A Heart to Teach - with Loh Wei
In the run up to the MBSR Teacher Training Intensive in April 2025, I have invited MBSR teachers that I respect and have worked with to share about their experience of teaching mindfulness. In this first conversation, I have an open and honest conversation with Loh Wei about his journey to becoming a mindfulness teacher
I got to know Loh Wei because he was a regular at the mindfulness sessions I ran in the SMU community. After I found out that he had also taken the MBSR teacher training, we decided to work together in MBSR mentorship. On Wednesday, 11 December 2024, I took the chance to sit down and have a conversation with Loh Wei (over Zoom), about his experience with MBSR and teaching it.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. For more from Carmen and Loh Wei’s conversation, play the audio link found at the end of this article.
How did you come to practice mindfulness?
Loh Wei: It started in 2011 when my dad’s cancer relapsed for the fifth time. That was incredibly stressful for me, so I turned to Buddhist meditation. I didn’t attend formal lessons but read books and practiced on my own. Meditation supported me through that time, but when my dad passed away in 2013, a friend introduced me to traditional Chinese Zen meditation. This structured and sequential approach became my practice for a year and a half—until I encountered MBSR.
When I attended my first MBSR class in 2014 or 2015, I realized I had misunderstood a fundamental aspect of my Zen meditation practice—non-judgment. In Zen, there’s a saying: “Just be aware, and then return to your method.” I had interpreted this as “ignore stray thoughts and rigidly stick to your method.” So, when I meditated intensively, I was constantly judging my thoughts. It was only through MBSR that I truly grasped non-judgmental awareness, and integrating this understanding into my Buddhist meditation significantly improved my practice.
During COVID, I was actively supporting several organizations and found myself overwhelmed. I needed a community to practice with, so I joined the Oxford Mindfulness Program online and later took an in-person MBSR course at SMU facilitated by Sheryl Bathman. This second experience deepened my understanding of my relationship with judgment. I realized that much of the stress I faced while running organizations stemmed from my own judgments. This insight transformed my relationship with stress. After my second MBSR course, my mental well-being improved tremendously over the following 10 months.
Feeling the profound impact of MBSR, I attempted to guide mindfulness sessions at a drug rehabilitation organization where I worked. However, I quickly realized that I lacked the vocabulary to support participants with a history of trauma. I needed to start from the basics and develop a new language for guiding practice.
This led me to enroll in MBSR teacher training online. I needed a mentor, and having seen Carmen’s approach in our SMU group practice—and with Sheryl’s strong recommendation—I reached out to her. That’s how I began both practicing and teaching mindfulness.
Besides helping people, what else prompted you to move into teaching?
Loh Wei: A major reason was the structured and intentional design of the MBSR syllabus. I was struck by how it unfolds over eight weeks—concealing certain elements until the later sessions. The first five to six weeks focus on internal practice, and the last three weeks guide participants toward engaging with the outside world. The progression from body to breath to mind is beautifully sequenced.
I felt that if I wanted to introduce people to mindfulness in a meaningful way, I should teach MBSR myself.
What were the initial difficulties or challenges that you encountered when you first started as a mindfulness or MBSR teacher?
Loh Wei: I was fortunate that my friends trusted my mindfulness experience. When I ran my first class, ten of them volunteered as my first batch of students.
However, teaching people I had known for decades was tricky. I had preconceived notions about them, which unconsciously influenced my approach in class. This became especially evident when teaching a younger cousin. I carried my personal history with them into the classroom. Carmen’s mentorship helped me recognize this pattern, and she encouraged me to see each participant as a fresh, new person during class. This shift in perspective was invaluable.
Classroom dynamics also presented challenges. In one class, a husband and wife attended together. Whenever the husband spoke, his wife would sigh audibly. Managing such interactions required me to develop classroom management skills. Overcoming these challenges made me more aware of my habitual patterns. Rather than suppressing them, I leaned into practice more intentionally, refining my language and grounding myself during each session.
Another key realization was the power of the MBSR syllabus itself. If a class discussion ever veered off track, I could always return to the core theme of the session, which provided a solid anchor.
You teach mindfulness to diverse communities. Is there a reason you are interested in teaching to these various communities?
Loh Wei: During my time as a finance director at a charity that funded other charities, I encountered Greenhouse, a drug rehabilitation organization that sought funding. They weren’t structured well enough to receive funding, but I was intrigued by their mission. I reached out, met the founder, and discovered that while he lacked financial expertise, his heart was in the right place. I started donating privately and helping with their accounting.
Later, I wanted to introduce mindfulness to Greenhouse. Since I wasn’t yet trained in MBSR, the founder connected me with stable cases to work with. My first session was a wake-up call—I didn’t know how to guide mindfulness for a community with trauma. I lacked the language and understanding.
Determined to bridge this gap, I enrolled in MBSR teacher training. Even after completing it, I realized I still needed additional tools. This led me to study Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness (TSM) with David Treleaven. By integrating TSM principles with MBSR skills, I learned how to offer safe, guided meditation to traumatized communities.
I also noticed that mindfulness practices were not widely accessible in Singapore. The most affordable form of mind-body work was yoga, but yoga classes weren’t necessarily teaching mindfulness. I eventually connected with rehabilitation programs for inmates, LGBTQ groups, and drug recovery communities, including individuals living with HIV. Many in these communities carried deep self-judgment. In MBSR’s full-day retreat, we practice self-compassion, but I found that some participants felt they didn’t deserve happiness. However, they could express compassion for others. I invited them to direct loving-kindness toward someone they cared about—and, over time, to turn that kindness inward. This approach made mindfulness more accessible to them.
Hearing their stories fills me with admiration. They are incredible survivors, and I feel deeply called to support them through mindfulness.
Do you have core values or core beliefs when it comes to the teaching of mindfulness? Or thoughts about mindfulness in the modern world? Do you have any resistance, or contrarian, novel ideas about mindfulness?
Loh Wei: I was lucky I started off with Buddhist meditation, where a large part of mindfulness comes from. However, I realised that there's a lot of things in the Buddhist tradition of teaching that are not safe for people who are no longer so healthy today.
One value that I really hold very dear is to not do harm when I introduce mindfulness to anyone, which means that I need to have a lot more tools at hand. For example, if they can’t use breath because it is triggering, I can guide them to use sound, or if they are fully disembodied when they are sitting, I ask them to do squats, to feel their thighs. So I think not doing harm is very important, and also, when I want to not do harm, then I need to be very keenly aware of what's going on.
Being the teacher, I need to turn my attention and awareness out, to take in the whole class, to be aware of what's going on, and also to know the right class size so I can teach it safely. I feel quite confident teaching 15 to 20 participants in one general class, but with a vulnerable community, I feel like eight is the max, and within the eight I need one or two who are very stable, so if one or two become disassociated or dysregulated, the whole class won’t become dysregulated together.
I remember I was very inspired by Sheryl when she was teaching the MBSR class I had attended as a participant in SMU. So one of the movements in the class was to raise your right hand up, then lean one side. This lady raised her hand, but because of her pinched shoulder, she couldn't lean any further. Sheryl started instructing the class to focus on the leaning, and that the posture didn't matter. Cheryl’s flexibility in the way she smoothly adapted her guidance showed me the amazing power of having a teacher that is keenly aware of what is going on in the class.
Can you share your greatest joy of being a mindfulness teacher?
Loh Wei: I invite all my former students to a free monthly online group practice to continue their mindfulness journey.
One of my greatest joys was seeing the transformation of a student who initially slept through each body scan practice during his MBSR course. He would bring a thick duvet and snore through the sessions. Five months after the course ended, he shared that he had finally done a body scan while seated and was thrilled to feel different parts of his body. Even though he seemed disengaged during the course, something had still taken root.
Another memorable experience was with a Greenhouse participant who relapsed and was sent back to prison. With nothing to do all day, he created his own MBSR-inspired routine: yoga in the morning, more yoga in the afternoon, followed by breath or body awareness exercises. He spent hours each day practicing mindfulness, turning his prison time into a kind of retreat. His dedication inspired fellow inmates, and he began sharing mindfulness practices with them. Knowing that mindfulness reached into prison, even without me being there, was incredibly moving.
What is your greatest pain of being a mindfulness teacher?
Loh Wei: The more difficult part of being an MBSR teacher is to manage the non-teaching part, things like managing a social media presence, dealing with people asking for refunds after signing up or finding students.
Also, there I face some difficulties navigating the corporate world. Some corporate clients want to pay for training that I do not think is very useful for their employees. They want one-time sessions when I think a more multi-session course would be more sustainable and helpful. I would get rejected, even though the price would not be that much higher compared to what they were willing to pay for a one-time session. It is hard for me to balance providing training that is useful to employees and placating HR departments who are looking to complete a checklist.
Q&A: How did you make the shift from being in the corporate world to being an MBSR teacher?
Loh Wei: I used to be highly uptight and high-strung, struggling to stay relaxed. While I was generally quite aware, that awareness often came with judgment, and I lacked the mental stability to use it effectively before taking MBSR training.
My journey has been about learning how to process what I see and know in a way that doesn’t overwhelm me or make me shut down. Instead, I’ve worked to stay open and explore how I can contribute meaningfully. I’ve been fortunate financially—I was able to sell my accounting business, which allows me to focus on this work full-time without worrying about income.
Coming from an accounting and finance background, I initially felt intimidated when, in my second MBSR course, I found myself teaching a psychologist, counselor, yoga teacher, and podiatrist. I worried about whether I was qualified to guide them. Carmen reassured me, reminding me that while they were experts in their own fields, I had a deeper understanding of mindfulness. I just needed to trust my knowledge.
The MBSR teacher training gave me the confidence to engage in these discussions. During a Week Six session on the stress response, a doctor in the class questioned my statement that "mindfulness reduces inflammation," asking me to explain the mechanism. I appreciated that he was genuinely curious rather than trying to challenge me. In a lighthearted moment, the podiatrist chimed in, noting that there were multiple physiological mechanisms at play, making it impossible to pinpoint a single one. Having another doctor in the room who backed up this perspective was reassuring. That experience reinforced that mastering the MBSR syllabus, its teaching materials, and related mindfulness resources is enough to confidently teach—even to those in the medical field.
Q&A: Money is important because it frees more time to do things that would make the world a better place. How do you navigate this relationship with financial sustainability and time?
Loh Wei: I have no good answers for you. The real answer would actually be, there are some sacrifices to be made. For example, I really don't like to make social media posts and to even spend the first few two years building a social media following on my Instagram page was irritating for me, even though financially, I'm okay ish, I don't need to depend on mindfulness teaching as my main income. I have my own investment portfolio. But to just to create all those posts and also to like things and share stories, was a bit irritating for me, because all I want is to teach, but then I see it in the larger context, that if I want to reach out to people who need help or who I want to teach, this is part of the price to pay. You have to find your own balance when investing in building your community. For me, there is tiredness in the process, but I do not feel any bitterness.
Audio File
From 00:00 Introduction to Loh Wei
From 01:38 Guided Meditation by Loh Wei
From 14:53 Conversation
From 41:22 Q&A
(total 54:47 mins)
