When Mindfulness Isn’t Enough

In this reflective video, we’ll explore the limits of mindfulness — especially when simply noticing your thoughts doesn’t feel like enough.

We’ll also explore deeper mindfulness practices like noticing “feeling tone” and how parts work can help you relate to your inner world with more curiosity and care. This is not about rejecting mindfulness, but expanding it into a deeper form of self-awareness and kindness. Please note that this practice is educational and does not replace professional mental health care.

Much Love,
Felix

Transcript

When mindfulness isn't enough. As we arrive, I invite you to just take a calm breath with me. Sets you into the space that you're in. Just looking around. Just taking in where you are and how you are as you're here. Maybe what you can pick up with your senses, What you can smell, What you can hear. What you can see. No particular order, Just letting your senses come alive and feel that you're sitting on something or maybe you're walking, Lying down, Whatever it is, Just for the arriving here. Which in many ways is the essence of mindfulness. Being in this moment rather than in the future or in the past. Truly just being here. And being, Rather than doing. So I'm not doing, But I'm being with my cup of tea. Just tasting that. Down the line too. Cheers. So what we're going to be diving in today is just a short introduction of my approach. I've developed over the last 15 years. My own inner work, My own struggles, But also working with clients and recording. I've lost count. A lot of meditation tracks. And live sessions, One-to-one sessions, All that stuff. I've done a lot of exploring in this field and I just, Yeah, Really want to share with you. My approach. This is not the ultimate truth. Just what resonates with me and if it resonates with you, Great, Take what resonates. The gurnerers. You can read that. Let your system settle. Most people are a little bit confused at first. Where if they're not confused they don't fully know what that means. And in essence When a friend is upset, We don't make our friends. Feel settled. We let them become settled. So we might be showing up with our presence, Our kindness, Just listening maybe. Maybe bring in a cup of tea. Or hot chocolate or whatever they're into. I'm not saying you must now settle because I've given you a hot chocolate. Or you must now settle because I've not judged you. Right, But rather just showing up with kindness. And just letting them settle in their own time, Hearing what they need. Just being there with kindness like a good friend. That's the dream, Right? When it comes to mindfulness, Not the core of it, Not the essence of it. How it's sometimes taught. I feel like it's more of a. . . Make your system settle. Make your system settle, Not let your system settle. So it's like. . . There's a thought, There's an emotion, There's a sensation. I'm going to observe it with non-judgment so that it goes away. So that I can be peaceful in the present moment. Do you see the irony there? If you come back to the friend. There isn't a true non-judgment. There is judgment there. There is a, I don't want to feel this. And that in itself isn't wrong either, Right? But it's just to notice. Maybe there's a different angle we can approach this whole thing from that's a little bit less Forceful. That although it might seem very non-forceful on the surface, There is actually a suppression happening there sometimes. This is why I'm calling this video When Mindfulness Isn't Enough. Which mindfulness has changed my life. My influence is enough in many ways. But also there's other angles we can explore. We sort of touched on the fact that mindfulness is about becoming aware of what's here. If you want to change your relationship to something, You need to first understand what we're actually dealing with. We need to first actually become aware of what it is. So a lot of mindfulness is about realizing that we are here. We may have a tendency of thoughts to go into the future, Into the past. It's so helpful to notice that tendency instead of just blindly being entangled and following that, Right? There's Mark Williams, Absolute legend. He developed mindfulness stress reduction and popularized that like crazy, Really. And he wrote a book together with Danny Penman. This was Finding Peace in a Frantic World, Something like that. Mindfulness, Finding Peace in a Frantic World. If I'm wrong, I'm very sorry, Mark and Danny. But they wrote another book, Which is called Deeper Mindfulness. And in Deeper Mindfulness, They talk about the feeling tone. Now what is the feeling term? It's essentially. . . Before thought comes, Before emotion comes, It's that feeling of this feels positive, Or this feels pleasant, This feels unpleasant, Or this feels neutral. So you get an email and something starts to feel like off and you haven't yet had a thought about it. So this is interesting. Because you can probably relate, I can definitely relate to that. The other thing they touch on is kindness, Right? So whatever comes from this feeling tone. And the thoughts, Whatever sort of builds within us, Right? Approaching all of that without judgment. But also with kindness. That's a bit closer to a. Let your system set to friend example. You meet your friend with kindness and that's Not to change them, But just because it's just the right thing to do. Just the right thing to be kind to a friend. And why should our thoughts, Why should anything within us, Within our experience that's probably trying to help, To keep us safe, To protect us, To prevent future harm or pain. Isn't that also a friend? Why should that be treated differently? So I absolutely love that, You know, Going beyond. The awareness, Being in the here and now. Into being kind to what is there, But also getting a little bit more precise in terms Ah, There was first this sort of feeling tone. Now it's developed into this. Getting a bit more curious of what is actually going on within my system instead of just being Okay, Stuff's going on, Thoughts are passing, But that's not me, Right? Just come back into the now without judgment, But sometimes there is actually judgment in there. Again, This is not the core of mindfulness that I'm slightly critiquing, But sometimes how it's taught or sometimes how it's understood. Which can then become very mechanical, Right? Notice thought. Thought is not me. Come back into the here and now. Don't go to the future, Don't go to the past, Come back into the here and now. Almost like ninja has come to my reframe of this, What I've found. Absolutely changed the game for me. So when I notice my experience with kindness, Whatever is going on within me, I have an uncomfortable feeling that's starting to emerge within me. Who is experiencing that within me? What completely changed the game for me is when I stopped looking at my system. Let your system settle. My system. My nervous system. My emotional system. My physical system. When I stop looking at it as just one thing. If you've ever heard of the word parts work or the field of parts work this is where the kindness comes back, Right? So if we can meet different parts within us with kindness and awareness It's like we've got a full house. We've got the best of both worlds. You know, All worlds. Mindfulness, Deeper mindfulness, Parts work. The thing is, There might be a part of us that was strengthened, Because we all naturally have different parts of us. That's how I feel. And these parts can become strengthened as we go through difficult times in our life. So we might be really. Overly protective or overly scared. Develop anxiety as was the case with me. And these parts don't just need awareness. They absolutely need non-judgment. But they also need kindness and relation. Build a relationship with them, That's what really changed things for me and I can hear what does this part of me need. What are you feeling? And just being that friend, Being there, Listening. With or without a cup of tea or hot chocolate. Do you see how that is very different? To how mindfulness is sometimes taught. Notice what's there. Detach. Don't judge, Detach. Come back into the here and now. Whereas this is, There might be a feeling tone that then becomes clearer as almost like. . . Part within me with a voice. It's feeling something. Thoughts are attached to that too. What does it need? What do you need? I hear you. I hear that you're worried. So there's kindness but there's also relation there. I can be a friend or maybe even a parent if the part of me feels very young. And that's what changed the game for me, For example, With this video, Before I started recording. I had this script and I was like okay how am I going to break this down into bullet points so that I remember what I want to say. I felt the feeling tone first, Actually. I felt uneasy. And now tuned into that. As they come. I knew this was connected to a part of me, So I said, What do you feel uneasy about? And it was like, I don't want to mess this up. I don't want to sound stupid. I don't want to seem like I've got no idea what I'm talking about. Or I don't want to ramble for hours and hours and hours and make no sense. And I just felt where I could feel that in my body. Gave that some love, Just listened to the concern, Met that with kindness, Also curiosity. And I just let it know that I'm here. My core self. I call that my ground itself. I'm here with you. We can go sit down, Record this video, And if we mess up, We can do cuts. You can recheck the script. But also, You've done this a lot of times. We've done this a lot of times, So. We can just sit down and. . . Talk to the camera naturally. And if we don't remember things, Either. . . We don't remember. Or we go back and check and re-record. The part was fine with that, But it needed that acknowledgement within me. That I hear you, I'm here for you, Whatever your concerns are, They don't need to now be gone because I've listened to you. Maybe they'll come back, Maybe you've got something else to tell me, We can just build that relationship and keep working together. And that's it. It has my phone in it. Mindfulness in many ways as I understand it. Is also about that. But it's not always taught that way. So there you have it. Let your system settle. There's obviously more to the approach. In a nutshell. That's the essence. And I hope it's helpful. Hope the 15 years of exploring, You know, We can dive much deeper into this but I hope some of that resonates and yeah if you got any more curiosity around how I work. I have a course. Maybe two by the time you see this. Lots of tracks you can dive into. Just celebrating you for showing up and being kind to yourself. And that analogy of the friend with a cup of tea. I think that's a good one. Have a beautiful day or night. Much love. Soak up these soothing

Reviews

Thankyou Felix you a very knowledgeable and informative
Thankyou enjoyed 🙏💗🦥

Felix is a great teacher! I’ve been following him since January 2026, especially his livestreams. His “Let Your System Settle” approach is very relieving to many people.

Awesome as always! This concept is becoming clearer and clearer for me as part work and as someone that struggles with intrusive thoughts, breaking it down is very helpful to me and it does resonate. I'm so grateful that you're here sharing it with us 🥷✨️🦥🌿 (((((💚)))))