Category: Inner vision

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Mindfulness of mood & atmosphere of your life-story

“You might think about your inner mood as being like the weather. If you are playing a game of tennis in a sunny, lightly breezy day, its completely different from playing it on a rainy, very windy day. We can usually shift ourself at least partially toward a better mood if we try, and this then affects everything for the better”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s newsletter slightly early, and has three things in it:

  • Firstly, an article on the importance of mindfulness around your mood.
  • Secondly if you are interested in meditation sound technology, I have been using I-awake for many years now. They have some great products, and they are all on a 30% off Labour day sale until 4th September (US time). This technology is also a great way to help change the mood and ambience of your life for the better!
  • Thirdly, beneath the article you can find all the courses and workshops for September, quite an exciting line-up, starting with the Qi gong workshop on the 9th September!

 
In the spirit of mood & atmosphere,

Toby 

Now Live: iAwake Labor Day Weekend Sale
 
From August 31 – September 4, 2023, we are holding our annual Labor Day Weekend Sale, one of our biggest sales this year. This sale features 30% OFF on Digital Tracks and 25% OFF on CDs + Digital. Check out our catalog and take advantage of this annual opportunity to receive huge discounts on iAwake tracks and add to or complete your iAwake toolkit.
 
Discount Coupon Code for DIGITAL (30% OFF): IAWAKELABOR2023

Mindfulness of mood & atmosphere of your life-story
 
When trying to improve our daily experience through mindfulness quite often peoples focus is upon

  • Focusing better
  • Thinking more positively
  • Thinking less
  • Relaxing more

These are all noble pursuits of course, but what I find often gets missed is attention to the mood and the inner atmosphere that we do things. If you think about it our mood is very important. For example, if your mood is habitually anxious and fearful then this naturally

  • Interrupts your focus
  • Makes it difficult to think positively
  • Creates low-grade mental busyness/ habitual overthinking
  • Makes it tough to relax

In my classes and coaching recently, one of the things that I have been emphasizing to students and clients is awareness of their habitual moods, and deliberately moving them toward a lighter more benevolent inner atmosphere. For example, if having noticed our inner mood in the moment we then direct it towards a combination of

  • Curiosity & playful inquisitiveness
  • Warmth & care

Then if we can establish that as an atmosphere in our body-mind, it then starts to colour our daily experience and activities

  • Warm & curious atmospheres are easy to build relaxed-focus in
  • Its natural and quite easy to think positively
  • We feel less compelled to think all the time
  • Activities just ‘feel’ naturally more enjoyable

 
The weather you are playing the game in
You might think about your inner mood as being like the weather. If you are playing a game of tennis in a sunny, lightly breezy day, its completely different from playing it on a rainy, very windy day. We can’t always completely control our mood, but we can usually shift ourself at least partially toward a better mood if we try, and this then affects everything for the better.
Playing with moods therapeutically
In my article last week on Therapeutic mindfulness I outline six practices which might also be thought of as ways of creating inner moods that are both strengthening and healing:

  • Grounded & sensory
  • Safety & non-emergency
  • Warmth & compassion
  • Appreciation
  • Curiosity & courage
  • A sense of being supported

All of these are possible moods that you can cultivate. Of course, there are many more that you could choose to focus on, according to your needs and inclinations. It’s something to have fun cultivating!


If you enjoy this article, you might enjoy the upcoming Therapeutic mindfulness course beginning on 26/27th September!

Related article: Mindful of your moods, emotions and dispositions

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds in August/Sept – The Wisdom of Awakening Series: Meditations for developing wisdom around inner-growth, happiness & fulfillment

Saturday August 26th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday Saturday 9th September, 9am-12.30pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing

Wednesday 20th September, 7.30-8.30pm – Autumn Equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Starting Tues 26th & Weds 27th September – Re-discovering your inner vitality & joie-de-vivre – An introduction to integrative therapeutic mindfulness & meditation

Saturday 30th September & Sunday 1st October, 9.30am-1pm – Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life, and growing your own personal Life Tree

Saturday October 7th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday & Sunday October 28th & 29th – Integral Meditation Two Day Retreat

Tues/Weds Oct 31st, Nov 1st – Seasonal class: Samhain – Healing the wounds & receiving the gifts of our ancestors

Tues/Weds Nov 14th/15th – Seasonal class: Deepavali -connecting to your inner light

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience

Meditating with your teenage-self

“The ‘teenage self’ is one of several aspects of our inner-self or psyche that, if we take the time to connect to, we can find ourselves being enriched. For example, if I am well connected to my inner teenager, then I can draw upon his innate curiosity, ambition and appetite for life in a way that other middle-aged folk who lack a vital connection to their inner teenager cannot!”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This weeks article comes under the domain of what you might call ‘Theraputic mindfulness’, & has strong, explicit connections to the wellbeing of our psychological self. It relates to the area of coaching work that I offer in my Mindful self-knowledge program.  

In the spirit of inner vitality, 

Toby 

Meditating with your teenage-self
 
Definitions of your youthful and teenage self:
The ‘teenage self’ is one of several aspects of our inner-self or psyche that, if we take the time to connect to, we can find ourselves being enriched in a number of ways. Some of these ways are therapeutic, as in healing inner wounds and burdens from our teenage past. Other ways include connecting to the strengths of our youthful/teenage self that we can draw upon in our present stage of life. For example, at my present age of 51, if I am well connected to my inner teenager, then I can draw upon his innate curiosity, ambition and appetite for life in a way that other 50-somethings who lack a vital connection to their inner teenager cannot!
Our teenage self is different from our ‘inner child-self’ (who is worked with commonly in a therapeutic context) in the sense that our inner child is a pre-sexual being, whereas our inner teenager is an adolescent and therefore sexually defined/sexually activated. Consequently, the concerns of the inner child and teenager, and their perspectives/needs differ substantially.
Below I point out a few definitions and ways of beginning to relate to your inner teenager.
 
The youthful or teenage self is that part of us that has matured from the child to the early-adult stage of human development. It sees the initial development of an adult personality; it is concerned with things such as:

  • Defining and distinguishing ourself from others,
  • Appetite for and ambitions in life,
  • Career/life goals,
  • Sexuality and romantic relationships
  • Willingness to keep learning new things

 
A psychological definition:
 
The teenage-self is the component of the psyche containing the “personality” of the adolescent one once was, with that teenager’s range of values, emotions, needs and responses; not a generic teenager or universal archetype, but a specific, historical one, unique to an individual’s history and development.
– Nathaniel Branden, definition taken from the Six Pillars of Self Esteem, page 265ff.
 
Meditation pointers for the teenage-self:
 
Free association: Bring to mind the words ‘my teenage, or youthful-self ’. Holding it within your awareness allow your mind to start to free –associate feelings, images, memories, thoughts, and desires around your teenage-self. At this stage the main thing is to focus on being curious as to what sort of memories, feelings and so on arise when you contemplate the idea of your teen self; whether these feelings and memories are pleasant or unpleasant is secondary, the main thing is simply to see what comes up without editing any of the content.
If you like you can use the following sentence-stems as departure points for your free association:

  • When I think of the young adult or teenager within me –
  • One of the things that I found challenging about growing to adulthood was –
  • One of my favourite memories about my teenage or young adult life was –

Connecting to your teenage-self: Imagine yourself in a place that you knew and loved as a teenager. As you sit or stand in that place, imagine your teenage self comes to meet you there. Spend time with your teenager, talking, connecting, and building trust. Starting questions for the interaction might include:

  • What do you need from me to help feel happy and secure?
  • Is there anything that you want to say to me or offer me at this time?
  • What do you think about this (choose your domain) aspect of our life?
  • How can we find more time for play & exploration in our life together?

Like outer teens, your inner–teen needs parenting with an appropriate amount of firmness and love, but with more freedom and autonomy given than you would with your child self. By connecting to your inner-teenager you can also become a better parental self, both toward your inner-teens, and toward outer teenagers!
 
Related articles: Meditating with your child-self
Meditating with your parental-self

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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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Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Breathing Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

Self-belief (the most powerful creative force in your life)

“Once you get used to it, being creatively powerful in your life feels less and less stressful, and more and more of a pleasure. Rather than ‘life happening to me’ I have the feeling that ‘I am happening to life!’”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This weeks article explores mindfulness to help you become more powerful, engaged & directed in your life. It’s partly my own response to completing a recent course on mindful self-leadership with some of my students, but thematically it’s fairly central to my overall approach to ‘engaged mindfulness’. 

Classes and workshops for August are out, including the wisdom of awakening series, meditating with animal guides & familiars, and a mindfulness course for teenagers. 

In the spirit of creativity, 

Toby 

Self-belief (the most powerful creative force in your life)
 
I am the most powerful force in my life, you are the most powerful in yours
I’ve recently completed a series on ‘Mindful self-leadership’ with my public program students. It’s a program that I also run with companies and organizations at least six times a year. Each time I deliver it, slightly different themes energy as important for me. This time around the insight that kept coming back again and again as the course went on was ‘I am the most important creative force in my life’. The simple recognition of this is a tremendously powerful object of mindful attention.
 
The most powerful force in the world?
Of course you aren’t, there are many more powerful forces in the world than you or I.  But, in terms of your life, it is you that sits in the middle of it, your energy & focus, your choices to do or not to do, your thoughts & emotions. What you choose to focus on and do in your life is the most powerful directional force in it!
 
The feeling of helplessness
Sometimes there can be an overriding feeling of helplessness in the face of events in our life. We can feel like a puppet, the strings of which are being pulled by other people and external forces. Sometimes we can convince ourselves that ‘we have no choice’ and allow ourselves to become a victim of circumstances. There is even comfort in being a victim, we can tell ourselves that we had no choice and blame it on others.
 
Sometimes things don’t work out
It is true that sometimes things don’t work out as we had hoped, despite our best efforts. But even then, we are the ones who decide how we approach the fact that things didn’t work out how we had hoped. We are the ones who decide how to mentally frame what has happened, and how we are going to work with it. We are the ‘eye of the storm’, we are still the primary causal factor in our experience.
 
It’s sometimes hard work owning your creative power
If you own your power, then sure, you have to stay alert, think things through, confront difficult choices and people. But all of this is no harder work than not owning your power, and being buffeted mercilessly by the forces of chance and fate. Once you get used to it, being creatively powerful in your life feels less and less stressful, and more and more of a pleasure. Rather than ‘life happening to me’ I have the feeling that ‘I am happening to life!’. We can be calm, collected, and powerful. If we do so we burn less energy, we feel more in control. From this then a stable experience of self-belief starts to emerge, a faith in our ability to work thru and work out our problems, and enjoy doing it!
 
Meditating:
Sit down quietly. As you breathe, breathe your energy and awareness into the centre of your chest and torso area. Feel your creative power gathering in your body as you inhale, relax into it as you exhale. As you breathe, dwell upon the recognition: “I am the most powerful creative force in my life”. Stay with that recognition and feeling for the time you have set aside for meditation, really letting it sink in.
As you go about your daily life, remember the recognition, and act as if you believed it. Play with your power creatively, taking ownership of it. Notice how your experience starts to change.
 
Recent articles related to self-leadership & creative power:
A flower opening to the Sun – Choosing (& making distinctions around) joy
Trusting your inner signals
Empowering (& then dropping) the self
Making yourself big
Pro-activity in the face of life & breathing pro-actively
Becoming a Self-determining entity – Five stages to mindful self-leadership

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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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A Mind of Ease Energy Meditation Inner vision Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Presence and being present

A flower opening to the Sun – Choosing (& making distinctions around) joy

“Joy is available to you more often than you think. Often, it’s a matter of choosing to identify with it during the day, rather than getting sucked into some of the louder, more dissonant voices within us. Own the choice to open to the joys and excitements, the loud and the quiet ones, of your life”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

I’ve been meaning to do an article on joy for a while, and a conversation this morning prompted me to get down to it! If you enjoy the article, it will be the focus for this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, you are welcome to join, either live or online.

After this week, I’ll be taking a break from classes for three week’s until mid-August, when we will be kicking off again withThe Wisdom of Awakening Series: Meditations for developing wisdom around inner-growth, happiness & fulfillment on Aug 15th. 

In the spirit of joy, 

Toby 

A flower opening to the Sun – Choosing (& making distinctions around) joy
 
Your own vocabulary of joy
If we think about joy as an unusual or perhaps pronounced feeling of happiness, then one useful question to ask is ‘What are the activities, places, people and things that cause me joy, great or small?’ If you sit with this question, you will find a list of things that currently cause you joy. If you then make a habit of letting your attention dwell mindfully upon these subjects, then you will find that more joy comes to you and into your life. On one level, if you want more joy, this is all you need to do to start!
 
Natural joy
Causal joy is joy that is caused by an event or occasion:

  • I feel joy when I paint
  • I feel joy in the company of children
  • I feel joy over this success

Most people experience this joy periodically. Natural joy is slightly different. Is the joy that emerges from contact with life and being. We all experience this sometimes, for example when relaxing in nature. But we can increase this contact substantially, and make it more available to us through meditation. When we develop the skill of sitting quietly and making contact with the natural warmth and vividness of our life-force and consciousness, we discover that part of its basic nature is joy. It’s like being a flower opening up to the sun; by opening to being we discover its natural warmth, light and joy. If we can access our being in this way, then joy becomes more naturally and sustainably available to us, as we don’t have to wait for something to ‘happen’ before we feel it.
 
Spiritual joy
Spiritual joy is very much a part of natural joy. The discovery of our ‘spiritual’ being as described above causes joy. Another aspect of spiritual joy is the joy we discover through meaningful activity

  • Doing work that I feel passionate about
  • Making something that benefits others in some way
  • Discovering my potential & capability through a particular action

With this type of joy the activity can be hard, the going can be tough, other emotions can be coming up that are definitely not joy. Joy however accompanies the activity and ‘having done’ the activity. It’s different and more durable than the transient joy that comes just from ‘nice things’ happening to you. Find activities you find meaningful, OR find ways to discover meaning in activities you already do, and joy will follow.
 
Joy can exist with a range of other emotions & qualities
Most often joy does not exist in a vacuum. If we establish a strong, stable connection to joy, we discover it can happily co-exist with the sadness, frustration, excitement, disappointment, and other emotions that are of a very different tone from it. In fact, if we try and squash all our difficult emotions, we tend to squash our joy too. Real joy comes then, in part from the courage and wisdom to stay open to the range of emotions we are presented with today.
 
An image for joy
If you imagine a flower opening joyfully to the sun, and practice being that flower, then this is quite a powerful image to kickstart our journey into natural and spiritual joy. You can then go about exploring and growing joy in contemplation using the paragraphs above as little ‘base camps’.
 
Choosing joy
A final thought, joy is available to you more often than you think. Often, it’s a matter of choosing to stay with it and identify with it during the day, rather than getting sucked into some of the louder, more dissonant voices within us. Own the choice to open to the joys and excitements, the loud and the quiet ones, of your life.
 
Related reading: For every suffering a joy (Cultivating positive non-attatchment)


© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Starts Tues/Weds, June 13th/14th – Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday July 15th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Starts Tuesday /Wednesday 15th/16th August – The Wisdom of Awakening Series: Meditations for developing wisdom around inner-growth, happiness & fulfillment

Saturday August 15th, 2-5pm –The Call of the Wild–Meditations for deepening your inner connection to the animal kingdom and the Green-world
 

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 Inner vision Insight Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity mind body connection Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

Trusting your inner signals

Dear Integral Meditators,

We are being given information and feedback from different levels of our perception and intelligence all the time. If we can learn to trust the ‘inner signals’ that we are receiving, this makes it much easier to navigate our life with confidence, and make difficult decisions with a degree of assurance. Below are a few distinctions that can be used mindfully to give yourself greater trust in your inner signals.

If you enjoy the article, you are welcome to come to this week’s Tuesday or Wednesday class, where this will be the subject of our meditation. 

In the spirit of inner signals, 

Toby

Trusting your inner signals
 
We are being given information and feedback from different levels of our perception and intelligence all the time. If we can learn to trust the ‘inner signals’ that we are receiving, this makes it much easier to navigate our life with confidence, and make difficult decisions with a degree of assurance. Below are a few distinctions that can be used mindfully to give yourself greater trust in your inner signals.
 
What you want to know and what you do not want to know
Firstly, it’s useful to become aware that there are some things that you don’t want to know, even if your inner signals are very strong. For example, if I have a business partner whose body language changes suddenly around a business deal. If I am very attached to the deal, I may ignore the signals that my perception is giving me. Part of trusting your inner signals is learning to respect them, even when the message you are getting is not what you want to hear.
 
Your conscious and unconscious
Following on from the above point, it may or may not be clear where your inner signals are coming from.

  • Sometimes we can choose to remain unconscious about the things we become conscious of (See the business deal scenario above)
  • Sometimes we can be getting a clear signal from within, but we don’t know where it is coming from. We are, for now, unconscious of where it is coming from. This doesn’t mean we should ignore it, rather acknowledge it and keep it in mind
  • Quite often we ‘know more than we think we know’ about a situation. If we trusted our inner signals, we would be listening for them, and not pushing them back into our unconscious when they come and tap us on the shoulder

 
Some sources of your inner signals
 
What your body and instincts are telling you – This is the information you are getting from your biology, primal instincts, and pre-rational intelligence. As we identify more and more with our thinking and cognitive self, its easy to lose touch with our instincts. This is a shame, because they are offering us direct, useful information all the time!
 
What your feelings and emotions are telling you – Our feelings and emotions are telling us about how we are feeling about what is going on, and about the emotional temperature between us and the other people involved in any given situation. Even if they are emotions we don’t like or don’t want to have, we still need to listen to our emotions and honor the messages we are receiving from them if we want to navigate our inner life and relationships effectively.
 
What your thinking mind is telling you – A good distinction here is between your rationality and rationalization. Your rational mind and messages are generally reality oriented and evidence based. Rationalization is when you use thoughts and reasons irrationally to backup what you want to be true. Listening to signals from our inner rationality, not rationalizer is the key here.
 
What your observational intelligence is telling you – Be present (or as present as possible) and look. If you do this your direct perception will offer you plenty of signals around what is going on in the moment.
 
What your intuition is telling you – Beyond your thinking mind lies your higher or post-rational intuition. Your body, instincts and emotions all have an intuitive dimension, but here I am talking about our inner signals that come from a level of our consciousness deeper than the thinking self. If you listen carefully there is a wise one within you offering you insights and perspectives beyond your rational mind. Often these insights prove to be true.
 
So, there are five sources of your inner signals, each one of them can be focused on and listened to in order to become familiar with it, and get to know it. If we do this, then over time we can feel more and more confident around the validity of our own inner signals when they arise.

Related article: Pro-activity in the face of life

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing, Tues/Weds evening 7.30-8.30pm– Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday July 15th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Breathing Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Pro-activity in the face of life & breathing pro-actively

‘Mindful pro-activity invites a ‘non-panicking’, playful attitude to our path forward and what is in the way. It means keeping a beginner’s mind and combining it with the voice and wisdom of our experience’

Dear Integral Meditators, 

In last weeks article I cited ‘being pro-active in the face of life’s challenges’ as being a characteristic of someone with good self-leadership & leadership skills. In this week’s article I dive a little deeper into what that means, and how you can start practicing it.
If you enjoy the article, then do check out the mindful self-leadership workshop & six week course that I’ll be putting on in June.

Final heads up for this week’s annual Wesak meditation on Tuesday & Wednesday evening. Your welcome either live or online!

In the spirit of mindful pro-activity, 
 
Toby 

Pro-activity in the face of life
 
One quality that I think is important in enabling confidence and self-leadership capability is to be pro-active in the face of life’s challenges and uncertainties. What does that mean? Three aspects of this are important I think: Trusting your own intelligence, taking the initiative, and being responsive or creative.

  • To trust your own intelligence means that in the face of something unknown or difficult, you maintain confidence in your perception and ability to work things out through considered trial and error
  • Taking the initiative means you actively look out for the problems and challenges that you face and that prevent you from getting to where you want to go. You initiate possible solutions and ways forward before things become critical, and you are then forced to confront what you have been avoiding
  • Being responsive and creative describes a ‘non-panicking’, playful attitude to our path forward and what is in the way. It means keeping a beginners mind and combining it with the voice and wisdom of our experience. Responsive indicates an acceptance of the realities of the situation, facing them squarely and then letting our intelligence and creativity work from there.

 
What pro-activity is it not
Resisting or repressing – Active resistance and repression of our awareness of problems is active (even if only unconsciously), but not pro-active. It gets in the way of moving forward in life rather than assists.   
Reacting or being impulsive – Mindful pro-activity is thoughtful and considered. Because of this it is intelligent and creative. Reactivity and impulsivity, even when accompanied by swift and sometimes aggressive action generally takes us away from solutions and realizing the potential opportunities in a situation.
 
Breathing pro-actively, a short exercise
As you breathe through your nose over the course of a few breaths, gently flare your nostrils. If you can try and open not just the tips of the nostrils, but the inner part of the nasal cavity, so that as you breathe in it feels as if there is plenty of space for the air to pass in and then down into the lungs. As you do this feel yourself becoming mentally poised, active and creative around the path that you have ahead of you today, or over the next 24hours.
Once you have a sense of how this inhalation feels, then as you are breathing out, feel yourself becoming relaxed, calm and responsive. You might think of this as a state of ‘calm thoughtful intelligence; you are pro-active, but you are also setting the pace, rather than being forced to rush by anxiety, fear or stress.
So, then the final pattern is:

  • Breathing in through open nostrils, connecting to creative pro-activity
  • Breathing out connecting to calm and setting your own pace

Stay with this for long enough to let your body-mind get a feeling of what it is like to be in a state of calm pro-activity. Then when you are ready, finish. Try and keep this feeling with you as you go through your daily journey, being gently pro-active in the face of what arises!
 
Related article: Becoming a Self-determining entity – Five stages to mindful self-leadership
Self-responsibility – Becoming a self-determining entity

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Saturday June 10th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Mindful Self-Leadership: A Three-hour mindfulness & meditation workshop

Starts Tues/Weds, June 13th/14th – Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday June 24th, 9.00am-5pm – Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat

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 Enlightened Flow Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality The Essential Meditation of the Buddha

Watching, then dropping the watcher

“Gently drop the sense of there being an observer in your field of awareness so that: Your senses simple arise as themselves, desires are experienced without a desirer, conflicting energy is simply itself & ideas arise free of an owner”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

In last weeks article I looked at the contrast between single-pointedness & field-awareness. In the article below we look at and distinguish two types of field-awareness, the basic building toward a more ‘advanced’, richer, but also more minimal position. 

Quick heads-up; as well as this months Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat, I’ll also be doing a full-day  Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat on June 24th. 

In the spirit of dropping the observer, 
 
Toby 

Watching, then dropping the watcher
 
This short article explains a way to progress in your witnessing and observing meditation. It aims to show you how to go from holding the position of the observer to then forgetting the observer and simply being that which arises, with no self observing.
These two stages are encapsulated quite nicely by this quote from the Hua Hu Ching chapter Ten (Brian Walker translation):

“Let the senses go.
Let desires go.
Let conflicts go.
Let ideas go.
Let the fiction of life & death go.
Just remain in the centre, watching…
And then forget you are there”
 
In the first part we set up our basic observation position; letting go of explicit identification with our desires, conflicts, ideas, senses and so on, and simply watching them come and go. There can be movement, even plenty of movement within our awareness, but we are still meditating as long as we are holding this central observation position. As things get calmer, we can also be watching the inner space of our consciousness, like watching clear sky gradually emerge from clouds.
The first stage is a meditation in and of itself, but once we have a certain degree of competency, you can then ‘forget you are there’. What this means is you gently drop the sense of there being an observer in our field of awareness so that:

  • Your senses arise as themselves
  • Desires are experienced without a desirer
  • Conflicting energy is simply itself
  • Ideas arise free of an owner

This is quite a radically different way of experiencing consciousness. In everyday awareness there is always a sense of observer and observed, possessor and possessed, event and the experiencer of the event. By dropping the observer, we move into a unitive, singular or non-dual state, where the subject-object divide within our mind collapses. We experience things directly, without an ‘I’ getting in the way, interfering or judging. With this experience we can then move quite rapidly and effortlessly into deeper meditation, as the main obstacle to that (the self!) drops away and stops getting in the way.
A final quote from the musician Deuter on this process that illustrates the experience quite nicely:
 
“We sit together, the mountain & me,
Until only the mountain remains”
 
This is a meditation you can do informally when you travel, when resting or spending time with yourself. Sitting meditation is only a part of it, and it really comes into its own when we play with it in daily life.
 
Related article: Dropping the self &
Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course
 

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Saturday May 27th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday June 24th, 9.00am-5pm – Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Concentration creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life

“The effective integration of field-awareness & single-pointedness enables us to become ‘mindful warriors’ in the face of our life challenges, able to pace ourselves patiently through our victories and defeats with grace and stamina”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This weeks article looks at how to integrate fundamental meditation methods into your daily life in a way that makes a real difference.. If you enjoy it, then do consider coming along live or online to this Tuesday & Wednesdays Integral Meditation class, where we will be taking it as our object of meditation. 

This Saturday morning is thePsychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop . If you want to “Building your personal foundation of psychic positivity, resilience, self-esteem , energy and renewal”, then this is definitely the workshop for you!

In the spirit of the big & the focused picture, 
 
Toby 

Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life
 
Basic meditation technique has two main types of awareness:
Single-pointedness: When you are trying to narrow your focus onto one single thing, such as the breathing or a visualized object in your minds-eye
Field awareness: Where you are trying to take in the ‘big picture’ of all that is in your field of awareness, you are trying to observe it as a whole.
 
If you think about field awareness as like sitting on a balcony looking at a whole landscape, letting your eyes range across the totality of it. Then single pointedness is like zeroing in on a blade of grass, or a leaf, or a rock in the landscape, and staying with just that one thing.
In formal meditation you can train in one or the other in any given meditation, or you can combine them together. For example, in a 20-minute meditation you could do:

  • Five minutes single-pointedness
  • Five minutes field awareness
  • Five minutes single-pointedness
  • Five minutes field awareness

That would give you a pretty good ‘basic workout’!
 
However, these two practices really start to come into their own when you use them effectively in daily life. During your day you are trying to spend your time mostly either:

  • Focusing on doing one thing or
  • Panning back, taking in the big-picture, assessing and relaxing before you identify and zoom in on the next task single-pointedly

If you spend your day really working on this format, you will find it is very conducive to relaxed effective productivity, a healthy degree of peace of mind. It also helps you tend toward good/better decision-making skills.
 
Lost in the cracks
Much of our anxiety and stress inwardly speaking comes from being ‘lost’ in between focused and observational states. We are not particularly focused, we are thinking in an anxiously about a number of things in a personal, non-objective manner. In this state we are easily unbalanced, easily experience insecurity, and lack confidence in our capacity to guide ourself effectively and reliably through the day. Getting good at daily combining of field-awareness and single-pointedness is a recipe for confidence in getting through the day effectively, even when there are stresses and uncertainties tugging at the edges of our attention. We become ‘mindful warriors’ in the face of our life challenges, able to pace ourselves patiently through our victories and defeats with grace and stamina.

Related reading: Single-pointedness & going with the flow
Working samadhi – The way of the mindful warrior

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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
 

Categories
A Mind of Ease Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Hopeless relief & the brightness of optimism

“With hopelessness in place, we can then cultivate it’s ‘bright twin’, balanced optimism. It is remarkable how coming back to and centering yourself in a state of optimism can change your sense of how your life is going, and your sense of what is possible”

Dear Integral Meditators

This weeks article pairs hopelessness and optimism into a dynamic partnership that we can cultivate together to increase our energy levels, and also to make our energy more balanced and consistent. If you enjoy it, then do consider coming along live or online to this Tuesday & Wednesdays Integral Meditation class, where we will be taking it as our object of meditation. 

In the spirit of hopeless optimism, 
 
Toby 

Hopeless relief & the brightness of optimism
 
Appreciating hopelessness
Hopelessness for most of us has a strong negative connotation, and exists in our mind along with things like despair, depression, giving up and so on. As an object of meditation, we can clarify what we are working with here by defining hopelessness as simply ‘the absence of hoping for anything’. Understood this way, the practice of hopelessness then becomes the discipline of not hoping for anything, and therefore allowing our mind and energy to rest, relax and become fully present, absolutely at ease in the not-wishing/hoping to be somewhere else.
If you reflect upon it, much of the ups and downs in our life, the anxiety, the dis-ease comes from the hopes that we have in the face of the ongoing uncertainties. Often-times we get most hurt or have the most trouble recovering when one of our dearest-held hopes is not fulfilled. So, with hopelessness we are learning not to be beholden to our hopes, and also the fears that come from our hopes. We relax into the present and a type of genuine liberation that comes from strategically putting down our hopes for a while and becoming a hopeless person! Once you get a taste for how balancing hopelessness can be, you will start to feel real enthusiasm for it as an object of mindful attention.
 
Balanced optimism
With hopelessness in place, we can then cultivate it’s ‘bright twin’, balanced optimism. Here are a few of the basic characteristics of optimism, taken from my past article on ‘mindful optimism’:

  • Joyful-ness, enthusiasm
  • A sense of being supported by tangible and intangible forces in the world
  • The feeling of a bright and possibly exciting future ahead
  • The reasonable expectation good things are going to happen to you, both now and in the future
  • An expansive, bright, and comfortable feeling in the body, as if you belong in the world, and you can operate there with ease

It is remarkable how coming back to and centring yourself in a state of optimism can change your sense of how your life is going, and your sense of what is possible.
 
Putting them together
In a meditation you can practice putting these two together as a complementary pair. For example, if you had a twenty-minute meditation you could spend:

  • Five minutes putting down all hopes and relaxing into hopelessness
  • Five minutes opening to optimism, both the feeling in general, and also specific areas and instances in your life where you want to cultivate it as a supporting state
  • Five minutes return to hopelessness
  • Ending with five minutes back to optimism

As you go about your daily life, you can use them both to help each other; balanced presence through hopelessness, bright optimism to balance it out.
 
Related reading: Hopefully hopeless
Mindful optimism
Optimistic stoicism

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

Saturday 13th May 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Overview: This workshop aims to answer the following questions: 

  • How can I keep myself strong, directed & happy when other people around me are negative, unhappy or even consciously or unconsciously verbally/psychologically attacking me?
  • When I am under stress and can feel my own negativity, anxiety, depression, anger & so on surfacing, how can I defend myself effectively?
  • How can I cultivate awareness of the way environments and places affect my energy & protect myself from unwanted influences?
  • Is it possible to develop my own ‘psychic faculties’ & ‘inner senses’ in a way that is experiential, useful & genuine without having to buy into any form of ‘new age metaphysics’?

Read full details…


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Saturday 13th May 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Saturday May 27th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Presence and being present

Opening & closing yourself to energy

“‘In what way have I been exchanging energy with people places and things today, and have I found it energizing or draining?’ is a useful question to ask at the end of the day and reflect upon”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article continues the theme from the last few weeks regarding awareness of your energy body. Below we look at ways of opening and closing your energy to other people and what is around you.
If you enjoy it do consider coming along to the Tues or Weds class this week, as it will be part of the subject of the session.
On the subject of energy generally,  heads up for this Saturday’s Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat.
Specifically around managing difficult or chaotic energy, heads up for next months Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop.

In the spirit of opening & closing, 
 
Toby 

Opening & closing yourself to energy
 
Awareness around energy exchange
We are exchanging energy with other people, our environment, other living creatures all the time, and on many different levels. Simply becoming aware of this noticing this exchange is a way of being mindful that reveals many insights when we do it. ‘In what way have I been exchanging energy with people places and things today, and have I found it energizing or draining?’ is a useful question to ask at the end of the day and reflect upon.
 
Open and closed as a temperament
People are by temperament a little more ‘open’ or ‘closed’. If you are open and someone gives you a complement, likely you will enjoy and feel energised by it. However, if someone criticizes you or bad mouths you, you will likely be quite affected too. Conversely, someone who is more closed will not get much out of a complement, as they aren’t so receptive to it. However, the closed person is less affected by criticism and attacks than the open person.
 
Opening and closing your energy field
Ideally it is good to be able to ‘open’ or ‘close’ your energy field at will. This way when you have good energy coming your way you can enjoy it, whilst also being able to close to and ‘block’ difficult or chaotic energy when it comes your way. This way we can say ‘yes’ to energy exchange when we want, and ‘no’ when we don’t, creating a clear boundary between our energy and the energy around us.
 
Solidifying & brightening your energy field
If you imagine your energy body as being the same shape and size as your physical body, inhabiting the same space, and radiating an aura like an egg or sphere, perhaps a meter/half-a metre around you. See two energy centres in this body:

  • One in your lower belly, around your sacral plexus. Feel this centre to contain mainly the energies of the earth and water elements. Feel this centre to also be connected to the energies of the earth and moon.
  • In the centre of your chest, visualize the second centre. Feel it to contain mainly the elements of fire and air, and to be connected to the energies of the sun and stars.

Breathe for a while with both energy centres. As you breathe with the lower energy centre, feel your energy body becoming strong, stable and ‘dense’. As you breathe with the upper energy centre, feel it to becoming bright and energetic. The effect of working with them both is that you have an energy body and field that is both stable and strong, as well as bright and energetic.
 
Protecting the boundary, a visualization
Now imagine your energy field has a boundary, like a bubble of light around it. You can visualize it as having two features to help you open and close your energy:

  1. At the front of the bubble is a point that can open and close, like the iris of an eye. When you are with someone/a group of people that you feel comfortable exchanging energy with, you can visualize it opening to let in their energy as you interact with them. If you are with a group/individual where you are not comfortable, you can close it, gently but firmly blocking the energy exchange.
  2. Subtle energy might be thought of as consisting of five subtle aspects of the five elements, earth, water, fire, air and consciousness. If you are in a place or neighbourhood where you don’t feel comfortable you can visualize five-pointed stars spinning around the surface of the bubble of light around you, blocking any negative or imbalanced energy from entering your field. The stars have five points symbolizing the five elements, and you can direct them to any part of the surface of your bubble that you want. You can also visualize them ‘cutting’ any cords of energy from people or the environment that have attached themselves to your filed.

Ok, so there are a few pointers and practice points to bear in mind around opening and closing your energy. You may or may not be familiar with the concepts and ideas used, but do try them out. Sometimes we learn to understand how something works by doing it!
 
Related article: Finding energy through meditation – Aspects of meditating with your energy body 

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

 Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Saturday April 29th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday 13th May 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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