESS: Do you remember when you first meditated?

DANNY PENMAN: At my comprehensive school, quite remarkably, meditation was part of A-Level general studies. The idea of general studies was to broaden the outlook of students. One element of this was stress relief. I got into the habit of meditating when stress got on top of me, during exam times for example, and I’d keep it up for a month or so, then lapse and get on with everyday life. Then there’d be another trigger point and I’d take up meditation again. It was just called “meditation” in those days. There was no mention of “mindfulness”. We were simply taught to close our eyes, focus on the breath and notice when our thoughts had wandered, Looking back I can see that it was a form of mindfulness. I carried on like that for about twenty years.

EM: Did you suffer from anxiety or depression?

DP: When I started working as a journalist I was immensely driven but I was never anxious in a destructive way. I never suffered from depression. I guess I kept meditating as I suspected it was going to be useful to me. I saw it as a kind of add-on to life.

EM: It seems that many people come to mindfulness at a time of crisis or when they experience some life-changing event. It appears that you are no exception.

DP: In 2006, I was paragliding over the Cotswold hills in southern England and I crashed. As I was falling towards the earth I remember thinking quite clearly, “This is probably not going to kill me but I’m probably going to be badly hurt.” I was right. I hit the hillside, opened my eyes, and checked my body for damage. When I reached my legs I realised I was in tremendous pain. The lower half of my right leg had been driven up through my knee and into my thigh. I realised that, whatever happened, I had to stay conscious so I started to meditate. Gradually the pain became less intense, less personal somehow, almost as if I was watching it on TV. It was only when I reached hospital that I learned the full extent of the damage. My lower-knee joint had broken into six pieces and my lower-leg had shattered. There was also a lot of damage to the muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage. There was a fair possibility that I would lose my leg. As it happened, I required three major operations to rebuild the leg. A Taylor Spatial Frame had to be surgically attached to my leg for up to 18 months to repair the damage. Consisting of four equally spaced rings that encircled my lower leg, the frame looked like a cross between a Meccano set and a medieval torture device. Sleep was almost impossible. Normally that frame would stay on for eighteen months but mine came off in seventeen weeks, largely thanks to the meditation I was doing.

EM: When did you first start engaging in regular mindfulness practice?

DP: During my convalescence, I’d do a daily body scan and practice some visualisation meditations but I wasn’t following any particular programme. It was a tough period in my life but I wouldn’t say I was depressed. However, there were times when I was very miserable. Sometime during 2007, I came across The Mindful Way Through Depression by Mark Williams. I thought it was the most extraordinary book. I started doing some of the exercises. After about three months I could see that mindfulness was making a big difference to me, especially in terms of clarity of thought. I’d been so badly knocked about and I’d been taking so many painkillers. I’d had three general anaesthetics in the space of six months. My mind was permanently fogged. Practicing mindfulness I noticed that I was far more engaged and I was thinking a lot more clearly. More than anything I felt a lot more connected to the world. I managed to reduce my intake of painkillers quite dramatically but I was still on quite a lot of medication and I was still doing three hours of physiotherapy a day.

EM: How did you come to meet Mark Williams and start collaborating on Finding Peace In A Frantic World?

DP: I first spoke to Mark towards the end of the period when I had the frame on my leg. We became friends over the phone before we met. As a journalist I was on a mission to get his name into the press but I was struggling to get any pieces commissioned. At this time there was sufficient evidence to suggest that Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was at least as effective as anti-depressants in terms of treating depression and anxiety but none of the British newspapers were remotely interested in running stories about mindfulness.

EM: What was the thinking behind Finding Peace In A Frantic World?

DP: I was talking to Mark one day about The Mindful Way Through Depression and happened to mention that nobody would read a book on the tube with the word “depression” on the cover. If everybody thinks it’s all to do with depression, the audience will be limited. In my view there are a minority of people who have a serious chemical imbalance or something genetic in their make-up that leads to depression. But most people who finally get diagnosed with clinical depression have probably spent years and years suffering without really knowing what is wrong with them. Depression is often the end point of a disease process. It makes complete sense to catch someone before they enter that downward spiral. I remember saying to Mark that The Mindful Way Through Depression had provided a cure but what was needed was a vaccination for anxiety, stress and depression. Finding Peace In A Frantic World came out of that way of thinking.

