Category: Integral Awareness

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The Art of Non-emergency

“Spending a few minutes each day recognizing and relaxing into safety can really help you take the idea of non-emergency into an actual experience that you can use to change the quality of your life.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope you have been enjoying the Winter Solstice period!

This weeks article is a fundamental integral meditation practice from my point of view, it sets up a whole bunch of good effects in your body mind and heart, and opens up a world of stability and ease.

Seasonal blessings and best wishes to all of you!

Toby

The Art of Non-emergency

The feeling of emergency
There are many things in our life that can stimulate the feeling within us that we are in a dangerous and ‘emergency’ state:

  • Uncertainty around Covid and the economy
  • Being overwhelmed by the amount of information and choices that we have to make
  • Having difficulties and unresolved conflicts in our relationships
  • Past unresolved emotions and expereinces within ourself
  • Some chemical things like just having too much caffeine in your system

The list goes on, but the essential feeling is similar; our nervous system becomes primed for ‘fight or flight’ mode much of the time, and we spend a lot of our life living as if we were in real danger of immanent disaster!

Reality checking your emergency
Let’s check this against reality:

  • How much of your day yesterday was a real actual emergency?
  • In the next day, what is the likelihood of you being in real, life-threatening danger?
  • If you gave yourself permission to really relax and take it easy for the next half-hour, would this be inviting immanent disaster?

The answers to these questions when you ask them is pretty obvious. We have spent maybe 0.05% of our life in real danger. The rest of the time is a relative non-emergency. There is very rarely a time, if ever when it is appropriate to say, ‘I have no room for any relaxation in this moment, I cannot relax!’

The discipline of non-emergency
So, our paranoid mind is saying our life is a dangerous trap, and emergency. We check this against reality and find that life is almost all a non-emergency. As a mindfulness practice we can then practice the discipline of recognizing the state of non-emergency and enjoy relaxing into it for substantial periods of our day. We can relax into non-emergency at the same time as being productive and trouble shooting problems. Non-emergency can be an active or passive state. Either way it is restorative, enjoyable and keeps us in touch with our basic sanity!

Non-emergency gives you space to deal with difficult things
Being firmly grounded in state of non-emergency gives us resilience and intelligence when navigating difficult and tense problems. Because we aren’t panicking, we don’t burn out and we don’t waste energy. We can hold uncertainty, intense emotion, volatility and so forth without being knocked off balance.

Calm under pressure – Non-emergency helps you recognize a real emergency
If your good at non-emergency, this will also help you recognize a real emergency and deal with it well. Last week my wife and I went to a first-aid for infants workshop. The essential message of the facilitator was that, in an emergency the impulse is to panic, but the best thing to do is remain calm and act systematically and rationally. Being solidly familiar with the non-emergency state will give you the presence of mind to stay calm under pressure and deal with real emergencies calmly and effectively.

Formal practice
Spending a few minutes each day recognizing and relaxing into safety can really help you take the idea of non-emergency into an actual experience that you can use to change the quality of your life. Just breathe in and recognize the non-emergency, breathe out relax into it. There you go, you’ve already begun the journey!

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com

Re-starts Monday January 11th! – 7-8.30pm – The Men’s Group – The path of conscious manhood

How can you move from coping to thriving in your life as a man?

Much is asked of men in their traditional roles as fathers and sons, partners and husbands, students and teachers, employees and employers. The men’s group is a professionally moderated and confidential forum for men. A forum is a safe place for exploring, learning and sharing the successful perspectives, skills, and strategies needed to address and manage the unique issues, problems, and triumphs in our community.
Read full details…

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA in December:

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 29th & Weds 30th Dec, 7.30-8.30pm – 2021 New year releasing and inviting meditation

Re-starts Monday January 11th! – 7-8.30pm – The Men’s Group – The path of conscious manhood

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Biographical Energy Meditation Enlightened service Integral Awareness Life-fullness mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

Giving back anxiety that is not yours

“Owning and dealing with your anxiety well is an important life skill, However, sometimes the anxiety we experience is not entirely our own, and the solution to it is to recognize this and sometimes simply to give it back.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

What’s the boundary between what you feel, and the feelings of those around you, and in your environment? This weeks article looks at this boundary, and how to become clearer and more aware about it.

If you enjoy the article, then you may consider this Saturday’s Mindfulness Masterclass  3-5pm Mindfulness for thriving with anxiety & uncertainty. If your interested in how to really put your anxiety to good positive use, then this is a great session to attend, you can come live or online!

In the spirit of mindful inoculation,

Toby

Giving back anxiety that is not yours

Owning and dealing with your anxiety well is an important life skill. There are often uncertainties and other causes that stimulate anxiety in our life, so knowing how to navigate this is fundamental. However, sometimes the anxiety we experience is not entirely our own, and the solution to it is to recognize this and sometimes simply to ‘give it back’.

A story
When I first started teaching meditation classes, first as a young layperson, then as a monk I would teach classes in the evening and then return back home. Often, I noticed that when I lay down to sleep that night, my body would feel uncomfortable, I would toss and turn, and I’d be having all sorts of difficult and strange trains of thought. I would have difficulty falling asleep, and often I would wake up in the middle of the night and continue to have difficult and anxious trains of thought, along with uncomfortable body sensations. At first I interpreted these as being all my own, and struggled manfully to resolve the trains of thought and emotions that were coming up. After a while however I started to recognize that actually, because I had been holding space for others in the class, I had absorbed emotional energy from the group, and what I was experiencing was actually empathic emotion and anxiety, that was not actually mine. After realizing this, I changed my strategy, recognizing and letting go of the anxiety that was not mine, and focusing on clearing out the dissonant energy from my body. Now when I do a class or coaching, noticing and releasing anxiety and energy that is not mine is mostly instinctive, but it is nevertheless vital for me to make the recognition when it occurs and is happening to me.

A few examples of when you might need to give back the anxiety

  • If your partner, close friend or family member is anxious or moody about something, and you ‘catch’ a bit of it
  • Certain atmospheres, anxieties and emotion in the office, or in your work team
  • Certain places or neighbourhoods that carry a particular dissonant energy
  • When there is large scale anxiety, such as in the recent Covid crisis, the group  anxiety amplifies and feeds off our own, and they strengthen each other
  • When someone has a type of anxiety that strongly resembles your own, and your identification with it means you absorb some empathically

In all of these cases, the anxiety is not ‘yours’ per-se, but it can infect you if you let it. The main thing to do here is to recognize that and either ‘hand it back’ so to speak, or observe it and release it from your own energy system.

You can apply this to other emotions and states
Of course, this doesn’t just apply to anxiety, it applies to many other emotional states, anger, fear, sadness. It also applies to positive emotions and states. We all have experience of being positively affected by an atmosphere, or a person or a place. When this happens, we can enjoy participating in it, rather than handing it back!

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com

 

Saturday 12thth December 3-5pm – Mindfulness masterclass: Mindfulness for thriving with anxiety & uncertainty (Live & Online)

Anxiety is a natural response to uncertainty and change, but for many of us the experience of anxiety is disturbing, upsetting, draining and stressful. This session focuses on practical ways to change your relationship to anxiety by:

  • Accepting and working with your causes of anxiety
  • Building greater awareness and appreciation of the things that give you stability and security in life
  • Learning to think effectively and wisely around uncertainties and problems that are causing you anxiety

Read full details

Tues & Weds 15th, 16th  December, 7.30-8.30pm – New moon health visualization and envisioning sessions

This session consists of :

  • An opening section attuning to the new moon energy, and return to our ‘beginners mind’ a state of ‘new beginnings’
  • A visualization section where we connect to positive imagery related to our own health, and the health of others in our life
  • An envisioning section where we seek spontaneous images and inspiration related to healing
  • A consolidation section where we focus on building the power and energy of our images, allowing them to energize and affect our health and healing the greatest degree possible

Read full details

Saturday December 19th, 2.30-5pm – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat

These 2.5 hour meditation ‘mini-retreats’ are a chance to go into much deeper meditation states than you would be able to in your own personal daily practice, or even if you came to a one hour class. Using sitting meditation methods in combination with breathing techniques, Toby will guide you into deep meditation flow states that…read full details

Tues 22nd & Weds 23rd Dec, 7.30-8.30pm – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation

About the class: The Winter Solstice is deepest point of Winter in the northern hemisphere, the point of maximum outer darkness & the shortest day.

In Celtic the name of the winter solstice in ‘Alban Arthan’ of ‘The Light of Arthur’. In this case Arthur refers to the Sun God who, at this time of maximum darkness in the year dies and is reborn in the world of nature and within ourselves…read full details

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA in December:

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)

Saturday 12thth December 3-5pm – Mindfulness masterclass: Mindfulness for thriving with anxiety & uncertainty

Tues & Weds 15th, 16th  December, 7.30-8.30pm – New moon health visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday December 19th, 2.30-5pm – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat

Tues 22nd & Weds 23rd Dec, 7.30-8.30pm – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Tues 29th & Weds 30th Dec, 7.30-8.30pm – 2021 New year releasing and inviting meditation

Ongoing – The Men’s Group – The path of conscious manhood

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Self-Leadership Primal Spirituality

Working mindfully with your subconscious mind

“As the conscious mind you are trying to connect to your subconscious mind with a sense of care and warmth, inviting co-operation and teamwork”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at how you can start using mindfulness to work with your subconscious mind, enjoy!
Beneath the article is the full line up for classes and workshops for December, there is a lot of variety to choose from!
This  weeks Tuesday and Wednesday meditation 1st & 2nd December are the Monthly full moon manifestation meditations, you are all welcome, live or online.

In the spirit of the subconscious,

Toby

Working mindfully with your subconscious mind

Mindfulness – Strengthening the executive function of the conscious mind
Mindfulness is essentially attention and awareness training. As such it involves primarily strengthening the executive power of your conscious mind to direct your attention to create desired experiences and make better choices. Implicitly, part of mindfulness involves becoming aware of and working with our subconscious mind and its functions. This is where mindfulness backs onto the arena of disciplines like hypnosis, which specializes in working with the subconscious. My shadow meditation method and coaching is also an example of working directly with elements of the subconscious mind. Since our subconscious plays such a powerful part in creating our life experience, its well worth developing our proficiency in working with it.

Horse and rider – Creating a benevolent, co-operative relationship between your conscious and subconscious minds
Your subconscious mind is a repository of your instincts, biology, habits, and past experiences. As such its energy is a lot ‘stronger’ than the conscious mind. If you try and dominate your subconscious by sheer force of will, you are only going to get so far. One simple image is that of a horse and rider. The conscious mind is the rider, the SCM is like the horse. The horse is much stronger than the rider, but if the rider can tame the horse and establish a co-operative relationship, then the power of the horse becomes at the service of the rider.

An attitude of care and warmth – Establishing trust
So if you are going to work with your SCM, it needs to trust you, and your intention toward it (like a horse with someone who wishes to ride it). As the conscious mind then, you are trying to connect to your SCM with a sense of care and warmth, inviting co-operation and teamwork.

Intention, instruction, direction
With this attitude of benevolence and trust established, you can then practice feeding your SCM intentions, auto-suggestions images and directives according to what you want it to do for and with you. There are a larger number of ways to do this, for example:

  • You can create an inner place or landscape where you can sit and invite your SCM to release repressed or unacknowledged emotions for healing
  • You can suggest to it ways of seeing the world that are in alignment with your life goals
  • You can program it to react to certain scenarios in a particular way when it comes up in real time

One point to realize is that you are making suggestions signalling to your subconscious mind all the time anyway. Most of the time this is habitual and unconscious. If we can start doing it consciously and deliberately, then it can change our experience for the better.

A simple example
Right now from around 11.30pm-5am every night, I am in charge of feeding and caring for our baby. That is a clear instruction to my subconscious mind. As a result I am very sensitive to our babies sound and movement. As soon as anything starts to happen, I wake up, get up and attend to her. After 5am its my wife’s turn, and again that is a clear message to my subconscious mind. As a result the baby is crying and making a ruckus, if it is after 5am, generally I sleep right through it, even if she is right on the bed next to me. My SCM has knows it doesn’t need to alert me when the baby cries, so I sleep!
That’s a small example of the power your SCM has to create and define your experience.

What ways can you start mindfully working with your subconscious mind today?

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com

Tuesday & Wednesday 1st & 2nd Dec @ 7.30-8.30pm – Live & Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

We all live our life within an environment that consists fundamentally/experientially of the Earth, Moon, Sun and Stars. The monthly lunar cycle describes our relationship to the Moon, and the powerful influence that it has on our life. In the physical world we see this influence most obviously in the tides of the sea. In our inner life we experience it as the coming and going of energy, moods and emotions within our psyche. This meditation, done on or around the full moon capitalises on the heightened lunar energies at this time of the month. Read full details

Saturday 12thth December 3-5pm – Mindfulness masterclass: Mindfulness for thriving with anxiety & uncertainty

Anxiety is a natural response to uncertainty and change, but for many of us the experience of anxiety is disturbing, upsetting, draining and stressful. This session focuses on practical ways to change your relationship to anxiety by:

  • Accepting and working with your causes of anxiety
  • Building greater awareness and appreciation of the things that give you stability and security in life
  • Learning to think effectively and wisely around uncertainties and problems that are causing you anxiety

Read full details

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

 

All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA in December:

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)

Tuesday & Wednesday 1st & 2nd Dec @ 7.30-8.30pm – Live & Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Saturday 12thth December 3-5pm – Mindfulness masterclass: Mindfulness for thriving with anxiety & uncertainty

Tues & Weds 15th, 16th  December, 7.30-8.30pm – New moon health visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday December 19th, 2.30-5pm – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat

Tues 22nd & Weds 23rd Dec, 7.30-8.30pm – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Tues 29th & Weds 30th Dec, 7.30-8.30pm – 2021 New year releasing and inviting meditation

Ongoing – The Men’s Group – The path of conscious manhood

Categories
Concentration Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Making friends with overwhelm

“Work on skilfully accepting in an empowered way the often ever-present feeling of  being overwhelmed by too much to do”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article focuses on the ever present sense of their being too much to do in our lives, and what we can do about it in mindfulness terms.

This weeks Tuesday and Wednesday (live and online) meditation sessions will be focused on the practices in this article, all are welcome to join!

In the spirit of confidently overwhelmed,

Toby

 

Making friends with overwhelm

In the Information Age there is always too much to do

Oliver Burkeman in his article “Eight secrets to a (fairly) fulfilled life” says:
‘There will always be too much to do – and this realisation is liberating. Today more than ever, there’s just no reason to assume any fit between the demands on your time – all the things you would like to do, or feel you ought to do – and the amount of time available. Thanks to capitalism, technology and human ambition, these demands keep increasing, while your capacities remain largely fixed. It follows that the attempt to “get on top of everything” is doomed. (Indeed, it’s worse than that – the more tasks you get done, the more you’ll generate.)’
The essential point here is that for those of us living in the Information Age, the sense of there being overwhelmed by things to do is a fundamental characteristic of our experience.

Uncertainty and events like Covid don’t help
When you place on top of this unexpected events like Covid, and all the change and uncertainty around this, the skill of being able to deal with that feeling of being overwhelmed comes at an even higher premium!

Accepting that there is too much to do skilfully enables us to manage it, and then enjoy overwhelm
So then the first mindful position here is to work on skilfully accepting in an empowered way the feeling of being overwhelmed by too much to do. If you can really get comfortable with the feeling, so that it is no longer intimidating, upsetting or disturbing to you, then its going to make your life a lot more pleasant and less stressful. Acceptance involves:

  • Consciously seeking out the feeling of being overwhelmed, locating it in the body
  • Breathing and relaxing into the feeling of it. Get comfortable with the discomfort, or as I mention in another article, sit down to tea with your overwhelm!
  • Noticing that the feeling often gives rise to the impulse to start thinking faster, planning and doing, gently resisting that impulse

Taking responsibility today
If your habit is to feel comfortable with overwhelm, then much of the anxiety and stress around it disappears, or at least reduces enough for you to simply focus on what you can do today, and for that to be good enough. This then tends to give rise to quiet satisfaction  and confidence; knowing that you made good and effective use of your time, even in the face of the chaos of a never-ending to-do list!

