Mindfulness-based Strategic Awareness Training Comprehensive Workbook

A comprehensive training program to navigate skillfully in this disruptive, uncertain time

This comprehensive workbook provides a mind training based on new findings in neuroscience that will enhance your decision-making skills. Skillful, strategically aware decisions in professional and private life are key for sustainable well-being and flourishing in life.

Part 1 provides a conceptual introduction into understanding the brain as a predicting organ, actively inferring, and constantly trying to optimize energy.

Part 2 leads you through a systematic training program of 8 sessions to enhance strategic awareness and improve decision-making skills by increasing the precision of our perception and mental processing. The practices are designed to fit in a busy schedule with a focus on the challenges we all grapple with in daily life.

While thorough and well-grounded in scientific research this workbook is also pleasant and inspiring to read. It is filled with practical examples and the author’s own life experience. Numerous hand-drawn illustrations inspire also visually.

The MBSAT methodology has been tested by practitioners for over 10 years and is widely acclaimed. The government of Singapore, known for its outstanding commitment to education and investment in the human resources of its population, has included MBSAT in its official skill-building program and heavily subsidizes participation in MBSAT training. It is one of the testimonials to the efficacy of MBSAT.

Figures xi

Boxes xiv

Practices, Exercises, Tools, and Experiments xv

About the Author xvii

Preface: The Genesis of this Book xix

A Suggestion on How to Read this Book xxxi

About the Companion Website xxxiii

Part 1 Foundations and Core Principles of the MBSAT Program 1

1 The Underlying Biomechanics of Our Brain 3

1.1 Flourishing in a World of “VUCA”: Is it Possible? 4

1.2 Free Energy Minimization: The Motivation Behind What the Brain Does 4

1.3 The Bayesian Hierarchical Hypothesis of the Brain: How the Brain Minimizes Free Energy 11

1.4 The Relation Between the Brain and Bayes Theorem 13

1.5 The Models in the Brain and Active Inference 16

1.6 How the Bayesian Brain Implements Active Inference 21

1.7 Summary: Our Brain’s Essential Biomechanics 28

2 Free Energy, Active Inference and the Predictive BETA Mind in MBSAT 33

2.1 MBSAT’s History and Evolution 34

2.2 Contextualizing MBSAT Under the Free Energy Principle (FEP) 42

2.3 Active Inference (AI) in MBSAT 49

2.4 The Predictive BETA Mind (PBM) 54

3 The MBSAT Program and its Distinctive Features 61

3.1 The Predictive Brain in MBSAT 62

3.2 Minding Our BETA: The Recognition Models in MBSAT - Valence and Feeling Tone 63

3.3 Minding our Portfolio of Beliefs (POB): The Generative Models in MBSAT 67

3.4 Minding the Portfolio of Beliefs: People, Self, Adversity and Money 73

3.5 Minding the Strategic Adaption of Life (SAL): Skillful Decision-Making 76

3.6 Belief Updating and Attention 80

3.7 Minding: A Key Quality of MBSAT 82

3.8 Mindfulness in MBSAT 85

3.9 The Free Energy Minimizing Self (FEMS) 92

4 Introduction to the MBSAT Program: Essential Foundations to Make Your MBSAT Training Effective 101

4.1 The Journey You Are Embarking On 102

4.2 Key Concepts to Understand How Our Brains Work 103

4.3 BETA in MBSAT: Body sensations, Emotions, Thoughts, and Action impulses 108

4.4 Minding: The Core Function of MBSAT 109

4.5 Practices and Practicing in MBSAT 114

4.6 Beliefs: The Drivers Behind Our BETA, Predictions and Behaviors 116

4.7 Decisions: Orienting and Shaping Our Lives 117

4.8 The Free Energy Minimizing Self - FEMS : Your Personal Plan to Implement Free Energy

Minimizing Strategies 121

4.9 Core Learnings to Remember 122

Part 2 The Training Program 131

Introduction: Purpose and Meaning of Part 2 133

5 Session 1: Minding BETA I - Body Sensations The Body as Source of Interoceptive Signals and Experiences 143

5.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 1, Investment and Benefits 144

5.2 Introduction and Concepts 145

5.3 Aspects of Bodily Sensations 146

5.4 Exercises 148

5.5 Practices 150

5.6 Learnings from Session 1 .158

5.7 Action Plan (AP) for the Week of Session 1 160

5.8 Personal Notes and Insights 161

6 Session 2: Minding BETA II - Emotions Emotions as Source of Interoceptive Signals and Experiences 165

6.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 2, Investment and Benefits 166

6.2 Quiz on Session 1: Minding BETA I and Chapter 4 Essential Foundations 167

6.3 Introduction and Concepts 170

6.4 Practices 174

6.5 Exercises 177

6.6 Learnings from Session 2 .182

6.7 Action Plan (AP) for the Week of Session 2 183

6.8 Personal Notes and Insights 184

7 Session 3: Minding BETA III - Thoughts Thoughts as Exteroceptive Signals Influenced by Interoceptive States 189

7.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 3, Investment and Benefits 190