EM: Did either of you expect Finding Peace In A Frantic World to be such a groundbreaking book?

DP: Not at all. When I was co-writing it, there were a few occasions when I found myself thinking that this was an important book but it might not find any kind of audience. I figured it might only sell 5000 copies. But I knew for certain that it was a book that needed to be written. As it turns out, it’s sold around 100,000 in the UK and it’s been translated into eighteen languages.

EM: What was the thinking behind the new book, Mindfulness For Health? Was it intended as a companion work to Finding Peace In A Frantic World?

DP: Mark had introduced me to Vidyamala Burch who ran Breathworks and we got to know each other over a period of eighteen months. Eventually we started discussing how we might turn Vidyamala’s work into a book. By this time Vidyamala had finally pinned down the final Breathworks eight-week programme which was working wonders for people with chronic pain and other illnesses. Also the academic evidence was starting to accrue. It was as though all the lines had crossed on the graph. Mindfulness For Health is more like a companion to Finding Peace In A Frantic World than a sequel. It’s very much aimed at a different group of people. There’s some overlap in that it does apply mindfulness to the problem of stress but most people who buy the new book will be suffering physically rather than mentally. Though, of course, if you are suffering from a physical illness, there are going to be mental implications as well.

EM: Your new book, Mindfulness For Creativity, is billed as a sister volume to Finding Peace In A Frantic World. Rather than an 8-week course it offers a 4-week course and is aimed at people who perhaps wouldn’t consider themselves anxious or depressed. How did the idea for the book come to you? 

DP: Since the publication of Frantic World, mindfulness has become almost a mass market thing but I figured it still wasn’t reaching many people who really need it. There are people who are anxious, sad or depressed but they’re not admitting it to themselves. Perhaps they start realizing that they are running out of steam, that they’re not as dynamic as they once were and that they are beginning to spiral downwards in some way. I started to ask, “How do you begin reaching those people?”

Also, when researching the previous two books, it struck me that mindfulness is usually seen as a way of solving problems rather than optimizing one’s mental and physical health. But mindfulness is brilliant at doing that, especially in terms of creativity, decision-making and clarity of thought. This new book is aimed at anyone who feels they need to connect more with their creativity, whether it’s a lawyer or a journalist. But it would be equally suitable for a long-term meditator who feels the need to refresh their practice.

EM: By opening ourselves to becoming more creative, do we run the risk of discovering new ways to strive and new ways to judge ourselves?

DP: That’s always a risk. One of the reasons we meditate in the first place is to enter a slightly different state of awareness. To my mind, the people who achieve the most in life are the ones who can almost effortlessly move between different states of awareness. So they focus very intently on certain things for a period of time to accumulate and assimilate ideas. Then they broaden their awareness through something like meditation so that they are able to put ideas into context. When they have a really good idea, they implement it. That does involve effort and it does involve a certain amount of striving. But I think it’s a different kind of striving. It’s a striving that has an undercurrent where it’s understood that the effort will pay off in the end. Maybe we have to accept that there’s a need for a certain amount of striving in life. Mindfulness isn’t about passively accepting whatever happens to us.

EM: On the Everyday Mindfulness forum, we are often asked whether mindfulness can be learned from a book or whether it’s necessary to attend an eight-week course with a qualified teacher. Where do you stand on that?

DP: If you’re suffering from the usual modern-day angst, feeling a bit less enthusiasm for life and finding yourself a little stressed out, a good book on the subject might suffice and it’s likely that you’ll gain something from it. However, if you suspect that you are suffering from a serious mental health problem, you’d be advised to talk to your GP and/or find a course and learn about mindfulness practice with a qualified teacher.

EM: With regards to teaching mindfulness, are the criteria strict enough at present?

DP: There’s now a movement towards formalising the process of teaching which has to be a good thing. There’s always a potential problem that people can pick up a book about mindfulness and start teaching it to others and they may not have picked up on certain subtleties. Especially when they’re teaching people who have had mental health problems, there’s a chance they might cause more harm than good. Mindfulness is a wonderful thing but, in some situations, it needs to be taught in a safe and comfortable environment with people who are used to helping other people who are suffering.

EM: What would you say is the biggest misconception about meditation?

DP: There are so many misconceptions. One of the commonest is the idea that meditation is self-indulgent. But nobody would say that about sleeping or brushing your teeth. Meditation is not just about self-compassion, it’s about learning how to be more compassionate to others.

EM: Jon Kabat-Zinn has always been careful to present mindfulness as a purely secular practice. Where do you stand on that question?

DP: If I was a Buddhist I’d probably be quite annoyed. There’s no doubt that mindfulness has its roots in Buddhist teachings. Then again, the early Buddhists probably picked it up from earlier teachings. Ultimately what’s important is that it not only helps people, it makes the world in general a better place to live in. I guess Kabat-Zinn’s way of thinking was that a lot of people in the western world might be put off if Buddhism was flagged up too obviously, and I think that’s probably the best approach. Rightly or wrongly we live in an increasingly secular world.

EM: You have a young daughter. How do you think mindfulness has benefited you as a parent?

DP: Quite honestly, I don’t think I’d have become a parent in the first place if it hadn’t been for mindfulness. I never actively disliked children but I never seriously thought about becoming a dad. I never understood why my friends wanted children. After my accident, when I started meditating regularly, there always seemed to be this hollow feeling inside, as though something was missing from my life. I suddenly realised that there was a certain kind of love that was missing. It then occurred to me that, maybe, we’re put here for a reason, and perhaps part of that reason is to have children who will love and respect the world as we do. I guess what I’m saying is that mindfulness has a way of exposing any voids and needs in your own life. So it became increasingly apparent to me and then my wife that we could be open to the possibility of having children. I realised I’d been walling that part of my life off.

EM: How would you say mindfulness has changed your life?

DP: It’s made a massive difference. I no longer spend anything like as much time worrying. I’m a lot more accepting of day-to-day life. I can deal with everyday knocks so much easier. More than anything I get angry far less frequently. As a journalist I was always angry with the way the world was. My way of trying to change the world, in whatever small way, was through journalism. There was a big cost to me in living that way in terms of stress. Now I find I can do the same job without the same impact on my psyche. I can sit down and write just as well if I’m relaxed as when I was stressed out to the hilt. I no longer need to climb the walls. That’s been a revelation to me.

EM: Do you continue to suffer from a lot of physical pain?

DP: Five years ago I would spend a lot of my days in pain. Meditation helped me deal with that but it was still there. Nowadays I’ll get one day every fortnight or so when I’ll ache a little bit. It’s not very pleasant but I accept that this is as good as it’s likely to get. In other words I feel some primary pain but I don’t bring secondary suffering to it. If I feel stress these days, when I’m on a journalistic deadline for example, it’s as though my leg and my knee act as an early warning system. When my leg starts to ache, I know I’m stressed. So I immediately go off and do a 45 minute body scan, during which the aching will diminish significantly. Often it will go away completely.

EM: Finally, how do you see the future for mindfulness?

DP: Hopefully we’ll get to a point sometime in the future when meditation will be considered as normal and everyday a practice as brushing one’s teeth. A hundred years ago, people didn’t brush their teeth and they accepted that their teeth would fall out in their twenties. Then dentists came along and now people take it for granted that they will have good teeth all their lives if they take care of them. I think that in fifty years time, people might be as shocked when they look back and consider that in 2012 people didn’t take the time to meditate. That won’t happen overnight but, clearly, humanity is on a journey.

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(For more information about Danny’s work go to: franticworld.com)

Follow Danny on Twitter: @DrDannyPenman