Dear Integral Meditators,
You can Listen to my 5 minute talk and 10 minute meditation on Dynamic Calm HERE!
Toby
Month: June 2018
Dear Integral Meditators,
Think of your thoughts as being like a weapons, that can be used for good or ill. The article below offers a few pointers to help ensure that you are using your ‘inner weapons’ in ways that are helpful to yourself and others, rather than just using them to cut yourself down all the time!
For those in Singapore, a quick reminder of the Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation tonight and tomorrow evenings, and this weekends workshop An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism!
In the spirit of the mindful warrior,
Toby
The Mindful Warrior – Using concepts as weapons
One of the goals of mindfulness is to realize that we are currently using many negative concepts against ourselves, and to stop this. The flip side of this is to learn to use positive, balanced and intelligent concepts, and wield them like weapons in our lives.
The way in which we use negative concepts
‘If only this hadn’t happened then I could have…’
‘There is no way I can do this when…’
‘If only I had control over the outcome, I wouldn’t feel so anxious…’
If you look at the conversation in your head, you’ll start to notice many different ways in which your habitual thinking and worldview limits you in ways that prevent you from experiencing pleasure and joy and makes you less effective in dealing with the situation you are faced with. These thoughts are like weapons that you wield against yourself in order to keep you feeling limited, dis-empowered, miserable and generally helpless.
Accepting and releasing these negative concepts
The first step in ‘de-commissioning your negative inner-concepts’ is simply to recognize that they are there. Then you can practice spotting them when they arise, accepting they are there, and then letting them go, not letting them impact us or define our experience.
Noticing the way in which we use positive concepts
If you watch your mind you will also notice that sometimes your mind comes up with positive concepts and ways of framing your experiences that make you stronger and more resilient to the challenges you face. These are the already existing ‘conceptual weapons’ that you have within your mind. Once you have identified them, you can then deliberately start to use them more in your life, leveraging upon them to make you happier and more effective as you go about your day.
Creating new positive concepts and weaponizing them
If you are going through a difficult challenge, you can ask yourself, ‘What are the different ways of framing this experience in ways that are going to help me enjoy it and be more effective?’ If you like, as well as thinking about them, you can write them down, so you have them at hand to look at whenever you need.
Becoming a mindful warrior
Whenever you think about your challenge, you then practice deliberately viewing it from the conceptual viewpoints that you have devised. You practice wielding these concepts like weapons, defending yourself against inner thoughts and views that don’t serve you, and using them to ‘attack’ your life with enthusiasm!
An example
As we move into the high summer period, some of my ‘predictable’ sources of work become less. Of course, there is plenty of room for my mind to conceptualize this in an unhelpful way, which I need to look out for and ‘defend’ myself against. But I also take the time to ensure that I have a number of key ‘conceptual weapons’ that I can use to enjoy this time and make good use of it. For example:
‘Its good because I’ll have more time for creativity and new workshop design.’
‘It’ll give me time to rest properly and renew my energy and enthusiasm.’
‘In previous seasons, sometimes this has been my busiest period, and there is a chance it could happen again.’
‘Whatever happens I have made enough money in the last few months to tie me over…’
These are all simple examples of concepts that I use as benevolent weapons to defend against needless mental suffering and derive maximum enjoyment from my time ahead.
Its not enough to simply ‘think positive’ you have to learn to use the thoughts effectively and mindfully in your day so that they hold weight and mass in the face of your challenges!
© 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)
Tuesday 19th & 20th June, 7.30pm – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation
Saturday 23rd June, 10am-4.30pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism
Saturday 7th July, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat
Sunday 8th July, 9.30am,-1pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Dear Integral Meditators,
How can you transform your busy-making ‘to-do’ list into an object of mindfulness? The article below explores one possible way!
Heads up for the Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever next Saturday 16th June, 10-11.30am.
And last few days for the mindful stress-transformation coaching offer, see below 😉
In the spirit of mindful to-doing!
Toby
Stress Transformation Coaching special offer:
Up until Friday 15th June there is a special offer on Toby’s Stress transformation coaching service. Three x 1hour packages are on a 15% special offer (a saving of $95). Contact info@tobyouvry.com for full details.
Stress transformation coaching with Toby is exactly that; it teaches you how you can transform your stress, anxiety and other difficult emotions into forces for the good in your life. The coaching focuses upon:
Stress transformation coaching with Toby is exactly that; it teaches you how you can transform your stress, anxiety and other difficult emotions into forces for the good in your life. The coaching focuses upon:
- Getting to know and understand the negative or conflicting energy and emotion in your life more deeply and intimately, seeing its potential value
- Developing the capacity to recycle, transform and redirect this difficult energy into a positive force that works for you rather than against you
- Find yourself thriving in situations and circumstances that would previously make you unhappy, fearful, inhibited and so on…Read on…
Making mindful use of your to-do list
Most of us have a ‘to do list’ most days. Quite often when you hear about practicing mindfulness, we are told to try and put down the to do list in our mind, in order to notice the present moment more.
There is one way that I have of using my own to do-list as a way of increasing my mindful appreciation, and it goes something like this. Every day I have my list of to-dos’. Often, they are written in my diary, alongside my appointments. At various points during the day I will open my diary and, with a little red pen cross off the actions and appointments that I have done so far. I will then pause for a few moments, and give myself a little appreciation for the things that I have done. I will also use what I have done to ensure that I am seeing that today has been a constructive day, where things have been achieved, and I take the time to note and feel good about that. I then proceed with the next few things in the list.
Of course, the list rarely ends, but my approach to my to do list ensures that I am using it to feel good about myself and my day, rather than taking what I have done for granted, and feeling oppressed (and maybe depressed) about the things that I have not yet done!
Structuring unstructured time with your list.
Sometimes if there is a gap in my routine and I sense a certain amount of anxiety around ‘what I am going to do with this time?’, then I’ll simply write a list of things to do, work, leisure or otherwise that will last me that morning, afternoon, or however long the open space is. I’ll then just get on with the tasks, and cross them off as I go. Then at the end of the time I’ll just look at the crossed-off list of what I’ve done for a short while, just to register and appreciate what I’ve done, and enjoy the fact that my time was well spent.
If you choose to use this way of working with your to-do list, then rather than getting in the way of your mindfulness practice, it becomes an active part of it. Your to-do list becomes a way of honing your attention, developing appreciation, becoming more effective in life, and deriving active pleasure from your achievements, great and small!
© 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)
Saturday 16th June, 10-11.30am – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever
Saturday 23rd June, 10am-4.30pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Dear Integral Meditators,
What is your relationship to attraction? The article below offers a few thoughts on how you can go about enjoying and appreciating that which you find attractive without clinging or getting unhealthily attached! In short, how to transform attachment into appreciation!
And on the theme of ‘stress transformation’ see the coaching offer below!
In the spirit of pleasure and appreciation,
Toby
Going from clinging on to enjoying (Attachment to appreciation)
What are you deeply attached to in your life? Of these, what or who do you cling to in ways that are unhealthy, addictive, undermining to your self-esteem and create destructive patterns of behaviour? Think of one or two right now…
This article offers a few thoughts on how you can transform states of attachment and clinging onto appreciation and enjoyment. From an experiential point of view we have three types of object/person/situation that we encounter:
- Those that we feel repulsed by or averse too
- Those we feel drawn or attracted to, magnetised by
- Those we feel neither attracted to or repulsed by, they are kind of neutral
Right now, we are focused on the second type of object, those we feel attracted to.
Underlying sources of attachment – Not enough, not competent, no joy
So what transforms something or someone that we feel attracted to to something that we feel attached or cling to? Part of it is an underlying sense within ourselves that we are incomplete, incompetent or that we have no joy or pleasure. For example:
- If I feel incomplete as a man and I meet a woman I find attractive, then I may cling to her as a potential source of ‘completion’. So, what I feel for her is not just an appreciation of her attractiveness, but the idea that by possessing or obtaining her I will somehow ‘fix’ my problem of incompleteness or loneliness.
- If I often feel incompetent or ineffective in life, then the things that I feel attracted to I may tend to cling to. For example if I feel incompetent in my business practice, I may cling onto a business or romantic partner as a ‘life raft’ saving me from my own confusion in the face of life’s complex challenges.
- If I am out of touch with my feelings, both emotional and bodily, then I won’t feel much joy or pleasure in my life. As a result things that I could be enjoying and appreciating such as caffeine, alcohol, sex etc…become objects that I become addicted to, a way of replacing the fundamental absence of joy or pleasure’.
Coming to your objects of enjoyment from the POV of wholeness
If I want to experience objects of attraction in a healthy, pleasurable way then, I need to come to them from with a healthy self-sense, one where I experience myself fundamentally in three ways:
- I am complete, loved, whole as I am
- I am competent, adequate (to life’s challenges)
- I have ready access to the feeling healthy joy and pleasure in my body, today
If you come to the things you currently feel attached to with these three attitudes, then you have the opportunity to transform them from objects of clinging to objects of appreciation and real enjoyment.
Moving from clinging on to appreciating
So then, if I come to people places and things I find attractive in our life with the idea that ‘I am complete, I am competent, and I feel joy’ then:
- When I encounter an attractive member of the opposite sex it will be easy enough to appreciate them as they are, without needing to ‘possess’ them in order to validate myself.
- When I face a difficult challenge in my business I won’t be cling to the idea of someone ‘saving me’, but if my business partner helps me out, then I can appreciate and enjoy that!
- If I have access to joy and pleasure in my body, then I can enjoy sex, caffene, alcohol, endorphins etc…as a complement and enhancement of that, rather than an addiction that I use as a compensation.
Three ‘mindful injunctions’ from this:
- Notice when you develop negative attachment or clinging in your life. Study the experience.
- Practice coming to the things you feel attracted to from the perspective of ‘I am (already) enough, I am (already) competent, and I have access to joy’.
- Emphasize appreciation and appropriate healthy enjoyment of the things you find attractive. Have fun and experience pleasure!
Related articles: Giving your heart whole
Cultivating positive non-attachment
The middle way to enjoying your life fully
Moving from attachment to care
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)
Saturday 26th May 10am-4.30pm – Mastering your Mind Through Mindfulness Meditation Day Retreat with Toby
Saturday, 9th June, 9.30am-1pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment
Saturday 16th June, 10-11.30am – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever
Saturday 23rd June, 10am-4.30pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology