Category: Meditating on the Self

Your emotional feeling tones

Post author By Toby
Post date December 28, 2020

“By starting to notice and to play around with your emotional tones, you discover that you can ‘change the song of your life’ like a composer re-working her compositions.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article points out some playful ways to work with your emotional experience and range using mindfulness, I hope you enjoy it!
Last call for the 2021 New year releasing and inviting meditation, The Wednesday live class is already full, there are a few live slots for the Tuesday session, and of course online attendance is possible.

I am currently plotting the events for January 2021, watch this space!

In the spirit of composing your feelings,

Toby

Your emotional feeling tones

One way of thinking about emotions is that they are ‘The feeling tone associated with any experience’. By experience here I mean a broad range of things:

Different thoughts you have
Of a conversation or social interaction
Of a place; its atmosphere and ‘tone’
Of an image or memory that comes into your mind
In response to something that happens to you
Of a time of day

Each experience has a different feeling tone, like the note on a musical scale. Moreover, our own feeling tones are interacting with the emotional tones of other people and of our environment. Sometimes this creates a beautiful symphony, and sometimes this creates an almighty racket!
We are not in charge of the feeling tones of others, but we can start to become more aware of our own habitual feeling tones and patterns. If we do this we can then start to see how we can change our feeling tones and moods for the better, and put them into more beautiful ‘musical combinations’ with each other. Ways of starting to do this include:

Noticing the feeling tone that arise with particular thoughts, images and memories you have. Rather than looking at the content of the thought, look at the emotional tone of it.
With particular patterns of thought and image, you will notice that the feeling tones they produce for you are brighter and more harmonious. You can focus on deliberately holding these thoughts and images as a way of raising the vibration of your feeling tones.
You will notice that there are some images related to landscape and place that, when you think of them naturally raise your emotional tone. Likewise passages of music, images of characters in stories that you know (and so on) can all lift your overall feeling tone.
If you notice that you get stuck in a negative or ‘low level’ feeling tone, you can practice just experiencing it as a feeling tone, rather than taking the content too personally!
If you notice that a friend or colleague you spend time with really lifts your feeling tones, then deliberately open to them and allow their tones to affect you when you are with them. Similarly, if there is someone whose emotional tones bring yours down, then when you are with them, then practice ‘closing’ your energy to them in their company, so you are not so affected.

In a coaching session the other day I explained to a client that sometimes it is like your range of feeling tones is a bit like being one type of composer. Maybe if you notice are a more ‘serious’ composer like a Wagner or a Beethoven, you might like to introduce another composer into the mix. For example, you could practice creating more playful feeling tones like a Mozart or a Vivaldi. Or if your feeling tones are all ‘heavy metal’ you might like to practice creating feeling tones like a Prince, Taylor Swift or other more whimsical pop star. Of course this works the other way around; if you are all Taylor Swift and Mozart, maybe practice bringing a bit more gravitas into your feeling tones.
When you start to work mindfully with your feeling tones, it can be very creative and playful. By starting to notice and to play around with your emotional tones, you discover that you can ‘change the song of your life’ like a composer re-working her compositions.
Enjoy playing with your feeling tones!

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

Tues 29th & Weds 30th Dec, 7.30-8.30pm – 2021 New year releasing and inviting meditation
About the class: This meditation session is focused upon setting up the 2021 new year energies in a way that invites the best possible experience moving forward. We will be:

Releasing and letting go of energies, events and experiences from the past year that may hold us back from moving into our full potential, and
Developing a flexible, soft, ‘beginners mind’, renewed and ready to be ‘born again’ with energy and enthusiasm in 2019
Focusing both consciously and intuitively upon the inviting of new energies, aspirations and goals that we wish to bring in and manifest over the course of the new year

Full details…

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

January 16th & 23rd – Shamanic meditation and mini-retreat (Details to follow!)

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags emotional intelligence, integral meditation integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness and emotions, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation

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Working mindfully with your subconscious mind

Post author By Toby
Post date November 30, 2020

“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 12th^th 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 12th^th 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 AsiaOnline Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology

Tags meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, subconscious mind

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Your bright shadow – The one who can do what you can’t

Post author By Toby
Post date November 17, 2020

“The sum total of all the hidden strengths that you have within yourself but are in denial around is sometimes called the ‘bright shadow’.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article explores a topic that has been very present and important in my own practice for a good while now, the bright shadow. Some parts require careful reading, but I believe you’ll find it worth it if you do!
Next Saturday the 21st November I’ll be facilitating the Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self. If you enjoy the article, do feel free to participate!

This weeks Tuesday and Wednesday meditation is on the story of your breathing.

In the bright & luminous,

Toby

Your bright shadow – The one who can do what you can’t

Your shadow is
A good working definition of our shadow self is: “All the parts of our personality and self that are unacceptable to our self-image”. Because these parts of ourself are unacceptable to our idea of who we think we are, most people repress and deny them psychologically, hence they get pushed into the ‘shadows’ of our unconscious mind. From their position in the unconscious, our shadow then tries to push its agenda from, without the awareness of the conscious mind.

Its not just your dark shadow that is unacceptable
A lot of the conversation about the shadow is about the so called ‘dark’ side of it. We repress violent parts of ourself, sometimes sexual elements, aspects of power, domination and a range of other destructive emotions. The specifics of course varies from person to person, as we all have a different self image.
But it is not just the so perceived ‘negative’ qualities that we repress. There are many strengths and ‘bright’ qualities that we also repress for the same simple reason: They are not part of who we think we are and what we think we are capable of, so we don’t identify with them, even though they are present within us. The sum total of all these hidden strengths within ourelf is sometimes called the ‘bright shadow’.

The bright shadow as an already present part of you
In the last couple of years the way in which I have been working with my own bright shadow is imagining it as an already complete and capable part of myself that I connect to in visualization, and then begin to imagine myself AS. This is a bit like Tantric meditation, where you accelerate the speed at which you achieve the results by imagining strongly that you have already achieved it!

A few examples
Here are a few aspects of my bright shadow that I have been working with in the last 12 months:

The bright part of me that is strong and confident in the face of uncertainty, and the twists and turns of fortune
The bright part of me that is happy being somewhat vulnerable and afraid, enjoying it and not having to hide behind so much ‘surface level’ manly strength
This week I wasn’t feeling well physically, as had to rest. I connected to that part of my bright shadow whose sense of confidence was not connected to physical well-being, and can navigate these few days relatively easily and happily despite the discomfort.

The basic method
In each of these examples the process is basically the same, I visualize my bright shadow, imagining him as already present whole and complete. I then study and relate to him. When ready I imagine myself AS him, living and experiencing this moment as if I fully possess his qualities and capacities.

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

Saturday 21st November 2.30-5.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

The RESULTS that you can expect to gain from engaging in this workshop are:

The ability to self-heal parts of your psyche that are in pain and in need care and attention
A greater feeling of overall wholeness and wellbeing
More physical, mental and spiritual energy in your daily life
Deeper self-understanding, reduced fear and greater emotional freedom
Greater harmony and success in your relationships with other people (because you no longer project your shadow onto them)
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 November:

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 21st November 2.30-5.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

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

Tags bright shadow, integral meditation, integral mindfulness, meditation in singapore, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, shadow meditation, strengths meditation

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Liberation from your roles & labels – Three examples

Post author By Toby
Post date November 9, 2020

“The essential art of mindfully liberating ourself from our roles and names is to recognizing a role, name or label that we identify with closely, Learn to “drop” or dis-identify ourself from that role and then to then pick up and play the role with freedom in a newly interpreted and useful way”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Quite a lot of the coaching and corporate work I do these days involves playing mindfully with roles, names and labels. In the article below I outline the process and give three practical examples, so you can start playing the game in your own life!
Saturday 3-5pm I’ll be facilitating the Mindfulness masterclass: Liberation & creativity through the observer self (Finding freedom in your roles) , if you enjoy the article, then do feel free to join us, either in person or online!

Last call for the annual meditation on our own inner light in the run up to Deepavali this Tuesday and Wednesday evening.
And finally, this Sunday there is the New moon health visualization and envisioning session

In the spirit if mindful creativity,

Toby

Liberation from your roles & labels – Three examples

Much of the structure of our ego and self-concept basically revolves around names, roles and labels that we have become familiar with and identify with closely

“I am the troubleshooter in my business team”
“I am the arty child in the family”
“I am a victim because of this or that event”
“My value is that I am an academically qualified doctor”

These roles and labels give us some security in the sense of having an identity, but they also limit us and prevent us from growing. The essential art of mindfully liberating ourself from our roles and names is:

Recognizing a role, name or label that we identify with closely
Learning to “drop” or dis-identify ourself from that role, to separate our identity from it
To then pick up and play the role with freedom in a newly interpreted and useful way
To try out other roles and labels that are different from or opposite from the original, and integrate them into our ‘identity repetoire’

Three examples:

The inner critic becomes the intelligent critical thinker
In a corporate training last week I led on “Aspiring to excellence whilst dancing with imperfection”, we spent some of the time recognizing the ‘negative perfectionist‘ that many high performers identify with. We put that role down, and then after a while picked it up again and re-interpreted it as the ‘good quality critical thinker‘ that is constructive and helpful with regard to producing great work. We also began to play with the role of the ‘Non-judgmental self‘ as a complementary contrast.

The invulnerable one one becomes the vulnerable one
For a long time I was quite identified with ‘the invulnerable one‘ or the one who feels no fear. In a workshop on emotions about 2 years ago I focused on putting down that label and allowing myself to feel fear and venerability. By doing so I was able to start playing with and integrating the positive expression of ‘the vulnerable self‘ into my personality and daily actions. The ‘invulnerable one’ remains available to me, but I am no longer compulsively identified with it, I can pick it up or put it down as I wish.

The messy one and the one in control
With the recent addition of my baby daughter Liv to the family, I found myself struggling as the one who wanted things to be ‘ordered and in control‘. As life is naturally quite messy when you have a baby, I practiced putting down the ‘ordered’ label and playing with an ‘I’m happy for things to be messy’ label. As a result, I was able to relax into the chaos more and enjoy the process! That doesn’t mean I no longer play the ‘ordered one’ or the ‘one in control’, it just means I play it when its useful and appropriate, not unconsciously and inappropriately.

Enjoy playing with your roles, names and labels with creativity and freedom!

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

Saturday 14^th November, 3-5pm – Mindfulness masterclass: Liberation & creativity through the observer self (Finding freedom in your roles)

Learn how you can use mindfulness to find liberation from and creative freedom within the roles, names and labels you identify with in your life
Almost all of our lives are spent playing out different roles, names and labels that we have become identified with over the course of time. These roles and labels define our sense of who we are and, to a large extent what we believe is possible for us…
Full details

Tues 10th, Weds 11th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Deepavali Meditation – Connecting to your inner light

In this session we will be taking some time to:

Connect to our own ‘inner light’ in meditation, as a way of conquering the ‘darkness’ of our own inner confusion and fear
Sharing our inner light with our own personal circle of influence, and with the world
Taking our inner world journey to meet our own inner world guides who will offer us the light of their guidance at this time in our personal journey

F ull details

Sunday 15th November, 6-7pm – New moon health visualization and envisioning sessions

About the session: This class is done monthly around the turn of the new moon and enable us to open to new beginnings, new possibilities and make a fresh start, specifically with regard to physical health and psychological wellbeing
Full details

Saturday 21st November 2.30-5.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

The RESULTS that you can expect to gain from engaging in this workshop are:

The ability to self-heal parts of your psyche that are in pain and in need care and attention
A greater feeling of overall wholeness and wellbeing
More physical, mental and spiritual energy in your daily life
Deeper self-understanding, reduced fear and greater emotional freedom
Greater harmony and success inyour relationships with other people (because you no longer project your shadow onto them)
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 November:

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 10th, Weds 11th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Deepavali Meditation – Connecting to your inner light

Saturday 14^th November, 3-5pm – Mindfulness masterclass: Liberation & creativity through the observer self (Finding freedom in your roles)

Sunday 15th November, 6-7pm – New moon health visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday 21st November 2.30-5.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

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

Tags creative mindfulness, inner freedom, integral mindfulness, meditation, mindfulness meditation

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

Post author By Toby
Post date July 31, 2020

“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

Tags integral meditation, integral mindfulness, meditation in singapore, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, primal meditation

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Your first (&most important) relationship

Post author By Toby
Post date July 14, 2020

“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:

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!
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
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.
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
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
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 18^th 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 18^th 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

Tags integral meditation, integral mindfulness, meditation, mindful relationships, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore

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Re-sensitizing your body

Post author By Toby
Post date May 19, 2020

“As we start to re-sensitize our body, we start to feel more energy, which is a resource that you can then direct towards any positive purpose that you want to in your life.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article explores the subject of re-awakening the sensitivity of your body, I hope you enjoy it!

And do check out the upcoming New moon visualization sessions beginning this Saturday 23rd May, 6-7pm!

In the spirit of feeling alive,

Toby

In case you missed it: Meditation recording and Article on Natural Happiness

Here is a meditation recording: 8 minute power meditation on Natural Happiness You can read more about the practice in my article…
Read full article

Re-sensitizing your body

This article outlines a meditation that I have been doing recently at the beginning of my Qi gong light-body meditation & workout live sessions, but it is one that is an important part of any mindfulness or meditation practitioners’ repertoire. Below are a few essential pointers to the technique, what its benefits are and how to start practising.

The point of life is to feel alive
Whatever goals you may have in life, if you are not fundamentally in touch with the feeling of being alive, then your life is going to feel rather dry and abstract. If we want to feel fulfilled in our life, then it’s important to be viscerally in touch with our life-force. Since the basic feeling of being alive is most immediately a feeling in the body, then the more we are awake to our body and its feelings the more alive, and potentially fulfilled we are going to be.

Your body is not a robot
For many people the experience of being in their body is that they are kind of stuck in their brain, operating their body rather mechanically, rather like a driver in a cockpit operating a big robot or machine. Naturally if this is our experience, then our sense of being alive is reduced, as our connection to our body as a living, sensitive being has been cut off.

Re-sensitizing your body
To re-sensitize your body means to gently try and experience it as if it were a living organism, with each cell having energy and life-force within it. You can go from the crown of your head down to the toes, exploring each area of your body, re-awakening that connection to the living nature of your body. When you start to get used to this what you notice is that the feeling is naturally quite comfortable and blissful. You yourself start to experience yourself as being fully alive as your body re-awakens!

Full body breathing
One simple technique you can try is as follows. Imagining all of your cells in the body to be alive (which they are!), as you breathe in feel each one of them inhaling with you, taking in fresh energy and life-force. As you breathe out, all your cells breathe out too, relaxing, releasing blocked energy and/or toxicity. Follow this pattern of full body breathing for a few minutes, allowing the cellular structure to start re-awakening.

Re-awakening energy flow
If you do this regularly, you will start to notice that, not only do you feel more relaxed and well-disposed, you actually start to feel more energy in your body, which is a resource that you can then direct towards any positive purpose that you want to in your life.

Getting out of your head and into your body
Re-awakening and re-sensitizing our body can take a little courage, as there is comfort in being stuck in the abstractions of our head. But as I hope I have outlined above, the benefits of re-sensitizing our body are well worth the effort and bravery to step back our of our head and re-inhabit our living body!

Being prepared to face a little trauma
One reason why we have retreated from our body is that for everyone there are stored feelings of emotional pain in the body. As we explore our body, these feelings of pain can and will come up in order to be healed and released. When it happens, there is generally nothing to be worried about, and we simply need to allow these feelings come up and out naturally as they heal.

Enjoy exploring the living nature of your body!

Sat 23^rd 6-7pm, Tues 26^th 7.30-8.30pm, Weds 27^th 7.30-8.3pm May – 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
Our relationships
And our life’s purpose and future goals

Read full details!

Sunday May 24th – Qi gong workout class

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

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 session

Read full details

Saturday 31^st May, 2-5.30pm – Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership, A Livestream workshop

In a sentence: Learn how to work creatively with uncertainty, imperfection and life’s inherent messiness to realize your leadership and self-leadership potential. Manage stress and anxiety better using mindfulness in combination with the practical philosophy of Wabi-Sabi.
Full details of the workshop

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

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)

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

Tues 5th & Weds May 6th, 7.30-8.30pm – Online Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Sat 23^rd 6-7pm, Tues 26^th 7.30-8.30pm, Weds 27^th 7.30-8.3pm May – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday 31^st May, 2-5.30pm – Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership, A Livestream workshop

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

Tags integral mindfulness, meditation and health, meditation and wellbeing, meditation in singapore, mindful body, mindfulness and health, mindfulness and wellbeing, mindfulness in Singapore

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Working with the ‘Big Dog’ of your shadow self (Building inner strength)

Post author By Toby
Post date February 17, 2020

“By making friends with the ‘big dog’ of your shadow, a lot of the difficult and challenging parts of yourself that previously you ran away from will cease to feel threatening to you.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article focuses upon how you can build a positive relationship to your shadow self, and experience a greater degree of inner resilience and confidence as a result…beneath it is my video on the topic where you can explore further. Shadow coaching is something I do a lot of, and it never ceases to amaze me the change it makes in people.Then on Saturday morning there is my monthly beginners meditation workshop, followed by an afternoon of Psychic and Psychological self-defence, the details of which I have placed below.

In the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Working with the ‘Big Dog’ of your shadow self (Building inner strength)

The shadow – your ‘wild self’
The shadow is a part of all of our psyches/psychological selves. It is often associated with the wild, instinctive and primal part of who we are. Its energy is often interpreted as aggressive, negative and frightening. This being the case, for many of us the shadow is a repressed part of ourself that we often run away from and bury within our sub-conscious mind. Hence it is our ‘shadow’ self, living in our sub-conscious, unacknowledged by our conscious self.

Your shadow is like a big dog
One way of imagining your shadow is like a big dog, full of power, instincts, libido/sexuality, and aggression (in the neutral sense of the word, meaning could be good or bad aggression).

What happens when you abuse your big dog?
If we are afraid of the dog of our shadow, then we often respond to it with fear, punishing it when it does something wrong. We behave like a tyrannical owner that our big dog learns to distrust and fear. As a result it becomes devious, working to fulfil its needs and wishes behind our back, when we ‘are not looking’. In this way we find ourself experiencing our shadow as an adversary, almost like a demon within us that seems to be trying to sabotage us all the time.

What happens when you train it well
If you build a conscious, positive relationship to your shadow, then this is like becoming a good dog trainer. You take the raw instincts and unruly behaviour of the dog and benevolently direct it. You are fair, and so the dog learns to trust you and love you. As a result, the dog becomes your powerful ally. It still has all the raw power, but it is working for you and with you, rather than against you. All the power of our shadow self becomes available to us to direct, enjoy and use to help us find fulfilment in our life.

Building strength of body heart and mind through working with your shadow
By making friends with the ‘big dog’ of your shadow, a lot of the difficult and challenging parts of yourself that previously you ran away from will cease to feel threatening to you. You will feel more confident and stronger within yourself. Also, your ability to stay steady in the face of the shadow self of others, or within groups of people is also transformed. Relationship situations that you previously experienced as threatening no longer intimidate you.

Check out the video on the big dog of the shadow:

Click this link for information on Toby’s Shadow coaching
Check out Toby’s other shadow articles on his website

All upcoming classes and workshops for January 2020

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

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

Tuesday 12.30-1.30 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 22nd February, 10.30am-12pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Saturday 22nd Feb 2-5.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Tuesday 10th March, 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Friday, Sat, Sunday 24,25,26th April – The Qi Gong Foundation Program & Program for coaches and trainers

Ongoing – The Men’s group, the path of conscious manhood

Ongoing – The Integral Mindfulness & Meditation Online Program, January-July 2020

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags integral meditation, integral mindfulness, meditation in singapore, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, shadow coaching, shadow meditation, shadow self

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Getting comfortable in your own skin

Post author By Toby
Post date February 9, 2020

“We all want a place where we can feel ‘at home’. We can change house, town or country in order to feel more at home, but the one thing we cant change is our physical body. If we feel at home in our body, then wherever we are in life, we can ‘sit’ in a place where feel comfortable”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article explores the importance of being comfortable in your own skin, and how you can start going about becoming so in your daily life! You can watch my video on the same topic HERE. This weeks Tuesday and Wednesday evening class will be on the same subject.I have also done a new write up and video for my Business coaching offering. If this is something that you are interested in for yourself or for your organisation, then do check it out!

In the spirit of the journey,Toby

Getting comfortable in your own skin

Finding a home in your body
We all want a place where we can feel ‘at home’. We can change house, town or country in order to find a place where we feel more at home, but the one thing we can’t change is our physical body (at least in this particular life!) If we feel at home in our body, then wherever we are in life, we can ‘sit’ in a place where feel comfortable. Getting ‘comfortable in our own skin’ then is a foundational mindfulness skill that continues to give us value the more we cultivate it, wherever we are!

Looking after your physical well-being
On an obvious level, looking after our health is an important part of feeling comfortable in our skin. The better we can sleep, balance our diet and build ‘good energy’ on our body, the easier it is going to be to sit within the presence of our body enjoyably.

Accepting and liking your physical body
On the psychological level, its important to be aware of your relationship to your body. If you don’t like your body, or even ‘hate’ it for not looking the way you want or would like, then its difficult to sit comfortably with it. So, whatever your body looks like, moving towards a space of acceptance and liking of your body is super-important to relaxing and being present with yourself.

Being comfortable with the range of emotions present in your body
Quite often our mind will ‘jump out’ or run away from our body because there are emotions present in it that we aren’t comfortable with (Eg: resentment, anger, sadness etc….). So, learning to hold space benevolently for a wide range of emotions and remain in you body is an important skill. The more comfortable you can get with uncomfortable emotions, the more stable your ability to be at home in your own skin will be.

Being comfortable with your self!
An extension from your previous point, in order to sit and be present in your own skin, you need to like yourself, or at least be working toward self-acceptance. Otherwise your mind will be continually trying to ‘escape’ your own presence, as it is such an uncomfortable place to be! Since your physical body is the place in the present moment where you always encounter yourself, then it’s difficult to be there if you don’t like who you are.

Finding a place to get comfortable
Cultivating comfort in your own skin takes a bit of practice, so it can be good to have a specific chair or place in your home where you can just take a few minutes to practice. You can practice anywhere, but having a pleasant place that you enjoy can be a good support as you get going.

A short exercise
For a few minutes, simply invite your mind to come home to rest in your physical body. Notice how fundamentally comfortable or not you feel sitting ‘inside your skin’. Notice any resistance you may have, and encourage your mind to gently enjoy resting within the presence of your body. Breathe, relax and get as ‘at home’ as you can. Reasons to escape into your mental world will come up, but for now really emphasize making your body your home, a source of regeneration, well-being and resilience.

In daily life
Notice times in the day when you become uncomfortable in your body. Cultivate an awareness of your body and an ability to get increasingly comfortable in your own skin, even in times of stress or dis-ease.

Related article: Making your body your castle

Watch Toby’s video on getting comfortable in your own skin:

Mindful Business CoachingThis is a coaching service for executives, small/medium size business owners and entrepreneurs who are seeking to improve four areas of their worklife:

Personal stress levels and wellbeing
Leadership and creative vision
Time and task management
Management of people and developing soft skills
Click here to read more

Watch Toby talking about his Business coaching:

All upcoming classes and workshops for January 2020

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

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

Tuesday 12.30-1.30 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Sunday 9th February, 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Saturday 22nd February, 10.30am-12pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Saturday 22nd Feb 2-5.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Friday, Sat, Sunday 20,21,22nd March – The Qi Gong Foundation Program & Program for coaches and trainers

Ongoing – The Men’s group, the path of conscious manhood

Ongoing – The Integral Mindfulness & Meditation Online Program, January-July 2020

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags integral meditation, integral mindfulness, meditation in singapore, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation

Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Art meditation and creativity Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

Mindful of your inner artist (Being solar not lunar) article & video

Post author By Toby
Post date January 22, 2020

“The ‘mindful artist’ first of all notices that their thoughts, actions and interactions are creative, fundamentally. The next position they take is to choose to direct that creativity in a deliberate way so that s/he ‘creating’ the best things that they can in your life”

W
Dear Integral Meditators,

What does it mean to become the ‘artist of your life?’ In the article below I offer a few thoughts on this!New year is also a good time to think about new personal directions and growth, I’ve created a new video for my Life-fullness Life coaching program, that you can view below the article.

In the spirit of mindful creativity,

Toby

Mindful of your inner artist (Being solar not lunar)

‘Everyone is an artist’
Yesterday I watched the new Joseph Beuys documentary “Beuys on Beuys”. Beuys was one of the biggest influences on me when I was at art school. His idea that ‘Everyone is an artist’ was one that decisively transitioned me from being an outer artist, or object maker to being an ‘inner artist’ or a meditator. By a meditator here I mean working primarily with mind, thoughts, attention and states of being as a way of influencing, contributing to and changing the world.
Beuys’s essential point was that since we all think, act and interact in the world, we are all creative beings, beings who affect change. By becoming conscious, deliberate and mindful about this, we can direct our creative energy deliberately toward our life and society in order to effect positive, creative change.

Mindful of your inner artist
So the object of mindfulness here is to first of all notice that your thoughts, actions and interactions are creative, fundamentally. The next position to take is to choose to direct your creativity in a deliberate way so that you are ‘creating’ the best things that you can in your life. For example:

If you come back tired from work in the evening, rather than just being passive and reactive with your family/friends you are thinking ‘How can I create an enjoyable atmosphere here?’ This is even (and especially) if you are a bit tense or moody
As you are hanging out the laundry you are aware of what you are thinking, and gently directing your attention and awareness toward beautiful and constructive patterns of thinking and feeling. You are looking to use your imagination and attention in active generative ways.
When you are having a meeting, you are actively looking to create connection, empathy and meaning with the people that you are with. You are looking to inspire good energy in a way that will help the group become a force of the good in some way.

Becoming Solar, rather than Lunar
One way in which I often explain becoming a mindful artist is that you are becoming solar rather than lunar in nature. The moon relies upon the reflected light of the sun for its light, it has no light of its own. This is like many people, they are reactive, they rely on the power of others for their own power. For example, they have power because of the position they hold in a company, but if you separate them from that position or label, they have very little sense of their own power. Their power is reflected, lunar. A mindful artist however is a source of power and energy. S/he is a generative person. You can rely on such a person to create goodwill, inspiration, direction. If there is a situation where there is a challenge, they can be relied upon to be actively working something out.
If you meet a person who is solar in nature, who is a mindful artist, this tends to be felt and experienced by their presence. It is something that they embody, it is in their physical and somatic being, not just their mind and intellect.
What can you start with today in order to become the mindful artist that you are, and express your solar nature?

Watch Toby on Becoming the artist of your life:

The Life-fullness Life Coaching Program with Toby

Life-fullness coaching is a unique integration of mindfulness and life-coaching that is designed to help you lead a progressively more awakened life. The essence of the Life-fullness approach is to integrate the different parts of who we are into complementary strengths so that we can really experience ourselves living our life to its fullest…

Watch Toby talking about the Life-fullness Program: