20 Facts About Vidyamala Burch

Vidyamala Burch's life "changed overnight", and ever since she has experienced chronic back pain and varying levels of disability.

At the age of 23 Vidyamala Burch was involved in a major car accident which fractured another of her vertebrae, significantly worsening her pain and debility.

Vidyamala Burch suddenly "saw that the present moment is always bearable", and that "much of my torment had grown from fear of the future".

Vidyamala Burch felt "the tension torturing me open into expansiveness", and knew that "something extraordinary had broken through".

The way that Vidyamala Burch eventually integrated these insights into her life was meditation and mindfulness practice, which she was introduced to during her 1985 hospital stay.

Vidyamala Burch lived there for 5 years, and during this time trained intensively in meditation and mindfulness - particularly mindfulness of breathing and loving-kindness meditation.

In 1997, at the age of 37, Vidyamala Burch suffered another major deterioration in her health, becoming paralyzed in her bowel and bladder and partially paralyzed in her legs, meaning she had to use a wheelchair.

Vidyamala Burch has described this time as a "dark voyage", during which "I had to face my deepest and most destructive habits, especially my tendency to overdo things and then 'crash and burn'".

Vidyamala Burch attended a five-day training event in mindfulness-based stress reduction with Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Bangor, and began a weekly "Peace of Mind" class in Manchester, teaching mindfulness and metta meditations to those suffering from chronic pain.

Those attending the "Peace of Mind" classes responded positively to them, finding the practices Vidyamala Burch was teaching extremely helpful.

In 2002 Vidyamala Burch required major surgery involving the reconstruction of her lower spine, meaning that she was unable to work for around a year.

Vidyamala Burch is particularly committed to making Breathworks courses available to all regardless of financial hardship, and to this end formed the Breathworks Foundation in 2009.

Vidyamala Burch has formalized the Breathworks approach to mindfulness for those with pain and illness, as taught in the Mindfulness for Health course, under the name mindfulness-based pain management.

Vidyamala Burch has published on MBPM in academic forums, and the approach has been subject to a range of clinical studies demonstrating its effectiveness.

Vidyamala Burch was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to wellbeing and pain management.

In 2016, Vidyamala Burch published Mindfulness for Women: Declutter Your Mind, Simplify Your Life, Find Time to 'Be' with the magazine editor Claire Irvin, which addressed how mindfulness can be helpful in the context of the pressures affecting many modern women.

Vidyamala Burch has taken an active role in promoting mindfulness and meditation both within the UK and internationally.

Vidyamala Burch participated in the UK Parliament's All-Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness, which produced the 2015 "Mindful Nation UK" report recommending increased provision of mindfulness-based treatments for physical and mental health conditions.

In 2018 Vidyamala Burch was awarded honorary membership of the British Pain Society in recognition of her "outstanding contribution to the alleviation of pain through personal endeavour and for her work for the Society", and in 2019 she was a keynote speaker at the Mindfulness in Schools 'A Million Minds Matter' conference.

Vidyamala Burch has lectured on mindfulness-based pain management at University College London and Bangor University, and sits on the advisory board of the Mindfulness Initiative, which works with legislators around the world to help them integrate mindfulness and meditation into public policy-making.