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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Closing the gap between what you think, say and do

Dear Integral Meditators,

Do your thoughts, speach and actions match up, or is there a gap between them? The article below offers some thoughts on mindfully aligning these different aspects of ourself, and why we should be interested in doing so!

In the spirit of integration,

Toby


Closing the gap between what you think, say and do

One of the main functions of mindfulness is to facilitate integration within the self. This can be done in many different ways. One way is to become more aware of the relationship between what you think, what you say, and what you do. Are they consistent and aligned with each other or not? You can stimulate mindfulness in this area by asking questions such as:

  • Is what I said just now (for example to my friend or colleague) representative of what I really think, or did I just say what I thought they wanted to hear?
  • Have my actions this morning really been representative of the values that I hold in my mind and thoughts?
  • Have I done what I said (to myself or others) I’d do, or is there a contradiction, or gap between my words and actions?

The goal of mindfully integrating your thoughts, words and actions is to:

  • Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
  • To do what you say, and say what you (actually) do, or are going to do
  • To make your actions and speech in the outer world the embodiment of the thoughts and values that you believe in and hold most dear in your mind.

The Payoff

This type of mindful integration takes some effort, honesty, skill and courage. So what’s the payoff? Some of the benefits include:

  • Greater self-esteem and confidence arising from the consistency of your words, thoughts and actions.
  • More natural inner harmony and peace, as these different parts of yourself align with each other and support each other benevolently.
  • Pleasure derived from expressing who you really are in the world, rather than feeling like a fake.
  • A feeling of being more fully alive to your experience of the moment, and bringing the best that you have to it.

Being Strategic in Your Speech and Actions

This type of mindful work does not mean that you just speak and act blindly, without awareness of your context. Of course we need to be aware of what is appropriate, who we are with, and what sort of speech is likely to bring a good result, and what is not.
What it does mean however, is that we do not blindly betray our authentic thoughts and self just to please or appease others in a way that betrays our values, and what we really think and feel. Only we can truly represent ourself to the world, and it is up to us to take mindful self-responsibility for this.

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Restarting August 15th: Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Restarting August 15th: Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday August 19th, 10am-5pm, & Monday August 21st,  10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop


Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindfulness Positive anger Presence and being present

Is calmer always better?

Dear Integral Meditators,

Is the goal of meditation and mindfulness always to make you calmer? The article below considers this question from a number of angles that are important to consider in our day to day practice…

In the spirit of dynamic calm,

Toby

For those in Singapore, this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday class will be meditating on ‘Enlightened Imperfection‘, all welcome!


Is calmer always better? (Passionate preferences)

Is the goal of meditation and mindfulness always to make you calmer? Yesterday I was talking with a friend in the tech and start-up industry who was telling me the story of how he came to mindfulness practice. In short he became so stressed due to his work that he started having physical heart and chest pains. Upon going to the doctor, he was told there was no physical problem, it was mainly psychological stress. It was at that point that he started meditating.
Many people come to meditation and mindfulness in a similar way; the absence of calm in their life forces them to seek out a way of dealing with their stress, and they start using mindfulness meditation as a way of moving toward a less frenetic and frantic state of body, mind and heart.

The spectrum of mindful attention
Once we get beyond mindfulness as an ‘emergency band-aid’ way of calming down, we discover that mindfulness and meditation when done well does not always mean becoming calmer. In fact the help us consciously move ourself along a spectrum of attention. This spectrum of attention moves from a state of total calm & relaxation on one end (On a scale of 1-10, let’s call this 1) and a state of dynamic passion and action on the other end (on our scale of 1-10, this would be 10).
Your ‘job’ as a mindfulness practitioner is to bring the level of mindful intensity appropriate to the particular task at hand, in order to optimize your experience of it both in terms of your effectiveness, and your ability to experience happiness. Here are some examples of how this can go wrong or right:

The lower expression: 
Negative calm – Not enough passion: Let’s say I am having a discussion with my partner about our relationship. If I remain totally calm and dispassionate to the point of dis-interest, this is not going to serve the purpose of our discussion.
Too much passion: To continue with the above example, if in my discussion with my partner I become too passionate and not calm enough, then this can sabotage the conversation as well, so here too much passion becomes negative stress.

The higher expression – Mindful passion or mindful engagement:  In the discussion with my partner I need to bring my emotions and passion to the conversation to communicate that I care, and invest deeply in the process of the relationship. I need passionate engagement, with just enough calm to keep the conversation reasonable, considered and polite!

The above is an example of informal mindfulness in everyday life. Similarly, in our formal meditation practice we need passion and motivation in order to avoid our sense of meditative calm becoming too robotic and cold (see last week’s article on ‘Witnessing like the Sun’). So, in both our formal and informal practice of mindfulness and meditation, there needs to be a balance of calmness and excitement, a harmony between relaxation and focus, an equilibrium between our passion and our detachment. Sometimes we need to dial town toward the calm end of the spectrum, but equally sometimes we need to deliberately engage more passion, excitement and positive urgency!  This deliberate engagement of passion is as much a part of the conscious meditative process as cultivating our inner calm.
Each experience in our life is different, and being mindful in each moment helps us to determine the optimal balance of calmness and passion for that particular situation.

Related articlesThe spectrum of mindful attention
Engaged detachment

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday August 19th, 10am-5pm, & Monday August 21st,  10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop


Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

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A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight creative imagery Insight Meditation Integral Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindfulness Presence and being present

Witnessing like the Sun

Dear Integral Meditators,

Taking a position as an observer or witness is a fundamental position that we practice when being mindful, but can it make us too cold and detached? The article below explores this theme, and how to build an integrated and balanced witnessing practice.

For those in Singapore, this evening’s  Wednesday class will be on ‘Meditation & spiritual alchemy‘, all welcome!

In the spirit of inner light,

Toby


Witnessing like the Sun

Taking a position as an observer or witness is a fundamental position that we practice when being mindful:

  • We learn to watch our thoughts without interfering, repressing, denying or encouraging.
  • We observe our reactions & responses to what people say to us, noting without judging.
  • We try and hold a third person perspective when we are engaging in daily activities, noting our behaviours and the behaviours of others as consciously as possible.
  • We learn to experience emotions without being completely consumed and over-identified with them. There is a part of us that remains at the center of the experience, balanced amidst the imbalance of our feelings.

There can be an extreme of this witnessing position, whereby we become too detached, too cold, too robotic in our mindful witnessing practice. If we go to this extreme then we can find our mindfulness practice detracting from the quality of our life, as it impairs our ability to engage in experiences with passion, engagement, emotion and humanity. With integral mindfulness, we are trying to set up a complementary, supportive relationship between our emotional engagement in life, and our ability to witness, observe and detach. These two qualities should be working with each other, not against each other!

Witnessing like the Sun
One way in which we can avoid the extreme end of mindful detachment is by practising witnessing like the Sun. From one point of view the sun shines on us with total objectivity. It is so huge, and we are so insignificant and tiny (relative to it), it has no involvement or investment in our life at all. It shines upon us as if by chance, with monolithic objectivity. But, at the same time the Sun is also warm, life-giving, bright and joyful. When we see the Sun we feel enlivened, encouraged and optimistic. So, when we practice mindful witnessing, either in formal practice or informally during the day, we can practice as if we are the Sun, combining objective detachment with warmth, benevolence and joy as we watch!

When my phone content was wiped
Yesterday I traded in my old phone for a newer version. In the process of doing so the shop assistant accidentally wiped out a bunch or photos and Whatsapp messages that had a lot of sentimental value for me. After realizing what had happened, I was feeling pretty angry and upset, and a bit emotionally traumatized at the loss. Realizing I was upset I switched on my ‘mindful witness mode’, but made sure that I combined it with engagement and passion, so that I was able to experience the emotions without repressing them, say what I wanted to say to the shop assistant about the f*#ck up (possibly more polite than he deserved, but I think I got the message across), and went about seeing if I could recover the images and information from other sources. In short I tried to practice witnessing like the Sun, shining the light of my objective awareness on the experience with warmth as I experienced the emotional roller-coaster. Two hours later, with most of my emotions processed, and almost all the important info recovered, I could relax and enjoy my new phone, calmly!

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Tuesday & Wednesday evenings – Practical meditations for spiritual awakening & enlightenment – A six week course

Saturday August 19th, 10am-5pm, & Monday August 21st,  10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop


Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

Categories
creative imagery Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation

‘Turtling up’ – Dealing mindfully with information overload

Dear Integral Meditators ,

One of the most challenging aspects of living in the information age is that, as it implies, there is so much information around that we are asked to digest. The article below considers how formal & informal mindfulness can help us with this.

For those in Singapore, this Tuesday & Wednesday‘s class will be on the ‘What lies beyond stillness‘, which will be about accessing deeper levels of creativity through meditation & mindfulness.

In the spirit of equilibrium,

Toby


‘Turtling up’ – Dealing mindfully with information overload

One of the most challenging aspects of living in the information age is that, as it implies, there is so much information around that we are asked to digest. One of the big things that meditation and mindfulness can offer us is a way with dealing with this challenge.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been feeling somewhat overwhelmed by my workload, and the pace at which I am having to move in which to cope with it. Many of the mornings I wake with a sense of having just a bit too much information to deal with. As I sit down to breakfast, part of me is tempted to grab my phone and start reading the news online. Often is not so much that I am interested in the news, it is more that I want a way to escape the feeling of having too much information to cope with. The ‘instinctive reasoning’ is that I can escape my feelings of being mentally overwhelmed by distracting myself with more information. The problem with this strategy is that if I spend breakfast surfing more news and information, my mind will need to digest even more information, and I will get up from breakfast feeling even more overwhelmed!
Consequently, I have made a conscious choice to leave my phone alone during breakfast, focusing instead on being aware of the way my mind, emotions and body feel, deliberately slowing down a little, and doing less as I eat. Consequently, I get up from breakfast feeling more mentally rested, and that I have more ‘mind-space’ with which I can ‘digest’ the challenges of my day.

‘Turtling up’ – Dropping your outer and inner senses
My choice during breakfast above is an example of an informal mindfulness strategy to cope more effectively with information overload. Every day we actually have many such opportunities to reduce the amount of information that we are having to process.
One formal mindfulness and meditation practice we can do is simply withdrawing our attention temporarily from our outer and inner senses.

  • Our outer senses give us information about what is around us in the outer world.
  • Our inner senses give us information about how our body and emotions are feeling, as well as what we are thinking, remembering or otherwise using our mind for.

To practice ‘turtling up’ is to withdraw your attention from your senses, like a turtle or tortoise gathering its head and limbs inside its shell. You simply find a quiet spot for a while and withdraw your attention from your outer and inner senses, finding and relaxing into a still space within the centre of your body-mind. A tortoise inside its shell can still hear stuff going on outside, but it feels like it is a distance away. Similarly, you gather your attention inside your body and away from the activity of the mind and senses. You might still hear things, and your mind may still be active to a degree, but you are experiencing it ‘from a distance’ so to speak. You are relaxing in the still quiet space ‘inside your shell’.
The function if ‘turtling up’ is to enable your mind and senses to recover from information overload. By emptying our mind of information for a while, we enable it to regain its equilibrium, regenerate its energy and recover the ability to engage and digest information effectively and happily.
This week if you like you can try practising ‘turtling up’ for short periods of time I your day to help you thrive in the information age, rather than being a victim of it!

© Toby Ouvry 2017, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Tuesday & Wednesday evenings – Practical meditations for spiritual awakening & enlightenment – A six week course

Saturday August 19th, 10am-5pm, & Monday August 21st,  10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop


Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology