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Making your body your castle (And watch Toby’s Mindfulness TedX Talk!)

Dear  Integral Meditators,

This weeks article gives some simple mindful suggestions for bringing real stability to your life, literally, and even when under pressure!
Also, I recently discovered that a TedX talk I gave on mindfulness is up on the web. Its a pretty decent 15min primer on the vision of engaged and integral mindfulness, do have a view!

In the spirit of castle-like awareness!

Toby


1:1 Coaching offer until the end of August
On a personal level, if you are looking to meet the rest of the year with a renewed strategy for developing your work-life balance, and for dealing with your stress more effectively, until the end of August I am offering a 15% price reduction in myHandle stress and have peace of mind 1:1 coaching sessions.


Making your body your castle

Your body and your senses are your most basic, simple and stable objects of mindful awareness. They are basic and simple because they are non-conceptual, solid experiences that we encounter when we observe the physical dimension of our present moment awareness. When your mind is focused on your body and senses quite naturally it starts to feel more stable, because our body is generally much less changeable, quick and unpredictable than our thoughts and emotions.

Your body and senses are the easiest objects to train in mindfulness to begin with. This is because they are obvious and easy to find, even if we are not familiar with mindfulness practice. Everyone can become aware and focus on their body, or the sounds around them without too much trouble. Because of this they are an obvious place to begin building mindful concentration and focus. Once you are familiar with focusing on the body and senses, you can then go onto focus on thoughts, feelings and mental images as objects of mindfulness with much greater ease and success.

Solid mastery of mindfulness of the body and senses will give you tremendous stability under mental and emotional pressure. This is because they give your mind a stable anchor in the moment. Rather than feeling like you are drowning in an uncontrollable mass of thoughts and feelings, you will gradually start to feel more and more comfortable under pressure, because your attention to your body gives you a deeper sense of presence in the moment that enables calm.

Make your body like your castle 
There is an old saying that goes something like “An Englishman’s home is his (or her) castle”. The gist of this is that our physical home is a refuge where we can retreat from the world, gather our strength, heal our wounds and feel safe. If we have a physical space to retreat to it is of great value to us in terms of our peace and wellbeing. I often think about my own body as being like my ‘castle’ as I go around my day facing various challenges. As long as a part of my attention is centered in my body I have a place where I can feel strong, relaxed and solid, even if there are difficult emotions, uncertainties or negative thoughts going on.
If you like you can bear this image in mind as you cultivate your own mindful attention of your body and senses. Practice making them ‘castle-like’; solid, immense and stable amidst the whirlwind of your emotions, thoughts and activities. If you are a visually minded person, when you are sitting in meditation you might even like to imagine yourself in your very own castle, safe and calm within its strong walls. You can them bring that feeling into your body in the present moment and cultivate that feeling of physical strength and solidity.

Enhancing your bodily comfort and wellbeing
As you cultivate your awareness in this way, you will also start to notice tension, fatigue or discomfort in the body. As a result, you will naturally start to let go of that tension and look after your body better. So not only will you find more mental stability, but you will also enhance your wellbeing on a physical level!

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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 AsiaOngoing 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)

Begins 14/15th September – Effortless effort – Insight meditation for self-healing and transformation – a five week course

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 8th September & 29th September 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class
Tues 18th & Weds 18th September, 7.30-8.30pm – Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday 22nd September, 10.30am-5pm – Shamanic Mandala Meditation and Art Workshop

Saturday 29th September, 2-5pm – OneHeart Open Day ‘Activating your journey of healing and empowerment’.


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 Insight Meditation Integral Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Simple, or aware, or positive, or creative

“There is much inner stability that comes just from observing and being curious. There is a world of difference between ‘My life is a disaster’ and ‘how interesting that part of my mind should be thinking that my life is a disaster!’ Awareness gives us choice.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

In this weeks article I outline four ways of paying attention that, if you get really good at will render you largely impervious to intimidation from any of the current challenges in your life. Enjoy!

In the spirit of attention,

Toby

PS: You can now train in this meditation using my recordings on the Simple, positive, creative & aware training page


Simple, or aware, or positive, or creative

What are we fundamentally trying to do with our attention in mindfulness practice? One way of thinking about this question is to divide our daily attention into four ‘types’ Under each type listed below I detail an introduction to what it is and how to go about cultivating it. In each section there is also a link to a full article on each topic.

Simple – This type of mindful attention involves making our attention simple, grounded, uncomplicated by directing it toward our body and senses. You can take any of your senses, your breathing or feelings within your body as your object of attention here. By keeping your attention anchored to your sensory experience, you make your mind simpler, stronger and more relaxed. Without deliberately making our mind simple every day it’s all too easy to live in a permanently complex, stressful, anxious and worried mental world, that feels intimidating and not much fun. Also, when you think less, you also tend to think better!

Aware – This second type of mindful attention seeks only to pay attention and be aware. It observes and notes what is happening in our mind with impartiality, not trying to change fix, judge or alter. There is a lot of basic inner stability that comes just from observing and being curious. There is a world of difference for example between ‘My life is a disaster’ and ‘how interesting that part of my mind should be thinking that my life is a disaster!’ Awareness gives us choice and flexibility of mind. It also makes it more likely that we will then go onto make better decisions based around what we have become aware of.

Positive – This third type of attention means deliberately paying attention to what good there is in our life, or a situation; what there is to appreciate, feel grateful for, or that is to our advantage. It seeks out reasons to feel happy, glad, optimistic, peaceful, enthusiastic, even if we seem to be surrounded by problems and challenges. Developing our daily skill at this type of attention value adds tremendously to our pleasure and wellbeing. It also increases the chances of us being more effective and energized in the face of problems.

Creative – Finally, the creative mode of attention is where we think and analyze in a focused way in order to find solutions to problems. It is completely different from ruminating, over-analyzing or negative worrying. It simply observes the presenting issue with curiosity (fear or anxiety may be present, but we do not allow them to dominate) and seeks to come up with creative ideas as to how a solution could be found, or a step forward can be taken. The creative mode of thinking is not focused exclusively on the positive. It seeks to know obstacles and problems objectively and realistically and seeks ways to find resolution. This way of paying attention is also creative in the face of non-problems. It seeks to innovate, improvise and enjoy whatever circumstances we find ourselves in!

A suggested practicum: For five minutes, focus on making your mind simple by focusing on your body and senses. Then spend five minutes letting your attention roam, and greeting whatever comes up with awareness, or positivity, or creativity. It can be whichever you prefer, but it must be one. You can repeat this cycle as many times as you like in any sitting. Get used to paying sustained mindful attention to your life in these four ways and notice what starts to change!

Related article: Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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


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 Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

Dear  Integral Meditators,

What are important questions that you can use to greatly improve your meditation and mindfulness practice, whatever level you are at? The article below offers two…

 

Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

One fundamental mindfulness question that you can ask yourself is “What is the way in which I am paying attention to my experience in this moment?” Regarding meditation, a central one is Which positive object of attention is going to be most useful to me in this situation, right now?

“What is the way in which I am paying attention to my experience in this moment?”
Let’s look at the mindfulness question first. Mindfulness means being aware of what you are doing in the moment, and how you are paying attention to what you are doing. If you ask yourself how you are paying attention to what is happening to you, then you’ll start to notice the way in which your attention is influencing how you experience what you are going through. You can then ask yourself the question “is the way in which I am paying attention here helping me or hindering me to be both happy and effective?” If you can see that your current way of paying attention is working to produce a good result, then you can stay with it. If it isn’t, then you can try making a mindful adjustment that will make an improvement.
For example, if I am in a meeting, and I am feeling impatient because it has gone overtime, I might notice that the impatience is making me both unhappy in the moment, and less effective at bringing the meeting to a successful conclusion. So, I might then decide to make the adjustment of accepting that the meeting is late, and re-focus my attention on patiently getting the best outcome by listening to the other parties, and communicating well.
It is by making many such incremental adjustments each day that mindfulness can really improve out quality of life and make us more effective at what we are doing.

“Which positive object of attention is going to be most useful to me in this situation, right now?”
A meditator is (amongst other things) someone who is concerned with focusing their attention mindfully around a positive object as they go through their daily life. A ‘positive object’ is one that, when we focus upon it helps our mind to feel calmer, more joyful/loving, more confident, grounded, centered and so on. A positive object influences our state of mind for the good when we focus upon it. There are as many different positive objects as there are positive states of mind. The skill as a meditator lies in focusing on the right positive object. For example:

  • If I am experiencing fear, I might take courage, or the recognition of my immediate physical safety as my object of meditation in the moment
  • If my mind is very busy or distracted, then I might practice attention to my body and senses as my positive object, to settle my mind.
  • If I have just received an experience of good fortune, then I can take appreciation of that good fortune as my object of mindful attention.

The skill of the meditator in this context is selecting the right positive object to effectively meet and enjoy the challenge that s/he is going through in the moment. Since life is always changing, the particular positive object will also change as our day/week/month progresses, so we need to keep aware and making adjustments. We can do this by asking ourself this second question.

So, if you can bear in mind these two questions and ask yourself them regularly, then both your mindfulness and meditation practice are going to become more effective. Enjoy!

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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 AsiaOngoing 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)

Begins 14/15th September – Effortless effort – Insight meditation for self-healing and transformation – a five week course

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 11th August, 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 18th August, 9.30-1pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop


Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Breathing Qi gong

Incremental Breathing – Relaxing and energizing at will

Dear  Integral Meditators,

How can you use your breathing consciously to both energize and relax yourself at will? The article below offers a simple, easy to practice technique.
For those in Singapore, a reminder that the weekly evening meditation classes start again this week, full details here. This Saturday we also have a new  Qi gong meditation workout and meditation, as well as the monthly meditation for beginners workshop.

In the breathing and feeling alive,

Toby


Incremental Breathing – Relaxing and energizing at will

Incremental breathing is a way of using the breath to both energize and or relax our mind and body. Taking a few of these breaths at regular times during our day can really make a difference to the quality of our life, as well as making us more aware and empowered regarding how we can influence the energies of our mind, body and nervous system for the better using such an easy technique. Incremental breathing can be practiced on the inhalation when we want to energize our body, and on the exhalation when we want to calm and relax our body.
Practicing either of these two forms of breathing will be enhanced if we first bring our torso’s center of gravity down low into the belly and breathe with the whole lung. I explain these two points fully in my article on Belly breathing.

Incremental breathing on the inhalation.
As you breathe in, divide your inhalation into three even lengths or ‘sips’ as follows:
Breathe into about 25% lung capacity, pause*, breathe in to about 50% of lung capacity, pause, breathe into about 75% of lung capacity, pause. By this time your lungs are comfortably full. Then, breathe a long, slow exhalation. Repeat 3-9 times.
(*the pause here should be short, a half second or one second max).
Once you have become used to the above technique, as you are inhaling incrementally, feel all the cells of your body becoming more and more energized as you inhale, so by the time you reach the top of your inbreath, your whole body feels full of Qi /energy).

Incremental breathing on the exhalation.
First take a long, measured inbreath to about 75% of your lung capacity, so that your lungs are comfortably full. Then, as you breathe out, divide your exhalation into three even lengths:
Breathe out to about 50% of lung capacity, pause, breathe out to about 25% of lung capacity, pause, empty remaining air from lungs, pause. Repeat 3-9 times.
Once you have become used to the basic process of incremental breathing on the outbreath, as you breathe out incrementally, feel your whole body becoming progressively more and more relaxed.

Once you have practised them individually, you can combine these two techniques together, so that you are breathing in incrementally to energize your body and mind, and then breathing out incrementally to relax your body and mind. The result is a very pleasant combined experience of energy and relaxation that we can take into and use in our life.

For the insomniacs among you, this type of breathing, particularly breathing incrementally on the exhalation can be good to combine with the ”Hands on the belly to relax the brain”technique in the article I published in July. Enjoy your breathing!

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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 AsiaOngoing 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)

Begins 14/15th September – Effortless effort – Insight meditation for self-healing and transformation – a five week course

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 11th August, 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 11th August, 11am-12.30pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Saturday 18th August, 9.30-1pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop


Integral Meditation Asia

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