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Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindfulness

How to Mindfully Develop Your Self-Confidence

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below focuses on how you can develop the art of mindful self-confidence in a systematic, multi-faceted manner, I hope you enjoy it!

Toby

How to Mindfully Develop Your Self-Confidence

Why focus on self-confidence?
How many things in your life would you be doing differently if you were thinking and acting from a place of deep self confidence? The capacity for authentic self-confidence offers many benefits, for example we become more creative and expressive, we find access to greater capacity for focus, mental stamina and energy, we experience greater peace of mind, we experience life as fundamentally enjoyable and playful.

What is self-confidence?
We will all have our own ideas of what self-confidence is, but the definition I normally work with (following Nathaniel Branden’s definition of self-esteem) is that self –confidence consists of two distinct parts:

  • Self-worth – The belief that I am worthy of happiness, pleasure, enjoyment, wellbeing, success & so on and
  • Self-efficacy – The sense that I have the capacity be successful in the face of life’s challenges. Even if I currently lack the skills to be successful in a particular task, self-efficacy is a confidence in my ability to learn those skills as and when necessary

If you lack a fundamental sense of your self-worth or your capacity for self-efficacy, then your self-confidence is going to be built upon shaky ground!

Mindful methods for developing your self-confidence
With the above definitions in mind, we can then start t adopt a multi-faceted approach to developing self-confidence, here are a few suggestions:
1. Connect and nourish your present self confidence – No one completely lacks self confidence, look for times and places in your life where you have felt and experienced self confidence. Revisit them mentally, take an inventory of them, recall how it felt. Then look at how you can translate those experiences into feelings and attitudes of self-confidence in the face of your present life challenges.
2. Know what self-confidence feels like in the body – Practice holding your body and feeling it in a way that communicates confidence and self assurance to your mind. Our posture is often communicating all sorts of messages to us psychologically, so we need to take advantage of this rather than being victimized by it!
3. Make friends with the parts of you that are not self-confident – As the famous gestalt therapist Fritz Pearls said ‘As long as you fight a symptom it will get worse’ (I recommend meditating on that sentence for a looong time!) Open to and get intimate with your fears, your vulnerabilities, the parts of you feel fragmented. Care for them, experience them, open to them, allow them to become the basis of your self-confidence, rather than the things you are trying to escape from by developing your self-confidence. This needs careful thought, reflection and experience to understand, but it is super-important to get right!
4. Find role models for your self confidence – Find real life examples of people who are appropriate and inspiring role models for the type of self-confidence you want to have. Study them carefully and draw conscious inspiration from them.
5. Do something each day to engage your self-confidence – Do something manageable each day to test and develop your self confidence experientially and in real time.
6. Practice mindful framing – ‘Last month I was depressed, and this month I’m still depressed’ sounds like a bit of a failure. ‘Last month I was very depressed and although this month I am still depressed I feel less depressed, and there have been days when I have actually felt good’ Sounds like progress and a cause of boosting our self-confidence. How we frame what happens to us mentally is crucial in terms of whether we experience something as supporting our self-confidence or not!

Conclusion
If you wanted to make this article a practical exploration, you could take one of the above six suggestions per day as a point of mindful focus for the next three weeks or so (taking one day off to give you three rounds over three weeks). See where it takes your own experience of mindful self-confidence!

Related articles: Choosing to be on your own side
Trusting your mind
Free audio meditation on self-trust

Stress Transformation Coaching with Toby

Tuesday 21st April, 7.30-9.30pm – An Evening of Mindful Self-Confidence – Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Integral Meditation Asia

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

 

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Biographical Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Shadow meditation

Mastery Follows Acknowledgement (Plus Integral Meditation & Self-Healing Videos)

Dear Integral Meditators,

Sometimes the most difficult thing to do is to acknowledge the things that we become aware of within ourselves, yet without this first step it is almost impossible to achieve any genuine self-mastery. The article below explores this theme.

Final reminder for the Workshops on Integral Meditation Practice and Meditation For Self-Healing and Self-Energizing this Saturday of you are in Singapore.
I have also created two new short videos, one on Integral Meditation Practice and one on Self-Healing meditation. To view them just click on the workshop pages above, or you can view them on youtube directly HERE (Integral Meditation Practice) and HERE (Self-Healing Meditation)

In the spirit of acknowledgment and mastery,

Toby

Mastery Follows Acknowledgment

You can’t master a challenge or a part of yourself that you don’t admit you have.

When I was a young man beginning my meditation practice I had a lot of repressed anger that I was not really aware of. Meditation was an exciting new skill for me at the time, and I immersed myself in the ‘spiritual’ aspect of the mastery of meditation for the next ten years. I worked very hard in a very disciplined way at my meditation and as a result had a lot of peak experiences, genuine ‘enlightenment’ experiences, states of expanded awareness and so on. However, in those ten years I never really came to terms with my anger. In a certain sense you could say that I used my meditation as a way of escaping from my anger, avoiding it, not really looking it in the eye, so to speak.
As a result after ten years of meditation I found myself i many ways still as lost and unfamiliar with how to deal with my human anger as I was before I began my spiritual path.
The beginning of me mastering my anger started with being able to look at myself, my emotions and my inner self and say ‘I have a lot of repressed anger that I need to understand how to work with’. This initial acknowledgment was then able to act as the basis of my mastery of anger, which had and still has (it is an ongoing process) three main stages:

  1. The acknowledgment, exploration and acceptance of my anger
  2. The constructive engagement with that emotion and its  causes, followed by the
  3. Redirection and transformation of that angry energy into something constructive and worthwhile

So, my basic point here is that there is no way you can master an aspect of self that you don’t admit that you have. This is why a genuine and sound mindfulness practice begins with an investigation into and acknowledgment of what is really there, and proceeds to work on mastering what it finds based around the reality of what you find.

If you can make this first step of acknowledgment well, which generally involves some discomfort, insecurity, a sense of ‘failure’, and humility (not to mention a bit of a knock to your ego), then truly your potential for inner growth knows no limits!

A final point here, when you begin practicing meditation or mindfulness (or any path of inner growth) there are literally many aspects of yourself that you can’t see, and that only start to come out as you progress. So the process of acknowledgment and mastery continues to unfold as time passes by and your knowledge of yourself continues to grow.

Related Articles: The Four Essential Stages to Transforming Negative Stress into Positive Energy
The Self-Healing and Self Evolving Power of the Mind and Six Tips For Releasing the Shadow Self

Related Online Course: Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *
Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology
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Awareness and insight Biographical creative imagery Enlightened love and loving Inner vision Insight Meditation Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology

Making it Beautiful

Dear Integral Meditators,

What if instead of seeing yourself as a consumer of beauty, you focused upon becoming a source and creator of beauty in the world? The article below examines how we might go about doing this…

There is a special 2 day Easter sale on at Integral Meditation Asia, with two of the online courses being offered at a 30% discount! Scroll down to the ‘Upcoming Courses’ section below to find out more!

In the spirit of the mindful journey,

Toby

Making it Beautiful

There is a rubbish bin at the bottom of my block of apartments next to the lift. Some of the local school kids have painted with the message ‘Some people look for a beautiful place, others make a place beautiful’.
To me this is a great mindfulness saying, and communicates a lot about the power that each of us has as human beings to use our creative energy to create beauty in the places, circumstances and situations we find ourself in.
Often times and without really thinking about it too much we are passive in our experience of our life; we are looking for someone else or something else to provide us with experiences of beauty, or positivity, or empowerment, or solace, or wellbeing. What would your day look like if you started it by saying something like:

  • ‘I am here to appreciate beauty but also to create it where there is none’
  • Or ‘I am here to enjoy the good energy of others, but also to create good energy and give it away to myself and others’
  • Or ‘If I’m finding it difficult to find fulfillment in what I am doing right now, what can I do to create fulfillment within the same circumstances?’

If everyone made a mindful choice each day to make things beautiful we’d be living in quite a different world. We can start making the world a little bit more beautiful today by making the choice ourselves.

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia in March:

Sunday/Monday April 5th&6th – Easter Sale save 30% on the following Online Meditation Courses – 
Integrating the Energy of Dynamic Calm into Your Life – A Four Module Online Course

Taking Control of Your Life Through the Practice of Mindful Self-Leadership – A Five Module Online Course

Live Workshops:

Saturday 11th April, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral Meditation and Mindfulness: Optimize Your Inner Calm, Strength and Energy – A three hour workshop

Saturday 11th April, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy

Tuesday 21st April, 7.30-9.30pm –  An Evening of Mindful Self-Confidence – Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

 

 

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Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience

Willpower as Your Object of Mindfulness

Dear Integral Meditators,

Willpower is an extremely important domain to be mindful of because the way in which we use or abuse our willpower in life has a major bearing on both the quality and the quantity of what we experience and achieve. The article below considers how we can start making better use of our willpower using mindfulness…

Scroll down beneath the article for workshop details and the special I-Awake product of the month.

Yours in the spirit of mindful will,

Toby

Willpower as Your Object of Mindfulness

Willpower is the way in which we consciously direct our energy and action through intention. Here are a few thoughts on becoming more mindful around your willpower.

Willpower is precious 
It is an extremely important domain to be mindful of because the way in which we use or abuse our willpower in life has a major bearing on both the quality and the quantity of what we experience and achieve.
So the main mindful message here is to value and prize your willpower

Willpower is finite
We only have so much willpower. As a younger man I used to believe that the solution to a lack of willpower was simply to find morewillpower, but each of us only has so much. For example the right amount of exercise will generally cause me to feel good and complement my work life. However if I exercise too much my physical and vital energy will be depleted and the amount of willpower and energy I have available to achieve things in my work will go down.
It is also very easy to deplete your willpower and vital energy doing little things that you don’t necessarily need to do (eg: check your email 5 times an hour), which in turn inhibits the amount of willpower you have to get what you really want done.
Main mindful message: Be clear about what you want to focus your willpower on

Willpower is sustained by regeneration and rest
If you want to have good and effective willpower, you need to have effective strategies in place to recover your energy levels through rest, meditation, getting good sleep and diet, appropriate amounts of leisure, non-doing and so forth.
Mindful message: Nurture your willpower with periods of mindful recovery and rest

Wise use of willpower is not the same as forcing
Often the image that comes into our mind when we think about willpower is that of a high energy, high intensity activity where we force our way through obstacles and achieve exponential results in a short time. Actually willpower is often more effective when we use it gently and mindfully to keep our attention focused upon what we have decided to do until we have finished it. Effective willpower uses our intelligence to gauge the level of intensity appropriate to the task, only rarely trying to force things.
Mindful message: Effective willpower can be gentle and consistent as well as focused and intense.

What do I want to focus my willpower upon today?
Given that your willpower is precious, that it is finite, that you need to nurture it and use t wisely, what is the thing or things that you are going to focus your will power

  • Today?
  • In the next hour?
  • In the next minute?

This way of questioning is one way to bring mindful awareness to bear upon how you can make good use of your willpower each day.

Related Article: Mindful Work Effectiveness Secrets (From an Ex-Monk)

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia :

Saturday March 28th 2.30-5.30pm  – Mindfulness and Meditation For Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention 

Friday 3rd April, 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre

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Good until March 28, 2015

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Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Acceptance & Forgiveness – The Difference

Dear Integral Meditators,

In some situations it seems like we are faced with a choice of either forgiving and letting go of something difficult that has happened to us, or holding onto it and continuing to experience anger, grief and negativity about it. But is there a third option? The article below examines the relationship and difference between forgiveness and acceptance, and how we can go about using them consciously and skillfully in our mindfulness practice and life.

Yours in the spirit of skillful acceptance,

Toby

Acceptance & Forgiveness – The Difference

To accept something is to accept the reality of what has happened, how you feel about it and what can or cannot be done about it.
Forgiveness is a choice we make to let go of judgment and feelings of blame (and sometimes vengefulness) toward another person/people or ourself regarding something that has happened.

Acceptance and forgiveness are not the same thing, and it can be a really good thing to get this clear in our own understanding, for example:
If my business partner causes us to lose a deal through a genuine mistake or lack of experience, then I may feel anger or loss initially, but I can forgive him and let it go because the nature of his mistake was genuine and his intention was not malevolent.
Similarly we can forgive our children, partners, friends and ourselves many things and this is entirely appropriate and helpful.
Let’s say however a business partner of mine consciously and deliberately embezzles money from the business and then runs off. Because this is an act of deliberate harm done intentionally, for me it does not seem appropriate to forgive , but I am still faced with the problem of a bunch of angry, frustrated feelings within myself; “How could he! How could I be so naive! I thought I knew him!” And so on…
I this situation I can move to resolve the feelings that I have through acceptance

  • I accept the reality that what has happened has happened, and I cannot turn back the clock
  • I accept the reality the he has done what he has done
  • I accept the way in which I feel, and I allow myself to acknowledge and feel those feelings in order to process them and then let go of them
  • I don’t forgive, because as the situation stands I don’t think it is appropriate, but nevertheless though acceptance I can resolve my feelings, let go and move on from the situation without being unduly bothered by it, and hopefully have learned the lessons that are appropriate.

Of course if at some time in the future my business partner then expresses remorse, returns the money and have a genuine change of heart, I would probably forgive him, but not before that point, because as a human being with intelligence he is accountable for his actions.

You can resolve a lot of difficult things and past hurts through acceptance, and find your peace. Where appropriate you can forgive.

Mindfulness Question: What past or present circumstances or relationships do I most often find myself revisiting with bitterness, anger or blame? Which of them is most appropriate to deal with through acceptance, and which are most appropriate to approach with forgiveness?

Related article: The Way to Deal With Feelings  is to Feel
Related Blog Section: Positive Anger

Find out about: Stress Transformation Coaching with Toby

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia in March:

Saturday March 28th 2.30-5.30pm  – Mindfulness and Meditation For Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention 
Friday 3rd April, 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

 

 

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Biographical creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Art Mindful Confidence Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

The Laughter of the Young and the Ancient

Dear Integral Meditators,

What if when something in your life went seriously wrong, the first thing that you did was laugh open-heartedly? Perhaps there is a part of us that already does, and the article below explores how to connect to him/her/it!

This Saturday if you are in Singapore we have two meditation workshops, do scroll down to the ‘upcoming courses section’ below to find out more.

In the spirit of ancient lightness,

Toby

The Laughter of the Young and the Ancient

What if when something in your life went seriously wrong, the first thing that you did was laugh open-heartedly?
What would happen if the next time you lost some money, or a big business deal feel through you winked knowingly at the first stranger you met?
What would happen if you could respond to the most ‘serious’ parts of your life with playful and spontaneous creativity?

I really enjoyed the movie version of the Lord of the Rings books, but the one thing I was slightly disappointed about was that they left out a character called Tom Bombadil. Tom Bomabadil interests me because, of all the characters in the story, he is the only one who is immune to the evil, corruptive influence of the ‘ring of power’. All of the other characters are afraid of the power of the ring, which upon contact causes them to immediately start fantasizing about delusions of power and dominion. However, when Tom puts on the ring it has no effect; to him the all corrupting ring is an object of amusement, a trinket, with no real practical use.
We hear in the story of the lord of the Rings that Tom Bombadil was the Oldest of the Old (‘the oldest and fatherless’) who walked the earth before both elves and men. Essentially he seems to be a nature spirit of sorts, coming from a time and existing within a mental framework both before and outside of our human paradigm of good and evil, a time when harmony, laughter and song were a natural state of being, were perhaps the law of being.

As my own practice of meditation and mindfulness develops, I find myself coming across and connecting to an inner place within myself that lies beyond the daily struggle of good and evil, of striving or laziness, achievement versus failure. It seems to be an innocent state of being that is naturally laughing and humorous, naturally light and strong, naturally comfortable and balanced despite the comings and goings of fate and fortune in my life. This state of mind seems to me to be a little bit like my ‘Inner Tom Bombadil’, the part of me that walks on the earth as one with nature, that lives truly in the primally presentmoment, that sings and laughs with child-like and yet very old spontaneity, comfortable in the world but not of the world.

Connecting within yourself to a time before good and evil
Spend a few moments now connecting to that part of you that is fatherless and motherless, the oldest of the old as well as the youngest of the young.  S/he is beyond any struggle for human power, beyond shame or pride. s/he is primally humorous and celebratory; the wise fool, the innocent sage. Bring your inner Tom Bombadil out into the world to play and celebrate. See what starts to change in your life when you do!

Related articles: The Four Types of Present Moment Awareness
Locating Your Deep Centre
Connecting to Your Spiritual Fool in the Mirror World

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com 

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia :

Tuesday March 10th – The Mindful Salesperson – An Evening Exploring the Relationship Between Mindfulness, Sales and Marketing

Saturday 14th March 9.30am-12.30pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Saturday 14th March 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self – A Three Hour Workshop

Saturday March 28th 2.30-5.30pm  – Mindfulness and Meditation For Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Concentration Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Mindful Work Effectiveness Secrets (From an Ex-Monk)

Dear Integral Meditators,

Coming to the world of business from being a monk was not easy for me. The article below explains a bit about how I started to use what I had learned as a monk to become effective in my daily work as a business person running my own company.

Yours in the spirit of the timelessly time-effective,

Toby

Mindful Work Effectiveness Secrets (From an Ex-Monk)

How can you get a lot done at your work without getting over-stressed or exhausted? And how can you do this not just in the short term, but over a long period of time?
When I left my life as a Buddhist monk and went into my own business I actually found it very difficult to pace myself well. There were so many things that I had to do, that I had to learn, it all felt a bit overwhelming. I found myself going through periods of intensive working, then burning out, then getting emotionally discouraged and then procrastinating/wasting time that I could be spending productively. I’m sure you have an idea of what I mean, it is a very human experience!

Make like a Buddhist monk  – Split your day into six sessions
I found a really helpful solution to my challenge by looking at the way in which I used to structure my day as a Buddhist monk. As a monk  my waking hours would be split into 6 parts, two in the morning, two in the afternoon and two in the evening/ at night. During each session we would begin with a prayer and a few minutes of mindfulness, and then return to our allotted tasks. Using this basic template I applied it to my working day, but in a slightly different way.
My day is still divided into six parts, but each section is only one hour long. In that one hour I spend 45minutes focusing really intensively on one work task; emails, accounts, writing articles, marketing etc… At the end of 45 minutes I then spend the remaining 15minutes relaxing; doing some stretching, getting a coffee, doing a few minutes mindfulness, generally re-finding my centre and balance.

Achieve something in each session
In each session I come out having really worked in an intensive way, and feeling like I have achieved something. Because of the focus I bring to it, the work itself feels like a meditation practice, with the object of mindfulness being the work itself. It also helps me deal with stress because in that period I am not thinking about my life or work as a whole, but just the process of achieving that task.
There is a saying in the texts that I used to study as a monk ‘small drops of water in a pot will eventually make it full’. Each of my 45 minute sessions is spent just focusing on the ‘pot’ of my business, putting in drops one after the other gradually making it full.

Each session does not have to be about work
During the 15 minutes at the end of each session, I get back in touch with how I am feeling. If I sense that my body-mind is getting close to exhaustion, I make a point of taking one of my sessions off, that is to say 45 minutes of deliberate relaxation, meditation, soializing or sleep. There is also plenty of time around each of the sessions to do other things
Sometimes of course the pattern breaks down, I go out for an evening with friends, I spend the morning with my daughter at the swimming pool, I have a meeting that goes overtime. But as soon as I return to my routine I am always thinking about my day in terms of these six periods, and how to use that structure to do some focused, productive work.

So now you know how an ex-monk structures his time using a mindful, process-focused approach that he find helps him achieve more. You might like to try it out, or a variation of it that will work for you!

Related Article: From Distraction to Intuitive Imagination (Meditation secrets for running a business)

Check out the Mindful Goals Coaching with Toby

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

 Integral Meditation Asia

 

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Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Egotistic or Strong Ego?

Dear Integral Meditators,

When we tell ourselves to ‘get over our own ego’ what exactly do we mean by that? Its an area that it is very easy to get mixed up and confused around! The article below explores the difference between egotism and a strong ego. We really need one, we really need to drop the other.

In the spirit of inner strength,

Toby

Egotistic or Strong Ego?

‘There’s a tremendous difference between a strong ego and an egocentric ego; the latter is always weak. Individuation, that is the attainment of ones potential, can’t take place without the strong ego’ – John A Sandford

The Ego is
…the unifying centre of our awareness, it is the sense of self that ties together the disparate collection of physical, emotional and mental habits and characteristics that together makes us a unique human being. A strong ego is vital for success and happiness in our life; it has characteristics such as confidence, self-esteem, ethical awareness, competency and capacity for enjoyment.

To be egotistical is
…to believe and act as if we were more important than others, as if we were the central fulcrum of the functioning universe, and/or without adequate concern or empathy for the happiness or wellbeing of others

Ironically a lot of egotistical behaviour is stimulated by having a weak ego. If I feel inadequate, incompetent or inferior it can be very tempting to try and compensate for that feeling by asserting myself unskilfully, selfishly and or inconsiderately. Conversely if I have a strong ego I can have people behaving selfishly, unskilfully and/or inconsiderately around me, but because I have a strong sense of ego, of who I AM it can be relatively easy to remain in my own integrity and not be influenced by my company.

Experientially knowing the difference between a strong ego and being egotistical is a great mindful journey in itself, and it is an area that many people are deeply confused about.

Take a moment
To imagine yourself with a truly strong ego; confident, trusting in yourself, liking whom you are, able to forgive yourself for your flaws whilst at the same time holding yourself accountable for them, centred and balanced in your sense of whom you are. Strong enough to be vulnerable and take chances, socially aware, aware you are no more important than anyone else, but also and crucially that you are no less important than anyone else. That’s a strong ego.
If you stay with this sense of having a strong ego you’ll find it is quite a lot easier and more natural to behave with benevolence & consideration for others as well as to be playful and creative in your life, even when under pressure. Sound like fun? It is!
Does that last paragraph sound like the opposite of an egotistical selfish person? Yup, pretty much.

To transcend your egotism, first begin by mindfully building your strong, functional and creative ego.

Related articles: Balancing the development of your ego and spirit

Fulfillment of the Ego, Fulfillment of the Soul, Fulfillment of SpiritHandle Stress and Have Peace of Mind – Personal Coaching with Toby

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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 

 

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Shadow meditation Stress Transformation

Your Inner Fitness Trainers

Dear Integral Meditators,

What would happen if you treated the most difficult people and circumstances in your life as ‘inner fitness trainers’? This weeks article explores this theme and mindfulness practice.

Yours in the spirit of the useful in the difficult,

Toby

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia :

March courses nearly ready!!

Your Inner Fitness Trainers

The function of a good physical fitness trainer is to push you to the limits of your physical flexibility, strength and stamina in a safe and secure way by giving you specific physical tasks and challenges to focus upon.
If we are serious about our own inner mindfulness training, then we should be looking at the people or circumstances we find most difficult and challenging in our life as being like our inner fitness trainers. Their function is to push us to the limits of our mental, emotional and spiritual flexibility, strength and stamina by giving us specific challenges that push us to those limits.

But the people and circumstances in life that are hurting me aren’t trying to help!
When you are being trained by a (good) coach physically you engage in the exercises they set for you because you understand that they are trying to help. But people giving you a hard time in my life aren’t trying to help, nor is the illness that you have! So there is a conscious choice that you are making here to adopt people and circumstance as your trainers, despite their bad intentions, or despite the unfairness of the circumstances. It is a personal, empowering choice you make based around a recognition of the benefit that can be gained from adopting such a perspective.

Get clarity – How and for what are these people/circumstances helping me?
Pick the top three most difficult and/or unpleasant circumstances that you are going through right now; the ones that make you manifestly uncomfortable, or inwardly scream at the unfairness of it all. List them and then answer these two questions with regard to each one:

  • How is this person or circumstance helping me to develop, expand and strengthen  my mind and consciousness?
  • What is the specific approach and perspective that I need to keep in mind when I am with this person or dealing with this circumstance that will help me transform them into an ‘inner mind trainer’ for me?

The answer to these two questions gives you your basic mindfulness practice for each of your specific challenges. If you focus your awareness, intention and attention mindfully upon these questions, you may be surprised at how quickly and creatively you can come up with approaches that you can start to work with right away.

Feeling thankful
These days most of us have heard of the idea of a gratitude log or journal; a notebook where we keep a list of all the things that we appreciate and feel grateful for in our life. If you can start integrating your ‘inner fitness training’ into your daily mindfulness practice, then you may find yourself able to add the worst people in your life and the most difficult challenges that you face to your own gratitude log!

Find out about Toby’s Stress Transformation Coaching

Related Article: A Butterfly in the Wind

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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


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The Absence of Resolution

Dear Integral Meditators,

What happens if instead of trying to solve your problems all the time you simply try and experience them mindfully?  The article below explores this idea and practice.

Final reminder that the special offer on the online course ‘The six stages of love – romantic love as a path to healing and enlightenment‘ lasts until the evening of Thursday 19th Feb. Click on the link to find out more and listen to the free meditation….

In the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia :

Courses for March coming Shortly!

The Absence of Resolution

To practice the absence of resolution is to temporarily stop seeking to resolve the issues that we face in our life, and instead sit with the emotions and thoughts that we are experiencing in the moment around these issues. We focus upon experiencing and witnessing them rather than trying to solve them.The aim of practising the absence of resolution is (amongst other things):

  • To make us inwardly stronger and at the same time more tender and sensitive to our life experience.
  • To learn how to sit with our experiences and feelings long enough to see them clearly and deeply without flinching or running away from what we see.
  • To feel more deeply and intimately in touch with life as it arises from moment to moment, thus improving the quality of our life.

Why we need to practice the absence of resolution
There is never a time when all our problems are solved;

  • If we are lonely we solve the challenges of being lonely by getting in a relationship, which in turn leads to the challenges of being in a relationship
  • If we are without a job we have the challenge of a lack of income, but if we get a job to solve this, then we suddenly find ourselves with the problem of a relative lack of freedom and of time scarcity
  • Getting away from temptation and excitement can lead to the  challenge of boringness and predictability

If we spend every moment of our life trying to solve our problems, no time is spent relaxing into and enjoying life as it is, imperfections and all.

How to practice the absence of resolution
Sit mindfully with a situation in your life where you can feel your anxiety calling you to come up with a solution NOW. Let go temporarily of trying to find a solution, focus instead on seeing and experiencing the feelings, thoughts and emotions that you have in and around your circumstances. Don’t try and solve anything, simply sit and be present with what you find.

How the absence of resolution helps you resolve your problems
Often in the rush to ‘solve’ our problems we fail to see clearly what it is that we are actually facing and experiencing. By temporarily stopping our ‘solving’ mind, and sitting with what we are actually experiencing, we start to see it more clearly. Because we see it more clearly, we can then start to see what really needs to be done in order to resolve it successfully in a balanced manner.
In this way practising the absence of resolution in the short term actually increases our capacity to find long term solutions to our problems.

Related article: The Absence of Reference Points

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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