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Concentration Inner vision Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope

Mindfulness for enhancing productivity & creativity in your work

“Don’t wait for inspiration. It comes while working.” – Henri Matisse

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

“Productivity” is a word that always needs to be held in context to do well in my opinion. In this weeks article I explore seven mindful positions to improve your work and creative output (for me work and creativity are very closely linked).
The subject of  this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, will focus on a practical exploration of meditation and inner healing.  Feel free to join us either online or live!

Quick reminder of this coming Saturdays Full Moon Zen deep-dive mini-retreat, and heads up for Octobers  Shamanic meditation workshop retreat on the 22nd/23rd!

In the spirit of  inspiration while working,

Toby

Mindfulness for enhancing productivity & creativity in your work

As my own work continues to get busier with the business expanding, the combination of this and a relatively full family life and personal growth program means that being effective with my work time continues to be super important. Consequently, I’m aways looking to get batter at the basics in terms of how to be productive with the time that I have. Below are eight ‘mindful positions’ that I find continue to deliver value with regard to my work.
Applying this to yourself, you could think about them in terms of your paid work, but also and equally any type of work or creative activity that you want to do in your life, and make consistent progress with!

Practice 1 – Sitting with warmth, confidence and calm: whenever you begin a work session, just spend a few moments checking your body energy and posture. The more you can ‘sit well in the face of the next task’ the better you will tend to feel about doing it.

Practice 2 – Sitting with appreciation for what’s good at work right now: Good energy creates good energy. The more you can contextualize your present activity in terms of the other things that are currently good in your work, or other positive things that you have done, the easier it is to spring into action with enthusiasm!

Practice 3 – Going a little deeper into your intention for working: The clearer you can be about why you are doing what you are doing, and commit to the choice to work because of that, the stronger your motivation will be. The motivation could be financial, providing for family, or deeper in the sense of this being a part of your contribution to the evolution of the planet (in whatever way it may be). You need to know what your motivations are, and get them behind what you are doing.

Practice 4 – Acknowledging and accepting what you find difficult at work right now/ what are the obstacles to your productivity: Knowing and accepting what you find difficult in your work gives you the best chance of doing the work despite the challenges. Learn to carry your anxieties & apprehensions well.

Practice 5 – Identifying the most important tasks in the day/period ahead, developing focused intention: This is really a ‘bread and butter’ practice, set up clearly what you want to do, and stay with it! As your going thru your list of ‘to do’s’, your object of mindfulness in the moment is simply the task that you are on. Letting your attention rest on that means you can build some peace of mind as you are doing the tasks itself, rather than waiting until you have completed your tasks to do some mindful calming down…

Practice 6 – Imagining what it’s like when you have completed the work well – the ideal scene: If you imagine yourself at the end of your day having worked well and got what you wanted to do done, then you will notice how good it feels, and how charged with enthusiasm that image makes you feel. A short period of time focusing such a future scene can be a real catalyst for your present creative activity

Practice 7 – Sleep!: This one, like practice five is really something to keep tabs on all the time. Its 100% easier to work when you feel well rested. We can’t always feel well rested, and there are all sorts of obstacles that can get in the way, but to take responsibility for being as well rested as you can consistently will hugely improve your creative output.

So there are seven practices there, if you were to take one a day to focus on explicitly, you could go thru all of them in a week, and do four cycles over a month. Doing that would stimulate a lot of incremental improvements in your productivity, which is really what mindfulness is about; incremental improvement over time that is unstoppably consistent!

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Saturday September 10th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Session overview: These 2.5hour Zen ‘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 and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…read full details

Sat & Sun 22nd/23rd October – Shamanic meditation workshop retreatLearn how to practice the fundamentals of the most ancient meditation tradition on the planet in a clear, practical and concise manner, and understand its relevance and value to you and the challenges that you face in your life.

The workshop will give an overview and introduce some simple but profound shamanic practices on day one, with a deeper dive into Shamanic meditation practices on day two…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 at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

Saturday September 24th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday September 10th, 9.30-12noon – Full Moon Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Sat & Sun 22nd/23rd October – Shamanic meditation workshop retreat

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Presence and being present

Why am I doing this? Mindfully self-regulating your energy

“Mindful self-regulation. When you are about to engage in an activity or a meditation, it’s good to be clear about which mode you are going to be in, and what the objective is. Are you trying to achieve something but expend energy, or trying to restore energy, or something that is a bit of both?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Too much output of energy without enough input leads to a burnout. This weeks article explores how to start regulating your energy levels and manage them better by being more mindful.
The subject of the article is also the subject of  this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, if you enjoy the article, then do feel free to join us either online or live!

In the spirit of  self-regulation,

Toby

 

Why am I doing this? Mindfully self-regulating your energy

There are three types of activity essentially:

  1. Energy expending – Where you are doing an activity that involves expending energy in order to achieve something
  2. Restorative – When you are doing something relaxing in order to regenerate and build your energy
  3. Net neutral – When you are doing something that is both taking a moderate amount of effort, but also giving back some energy to you in some way, so maybe you might say it is a ‘net neutral’ activity

In any given day, you want to be monitoring these so that, overall you are doing enough restorative activities to not run out of energy. Too many days (running into weeks, months and years) of energy expending without recharging essentially leads to burnout.
This is also true for your meditation

  • You can do meditations that involve visualization, emotion and thought that are actually quite hard work, but that lead to an achievement or capability. This type of meditation takes effort and energy
  • There are some meditations that are relaxing, but require some focus and work
  • There are others that really emphasize relaxation, regeneration and minimum effort/energy expenditure and creating energy for recovery

So, when you are about to engage in an activity, or a meditation, it’s good to be clear about which mode you are going to be in, and what the objective is, are you trying to achieve something but expend energy, or trying to restore energy, or something that is a bit of both?

To conclude, here are three sample meditation techniques. The first is a net neutral one, the second energy expending, the third restorative. If you were feeling you had energy on any given day, you could do mainly one and two. But if you were feeling really exhausted at the end of a hard day, you could do mainly or exclusively the last (links to further details of each technique are included).

  • Free form breathing
  • Visualizing yourself as an adventurer in life
  • Relaxing into safety & brain relaxation

Free form breathing means to just allow your body to breathe as it wants to breathe in order to release stress and move towards balance. All you need to do is allow your body to do what it needs to do, and keep your mental attention on the breathing as the body goes through its process.
Visualize yourself as an adventurer in life, meaning confident in the face of your challenges, feeling enthusiastic, energetic, strong, courageous. Visualize yourself for a few minutes like this, viewing from the first person (in your body as the adventurer) and third person (as an observer). Build the feelings and visuals clearly and specifically! This should feel good, but it takes some effort
Relaxing into safety and brain relaxation. For the final section, recognize that you are safe in the moment (no immanent threats to your wellbeing), and relax your physical brain. Imagine it goes into sleep mode, like a computer – Still switched on but functions minimized! Try and make yourself as relaxed as possible, almost asleep but still a degree of awareness. Less effort more ease and regeneration…

So, there you go, that’s an example of the three types of meditation that you can try.
One final point here is that you can also do one meditation in three different ways. For example, you can do the free form breathing in a way that is really emphasizing focus and clarity, or you can do it in a more relaxed way, not worrying so much about effort, just emphasizing release and flowing into restfulness.

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
Ongoing – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…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 at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

Saturday September 24th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday September 10th, 9.30-12noon – Full Moon Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Inner vision Insight Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Presence and being present

Happiness as acceptance?

“When you can accept life and aliveness, and bring it to your daily activities, and that this can have a transformative effect, even (and particularly) when you are facing something difficult”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article explores how happiness can be something that is accepted rather than strived for. Sometimes we are trying to so hard to be happy, we ignore the nourishment that is already there under our nose!

Final call for the new class series, An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice that starts on 16/17th August, and can be participated in live, online or using the recordings.

In the spirit of  acceptance,

Toby

Happiness as acceptance?

“Nothing is enough for the man for whom enough is too little” – Epicurius

In a previous article from last week, I wrote about meditation as a way of pre-disposing yourself to enjoyment and wellbeing. What I meant is that, if your habitual inner state is conducive to enjoyment, then you will tend to find it in your external circumstances, even if they are very difficult. Some of the inner states of mind that pre-dispose us to happiness are pro-active, seeking out ways to derive fulfilment from life. Others are seemingly more passive; they are ways of opening to enjoyment that require less effortfulness and more allowing. One of these is acceptance, and that this is what I would like to reflect upon a little below.

How much is enough?
A lot of the time we seem to be waiting for something to happen in our life that will catalyse enjoyment or wellbeing for us, something new, something that changes what is there. But what if we turned that around and said “What do I already have that I can recognize and open to that would create a sense of enjoyment for me?” What if I were to work on accepting what is already there? When you start to look there are loads of things in life that are sitting right there that we could be deriving inner nourishment from. For example, off the top of my head today:

  • I’m enjoying the use of affirmation and visualization in my physical body healing process at the moment
  • My daughters are healthy
  • It’s the start of a number of new working projects that I am motivated by
  • I’ve had a good summer holiday
  • The new rental contract for our house contained less of a price raise in rent than I had feared
  • The weekend was busy with friends and conversations

All of these things are available to me to be recognized, opened to and accepted. If I can do that, then the acceptance becomes a doorway to feelings of wellbeing that start to flow into my awareness and my body; I start to experience life as a good place to be.

What’s stopping you opening to what you’ve got?
Three obvious things stand out:

  • Your pain, misfortune and difficulties. We tend to focus on these, and are often quite attached to the tensions, pain and stress. We can be ‘happy in our misery’, we can feel a sense of justified resentment and anxiety. It takes real courage and conscious effort to break out of this
  • As with the Epicurius quote above, there can always be more, and if we don’t draw the line and say ‘I have enough, and I have enough to feel well’, then the sense of ‘not enough’ is a closed door of dissatisfaction and discontent
  • Embracing happiness and embracing life takes confidence, courage and care. If we really open to and accept what life is offering us, then it can be taken away. To open to enjoyment and pleasure means to feel vulnerable. If I keep pushing away my sources of life-fulness, then at least I am ‘safe’ in my numbness, caution and negativity

A practice
Sitting quietly, start to notice the sources of life-fulness, fulfilment and wellbeing in your life right now. As they come up, practice acknowledging them, opening to them, accepting them. As you breathe, let them feed and nourish your inner being. Let yourself feel that you are rich, that you have enough already to feel inwardly wealthy.
Once you have done this with specific things, you can practice opening to and accepting life itself, the life within you and around you, allowing yourself to be nourished by the flow of it in and through your body. In this second practice you start to realize that you can accept life and aliveness, and bring it to your daily activities, and that this can have a transformative effect, even (and particularly) when you are facing something difficult.

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details

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

In a sentence: Experience unique Qi gong and Taoist breathing techniques to improve your immune system, energy level, psychological wellness and enhance your meditation…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 at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

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

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Pre-disposing yourself for enjoyment (& being battle ready)

“To take hold of our enjoyment we need to be conscious enough to direct attention toward our opportunities for enjoyment, and be ready to work our way patiently through the obstacles to that”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Is your happiness and wellbeing an accident, or is it on purpose? The article below looks at how you can pre-dispose yourself to good experiences using meditation, and why you might consider it a worthwhile investment.

If you enjoy the article, the subject is covered in my latest class series, An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice that starts on 16/17th August, and can be participated in live, online or using the recordings.

Also, this Saturday I will be facilitating the monthly Zen deep-dive mini-retreat where we will be focusing on deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart.

In the spirit of  being battle-ready!

Toby

Pre-disposing yourself for enjoyment (& being battle ready)

Consolidating your inner strengths
One way of thinking about meditation is as an activity where we train our mind systematically to focus on positive-objects. By a ‘positive object’ I mean an object that when we focus upon it causes our awareness to become calm, strong, balanced, warm or otherwise positive and healthy in some way.
A meditator is a person who is committed to systematically developing their inner strengths and wellbeing by growing these strengths daily, perhaps a little bit like an inner gym-rat!

Train when things are going well! The need to be ‘Battle-ready’
One of the key insights a meditator has is that its best to train your mind to be inwardly strong before you start to suffer to much or encounter an emergency. This way when you do hit an emergency or encounter pain, you are ready for it.
When I was in the UK recently, I met an old friend and colleague from my Buddhist monk days. Although both our lives were going well in many ways, we could both enumerate a number of critical challenges that we and our family members were going though. The challenges were laced with various forms of pain and suffering. These sufferings were really in the nature of life itself and were unavoidable; old age, sickness, loneliness, economic challenges. The existence of the challenges was not within our ability to control. All we could could/can control is our mindset and way of being present to them. This in turn relies upon our inner strength, our capacity for things like acceptance, confidence, letting go, perseverance, love and so forth.
So, to be ‘Battle-ready’ for the sufferings that present themselves in our life, we can use meditation as a way of building and consolidating our inner strengths. Challenges in our life can always be opportunities, but if we are not inwardly robust and confident enough when we face them, the pain often shuts that opportunity down. So, we need to arrive prepared.

Pre-disposing ourself for enjoyment
Using meditation as a way of building our inner strengths also pre-disposes us to recognize and take our opportunities for enjoyment. Amidst the difficulty and tribulation of life there are many opportunities each day for fun, pleasure, happiness and fulfilment. If we are pre-occupied with our pain or feeling overwhelmed by life however, we will often not even recognize these opportunities.
So, for example, opportunities for enjoyment for me today include:

  1. Taking pleasure in the presence of my daughters
  2. Enjoying the familiarity of my home after a holiday away
  3. Appreciating that I have enough work set up this month not to have to worry
  4. Taking pleasure in giving (my older daughter’s birthday present)
  5. Appreciating the memories of the trip that I have just returned from
  6. Simple enjoyments in the form of food, coffee and so on
  7. Working on setting up the new projects for the second half of the year
  8. Being grateful for the presence of some childcare in the form of our helper to take the load off my shoulders
  9. The opportunity to exercise and meditate

These are all in my grasp, but I’m also feeling jet-lagged, sleep deprived and, as a result somewhat dis-oriented. To take hold of my enjoyment I need to be conscious enough to direct my attention toward my opportunities for enjoyment, and be ready to work my way patiently through the obstacles to that. My ability to do that relies to a large degree on the capacities that I have previously built up to focus on the positives, and not get thrown off balance by the obstacles. This, in essence is what this dimension of meditation practice is about.

In case you missed my previous article: Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Session overview: These 2.5hour Zen ‘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 and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…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 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)

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

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

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Energy Meditation Inner vision Life-fullness Meditation techniques Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Meditation & inner healing

“Sometimes simply to sit with the intention to look within and heal can be a powerful practice in itself. The journey to wholeness begins with mindful orientation around this”

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

To be a meditator can be considered in a number of different ways, in my second article on the subject below we look at a meditator as someone committed to self-healing on a deeper level.

If you enjoy the article, the subject is covered in my latest class series, An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice that starts on 16/17th August, and can be participated in live, online or using the recordings.

In the spirit of  healing,

Toby

Meditation & inner healing (What is a meditator? Article 2)

In my previous article I outlined two definitions of what it means to be a meditator:

  1. To be an Adventurer in consciousness
  2. A practitioner of the primary life-skills of awareness & attention

In this article I’m going to outline a another; a meditator as someone deeply committed to self-healing. I’ll outline a bit of what I mean by this, and then I’ll suggest come ways to start practicing.

Definition 3: Someone committed to self-healing – A meditator is someone who is committed to looking inward in order to see, take care of and heal the parts of themselves that are injured, wounded or broken and returning them to health. I’m talking primarily about the psychological parts of self here rather than physical self, although meditation can and does have a substantial effect on physical healing.
I’m suggest three practices for self-healing below. The practices can be done as sitting exercises, or taken as principles to be mindfully integrated into your overall approach to your life.

Practices for self-healing

1. Letting old wounds heal – If you keep picking at a scab on your knee, it will keep re-opening the wound, and prevent it from healing. It can be a great approach to inner healing just to acknowledge a particular wound (Eg: A bad relationship from the past that scarred us emotionally), and then leave it alone, let time pass and gently heal the damage that has been done, a little bit like vegetation and grass reclaims land that has been dug up or overused. ‘I choose to relax and let old wounds heal naturally, and in their own time’.

2. Revisiting difficult emotions therapeutically – This second practice involves deliberately invoking the memories and experiences of wounds and burdens, specifically in order to acknowledge, accept and then release them. Unlike the previous method here we are engaging the wound in order to use the knowing and experiencing of the wound as a healing agent. A key to understanding this technique is to know that awareness heals. By mindfully revisiting past blocks and breakages, we can begin a process of tangible movement towards wholeness.

3. Expanding beyond and transcending your wounds – In this section I’m just going to place a Jung quote that explains the principle very well. Essentially to expand and grow broader is, in many ways to heal:
“The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble…They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This outgrowing as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose in the person’s horizon, and through this widening of view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically on its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency.”

A final comment here, sometimes simply to sit with the intention to look within and heal can be a powerful practice in itself. The journey to wholeness begins with mindful orientation around this intention.

In case you missed my previous article: Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Session overview: These 2.5hour Zen ‘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 and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…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 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)

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

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

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Confidence

Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)

 

“Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity”

Dear Integral Meditators,

To be a meditator can be considered in a number of different ways, in the article below I outline two ways of thinking about being a meditator that I hope you will find enlightening!

If you enjoy the article, then do consider joining in my latest class series, An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice that starts on 16/17th August, and can be participated in live, online or using the recordings.

In the spirit of adventuring,

Toby

Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)

What is a meditator? Why do you meditate? Here are two definitions of what a meditator is or can be, and some simple practices relating to them.

Definition 1: An adventurer in consciousness – Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner and outer values.

Definition 2: A practitioner of the primary life-skills of awareness & attention – A meditator is someone dedicated to the practice of conscious, intentional awareness & attention. If you want to get good at anything in your life, the art of being aware and paying attention is a foundational pre-skill that you need. Said another way, if you know how to be aware and pay attention well, you can learn almost anything. Learning a sport, taking care of your health, being a competent professional, looking after relationships all require good quality attention and awareness. Meditation and mindfulness are the art of paying attention and being aware. If you get good at these, your chances of being successful in your chosen endeavours in life increase substantially.

Practices based upon these definitions:

Position 1 – Adventuring with confidence: To be an adventurer in life and in your consciousness is to be fundamentally confident. Adventurers don’t shy away from life; they open themselves to it and to the possibilities that it offers. Experiment with simply sitting in a posture that describes confidence, and that helps you to feel confident. Some features might include:

  • A tall crown, an open chest, shoulders relaxed off the neck
  • Relaxed hands, arms and hands
  • A relaxed face and warm facial expression

Sit with confidence and just hold the experience of it in your body mind. Let it become a part of your fundamental way of engaging life in the moment.
The quote by Dion fortune is quite a good contemplation for this position “Life may be difficult, but it is not bewildering. Meanwhile we have to endure.”* A meditator sits, stands and holds her/himself with confidence that endures in the face of life’s ups and downs.

Position 2 – Heightening awareness & attention: As an illustration for this practice, consider this Anthony De Mello short story entitled ‘Spirituality’:
‘Even though it was the Master’s Day of Silence a traveller begged for a word of
wisdom that would guide him through life’s journey.
The Master nodded affably, took a sheet of paper and wrote a single word on it:
“Awareness.
The visitor was perplexed. “That’s too brief. Would you please expand on it a bit?”
The Master took the paper back and wrote: “Awareness, awareness, awareness.”
“But what do these words mean?” said the stranger helplessly.
The Master reached out for the paper and wrote: “Awareness, awareness, awareness
means AWARENESS.”’

Try simply being 10-15% more aware, either as you sit, or as you go for a walk. You can actually be practising this in any activity you like, but it is good to set some time aside just to sit and be aware as a meditative exercise. Simply notice what is around you, what is going on within you. For the duration of the practice, try to stay merely with awareness and attention, nothing more, nothing less. The proposition would be that, if you start to notice what IS in any given moment, your chances of making effective choices around the situation are increased the more you are paying attention!

I hope you enjoyed these two definitions and their attending practices; this is the first of two (or maybe three) articles covering this subject of what is a meditator, see you next week for the second!

*The Magical Battle of Britain page 8

In case you missed my previous article: Dealing mindfully with worry and anxiety at work – Five positions

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Session overview: These 2.5hour Zen ‘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 and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…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 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)

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

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

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Dealing mindfully with worry and anxiety at work – Five positions

 

“I trust and have confidence in my capability and ability to solve the problems that come up today”

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

Its good to be specific about developing your applied mindfulness skills, this weeks article focuses on how to use mindfulness to deal with worry and anxiety at work. I hope you enjoy it!

This weeks Tuesday & Wednesday class is on ‘vigilance and presence’, it’s the last one in July, we shall be re-starting third week in August.

In the spirit of thriving,

Toby

 

Dealing mindfully with worry and anxiety at work – Five positions

If you think about your worries and anxieties, the domains of work and family/relationships will definitely be present, and often dominate. This article aims to give some mindful pointers for dealing with worries around work. The principles apply to worry and anxiety in general, but its good to be specific in our understanding of these methods, and really get to know how to apply them to our professional life (if you’re a student, then your student life). Each one of them is a domain in itself, but the idea here is we are putting these positions together into a combination where the sum is greater than the individual parts. Practiced in sequence it is designed to give you deep confidence in dealing with habitual worry at work.

Position 1– Understanding what worry is: If we define worry and anxiety here as “Thinking about your problems without confidence or trust in yourself” this means that underlying the symptom of worrying about work, there is often an implicit lack of fundamental trust in yourself and your capability to solve problems that come up. “I trust and have confidence in my capability and ability to solve the problems that come up today” is a great starting mantra for worrying less.

Position 2 – Sitting, standing and walking with confidence: How you hold your body sends messages to your brain about your situation and world. Don’t let your shoulders slope and your chest cave in. Hold your body as if you were confident, and you will find your mindset changes for the better around your work worries.

Position 3 – Support your worried self: Direct warmth, understanding and support to the part of you that worries and is anxious, and in particular the part of you that get worries about issues relating to work. Don’t let this part of you feel alone, rejected or abandoned.

Position 4 – Be specific: Bringing to mind particular situations at work that you find worrying and would like to experience differently. Think and plan about what can be done on a practical level. Identify things that you can do today to move forward positively. If there is nothing that can be done today, then accept that, and identify when you are next going to be pro-active. Until then be conscious around accepting and keeping relaxed around waiting. Letting go of what cannot be done for now

Position 5 – Create context: Balancing your problem shooting with appreciation for what’s good at work and excitement about the present and future possibilities for you there. Don’t let worry dominate your perception and experience of work, there is plenty going on there that is not that!

I hope you have enjoyed reading about these four positions. If you can now keep them in mind and focus on applying them in your daily life, then you will start to notice your worry and anxiety going down, and your self confidence and trust going up around your challenges at work.

Related article: How to Mindfully Develop Your Self-Confidence

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
Ongoing– The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilanceIn a sentence: Learn the art of ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom through integrative meditation
Overview: The Wisdom of Awakening series is an ongoing series that looks at different ways to ‘wake up’ and live your life fully and playfully through meditation. The premise of the sessions is that inner wholeness and wisdom are not something that are far away, rather they are something that we can awaken to ‘instantly’ through certain types of mindful attention…. 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 at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

Starts Tuesday /Wednesday 14/15th June – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilance

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

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Concentration Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Uncategorized

The way to silence

“The way to silence ….is to meditate. And what is the way to meditate? To be silent!”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Silence is a skill that you could build basic competence at if you devoted 5mins a day for the next month to it. Are you up for the challenge? Read the article below to get started!

In the spirit of silence,

Toby

 

 

The way to silence

….is to meditate. And what is the way to meditate? To be silent!
This is a fun little paradox, and it is worth exploring a little more.

Silence is at a premium
These days our heads are very full of noise, and there is the incessant information coming at us from our environment, the internet and our phones. Because of this, and also because of our identification and addiction to thoughts and information, many people find it impossible to silence their mind to the extent that they don’t even want to try as the results are so discouraging. Because of this accessing silence well is a premium skill that has particular value for us.

How to meditate
To meditate in the simplest terms is to be present to your immediate experience, and be aware of that experience. This means to gather your attention away from ideas and concepts of past and future, and let your attention rest in the present. Then what you need to do is avoid falling asleep, or dozing off! So, meditation is the space between thinking/concepts and sleep/inertia; holding that space, and being alert and aware in that space. If you start practicing this you will discover that this space is also a silent one, or that there is silence present in that space.

Brain relaxation
It’s helpful for thought reduction to relax your brain. Our brain is our organ of thought, so if you relax, the number of thoughts that you have is correspondingly reduced. If you focus attention on your physical brain, breathe in be aware of any tension in it, breathe out release that tension, after a short while you will notice the difference.

Regenerative silence
So, if you sit in meditation like this, you’ll start to notice little patches of silence. Maybe they are only a few seconds long before you get distracted, but as long as you keep practicing, the patches of silence will grow. You will also notice that you don’t ‘create’ silence, its already there underneath the noise. When you relax and become present, the silence reveals itself right there, without you ‘doing’ anything. Whenever you enter into silence (or even just a little bit more silent than before), you will notice that it is relaxing, regenerative and helps you find a sense of basic sanity.

Creative silence
Silence is a space of no-thing, the point is there is nothing there. Moving deeper into silence, we discover that it also creates spaces that help us to imagine our life and our way of going and being in a new way. It is generative, from silence and being, our process of becoming starts to evolve.

Singular silence
Silence also creates singularity, focus. All our energy gathers into the silence, we become integrated, powerful. The side effect of this during the day is that it becomes easier to focus on tasks, there is less inner interference and we become more effective in life.

Silence amidst the noise
After a while you will notice that the silence is always there. You can ‘hear’ it even when your surrounded by noise and are thinking actively. It becomes something that you can dip into at will, which is a pleasure that also gives rise to confidence and, (in my experience) a sense of humour and playfulness.
I’ll leave you with a short story from Anthony De Mello’s ‘One minute wisdom’, Enjoy the silence!

‘RELIGION’
The Governor on his travels stepped in to pay homage to the Master.
“Affairs of State leave me no time for lengthy dissertations,” he said. “Could you put
the essence of religion into a paragraph or two for a busy man like me?”
“I shall put it into a single word for the benefit of Your Highness.”
“Incredible! What is that unusual word?”
“Silence.”
“And what is the way to Silence?”
“Meditation.”
“And what, may I ask, is meditation?”
“Silence.”

Related article: Meditating on the sound of silence

© Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com
Ongoing– The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilanceIn a sentence: Learn the art of ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom through integrative meditation
Overview: The Wisdom of Awakening series is an ongoing series that looks at different ways to ‘wake up’ and live your life fully and playfully through meditation. The premise of the sessions is that inner wholeness and wisdom are not something that are far away, rather they are something that we can awaken to ‘instantly’ through certain types of mindful attention…. 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 at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

Starts Tuesday /Wednesday 14/15th June – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilance

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

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Inner vision Insight Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

The illusion of evasion, distraction, suppression

“Evasion, distraction and suppression can make us feel like we are escaping our inner-problems in the very short term, but we pay a heavy long-term price. By facing, accepting and embracing our inner discomfort our efforts are rewarded with deep confidence as we gradually become more and more courageous”

Dear Integral Meditators,

Running away from the things within us that we are afraid of can be very tempting. In the article below I look at the consequences of this strategy, and how we can set up new strategies that give us a better chance of genuinely enjoying out life, even when we are going through a tough patch.

If you enjoy the article, we will be meditating with the subject this week in the first class of the new  Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilance your welcome to join us, either live or online!

In the spirit of mindful embracing,

Toby

The illusion of evasion, distraction, suppression

Difficult things are difficult to face
It’s not easy to face the things that make us uncomfortable in life.

  • Uncertainty of the future
  • Low self-esteem and lack of confidence in the face of a challenge
  • Regrets about the past
  • Fear of judgment
  • Feelings and emotions arising in us that we have been told are ‘bad’, forbidden or undesirable

The list could go on and on here, there are so many tricky and nervous-making things that can come up inside us in the face of our life-challenges.

The three types of short-term escape
In response to our discomfort, it can be easy to do three things:

  • Evade – Pretend we aren’t having the feeling, never acknowledge it or talk about it, push it out of our mind or think faster about something else whenever it comes up
  • Distract – Keep outwardly busy so we don’t have time to reflect on what’s going on inside. Go to social events we aren’t really interested in. Watch too much TV. Stay over-busy at work.
  • Suppress – Block the feelings and thoughts, put up inner walls, deny its existence, armor and tense our body against the presence of the emotional threat.

All of these three can feel like we are escaping in the very short term, but the longer-term price we pay is:

  • We remain stuck with the same unresolved difficult feelings and thoughts
  • We lose courage and self-esteem as we repeatedly (often unconsciously) give into fear and run away.
  • The unresolved feelings build and amplify, becoming larger and more difficult over time through the denial and suppression.
  • We can create actual repressions, where parts of our personality split off into the unconscious, becoming a part of our shadow, and haunting us continually from that place.

Replacing the three escape methods
A more courageous and effective methodology might be termed as ‘Facing, accepting and embracing’. If we take the example of working with anxiety around the future, this would mean:

  • Facing – When it arises, acknowledge it, turn toward not away from it. Bring it into your field of consciousness, not pushing it out and away
  • Accept – Accept that it is there, that it IS, even if it makes you uncomfortable, even if you don’t like it. Acceptance brings you into contact with the reality of your anxiety, and so in the best position to work with it effectively.
  • Embrace it – From acceptance, if we can then actually open to and embrace our inner challenge, it can begin to give back to us. For example we can then begin to work on transforming our anxiety about the future into excitement about the possibilities.

Transformation and enjoyment
Facing, accepting and embracing our inner challenges is a psychologically mature approach that rewards our efforts with confidence as we gradually become more and more courageous. It also helps us to remain practical and grounded in terms of finding real solutions to the actual things that are bothering us. Like all other well-done mindful methods, facing, accepting and embracing helps us to become more confident in the face of our reality, and in our capacity to deal with it effectively.

Related article: Unstructured mindfulness – Turning and facing yourself

 

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 at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

Starts Tuesday /Wednesday 14/15th June – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilance

Tues & Weds 21/22nd June – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday June 25th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Monday-Weds 27-29th June – Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers – A three day course

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

The quickest way to de-stress

“The quickest way to de-stress…is to stop thinking about yourself“

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is an ‘instant insight’ type piece, if you get it, a lot of good things follow! It also aims to give some context for the practice of dropping the self, it is designed to strengthen, not weaken our overall, healthy sense of ‘I’.
If you enjoy it, then do consider coming along to this Saturday’s Zen meditation deep dive mini-retreat. Also the new Meditation class series starting 14/15th June The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilance is very much an exploration of this type of wisdom.

Finally, I’ll be doing the Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers three day course on 27-29th June. If you have any teenagers who you think would enjoy developing these skills, then this is the course for them!

In the spirit of dropping,

Toby

 

The quickest way to de-stress

…is to stop thinking about yourself.

The self as the center of your neurosis
If you reflect upon any of your experiences of stress, related to anxiety around the future, regrets, lack of something, getting fired…All of them have at the center of the experience you. The sense of a self sits at the middle of it all, facilitating and holding together the whole thing.

Practicing dropping the self
If you want a temporary liberation from this stress and inner tension, practice the discipline of putting down the self for a while. As a mindfulness exercise the trick here is to de-centralize your awareness; of course you’ll still be experiencing a body, thoughts, feelings and so on. But what you are trying to do is to not grasp at them as a part of your ‘I’. For example:

  • I can be aware of the sensation of my body without identifying it as mine
  • I can imagine that any thoughts that may be present ‘have no thinker’

Somatically, it’s good to relax the chest and central zone of the torso, where much of that holding onto self happens physically and energetically. If you can create a body that has dropped the feeling of the self, then dropping it mentally is much easier! As a mindfulness practice you can sit down and try and do this in an undistracted manner. Start with 3-5mins, and build up from there.

The liberated self
When you drop your conventional self-sense in this way, you notice that there is a new ‘self’ that starts to emerge, one that is not stressed by the comings and goings of your life events, but that remains bright and clear in the face of both enjoyment and difficulty.

Dropping the self is not distraction or evasion
Dropping the self in this manner is completely different from and not to be mistaken for avoiding yourself through distraction and ‘keeping busy’ in order to ‘not think about stuff’. This type of ‘keeping busy’ is more a way of pushing your stress ‘under the carpet’ so to speak. Of course, when you repress or suppress it is still there and comes out in other ways…

Thinking about yourself less
In your daily life, once you have a sense of the exercise on dropping your self you can practice thinking about yourself somewhat less, and with more objectivity. This is a way of managing your self better, without letting it become overwhelmingly intense and all pervasive. When you are very stressed it is actually very difficult not to be ‘selfish’ because there is this overwhelming sense of ‘I’ all the time. When you think about yourself less, you can be less selfish, whilst at the same time asserting your needs, wishes and preferences in life in an appropriate manner.

The complementary polarity: Self-responsibility
When we drop the self and think about it less, the complementary attitude to this is to live also with a strong sense of self, and of self-responsibility. This sense of self is a non-neurotic, confident, warm and expansive self-sense that feels able to deal with life without getting overwhelmed, and enjoys problem solving and being challenged to grow. The self-responsible ‘I’ can grow much more easily in an environment where the obsessive-compulsive self has been let go of.

Related article: Dropping the self

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2022, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Starts Tuesday /Wednesday 14/15th June – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilanceIn a sentence: Learn the art of ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom through integrative meditation
Overview: The Wisdom of Awakening series is an ongoing series that looks at different ways to ‘wake up’ and live your life fully and playfully through meditation. The premise of the sessions is that inner wholeness and wisdom are not something that are far away, rather they are something that we can awaken to ‘instantly’ through certain types of mindful attention…. Read full details

Saturday 11th June, 9.30am-12noon – Zen meditation deep dive mini-retreat

These 2.5hour Zen ‘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 and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…read full details

Monday-Weds 27-29th June – Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers – A three day course

As a teenager, what were the life-skills you wish you had been taught, in addition to all your school subjects? These sessions are specifically designed to help teens develop their real inner skills that help them be:

  • More effective at achieving their chosen goals
  • Build confidence,
  • Build resilience around stress and
  • Increase their capacity for fun and enjoyment as they 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…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

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

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

Ongoing – The Way of the Mindful Warrior – Meditating with the Warriors creed

Saturday 11th June, 9.30am-12noon – Zen meditation deep dive mini-retreat

Starts Tuesday /Wednesday 14/15th June – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for irreverent clarity & authentic vigilance

Saturday June 25th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Monday-Weds 27-29th June – Mindful Life-skills for Teenagers – A three day course

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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