Trusting in something bigger helps
Another object of mindfulness that I find combines very well with acceptance and responsibility is a trust in something bigger. This involves, in any way you personally conceive it, getting in touch with a sense there is some kind of higher or deeper intelligence that is guiding you in your life. Amidst all the overwhelm and the multiple factors that are too numerous for your everyday mind to process, there is is a fore that is for you and guiding you in a benevolent manner. Trust and let yourself be held by this guiding force, you don’t need to control everything!

A simple meditation on this process might involve firstly getting in touch with your feeling of overwhelm and working on accepting it. Then focus trusting an intelligence bigger than yourself, relaxing into that sense of being held. Briefly at the end you might think of the time period immediately ahead of you, and take responsibility for it, planning what you are going to do. Then as you go about your actions, be mindful of both your acceptance and trust, using them to navigate your overwhelm effectively.

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com  

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 

At a glance: All upcoming classes and workshops for 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)

Friday 2nd  September @ 7.30-8.30pm – Live & Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Sunday 10th October, 3.30-5pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now (Live & Online) – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Tuesday 27th & Weds 28th October, 7.30-8.30pm – Samhain Meditation (Live & Online) – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Ongoing – The Men’s Group – The path of conscious manhood

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Enlightened Flow Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Self-Leadership

Meditation – The state of things

“As meditators we are trying to develop our capacity to shift from one state of mind to another consciously and deliberately, and be able to do so at will.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at a fundamental way of understanding meditation, and how you can start applying it to your own practice. I hope you enjoy it!

Final reminder for the  Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment that I will be doing this Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm. You can see the classes and workshops for the week after beneath the article!

In the spirit of the right state,

Toby

Why meditate? – Three purposes

What is meditation?
You may have your own idea of what meditation is, and there are many different types of meditation, for different purposes. One over-arching definition that I find very useful is this: “Meditation is state training”. What this means is that, as meditators we are trying to develop our capacity to shift from one state of mind to another consciously and deliberately, and be able to do so at will.

The three basic states
There are many different states of mind (actually what we mean here is states of body, mind and heart, not just mind). Our three basic states are waking, dreaming and deep, dreamless sleep. We are in one or another of these three states all of the time. As a meditator one of the thing you are trying to to do is to be able to navigate between these three states volition-ally, which takes a bit of time.

The varieties of waking state
Even within the waking state we experience a huge variety of states, a few examples:

  • We can be loving or angry and frustrated
  • Energized or tired
  • Confident or anxious
  • Content or dis-satisfied
  • Calm or agitated

Part of the art of being a meditator is to direct ourselves into positive states, so that more and more of our waking state is experienced in the in the context of harmonious, balanced enjoyment. This in turn naturally improves our quality of life.

Three purposes of meditation
Overall we can say that our meditation has three overarching aims:

  • To continue to develop and strengthen positive states that we are already competent in. For example if you are already quite loving, you train to become even stronger in this area.
  • To develop your ability to navigate difficult or challenging states of mind better. For example how to hold, accept and work with sadness, rather than feeling like a victim of it or overwhelmed by it.
  • To expand the range of useful states available to us, like an artist expanding the colour range with which she works. For example if you are unfamiliar with acceptance, or find courage difficult, then you could focus on developing either of these in your meditation practice, to make these states available to you

Designing your practice
Here is a fifteen minute practice that includes all three purposes. Of course there are other ways of including all three aims of meditation in your own practice, this is just one possibility:

  1. For the first five minutes, focus on a state that you are already familiar with. So if you already know how to meditate on gratitude or appreciation, then you can do that.
  2. Secondly, seek out a state that is a little challenging for you, and spend five minutes breathing and relaxing with it (see for example my article on ‘Sitting down to tea with your problems‘)
  3. For the last five minutes, focus on a state that you are learning about, or that is relatively new to you. The list of options here is very large, whatever state you want to grow in your life and experience. For example recently I have been working with ‘positive fear’ (that is a subject for another article!)

Enjoy your state training!

Watch Toby’s video on “Meditation as state training“:

 

Related article: Is your meditation a type of therapy, an art-form or a spiritual practice?

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com

Cover picture © Catriona Bryce 2020.

Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

One sentence summary: Learn how to understand, re-direct and make use of stress, anxiety and difficult emotions through mindfulness and meditation.
what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy, helping us to accomplish our goals and awaken to a new level of fulfillment
Read full details

Tues 18th of August & Weds 19th August 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

These are meditation classes done monthly around the turn of the new moon that enable us to open to new beginnings, new possibilities and make a fresh start with regard to:

  • Our health
  • Our inner growth
  • And our life’s purpose and future goals

View full details…

Saturday August 22nd, 3-5.30pm – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat

These three-hour meditation ‘mini-retreats’ are a chance to go into much deeper meditation states than you would be able to in your own personal daily practice, or even if you came to a one hour class. Using sitting meditation methods in combination with breathing techniques, Toby will guide you into deep meditation flow states
Read full details…

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 

At a glance: All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Sunday, 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)

Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

Tues 18th of August & Weds 19th August 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday August 22nd, 3-5.30pm – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat

Coming soon – High performance bootcamp: Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Primal Spirituality

Freedom from inner intimidation – Sitting down to tea with your stress

“If you can sit down with your most awkward, uncomfortable, fearful inner experiences, then it is almost like nothing else can really intimidate you. If you tame your inner monsters, the outer monsters change too!”

Dear <<First Name>>,

This weeks article explores how you can start to find freedom from the things on the inside of you that intimidate you, enjoy!

If you enjoy the article then do have a look at the  Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment that I will be doing on Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm.

I will be doing the coming Sunday and Wednesday online meditations on the subject of this weeks article, on what is sometimes called the beautiful breathing. Click the link to read my article on it!

In the spirit of freedom,

Toby

 

Freedom from inner intimidation – Sitting down to tea with your stress

How do you respond when a difficult, stressful or challenging state of mind or emotion comes up for you? And what are the things that you need to do in order to change your relationship to that experience?

Stress transformation begins with acceptance
The first thing that you need to work on with stress transformation is accepting the stress that you are trying to transform, and get comfortable in its presence. If you are intimidated by the feeling of the stress, are running away from it, or taken over by it, then you can’t transform it.

Acceptance gives you the goal of peace, even without resolution of the stress
You could even think of accepting your stress well as a solution in itself. If you are accepting and comfortable with the stress then, even when it is arising you still have access to a stable degree of peace and calm in that moment. If you can do this then the sense of being intimidated or overwhelmed by the stress goes away. It becomes manageable, even enjoyable. You start to see useful things that you can do with the stress, rather than just wishing that it weren’t there.

Accepting what you can’t accept gives you great confidence and inner strength
Another great side benefit of good quality acceptance is that it gives you tremendous confidence. If you can sit down with your most awkward, uncomfortable, fearful inner experiences, then it is almost like nothing else can really intimidate you. If you tame your inner monsters, the outer monsters change too!

How to do it: Sitting down to tea with your challenge and the feelings around it
So the way to start practicing this type of acceptance is to deliberately sit down and bring to mind a circumstance where you have uncomfortable, stressful emotions. You then basically bring it to mind and practice sitting with it, relaxing into the discomfort for a few minutes each day. You ‘sit down to tea’ with your stress, deliberately exposing yourself to it so that, over time it becomes comfortable and easy. It becomes like you are sitting down with an old friend at  cafe, having some tea and passing the time of day.

An example: holding space for the suffering of another
One thing that I notice at the moment is that I experience stress around the distress of others around me who are going through their own issues. The fact that I can’t ‘fix’ it or control their responses to it makes me uncomfortable and distressed. So when I notice this coming up for me, I am making a point of holding my attention gently upon it; “Hello there, how are you doing” I say. I invite it to sit down, and have a cup of tea. No hurry to get rid of it, it would be welcome to hang around all day if it wanted! Its welcome to be there whenever it wants, and I welcome it with openness and acceptance.

Watch Toby’s video on “Sitting down to tea with your problems”:

 

Related article: Mindful Inoculation

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com  

Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

One sentence summary: Learn how to understand, re-direct and make use of stress, anxiety and difficult emotions through mindfulness and meditation.
what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy, helping us to accomplish our goals and awaken to a new level of fulfillment
Read full details

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

Tues 18th of August & Weds 19th August 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

These are meditation classes done monthly around the turn of the new moon that enable us to open to new beginnings, new possibilities and make a fresh start with regard to:

  • Our health
  • Our inner growth
  • And our life’s purpose and future goals

View full details…

Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 

At a glance: All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Sunday, 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)

Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

Tues 18th of August & Weds 19th August 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday August 22nd, 3-5.30pm – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat

Coming soon – High performance bootcamp: Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Biographical Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

Messiness, unlabelling, unknowing

“Drop the labels that most affect your peace of mind and effectiveness in life. Learn how you can change your experience in real time around real issues using unlabelling.”

Dear Toby,

This weeks article explores how you can change your experience by becoming aware of and dropping your labels. Enjoy!
I will be doing the Sunday and Wednesday online meditations on the subject of the article, mindfully unlabelling.
Then on Tuesday evening the live and online session at One Heart will be the Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session.

In the spirit of unlabelling,

Toby

PS: you can also watch my short video on mindful unlabeling.

 

Messiness, unlabelling, unknowing

My messy life
Right now my life feels vey messy and dis-organnized. We are two months into the arrival of a new member of the family, and the arrival of the baby has meant a fair amount of scrambling around, trying to get things done and often failing! There are small piles of unfolded laundry in my office, objects strewn over the different tables and surfaces of the house. Workwise I have different threads unfinished, deadlines that I’m having to be flexible about. All of my relationships, family, friends, colleagues are all in flux. Sometimes my mind is just screaming “this is all too messy, I need order!” it feels difficult to live with.

Where does the ‘messiness’ really come from?
On a deeper level, rather than the problem being the messiness, its really more about my relationship to the messiness. Its not that the untidiness of my apartment is inherently unbearable, its that my idea of what messy is and what it means is conflicting and stressful.

Unlabelling
The quickest and most effective way out of my problem with messiness is simply to drop my idea and mental label of things being ‘messy’. As soon as I drop the mental label, then the ‘problem’ of my messy apartment disappears(!) The thing here is not that I have changed my external environment, but that I have stopped projecting my labels upon it. From its own side my apartment isn’t messy or tidy, it just IS exactly what it is. With my apartment and life exactly as it is right now, I have a place of peace and stability I can go to and relax in simply by dropping my labels. This is important because it means I can tolerate difficult, messy situations without it stressing me out.

Unlabelling and primal meditation
In chapter one of Lau Tsu’s Tao Te Ching he says “The unnamable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things”* . When you drop your naming and labelling process, you drop into a space of label-less, name-less, though-tless unknowing that puts you directly in touch with our experiential reality. This opens up a whole new way of participating in life, that most people loose at quite an early age.

Sitting with “unlabelled unknowing”
So, as a meditation you can start getting some experience of this practice by doing the following:

  • Sit and notice the way in which your mind is projecting names and labels on everything around you and within you.
  • Practice putting those labels down, and relaxing into a state of experiential ‘unlabelled unknowing’
  • Do it not just momentarily, but for gradually extended periods

Practicing with specific labels and challenges
It’s a good idea to practice this with things that are a real challenge for you, like me and my ‘messiness’. Drop the labels that most affect your peace of mind and effectiveness in life. Learn how you can change your experience in real time around real issues using unlabelling.

Watch Tobys’ short video on mindful unlabeling:

*Stephen Mitchell translation. Alternative translation by Gia-Fu Feng “The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. The named is the mother of ten thousand things”.

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com  

Tuesday 4th August, 7.30-8.30pm – Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

This meditation, done on or around the full moon capitalises on the heightened lunar energies at this time of the month to:

  • Bring energy and health to our physical body
  • Increase benevolent, life affirming emotions such as appreciation, joy and gratitude
  • Release patterns of energy, thinking and feeling that are no longer serving us
  • Focus on clarifying our intentions and manifesting our current life-goal

Read full details

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

Stress-transformation coaching with Toby

Stress, anxiety, fear, pressure, anger, attachment – Ordinarily we see these states of mind and emotion as negative; things that get in the way of our happiness and well-being, and prevent us from achieving the goals and quality of life that we would like.

But what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy, helping us to accomplish our goals and awaken to a new level of fulfillment?

Stress transformation coaching with Toby is exactly that; it shows you how you can transform your stress, anxiety and other difficult emotions into forces for the good in your life…
Read full details

 

Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 

At a glance: All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Sunday, 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)

Tuesday’s at 12.30-1.20 – Ongoing Tuesday Lunchtime meditation class @Space2B

Tuesday 4th August, 7.30-8.30pm – Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Coming soon – High performance bootcamp: Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

Your first (&most important) relationship

“We project the health or lack of it in our relationship to self onto everything and everyone else.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below explores how to be mindful around our relationship to self, which I always say is our first and most important relationship!

In the spirit of our first relationship,

Toby

PS: If you missed it, check out last weeks article on Matching your expectation with reality or watch my one minute video on the same subject.

Your first (&most important) relationship

When practicing mindfulness in relationships, one important ‘first position’ that I emphasize (in my own practice and also when teaching others) is that your most important relationship is to yourself. If you can get this one right, then it will affect all of your other relationships in a positive way. This is because:

  • We have to spend 24hours a day with ourself. We can escape from our partner, colleagues and kids for a while, but you are stuck with ‘you’ all the time!
  • Anything that is right or wrong in our relationship to ourself we then project onto our relationships with others. We project the health or lack of it in our first relationship onto everything else.

In short, the more solid a relationship you build to yourself, the easier and more successful your relationships with others are likely to be. With this in mind here are some simple (but deep) mindful positions you can take to help improve your relationship to yourself:

  1. Commit to being on your own side – Today are you going to be the one supporting and encouraging yourself to the next level of creative expression in your life, or are you going to be the main thing that is holding you back, keeping you scared? Practice choosing the former rather than the latter!
  2. Listen to yourself – Work at counselling yourself well by listening to the conversation and emotions present within. Practice what it is like to extend empathy and understanding, rather than intolerance and judgment
  3. Appreciate yourself – Make sure that the good things that you are doing for yourself, others and in your life are not going un-noticed and un-valued.
  4. Be honest, don’t dodge the difficult stuff – Don’t run away from the most difficult parts of your relationship to yourself. Practice naming and working with the parts of you that are wounded, resentful, insecure, paranoid and so on. Take responsibility for your own self-healing
  5. Practice seeing yourself from other people’s point of view – Whenever you do this you will see yourself in a new light that is useful and interesting. Don’t get locked soley in the old, familiar ways of viewing yourself
  6. Practice seeing yourself more objectively – Although we can never see ourselves entirely objectively, we can nevertheless practice seeing ourselves more objectively. Seeing yourself impersonally helps you take calmer more objective decisions with regard to how you treat yourself!

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020

Saturday 18th July, 4-6pm – Mindful relationships masterclass

Learn how you can use mindfulness improve your relationships and relationship skills

Relationships form a major part of our happiness and enjoyment in life, but that can also be difficult, complicated, challenging and confusing. This two-hour masterclass focuses on practical skills to help you get the most out or your relationships, both professional and personal. By changing the way you pay attention, you can change your relationships! You will learn:

Read full details…

Tues 21st July 7.30-8.30pm, Weds 22nd July  7.30-8.3pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions
These are meditation classes done monthly around the turn of the new moon that enable us to open to new beginnings, new possibilities and make a fresh start with regard to:

  • Our health
  • Our inner growth
  • And our life’s purpose and future goals

See full details…

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

Saturday 25th July, 2.30-5.30pm – Environmental meditation masterclass – Working consciously with the forces of nature

In a sentence: Learn to work consciously with the forces of nature and your environment as well develop powerful meditation states.

There is much concern and talk today about the state of the environment and the relationship of humankind to nature. This is a workshop that will introduce you to simple, ancient meditation techniques to….

Read full details…


Sunday July 19th & 26th, 5-5.50pm – Online Qi gong workout class

This is a Qi gong session that begins with movement, breathing and energy work to thoroughly energize and refresh your body, nervous system and energy meridians  and regenerate your physical, energetic, mental and spiritual being…read full details

Restarts Sunday 19th July – Qi gong energy body activation meditation

About the sessions: These are Qi gong meditation sessions to activate and enhance the flow of ‘qi’ or subtle energy in your body. We will then be using this flow for:

  • Enhancing physical health and healing
  • Increased emotional wellbeing and mental balance
  • Access to deeper, more dynamic meditation states to transform and regenerate your body, mind and soul

Full details of class…

Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 

Coming soon: High performance bootcamp – Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Are you a high-potential individual who often feels overworked, stressed, sleep-deprived, or mentally and physically exhausted?  Yet, you are expected to be on your A-game everyday, make clear decisions, problem solve, and be fully focused and present for your employer and teams? Do you wonder if performance in your career and your well-being are a zero-sum game, and see your well-being fall to the sidelines under the ever increasing work commitments.

At a glance: All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Weekly 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)

Tuesday’s at 12.30-1.20 – Ongoing Tuesday Lunchtime meditation class @Space2B

Ongoing Sundays 6-6.50pm –  Qi gong energy body activation meditation (Livestream)

Saturday 18th July, 4-6pm – Mindful relationships masterclass

Sunday July 19th, 26th – Qi gong workout class

Tues 21st July 7.30-8.30pm, Weds 22nd July  7.30-8.3pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday 25th July 10.30am-12noon – ONLINE Get your meditation practice started now – The shortest & most time effective meditation course ever

Saturday 25th July, 2.30-5.30pm – Environmental meditation masterclass – Working consciously with the forces of nature

Coming in July – High performance bootcamp: Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindfulness Presence and being present

Five aspects of high-performance mindfulness

“Committing to being self-aware, and really knowing and understanding how you function is a primary skill”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article offers a few thoughts on mindfulness and sustainable high performance.

In the spirit of the journey,

Toby

 

 

 

Five aspect of high-performance mindfulness

Over the years much of my mindfulness offering in the corporate field has come under the title “Mindfulness for sustainable high-performance”. What it aims to do is to help clients operate at their peak not just today, or this week, but this year, over the next five years, over the next couple of decades. My aim is to help you retain your energy, enthusiasm and capacity for meaningful, creative work without burning out. With this in mind here are five aspects of high-performance mindfulness that might interest you. If you apply them will help you raise the bar both at work and in any chosen domain of your life.

Self-Awareness
Your ability to self-regulate in general, and apply high performance mindfulness methods in particular depends upon your self-knowledge. So committing to being self-aware, and really knowing and understanding how you function is a primary skill. “What is going on within me physically, emotionally and mentally?” is a good question to ask yourself often. “Based upon what I notice about myself, what would be a good thing to focus upon next?” is a good question to follow up with!

Concentration/Mindful-flow
Learn to balance focus with relaxation. High-performance occurs in a context where we are relaxed enough for our natural intelligence to remain functional and optimized. Focus without relaxation leads to sub-par performance in the short term and burn-out in the long term. There are multiple nuanced applications of this principle in high-performance mindfulness.

Non-striving/ergonomic effort
Like quality of concentration, quality of effort is important. With H-P mindfulness we learn to engage in our tasks with the minimum necessary effort to do them well, no more and no less!

Appreciation
In order to keep achieving sustainably and in a balanced way, it’s good to dwell regularly with appreciation upon the good things that we have achieved. Pausing and feeling good about what we have done helps us to feel enthusiasm, and appetite for the next thing, and the next and the next!

Living consciously & intentionally
This final aspect of H-P mindfulness is learning to integrate the four skills above and apply them to our goals. “What is it that I need to focus upon next?” is a question that we can use to prompt the next mindful activity, and take us in the direction that we want to go in order to achieve our goals.

Article © Toby Ouvry 2020, please do not reproduce without permission. Contact info@tobyouvry.com

Saturday 18th July, 4-6pm – Mindful relationships masterclass

Learn how you can use mindfulness improve your relationships and relationship skills

Relationships form a major part of our happiness and enjoyment in life, but that can also be difficult, complicated, challenging and confusing. This two-hour masterclass focuses on practical skills to help you get the most out or your relationships, both professional and personal. By changing the way you pay attention, you can change your relationships! You will learn:

Read full details…

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

Saturday 25th July, 2.30-5.30pm – Environmental meditation masterclass – Working consciously with the forces of nature

In a sentence: Learn to work consciously with the forces of nature and your environment as well develop powerful meditation states.

There is much concern and talk today about the state of the environment and the relationship of humankind to nature. This is a workshop that will introduce you to simple, ancient meditation techniques to….

Read full details…


Sunday July 19th & 26th, 5-5.50pm – Online Qi gong workout class

This is a Qi gong session that begins with movement, breathing and energy work to thoroughly energize and refresh your body, nervous system and energy meridians  and regenerate your physical, energetic, mental and spiritual being…read full details

Tues 21st July 7.30-8.30pm, Weds 22nd July  7.30-8.3pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

These are meditation classes done monthly around the turn of the new moon that enable us to open to new beginnings, new possibilities and make a fresh start with regard to:

  • Our health
  • Our inner growth
  • And our life’s purpose and future goals

Full details…

Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 

Coming in July: High performance bootcamp – Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Are you a high-potential individual who often feels overworked, stressed, sleep-deprived, or mentally and physically exhausted?  Yet, you are expected to be on your A-game everyday, make clear decisions, problem solve, and be fully focused and present for your employer and teams? Do you wonder if performance in your career and your well-being are a zero-sum game, and see your well-being fall to the sidelines under the ever increasing work commitments.

At a glance: All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Weekly 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)

Tuesday’s at 12.30-1.20 – Ongoing Tuesday Lunchtime meditation class @Space2B

Ongoing Sundays 6-6.50pm –  Qi gong energy body activation meditation (Livestream)

Sunday 5th July, 6-7pm – Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Saturday 18th July, 4-6pm – Mindful relationships masterclass

Sunday July 19th, 26th – Qi gong workout class

Tues 21st July 7.30-8.30pm, Weds 22nd July  7.30-8.3pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday 25th July 10.30am-12noon – ONLINE Get your meditation practice started now – The shortest & most time effective meditation course ever

Saturday 25th July, 2.30-5.30pm – Environmental meditation masterclass – Working consciously with the forces of nature

Coming in July – High performance bootcamp: Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation meditation and creativity Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

An undistracted mind

“At the end of the day one of the major keys to an undistracted mind is to commit to living your life on purpose!”

Dear Integral Meditators,

What do we mean by distraction? And how can we get better at living an undistracted life? The article below explores these questions in a practical way!

In the spirit of non-distraction,

Toby

 

 

 

What do you mean by ‘a distraction?’ (Living your life on purpose)

Here was a question that I was recently asked: “Based on your experience, what are some things people are usually distracted by that they don’t recognise as forms of distraction?”

Here are a few ways in which we can be distracted without realizing it:

  1. When you are focused on one form of work when really you are avoiding another work task which you have emotional resistance to or are anxious about
  2. When you are focused on one emotion (eg: anger) which is really a way of hiding another emotion that you don’t want to acknowledge (for example disappointment or sadness)
  3. Essentially anytime when you have set an intention to do or focus on one thing, and then you focus on another can be classed as a distraction for example:
  • Said you were going to exercise, but then start some work
  • Intended to work, but ended up folding the laundry
  • Intended to fold the laundry, but ended up talking to a friend for half an hour on the phone

All of these can be understood as distractions.

Why do we follow distractions or get distracted?
Reasons for this include:

  • Our focusing power is naturally poor as a result of habitually filling our mind with all sorts of information, and that information changing all the time
  • Being mentally fatigued and so not able to focus properly. Many people have long term mental fatigue from an overactive and distracted mind
  • Being anxious and not comfortable being anxious, which means the mind naturally cannot settle and seeks distraction
  • We use distractions to hide from a whole range of uncomfortable emotions!
  • Not being clear what we really want to focus our energy and attention on, so naturally our mind and attention wanders
  • Trying to focus to hard, which means the mind cannot hold the object of focus for long due to over straining

How can you strengthen your focus?
Here are two simple things you can do:

  1. Practice building relaxed focus in meditation. Even if you spend only five minutes a day setting your intention to focus on one meditation object and then practicing, your focus will radically improve.
  2. Practice focusing on one work or leisure task at a time; finish one thing, then the next thing, then the next!

At the end of the day one of the major keys to an undistracted mind is to commit to living your life on purpose!

Article © Toby Ouvry 2020, please do not reproduce without permission. Contact info@tobyouvry.com

Saturday 27th June, 2.30-5.30pm – Breathing meditation livestream masterclass

Learn a multi-faceted breathing meditation practice that helps you grow and learn in the face of life’s challenges, and connect you to deep inner stability.

Many mindfulness and meditation techniques use the breathing. However, with only superficial understanding meditation on the breathing can easily become stagnant, mechanical and, after a while boring! This masterclass teaches six complementary breathing techniques that will help you to…
Full details of session

 

Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?

Read full details…

 


Sunday June 21st & 28th, 5-5.50pm – Online Qi gong workout class

This is a Qi gong session that begins with movement, breathing and energy work to thoroughly energize and refresh your body, nervous system and energy meridians  and regenerate your physical, energetic, mental and spiritual being…read full details

Sunday 5th July, 6-7pm – Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

This meditation, done on or around the full moon capitalises on the heightened lunar energies at this time of the month to:

  • Bring energy and health to our physical body
  • Increase benevolent, life affirming emotions such as appreciation, joy and gratitude
  • Release patterns of energy, thinking and feeling that are no longer serving us
  • Focus on clarifying our intentions and manifesting our current life-goals

Read full details 

Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 

Coming in July: High performance bootcamp – Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

Are you a high-potential individual who often feels overworked, stressed, sleep-deprived, or mentally and physically exhausted?  Yet, you are expected to be on your A-game everyday, make clear decisions, problem solve, and be fully focused and present for your employer and teams? Do you wonder if performance in your career and your well-being are a zero-sum game, and see your well-being fall to the sidelines under the ever increasing work commitments.

All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Weekly 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)

Tuesday’s at 12.30-1.20 – Ongoing Tuesday Lunchtime meditation class @Space2B

Ongoing Sundays 6-6.50pm –  Qi gong energy body activation meditation (Livestream)

Saturday 20th June 10.30am-12noon – ONLINE Get your meditation practice started now – The shortest & most time effective meditation course ever

Saturday 27th June, 2.30-5.30pm – Breathing meditation livestream masterclass

Sunday June 21st, 28th – Qi gong workout class

Sunday 5th July, 6-7pm – Online Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Coming in July – High performance bootcamp: Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out

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