Categories
Awareness and insight Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Confidence Presence and being present

The healing power of awareness; Four insight meditation techniques

Dear  Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is on insight meditation, and on the natural healing power of our mind, when we allow it. Its a slightly longer article than usual, with four short techniques you can try out!
You can also find below the details of the next series of meditation classes at Integral Meditation Asia beginning mid August, on Insight meditation.

In the spirit of insight and allowing,

Toby


 

The healing power of awareness; the topography of insight meditation

I want to begin this article by paraphrasing Roger Walsh in a conversation that he had with Ken Wilber. Basically, he said that one of the amazing things about our minds is that, if we let it, our mind has this incredible power to:

  1. Self-heal – that is to heal its inner divisions and move toward wholeness
  2. Self-actualize – that is start to move naturally toward a more enlightened or awakened state of self-awareness, and to
  3. Self-transcend – that is to move naturally toward the next, deeper level of consciousness immediately beyond its present state of growth.

All of this can happen by our simply ‘allowing it’. The way in which we ‘allow it’ is by regularly cultivating a state of relaxed, lucid awareness in our day to day routine. The innate power of this awareness creates a powerful healing and stimulating effect upon our mental, emotional and physical wellbeing. The problem for many of us is that we perceive our relationship to our mind as a perpetual battle, where the thing that seems to be standing in the way of our inner healing and growth is the mind itself. It is not natural for us to seek resolution to our inner problems through conscious relaxation!
One very ergonomic form of meditation that we can use in order to start making friends with our mind and access its powers of self-healing is insight meditation. The main activity in insight meditation is to identify and observe the different levels of our mind. Because of this, insight meditation is sometimes called “choice-less awareness”. Whatever comes up, we just watch without getting involved.

Four levels of observing – A basic map or topography of insight meditation awareness
There are four basic levels of mind that insight meditation helps us to cultivate awareness of. These might be called the gross, subtle, very subtle and non-dual. What I want to do is to outline them and offer simple meditation practices that we can do on each of these levels. This way you can get a practical flavour of what insight meditation involves, and start trying it out for yourself.

Level 1: Gross awareness – This is awareness of our physical body, senses and environment.
Sample insight meditation exercise for this level: Be aware of everything that you hear for a period of time. Note all the different layers of sound that your ear awareness is picking up. As I am sitting now I can hear some distant cars, the fan on the table next to me, the typing as my fingers work on the type-pad, I can hear the sound of my breathing in my inner ears. Just sit back, relax and enjoy the layers of sound flowing into your moment to moment awareness. You can practice an equivalent insight exercise for any of your other senses.

Level 2: Subtle awareness – This level observes the flow of thoughts, feelings and images that flow through our mind on a moment to moment basis. On this level there is a range of subtlety, from the everyday thoughts of our waking mind to the more subtle experiences of the dreams and of dreaming. Basically, this is the realm of thoughts.
Sample insight meditation exercise for this level: Sit down and observe the flow of thoughts, feelings and images through your awareness. Imagine that you are like a person sitting by the side the river of your mind, observing the constant ebb and flow of mental images and feelings that passes by you.

Level 3: Very subtle awareness – This level observes the inner space of our consciousness itself, which is formless, space-like , and lies behind our mental and sensory consciousness. If you imagine your thoughts and feelings are like clouds, then your consciousness is like the sky that contains those clouds.
Sample insight meditation exercise for this level: Continue to watch your mind, become aware of the spaces between your thoughts. Allow your awareness to sink deeper and deeper into these spaces. Let the cloud-like forms of your thoughts and feelings gently dissolve away as you observe the sky-like space of your consciousness.

Level 4: Non-dual awareness – This level is where the sense of yourself the observer of your consciousness (as in level 3 above) dissolves away, and you are left with a unified (non-dual) experience of awareness, just a single experience of consciousness with no conceptual idea of observer and observed.
Sample exercise: The way to approach this experience is through the level 3 exercise. The more you practice it, very gradually, over time you will feel yourself moving toward this non-dual state.

So, my basic point in this article is that if you allow your mind to relax consciously and attentively, then you are going to activate its natural capacity for self-healing and growth. If you want a particular in-depth method to develop your minds self-healing mechanism, then insight meditation is one such tool.

© 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

Rest of August program coming soon!


Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Insight Meditation Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Presence and being present

Five Methods for Quietening the Mind

Dear Integral Meditators,

Some people give up or don’t even try meditation as they think their mind is just too busy, and they can’t still it. Below are five simple methods that you can use to quieten the mind when you feel the need, as well as an outline of some of the benefits.

In the spirit of the quiet but strong,

Toby

 

 


Five Methods for Quietening the Mind 

Why should we be interested in quietening the mind?
In a nutshell, to de-stress, improve task related performance, & develop your capacity to reflect and observe. Quietening or stilling the mind is also a pre-requisite for access to  deeper states of meditation.

1. Ducking beneath your mind – Breathing through the hara
This first method involves bringing your awareness down into the belly (or ‘hara’ to use the Zen term) and breathing with your attention focused there. Most of the mental busyness that we experience happens within the head and the heart centres, so bringing your awareness down into your belly enables you to access a state of focused, non-conceptual quietude more easily.

Taking care of your heart-space – Feeling emotions properly
Much of the inner conflict that we experience actually originates in our heart as unresolved feelings and emotions. Attuning yourself to the feelings in your heart centre and learning to acknowledge them, feel them and resolve or release them makes it hugely easier to quieten and still the mind. As the saying goes; If You Feel Properly You Will Think Clearly.

Finding the still point in the center of the brain
There is a ‘still point’ in the center of the brain that you can learn to place your attention upon. When you do this you find that it is possible to still the mind without too much effort. It is called the ‘cavity of original spirit’ by the Taoists. It is in the area where the thymus and hypothalamus are located in the brain, but you really don’t need to know too much about the brains’ actual anatomy, if you just go into the middle of your brain and explore, you’ll find that there is a specific place where, if you place your attention there it has a naturally quietening effect upon the mind.

Listening to the sound of silence
If you’ve ever been in a place where there is absolute outer quiet, you might have noticed there is a kind of high frequency ‘sound’ or ringing in your ears. This is what I mean by the sound of silence. With practice you can learn to recognize and focus your attention on this sound even when there are other noises around you. The sound of silence has a kind of pleasant hypnotic, focusing effect that is very good for quietening the mind.

Recognizing the power of your environment
This final method is really about learning to be aware of environments where there is a lot of negative psychological energy around, and ensuring that you don’t allow yourself to be victimized by it; the crowded bus on the commute home, the hostile office, the anger from a family member. One thing that I do quite often if I am in such an environment is to imagine my energy field or aura covered externally by a bubble of insulating black light that blocks negative energy from my surroundings. The bubble is open at the top and the bottom; letting in light from the sky and stars above and the earth below, but it is closed off from my immediate surroundings. This last ‘psychic self-defence’ technique is as close as you’ll get to an occult exercise in this article!
So there you go, five methods for you to try out in your own time. If you like you can practice one each day during the weekdays for five minutes each. Do that for a month to gain a little experience of each!

Related articles: The Mind in the Heart
The Sound of Silence
If You Feel Properly You Will Think Clearly

© 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
Categories
Awareness and insight creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Art Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

Your Emotions as Horses

Dear Integral Meditators,

Because emotions are non-linear in their behaviour, quite often images can work better than direct instructions as to how we can go about working with them in a healthy way. The article below considers our emotions as horses.

Final call for those in Singapore for the Positive Mindset integral meditation class tomorrow, Wednesday at 7.3opm, and the two workshops on Saturday 1st August; Zen Meditation from 9.30-12.30, and Language of the Shadow from 2.30-5.30pm.

In the spirit of the ride,

Toby


Your Emotions as Horses

Your emotions are like horses; powerful, fleet, full of energy and vitality. They are also willful and sometimes volatile. The flip side of this is they also contain their own instinctive and natural wisdom. You are the rider of the horses of your emotions.

If you try and control them by whipping and abusing them then they, like real horses will either become resentful, rebellious and devious or they will become broken, sad and scared.

If you simply indulge the horses of your emotions without directing them then they will simply run wherever they want without control, with the according results in your life.

Your emotions are tremendously strong. If you are scared of the strength of your emotions then they will sense that, and like horses with a nervous rider they will react to it.

If you learn how to ride your emotions with love and care, but at the same time with discipline and direction, then you have a tremendous energy source that you can put to positive use in your life, taking you faster in the direction that you want to go – So there is a lot ‘riding’ on the way you as the rider relate to the horses of your emotions!

Imagine you are on the back of a powerful horse now. It is the horse of your emotions. Feel the raw power, energy and life-force of the horse between your legs. When the horse wants to run, let him do so, feel the elation and the freedom as you gather speed, the wind in your hair, the trees and landscape flying by. Where do you want to go? You are the rider and director of this horse, and s/he wants your benevolent guidance.

Working mindfully with the image of yourself as rider and your emotions as horses can help us experiential find out a lot about our current relationship to our emotions, and how we can learn to ride them better, with both more freedom and more control.

One of the keys to understand about emotions is that ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotions are like black and white horses (or brown etc…); it doesn’t matter what colour they are, what mainly matters is how you ride them. The emotions you currently think of as being the most useless in your life might just be the ones that you need to learn to ride better.

Related article: The Sea Snakes of the Mind
The Wild dogs of the Mind

© 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:

JULY & AUGUST 

Wednesday July 29th 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Session @ Basic Essence – Meditation for connecting to a positive attitude

Saturday 1st August, 9.30am-12.30pm – Finding Simplicity in the Complexity: An Introduction to Meditation From the Perspective of Zen

Saturday 1st August, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self – A Three Hour Workshop

Friday 14th August, 7.30-9pm –  Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre

Saturday 15th August, 9.30am-12.30pm – Going From Over-whelmed to Over-well: Meditation for Quietening the Mind – a three hour workshop

Saturday 15th August, 2.30-5.30pm – Mindful Self Confidence – Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation


Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses 1:1 Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *
Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology
Categories
A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Life-fullness Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness Stress Transformation

Five Ways of Mindfully Cultivating Your Inner Peace

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below examines five mindful ways in which we can cultivate our inner peace. If you work with them together, then you end up with a practice of inner peace made more resilient by the diversity of its sources. If you enjoy it and are in Singapore then you might consider the Mindful Resilience workshop on the 18th July.
Quick reminder of the Mindful Benevolence online class that remains on offer until the 14th July.

In the spirit of inner peace,

Toby


Five Ways of Mindfully Cultivating Your Inner Peace

Much of our efforts in life are directed towards finding peace of mind, to be able to relax and feel at ease. Here are five mindful ways in which we can cultivate our inner peace. If you work with them together, then you end up with a practice of inner peace made more resilient by the diversity of its sources.

The peace of tranquillity – This is the peace of connecting to places and activities that are tranquil, and help us feel calm. Quiet places in our home or working environment or places in nature that we can spend time in regularly. Just by connecting to the tranquil energy of these places and being present to them we can increase our own experience of inner peace.

The peace of awareness – Rather than focusing on the contents of our busy mind, the activity of our environment or our personal challenges we can sit and focus on the experience of awareness itself, which is always open, spacious and possess and abundance of peaceful not-in-a-hurryness.

The peace of accepting what is (& the peace of having done what you can) – “Today, despite both of our best efforts I was not able to meet my friend in town. We both tired our best, and really wanted to, but for one reason or another it just did not come off.” Accepting what is: that we were not able to meet, and that we did all we could, that is we tried to fix it but it did not happen is the peace of accepting what is and that you have done what you could.
Without this type of clarity it is very easy for our peace of mind to be destroyed by the ‘what if’s’ of our life.

The peace of being enough – This is the peace of being happy with who you are, and not having to continually prove your worthiness to yourself or to other people. It does not mean that you are not trying to improve yourself, but it does mean that you are basically secure in your self-image, you are enough, and so there is room to rest at ease.

The peace of self-efficacy – “I don’t know what challenges will come in my business over the next month, but I have confidence in my ability to meet those challenges effectively, and/or learn how to solve the problems that come up.” The peace of self-efficacy ace arises from your faith in yourself and the effectiveness of your abilities. It is the peace that comes from the confidence in your ability to learn and adapt in the way you need to in order to deal with what arises.

The Peace of Playfulness – This is the peace that comes from asserting your right to be playful in life. It is the peace that comes from taking things lightly, flexibly and easily. It’s not that you don’t know how to apply seriousness; it’s just that it is continually balanced by the peace of a playful mindset.

© 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 1st July-1st August:

Saturday 18th July, 9.30am-12.30pm – Growing Your Mindful Freedom – The Essential Meditation of the Buddha: A Three Hour Meditation Workshop

Saturday 18th July, 2.30-5.30 pm – Mindful Resilience – Sustaining effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure through meditation and mindfulness – A Three Hour Workshop

Wenesday July 22nd 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Session @ Basic Essence – Meditating with your inner strength of heart & mind

Wednesday July 29th 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Session @ Basic Essence – Meditation for connecting to a positive attitude

Saturday 1st August, 9.30am-12.30pm – Finding Simplicity in the Complexity: An Introduction to Meditation From the Perspective of Zen

Saturday 1st August, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self – A Three Hour Workshop

Friday 14th August, 7.30-9pm –  Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre


Integral Meditation Asia

 

Categories
Awareness and insight Biographical Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Art Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Shadow meditation

Wolf Therapy – The Subtle Dimensions of Meditation and the Mind

Dear Integral Meditators,

What if there were an endlessly creative and imaginative aspect of your mind that you could learn to tap into at will? The article below explores how you can discover this domain by developing the the subtle dimension of your meditation practice.

The meditation workshop this Saturday afternoon is an exploration of this subtle, imaginal domain of meditation:  The Call of the Wild–Meditations for Deepening Your Inner Connection to the Animal Kingdom and the Green-world

Last calls also for tomorrows  Wednesday Evening Meditation Session on Benevolence, and the Mindful Self-Confidence workshop this Saturday morning.

In the spirit of the imaginal world,

Toby


Wolf Therapy – The Subtle Dimensions of Meditation and the Mind

Normally we think about our mind as being in our body. For many people this is further reduced to our mind being our brain. Whilst it is true that our brain acts as the interface between our mind and our physical body, a meditators perspective is that it is really the body that is in the mind. The mind is not limited by the physical body and can extend itself naturally and easily beyond the physical body.

Three levels of meditation
In meditation we practice three levels of awareness:

  • Outer world awareness – Awareness of the physical-sensory experience we have of our outer world, and the everyday discursive thoughts and human emotions that come with it
  • Inner world awareness – Awareness of the inner worlds of our imagination, and dreams together with the subtle bodies, energies, thoughts and feelings we may experience there
  • Formless awareness – Awareness of the dimension of consciousness that lies beyond form, or time or space; the formless timeless dimension of the mind

The subtle, inner world or imaginal dimension
The second dimension of meditative awareness attunes us to the level of our experience where we dream and imagine. The subtle or dream world it turns out is a series of inner worlds, somewhat like our outer world, where we can explore landscapes, meet other people and creatures, make discoveries, learn and do research and generally enjoy our inner life in a healthy way. To live there and enjoy its riches is something that a child is quite naturally able to do, but adults end to get it whipped out of them by the time they leave school, or have it warped out of shape, which is a shame. Creative forms of meditation enable us to get back in touch with our inner world and begin travelling again.

An example: Wolf Therapy
As a seasoned integral meditator, every day I have numerous experiences in the inner world. Actually, you do to, but you may not be aware of them, or be unable to distinguish them from the ‘everyday noise’ in your head. Some are when I am fully conscious in daily life, others are in dreams, and others are in meditation. Here is one example from my journal:
‘I am lying down in meditation. I detect an imbalanced energy in my sacral area that starts to throb with pain as I become aware of it. I request help, specifically from my inner world animal guides. I almost immediately sense a she-wolf lying on top of me with a male wolf to my right side by my head.
The she wolf has her genital area above my belly button, I feel her healing energy flowing into my sacral area as a gentle warmth. The male wolf next to me is ‘talking’ to me about how to deal with my current challenges, how to be ‘happy foraging and seeking’ as he puts it. It seems he is working with me on my mindset! I arise from the experience feeling energetically balanced in my sacral area, and with a new mental approach to my circumstances.’

Becoming a conscious daydreamer
There are many ways to get back in touch with the inner world again and start to enjoy it, but one simple way to start is just by becoming more aware of the ideas, images, landscapes and characters that drift in and out of your awareness during the day and pay attention to them; being alert to the significance that they may have. Become a conscious or mindful daydreamer.

Related articles: Three Dimensions of Mindful Daydreaming
From Distraction to Intuitive Imagination (Meditation secrets for running a business)

© 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 May:

JUNE 2015

Wednesday, June 24th 7.30-9pm  – Integral Meditation Session @ Basic Essence – Meditating on benevolence & inner wealth

Saturday 27th June 9.30am-12.30pm – Mindful Self Confidence – Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through mindfulness & meditation

Saturday 27th June, 2.30-5.30pm – The Call of the Wild–Meditations for Deepening Your Inner Connection to the Animal Kingdom and the Green-world

July schedule coming soon!


Integral Meditation Asia

Online Courses 1:1 Coaching * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *
Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology
Categories
Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope

When Vulnerability Ceases to be a Problem – Three levels of self-confidence

Dear Integral Meditators,

If you look back at the key times in your life when you really did something that helped your self confidence, you may find that it was a time when you had to confront your own sense of vulnerability. The article below looks at how we can mindfully approach our vulnerability on three levels, each of which enables us to grow our self confidence consistently.

I have a related workshop coming up on Sat 27th June for those in Singapore who may be interested – Mindful Self-Confidence – Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through meditation & mindfulness

In the spirit if confident vulnerability,

Toby


When Vulnerability Ceases to be a Problem – Three levels of self-confidence

Vulnerability – The feeling that we are threatened or at risk in some way.

Will people like the work I do? Am I attractive enough? What if I take a chance and the person says no, or even laughs of acts repulsed by what I do? What if I look foolish? What if they think I’m too old? We can feel vulnerable in many and varied ways in our life. What are the times, places and scenarios you meet that tend to trigger it most strongly? (Pause here for a moment if you like and sit with the question).

If we have a bad relationship with our sense of vulnerability, then it can undermine our quality of life and self confidence. If we cultivate a mindfully positive relationship with vulnerability then it can help us develop our self-confidence and playful creativity every time it arises. When vulnerability ceases to be a problem, we start to thrive on the possibilities that it offers us.
We will look at dealing with vulnerability on three levels; coping, accepting and thriving.

Coping
At this fist stage we feel vulnerable, but we ‘shut it out’ temporarily so that it does not sabotage what we are trying to do. Let’s say I am about to give a talk to a group of people, I feel nervous and vulnerable. To cope with this I ‘block’ the feelings of vulnerability and focus on something I can control; my awareness of my body, the lines I have rehearsed and so on. By temporarily blocking in this way I am able to deliver my speech with basic competence without my vulnerability sabotaging me. Like this we learn to cope with our vulnerability.

Accepting
With this second stage we are able to open to and accept our feelings of vulnerability such that they do not sabotage our actions, we can open to and breathe with our vulnerability, relaxing into it. To take the example of giving a speech; as I stand before my audience I am able to accept my vulnerability as I stand there without having to block it out. This then enables me to open to the attention of the audience, gain a sense of where they are at and flow with the experience of giving a speech in a way that offers greater personal enjoyment and self-confidence. It also enables me to extend greater empathy and attention to my audience and perhaps give a better speech than I would have done if I was merely ‘coping’ with my vulnerability.

Thriving
At this third stage we are at a level of working with our vulnerability where the sense of the risk that we are taking is comfortable to us. When we sense our vulnerability we become excited by the creative possibilities in our situation. We are relaxed enough to improvise and thrive off the opportunity of our vulnerability. In the example of the giving the speech, as I stand before my audience I feel excited by the uncertainty of what will happen, I feel confident to enough to speak from the heart and/or to ad-lib as appropriate. I feel open and conscious of the energy and attention of my audience and thrive on working with it consciously. Vulnerability has ceased to be a problem and has become an opportunity to thrive, to grow and to become more self confident within myself.

If we know what these three levels of working with vulnerability are, then a different times and in different situations we can use whatever level feels appropriate. If we are not feeling super confident, then we can focus on coping. When we are more relaxed we can try practice accepting. As we develop our competence and confidence we can gradually set our intention to work with level three – thriving.

Block, accept or thrive. Which area of your own life could you start mindfully working with the three levels of vulnerability today?

Related Articles: Moving From Anxiety to Excitement
Your Long Term Self-Confidence

© 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 May:

JUNE 2015

Wednesday, June 24th 7.30-9pm  – Integral Meditation Session @ Basic Essence – Meditating on benevolence & inner wealth

Saturday 27th June 9.30am-12.30pm – Mindful Self-Confidence – Developing your self-confidence, self-belief & self-trust through meditation & mindfulness

Saturday 27th June, 2.30-5.30pm – The Call of the Wild–Meditations for Deepening Your Inner Connection to the Animal Kingdom and the Green-world

 


Integral Meditation Asia

 

Categories
A Mind of Ease Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present Stress Transformation Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

Moving From Anxiety to Excitement

Dear Integral Meditators,

What would happen if you could respond to the uncertainty and absence of control that you sometimes have in your life with excitement rather than anxiety? The article below explores how you can mindfully start going about doing this…

Yours in the spirit of opening to excitement,

Toby

 


Moving From Anxiety to Excitement

At a meditation class I facilitated last night one of the sentences that I asked people to complete as part of an exercise was ‘I often get stressed when’… It was interesting to note the number of responses that were about uncertainty and lack of control over different aspects of life. When things don’t go the way we want, when our sense of control is taken away from us, most often the instinctive response is negative stress and anxiety.

Anxiety as an indicator of a creative opportunity
Whenever we have uncertainty in our life, or when things move from predictable and ‘under control’ to unpredictable it means that there is a creative window opening up in our life; a window that if we are open to we can find opportunities to grow, learn and enjoy. We can learn to respond to our anxiety with excitement rather than stress.

Acknowledging anxiety to begin transforming it
Before you can start to transform your negative anxiety into excitement you first need to begin by acknowledging and get to know your anxiety. When you become anxious, what does your anxiety feel like in your body? What sort of thought patterns does it stimulate in your mind? If it had a musical tone or colour, what would it be? Explore your anxiety so that you can relax with it enough to begin transforming it.

Then ask: What are the opportunities that my circumstances are presenting me? What unexpected good things could happen as a result of this? What can I learn? What is there to enjoy?
By focusing on these questions try and gradually open the energy your body, heart and mind to the circumstances so that there is room for you to experience calm excitement, playful  attention and curiosity, rather than negative anxiety. With a bit of mindful practice this becomes a realistic possibility for us.

A personal example:
Right now I’m quite happy where I am living, but it looks like I will have to move out in September. Listen to my internal dialogue I can hear part of my mind talking about all the effort to move, the chances of ending up somewhere not so nice, the uncertainty of what will happen. Of course if I focus upon it in another way I see I might find a much better and more suitable place that I would enjoy even more than where I am. My new neighbours might be just the sort of people that I enjoy connecting to, a whole new positive passage of my life may be just over the horizon, awaiting my moving apartment. Nothing is guaranteed, but I can choose to make the mindful choice to be excited, curious and playful about the process, rather than negatively anxious.

What situation in your life today could you choose to respond to with excitement rather than anxiety?

Related article: What Happens When Are Not Afraid of Fear?

© 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
Categories
Awareness and insight Biographical Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present Shadow meditation

What Happens When You Are Not Afraid of Fear?

Dear Integral Meditators,

What happens if you are not afraid of fear? Actually you could just sit down and ask yourself that question like a zen koan and see where it takes you and get some productive results. But I’ve also written an article on it below!

In the spirit of not being afraid,

Toby


What Happens When You Are Not Afraid of Fear?

Usually we are afraid of being afraid. We don’t like the unpleasantness of the experience, and so as soon as we detect fear in our body and mind we start to fight with it, trying to push it away. This approach gives us only two options:

  • We can continue to resist the fear and thus experience an ongoing inner battle between ourselves and our fear or
  • We can become a victim of the fear, simply being afraid and acting impulsively based around our fearful feelings

A third option is that when we feel fear arising within us we can consciously welcome it into our body-mind with awareness. We can practice watching which part of our body the fear is located, we can observe and be curious about the dialogue that fear initiates in our head. We can extend care to it when it comes into our mind, we can choose to look after it. We can learn to simply be with it, rather than trying to solve it, get rid of it or being a victim of it. If we start to approach our fear in this way with mindful curiosity then gradually we will cease to be come intimidated by our fear. We will start to understand it more, and we will then be able to learn from it.

But what can fear teach me?
If I am afraid to say something to my friend because I am afraid that s/he will disapprove or dislike me for it, then it indicates that I care for the friendship. If I am aware of this fear, and not afraid to work with it, it may also show me that I am too reliant upon the approval of my friend, and that with relationships that are worthwhile and genuine, sometimes it is really important to communicate what you believe in, even if it may not be received that well.
If I am afraid to leave my job because of the uncertainty that will result, that fear is right to the extent that our basic financial security is important. If I can become comfortable with that fear, then I can move beyond it and leave my job, but at the same time I can take appropriate steps to mitigate the risk involved.
If I have a life threatening illness, I can use my fear to take action to maximise my chances of recovery, whilst at the same time not having my present moment quality of life destroyed by anxiety over my future.

When you open to your fear it starts to show you things. Useful things.

Becoming comfortable with our fear offers us freedom of choice, and the option to act intelligently and appropriately to the genuine concerns that our fear is pointing out.

Often I find that the things that I have the most fear around are, quite naturally the things I care about the most; my family and friends, my clients, my work, my health. It’s natural to have fears around these things because I care. If I can become comfortable with the fears that arise from caring, if I am not afraid of those fears, then I can use them as a reminder that I care, and to keep caring all the more.

If you made a choice to try and be, say 10% less afraid of your fears today, what difference would that make to your quality of life? Maybe you can try it today and see…

The curve ball: Many of us are so afraid of our fear already that we have pushed our fear into our unconscious – we literally don’t know we are afraid, and we don’t want to know. Accepting the reality that we are afraid is the first step.

Related article: Recognizing Three Types of Fear, Meditating on three Types of Courage

© 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
Categories
Awareness and insight Essential Spirituality Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Mindful Resilience Mindfulness The Essential Meditation of the Buddha

You’ve Already Won! – Mindful Appreciation and Ambition

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at one of the foundations of traditional mindfulness practice,  the healthy ambitions that we can generate from it and the particular type of resilience that it helps us to develop.

In the spirit of appreciation and ambition,

Toby


You’ve Already Won! – Mindful Appreciation and Ambition

Biologically speaking you have already won the lottery. The human body is the Rolls Royce of mother nature’s evolutionary technology, with the most advanced tools for intelligence, development, pleasure and growth on the planet all built in. If you think about this regularly you start to get a feeling of appreciation simply for the opportunity to experience life in a human body.

Other conditions that make your life fortunate
The Buddha in his teachings on mindful appreciation of our human life also pointed out other aspects that make out life fortunate, quite a few or which you may have noted at least intellectually yourself:

  • Being born in a time &/or place relatively free from war or famine
  • Having complete intellectual & physical faculties
  • Being free from intense or chronic hunger &  thirst
  • To have access to education, both  secular & spiritual, & to have the freedom to study that which we choose
  • To have the leisure to practice mindfulness & other methods of personal growth that give rise to the experience of inner wellbeing

If we have them all, we shouldn’t take any of them for granted!

Mindful appreciation and ambition
If you sit with a mindful recognition of any of the above points, almost inevitably you are going to start to feel good about your circumstances; whatever your relative situation you are a very lucky person. Staying with this feeling of being fortunate, of having a great opportunity by being alive and being human is a foundational object of mindfulness and meditation practice, a basic building block of your sense of personal happiness and wellbeing.
As well as giving rise to a sense of appreciation, this type of reflection can also give rise to a type of mindful ambition; a strong desire to make the most of the opportunity we have whilst it lasts.

Four types of mindful ambition
Traditionally speaking, there are four types of meaningful ambition we can cultivate by recognizing the good fortune of our human life:

  1. To secure the best quality of real happiness and wellbeing for ourselves and those in our circle of influence in this lifetime
  2. To work toward the happiness of future generations; to secure a better life for them
  3. To work toward the highest level of physical, psychological, and spiritual development and freedom that we are capable
  4. To cultivate the enlightenment experience (See my past article ‘Enlightened Imperfection’)

If you got out of bed each morning with this type of mindful appreciation and ambition in the front and centre of your mind; what would change in your life and the way in which you went about it?

Mindful appreciation and ambition as givers of resilience
One of the great things about this form of mindful appreciation and ambition is that it gives you a context for experiencing the rest of your challenges; many of the problems in your life cease to be so bothersome, because at the end of the day you know how fortunate you are. Not finding the man or woman of your dreams, not having an ideal career, not having the biggest house on the street or the exact life you want are all problems that can be dealt with; they are all relative and all manageable.

Live it up and be mindfully ambitious while it lasts!

Related article: How to Meditate on Gratitude

© 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 May:

Friday 8th May, 7.30-9pm – Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre – Stillness, Energy, Positivity and Relaxation -A grounding in the basics of Integral Meditation

Saturday 16th May, 9.30am-12.30pm – Growing Your Mindful Freedom – The Essential Meditation of the Buddha: A Three Hour Meditation Workshop

Saturday 16th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Activating, Healing and Awakening our Ancestral Karma

Wednesday 20th, 7.30-9.30pm –  An Evening of Mindful Relationships: Improving Your Relationships and Social Skills Through Mindfulness – A two hour workshop

Friday 29th May 7.30-9.30pm –  Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre – Travelling deeper into the present moment through integral meditation

Saturday 30th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release from Stress

Categories
Concentration Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindfulness

How Much Energy Should You Focus on Being Focused?

Dear Integral Meditators,

What would the effect upon your life be if you spent even a short period of time each day developing your ability to focus your mind single pointedly on just one thing? The article below asks this question and encourages us to take up the practice of mindful focusing!

Yours in the comfort and confidence of single-pointedness,

Toby


How Much Energy Should You Focus on Being Focused?

One of the central skills of meditation and mindfulness is the development of concentration which, simply defined is the ability to focus your mind on one object or task for an extended period. To develop it takes consistent effort. Some of the pay offs from this effort are as follows:

  • The more rapid attainment of inner peace and calm though meditation
  • A strong and enduring mind that is able to bear stress well
  • A heightened investigative intelligence; you can look at things more deeply when you can focus properly
  • Getting more done in your workday; if you can focus on one thing at a time, focusing on each one thing in turn you will get more done, and what you get done will be of better quality
  • Your relationships will improve due to your capacity to focus on other people and really listen to what they are saying or trying to communicate (*see note at bottom)

If we think about the benefits above, then we will start to develop a strong motivation to develop our focus and concentration skills. So how do you begin? Here are a few ideas:

  • In your daily sitting meditation practice, devote at least three minutes of that time to really honing your ability to focus on one thing single pointedly. Three minutes following the breathing or focusing on your body awareness are the most simple. If you are reading this and don’t have a daily meditation practice, 3 minutes on the breathing to develop your focus and concentration is where you can start!
  • For at least one task in your working day, take a 30minute period and focus on that one task single-pointedly, resisting all distractions (for example as I am doing with this article now). During this time keep on task, focus, focus focus, resist distraction, train yourself to concentrate!
  • When you are with someone and they are talking, train yourself to really listen to what they are saying. Use the people you meet as your objects of focus. If not all of the time, some of the time.
  • Distraction alert! I almost just clicked on my web browser as I paused between sentences. Developing focus is dependent upon being alert, mindful alertness is your tool for developing concentration!
  • When you are exercising, focus on awareness of the physical movement of your body, don’t let your mind wonder all over as you are doing your physical training.

So there are a few ideas to get started, you can invent a few more of your own as well if you like. The main thing is that a little bit of concentration and focus training practised daily will translate into multiple and cumulative benefits for us, so let’s get started today!

* (Please note the last two benefits are transferable skills; that is to say that it is possible to transfer the focus and concentration you develop in meditation into your work and relationship. Some meditators do not transfer this skill very well into their work or social skills, and so are not especially work effective and can be still totally relationally dysfunctional!)

Related articles: Five Inner Skills we develop Through Meditation
The Five Stages of Meditation Practice from Beginners to Advanced
Mindful Work effectiveness Secrets (From an Ex-Monk) 


Integral Meditation Asia