7.2 Quiz on Session 2: Minding BETA II – Emotions 191

7.3 Introduction and Concepts 194

7.4 Practices 197

7.5 Exercises 201

7.6 Learnings from Session 3 .203

7.7 Action Plan (AP) for the Week of Session 3 204

7.8 Personal Notes and Insights 205

8 Session 4: Minding BETA IV - Action Impulses Actions as Source of Proprioceptive Signals and Experiences 209

8.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 4, Investment and Benefits 210

8.2 Quiz on Session 3: Minding BETA III – Thoughts 211

8.3 Introduction and Concepts 214

8.4 Practices 219

8.5 Tools and Models 227

8.6 Learnings from Session 4 .229

8.7 Action Plan (AP) for the Week of Session 4 230

8.8 Personal Notes and Insights 231

9 Session 5: Minding the Portfolio of Beliefs I

Minding Adversity - Irimi 237

9.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 5, Investment and Benefits 238

9.2 Quiz on Session 4: Minding BETA IV – Action Impulses 239

9.3 Introduction and Concepts 242

9.4 Tools and Models 246

9.5 Practices 253

9.6 Learnings from Session 5 .260

9.7 Action Plan (AP) for the Week of Session 5 261

9.8 Personal Notes and Insights 262

10 Session 6: Minding the Portfolio of Beliefs II

Minding Beliefs About Money 267

10.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 6, Investment and Benefits 268

10.2 Quiz on Session 5: Minding the Portfolio of Beliefs I - Minding Adversity 269

10.3 Introduction and Concepts 272

10.4 Exercises 276

10.5 Practices 281

10.6 Reflections 286

10.7 Learnings from Session 6 288

10.8 Action Plan (AP) for the Week of Session 6 .293

10.9 Personal Notes and Insights 294

11 Session 7: Minding the Portfolio of Beliefs III

Minding our Social Experience - SoE / Friendliness 297

11.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 7, Investment and Benefits 298

11.2 Quiz on Session 6: Minding POMO – From Powerful Money to Mindful Money 299

11.3 Introduction and Concepts 302

11.4 Behavioral Social Experiments 305

11.5 Aspects of Minding the Social Experience with Others 313

11.6 Practices 314

11.7 Exercises 319

11.8 Tools and Models 324

11.9 Reflections 327

11.10 Learnings from Session 7 331

11.11 Action Plan (AP) for the Week of Session 7 .333

11.12 Personal Notes and Insights 334

12 Session 8: Minding the Strategic Adaptation in Life (SAL) Decisions as the Basis of Well-being 337

12.1 Getting Started: Task of Session 8, Investment and Benefits 338

12.2 Quiz on Session 7: Minding our Social Experience (SoE) 339

12.3 Introduction and Concepts/Consolidation 344

12.4 Practices 352

12.5 Learnings from Session 8 366

12.6 Action Plan (AP) for the Time after the Program 367

12.7 Personal Notes and Insights 369

Epilogue: Accompanying Thoughts for Your Continuous Practice 373

Solution of the Puzzle: Minding the Triad of Perception, Beliefs and Predictions 380

References 381

Further Reading 393

Acknowledgments 416

Index 418

Juan Humberto Young, Doctor of Management, MBA, MPA, MAPP, MSt and MSc. Investor, entrepreneur, author, mindfulness-based cognitive therapist (MBCT) and Positive Psychologist. Affiliated Faculty Member of Singapore Management University SMU, leading the MBSAT Teacher Training. The author also maintains a counselling/training practice for non-clinical clients.

This comprehensive workbook provides training based on new findings in computational neuroscience. It will enhance your decision-making skills by increasing the precision of your perception and mental processing.

This training will enable you to navigate these disruptive, uncertain times skillfully, and in good emotional and mental health.

Part 1 provides a conceptual introduction into understanding the brain as a predicting organ.

Part 2 leads you through 8 systematic training sessions to enhance your decision-making skills by enhancing your strategic awareness and belief updating capabilities.

The practices are designed to fit in the busy schedules of active people.

Mindfulness-based Strategic Awareness Training (MBSAT) has been tested by practitioners for over 10 years and is widely acclaimed. The government of Singapore, known for its outstanding commitment to the education of its population, has included MBSAT in its official skill-building program and subsidizes participation in MBSAT training.

This is a remarkable book. On one reading, it is a scholarly and pragmatic guide to self-understanding and realisation—through making the right kind of decisions as embodied creatures in a social world. On another reading, it naturalises—or perhaps socialises—the free energy principle: an account of self-organisation and sentience grounded in statistical physics and applied widely in theoretical biology and computational neuroscience.

This book liberates the fundaments of the free energy principle by applying them to the delicate practice of living in the 21st-century. This is achieved by starting from the academic foundations and artfully scaffolding the readers journey with intuitive, lived examples; sometimes, touchingly personal examples. If you commit to the epistemic program offered by this book, not only will you become a fluent practitioner of embodied Bayesian inference and decision-making, you will be able to answer Einstein’s existential question: “Is the universe friendly?”

Karl J. Friston, MBBS, MA, MRCPsych, MAE, FMedSci, FRBS, FRS — Scientific Director: Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging — Professor: Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London Honorary Consultant: The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery