Vidyamala Burch

Vidyamala, a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, is a mindfulness and compassion teacher, coach, award-winning author and Co-founder of the leading mindfulness organisation Breathworks. Vidyamala began teaching her mindfulness approach for managing pain and illness following her own personal experience living with health challenges. At age 23, she sustained spinal injuries that required multiple surgeries and left her with partial paraplegia and chronic pain. She began to explore mindfulness and meditation as a way to manage her pain and found the results to be life changing and transformative. In 2004, she developed the world’s first Mindfulness-based Pain Management (MBPM) programme with friends and fellow meditation teachers Sona Fricker and Gary Hennessey. Today, her approach has been recognised by the NHS and health boards globally and has reached over 100,000 people coping with pain, illness and stress.

Vidyamala’s list of accolades includes being awarded an OBE by the Queen in 2022, one of the highest honours in the UK, for her services to pain management and well-being; honorary membership from The British Pain Society for her outstanding work for the alleviation of pain; and the Shaw Trust Power List’s award for her influence as a person living with a disability for four years running. She is the author of Living Well with Pain and Illness (2008), Mindfulness for Health (2013), and Mindfulness for Women (2016). Mindfulness for Health was awarded first prize in Popular Medicine in the British Medical Association Books Awards in 2014, and was named the best self-help book in its category by health professionals in the UK’s Reading Well Scheme. Vidyamala offers wise and kind guidance and through her work hopes to pass on the tools that have helped her reclaim a full, happy and meaningful life.