Tag: mindful positivity

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Conscious or default positivity?

“Conscious positivity allows for a tremendous range of feelings and emotions to be present that may not be ‘positive’, but that if we repress or deny would take us away from our authentic response to what is going on, and to move away from the truth“

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at the phenomenon of ‘positive thinking, and makes a few distinctions that will be helpful in your own practice of it.

I’m in the process of putting together the program for later in the month, and the new year, a few details below the article.

In the spirit of conscious positivity,

Toby

 

Conscious or default positivity?

“There is a meaningful difference between default positivity and conscious positivity. Default positivity is when we turn to positivity as a mechanism, a bypass, a defense against owning or feeling the shadow. Often birthed in challenging life experiences, this pseudo bliss trip can keep us alive during tumultuous times, but it can also become an embedded way of being that detaches us from our truth. Conscious positivity is birthed in authenticity and awareness.” – Jeff Brown

What really constitutes positive thinking? On the surface of it looks fairly simple, “Just look on the bright side of life”, “See the good in the situation”, “Make lemonade out of lemons”, “No point in dwelling on it (the negative or difficult)”.
However, if we start to look at it a bit more closely, it becomes much more nuanced. Below are a few distinctions that may be useful.

Default or reflex positivity
Default positivity is the position of automatically / quickly adopting a ‘positive’ perspective or reaction on order to smother or repress difficult feelings (emotions, thoughts, reactions) that we feel uncomfortable about or threatened by. It is a way of bypassing the thing that we are really experiencing.

An example
Recently I won a court case. It had been one that had been going on for a while. It was certainly a relief to have won, but the after the victory experience was a bitter-sweet, mixed emotion affair with a degree of ambiguity. If I had been uncomfortable about those feelings of ambiguity, I could have felt the need to go out for a celebration, affirm the victory with friends and people congratulating me. I could have spent a lot of time inwardly talking to myself about the victory and how it was born of strength and courageousness and all that. I could have created a ‘high’. I didn’t do that, but I’d felt the need to cover up my feelings, I could have reverted to this type of reflex positivity.

Conscious positivity or mental framing
Conscious positivity allows for a tremendous range of feelings and emotions to be present that may not be ‘positive’, but that if we repress or deny would take us away from our authentic response to what is going on, and to move away from the truth. By ‘truth’ I mean our own inner truth, but also a connection with the objective, outer truth of what’s going on. Conscious positivity comes from a place that is inwardly confident enough and wise enough to allow for difficult and contradictory feelings to be present, whilst at the same time framing what’s going on in a constructive way.

An example
To return to the example of the court case above, it would be true to say that:

  • I felt rather sad that the situation had come to this point
  • I felt somewhat sorry for the other party
  • I felt quite angry about the silliness of it all
  • I reflected on it as partly a comment on the contradictory state of mind and emotions that many people seem to be stuck in these days

Whilst allowing for all these things, I also practiced conscious positivity, noting that:

  • I had achieved my stated objectives, and that there would be genuinely good results coming
  • I felt I had developed aspects of my character that will stand me in good stead in the future
  • I noted the increase of knowledge I had around the legal profession and process
  • I gave permission to myself to feel genuinely good, even in the face of my own ambiguity

Positivity without suppression or denial
The example above, is an example of conscious positivity, and avoiding the temptation and pitfall of default positivity. What are the areas of your life that you could start making the distinction between these two, and what possibilities might it open up for you?

Related article: Mindfully balancing positive thinking with healthy realism

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

Tuesday 21st December,  7.30-8.30pm, SG time – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

This will be a chance to reflect on the spiritual meaning of Christmas and power of the winter season. We will look at the different ways our own inner light can ‘die and be re-born once more’.

It is a good time to attune to the creative energies within ourselves. We can think about the new year & spring periods that lie ahead of us, what our goals & expectations are, & sow the seeds on an inner level of that which we wish to manifest over the next few months…read full details

 

Tues & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

This meditation session is focused upon setting up the 2022 new year energies in a way that invites the best possible experience moving forward. We will be:

  • Releasing and letting go of energies, events and experiences from the past year that may hold us back from moving into our full potential
  • Developing a flexible, soft, ‘beginners mind’, renewed and ready to be ‘born again’ with energy and enthusiasm in 2022
  • Focusing both consciously and intuitively upon the inviting of new energies, aspirations and goals that we wish to bring in and manifest over the course of the new year…read full details

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

This series of 10 classes is an introduction to simple, practical Zen and Taoist meditations that can temporarily help us to reduce our stress and thrive joyfully in daily life. They can also, practiced regularly offer us experiential insight into our true nature and help us to answer some of our deepest life-questions and attain a truly stable sense of inner transformation. The sessions can be attended as a complete course in itself, or each class can be taken as a practice in and of itself…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)

Tuesday 21st December,  7.30-8.30pm, SG time – Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

Tues & Weds 4th & 5th January – 2022 New year & New Moon releasing and inviting meditation

Begins Tues 11/Weds 12th January – The ordinary path to enlightenment – Meditating with the Ten Ox Herding pictures

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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The miracle of attention

“Imagine yourself on the side a mountain looking at the sky. For a time simply try and keep 90% of your attention on the sun, the clear sky and the bright clouds. You are not denying the dark clouds, you are just acknowledging the large expanse of “beautiful sky”, and giving yourself time to take it in and enjoy it”

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below looks at how you can transform your life (miraculously) by transforming your attention. If you enjoy it, do come along to one of the The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom classes this week, either on Tuesday or Wednesday, where we shall be focused on this subject!

In the spirit miraculous attention,

Toby

 

The miracle of attention

The basic proposition of mindfulness is that the world that appears to you can be changed by the way in which you pay attention to it. The art of mindfulness is paying attention to your reality in this moment in the right way, so it gives you the result you want in terms of feeling effective and empowered, as well as ‘happy’ in the way you choose to define that term.
You can think of mindfulness as being ‘miraculous’ in the sense that you can change your experience through your attention in this way. You can literally re-work your reality, transform it and create something else through your focus, kind of like Jesus turning water into wine. It’s not as outwardly explicit as transforming water into wine, but its more miraculous than that in the sense that it offers a genuine, do-able method to grasp control of your perception and experience. The exercise below is one example of how you can start ‘working miracles’ in your life.

Looking out from a mountain side
Imagine you’re sitting on the side of a mountain, looking over a landscape. There is a broad horizon and a big sky in front of you, perhaps with the sun halfway towards setting. There are some clouds in the sky, and some clear patches where the blue and gold of the sky and sun dominate. About 10% of the sky is dark with rainclouds, but the rest is basically a varied and beautiful sky-scape that you can sit and enjoy watching from your mountain-side. As well as the blue and gold, there are lots of other colours, the white of the clouds, and the pinks, oranges and reds when the sun filters through them. On top of this there is also the beauty of the ground level, where there might be fields, lakes and trees.

The sky of your life
Let’s say what Winston Churchill said about worry is true: “When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened”.
So, most of our worries don’t happen, but maybe 10-15% do. So then, let’s say we have sixteen waking hours a day. We can allot 10% of that time to either:

  • Thinking and strategizing about our worries intelligently or
  • Just outright worrying!

If 10% of our day is 90mins, then the rest of our day, fourteen and a half hours, we can focus on:

  • The good things in our life
  • Things that help us feel safe and confident
  • Attention to things that help us to relax, regenerate and calm down when we want
  • Attention to things that that help us to feel excited, empowered and energised
  • Things that cause us to grow and learn

If your inner and outer life are like the ‘sky’ in the image above, then during your average day, 90% of your attention should be on the good things, and 10% on your worries. The hypothesis is then that, if you do this, then you are going to have a very different experience of your life. You will have affected a ‘miracle’ in your life, simply by paying attention in a different way.

Trying it out
For 10-15mins, sit quietly, and if you like visualize yourself on the side a mountain looking at the sky as described above. For that time simply try and keep 90% of your attention on the good stuff. You are not denying the dark clouds, you are just acknowledging the large expanse of “beautiful sky”, and giving yourself time to take it in and enjoy it.
If you train in this way regularly, you train your attention to gradually shift from where it is now towards 90% of it being on the things that energise and feed your wellbeing. In this way, gradually, you effect a miracle in your life.

Related article: Meditation as a positive mindfulness game

Article & content © Toby Ouvry 2021, 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   

In case you missed this article last week: ‘Head in the Sun’ meditation

This is a simple meditation that combines cultivating a thought-free state with environmental awareness. Specifically, we use brain-relaxation in combination with awareness of the suns light to create the desired experience.

Finding the sun – This first stage is nice to do, and enhances the experience, but is not essential. Glance outside and locate the sun, physically in the sky. Get a sense of where it is in your current landscape. If the sun has gone down already, get a sense of where it is beneath the horizon.

Sitting in landscape – Then take a seat (this can also be done standing or lying and, when your used to it, walking) Send your awareness out to the horizon line in the landscape around you. Get a feel for the curve of the earth’s surface extending around you from your feet, the sun in the sky above, and the living planet beneath you. Breath and relax with this for a short while.
Read full article

Starts Tuesday 16/Wednesday 17th November – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom

In 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. In this four class series we take instant awakening, miraculous-ness, independence and sensitivity as our doorways to awakening….read full details

Saturday 20th & 27th November – Environmental meditation masterclass & mini-retreat – Working consciously with the forces of nature

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

There is much concern and talk today about the state of the environment and the relationship of humankind to nature. These sessions cover methods to:

  • Attune to the energies of our immediate and larger environment
  • Build a living relationship to the landscape around us
  • Access meditation states based upon our environment that provide deep powerful peace, as well as increasing our energy in an harmonious manner
  • Increase our sense of being a participant in the miracle of nature
  • Inspire us to live an embodied life in tune with the living Earth and Universe around, above and below us

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 16/Wednesday 17th November – The Wisdom of Awakening series: Meditations for ‘instant awakening’ and playful wisdom

Saturday 20th & 27th November – Environmental meditation masterclass & mini-retreat – Working consciously with the forces of nature

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Awareness and insight Enlightened Flow Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindfulness Presence and being present

Guided meditation recording: Three aspects of the positive mindfulness game

Dear Integral Meditators,

Here’s a 10 minute recording of Three layered meditation practice to help you build your mindful positivity. It combines focusing on sensory, emotional and cognitive objects, to help you build a more resilient approach to your inner wellbeing!

In the spirit of staying well,

Toby

Article: Meditation – Life as a positive mindfulness game

What I want to explain here is a mindfulness game that we can do as a form of meditation. In this exercise the positive object of meditation is not so much one particular object, feeling or affirmation. Rather it is a process of paying attention that functions to make our mind calmer and more appreciative. One of the benefits of this exercise is that it gradually trains our mind to orientate itself around positive thoughts and feelings, making them the ‘front and center’ of our moment to moment experience….read full article!

 

All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Weekly Online class schedule

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

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

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

Tuesday 7th, Wednesday 8th April, 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly Full Moon Meditation & Manifestation Session

Friday, Sat, Sunday 17,18,19th April – The Qi Gong Foundation Program & Program for coaches and trainers 

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

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

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Awareness and insight Integral Meditation meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

Dear  Integral Meditators,

What are important questions that you can use to greatly improve your meditation and mindfulness practice, whatever level you are at? The article below offers two…

 

Two fundamental mindfulness and meditation questions

One fundamental mindfulness question that you can ask yourself is “What is the way in which I am paying attention to my experience in this moment?” Regarding meditation, a central one is “Which positive object of attention is going to be most useful to me in this situation, right now?”

“What is the way in which I am paying attention to my experience in this moment?”
Let’s look at the mindfulness question first. Mindfulness means being aware of what you are doing in the moment, and how you are paying attention to what you are doing. If you ask yourself how you are paying attention to what is happening to you, then you’ll start to notice the way in which your attention is influencing how you experience what you are going through. You can then ask yourself the question “is the way in which I am paying attention here helping me or hindering me to be both happy and effective?” If you can see that your current way of paying attention is working to produce a good result, then you can stay with it. If it isn’t, then you can try making a mindful adjustment that will make an improvement.
For example, if I am in a meeting, and I am feeling impatient because it has gone overtime, I might notice that the impatience is making me both unhappy in the moment, and less effective at bringing the meeting to a successful conclusion. So, I might then decide to make the adjustment of accepting that the meeting is late, and re-focus my attention on patiently getting the best outcome by listening to the other parties, and communicating well.
It is by making many such incremental adjustments each day that mindfulness can really improve out quality of life and make us more effective at what we are doing.

“Which positive object of attention is going to be most useful to me in this situation, right now?”
A meditator is (amongst other things) someone who is concerned with focusing their attention mindfully around a positive object as they go through their daily life. A ‘positive object’ is one that, when we focus upon it helps our mind to feel calmer, more joyful/loving, more confident, grounded, centered and so on. A positive object influences our state of mind for the good when we focus upon it. There are as many different positive objects as there are positive states of mind. The skill as a meditator lies in focusing on the right positive object. For example:

  • If I am experiencing fear, I might take courage, or the recognition of my immediate physical safety as my object of meditation in the moment
  • If my mind is very busy or distracted, then I might practice attention to my body and senses as my positive object, to settle my mind.
  • If I have just received an experience of good fortune, then I can take appreciation of that good fortune as my object of mindful attention.

The skill of the meditator in this context is selecting the right positive object to effectively meet and enjoy the challenge that s/he is going through in the moment. Since life is always changing, the particular positive object will also change as our day/week/month progresses, so we need to keep aware and making adjustments. We can do this by asking ourself this second question.

So, if you can bear in mind these two questions and ask yourself them regularly, then both your mindfulness and meditation practice are going to become more effective. Enjoy!

​© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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 AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

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

Begins 14/15th September – Effortless effort – Insight meditation for self-healing and transformation – a five week course

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 11th August, 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 18th August, 9.30-1pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindfulness

Mindfully building your mental & emotional resilience 1 – The cycle of mindful positivity

Dear Integral Meditators,

How can we make our minds and emotions more resilient? One method is to build our store of strengths and positivity. The article below explores a simple, practical method of  going about doing this….

In the spirit of emotional & mental resilience,

Toby

Mindfully building your mental & emotional resilience 1 – The cycle of mindful positivity

How can we make our minds and emotions more resilient? One method is to build our store of strengths and positivity, the other is to make the way we deal with our challenges and energy drains more ergonomic, authentic and skillful. This article outlines a three stage process for doing the first, building mindful positivity. I will write about the second method at a later date. Here are the three basic stages:

1. Recognition of the good – From a mindfulness perspective, building positivity can be achieved on a basic level simply by spending definite time each day recognizing and paying attention to things that are positive, that we appreciate, that we are proud of, that we have achieved, that we are lucky to have, and so on, in our life. Recognition of these things contextualizes our daily experience in a positive light.

Feeling the good – It’s not enough just to recognize intellectually the things that are good, we are lucky to have and so on. We have to take these things and mindfully dwell upon the positive feelings that they generate in our body and emotional being. For example today I had a meeting with a client that was a really warm, positive exchange of insights and values. In order to gain the maximum positive energy from that experience I need to dwell more than just intellectually upon the experience. I need to accept, experience and feel the positive feelings that the meeting gave rise to, experiencing them in my body.

Embodying & expressing the good – As a final aspect of this ‘mindful digestion’ of positive energy, I can look for ways to express and act upon my positive experience. This in turn will create more ‘fuel’ for the first stage of my mindful positivity process ‘Recognition of the good’. So, we find this positive, three stage cycle becomes circular and mutually re-enforcing in our lives, helping us build our mental and emotional resilience.

Building mindful positivity as an exercise
This can be done very simply, as an exercise that lasts just a couple of minutes, or as a longer, more extended one.

  1. Spend some time dwelling upon the things that you appreciate, are excited by and/or consider good in your life. Direct your attention to these with appreciation
  2. Select one of these things (eg: for me my meeting with a client described above). Focusing upon it ask yourself the question ‘Where is the positive feeling I am getting from this experience located in my body, and what does it feel like?’ Bring your attention to the part of the body that the feeling is located in. As you breathe in allow yourself to experience the feeling fully, as you breathe out allow the good feeling and emotions to flow out from that part of your body into your body as a whole, filling you with positivity, enthusiasm and gentle excitement or appreciation. Make the experience as real and visceral as you can on an emotional and body level. Stay with this stage as long as you like, enjoy it!
  3. Finally, ask yourself, ‘How might I go about expressing or communicating these good feelings in my life to enjoy them further and spread them around?’ Try and find ways to follow up on the answers to this question after you have finished the exercise.

Related article: Mindfully balancing positive thinking with healthy realism , Facing what you cannot face – Mindful inoculation

© Toby Ouvry 2017, 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

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

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

Tuesday & Wednesday evenings from June 6-7th – Practical meditations for spiritual awakening & enlightenment – A six week course

June 20th & 21st – Summer solstice  balancing and renewing meditation 

Integral Meditation Asia

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