Month: November 2025

Connecting to your magical self or inner Magician

Post author By Toby
Post date November 26, 2025

“Magic means being able to change one level of our reality by working on it from the level, or plane above it”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article is the first part of a re-work of an old article of mine on your ‘inner magician’, with part 2 next week.
If you enjoy it, then you might enjoy coming along to the Wednesday and Saturday bright shadow meditations, which are magical in the way described below.

Heads up for the last workshop of the year, Saturday 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop, also very much an ‘evolutionary magical’ focus here.

In the spirit of your inner magician,

Toby

Connecting to your magical self or inner Magician

I have recently been working on re-titling and writing notes for some artworks that I completed back in 2005. The first of these “The Magician” you can see in the image on this page. The image itself is meant as a way of visually connecting to our “Inner Magician”. The inner magician is that part of our inner self that is both creative and magical, and that if we harness it effectively has the power to change our daily life and experience for the better.

Who or what is our inner magician?

Here is a working definition:

“The higher expression of our inner magician is that part of self that is able to work with the higher, evolutionary or developmental expression of magic.”

Magic in this context means the following:

1) Being able to affect or change one level of our reality by working on it from the level, or plane of reality above it.
2) Engaging our creative imagination vividly and consciously to “sculpt” our experience of any given situation for the better.
3) Not being content to let good ideas remain in our head, but actively finding ways of expressing those ideas concretely in our daily life.

Let’s take a closer look at these three aspects of magic:

1) Being able to affect or change one level of our reality by working on it from the level or plane of reality above it.
In its simplest terms this means that you use your mental or thought-based mind to change your physical and emotional reality for the better, and you use your spiritual or intuitive mind (which operates on a level beyond thought) to change your thinking patterns for the better.

A simple example might be this:

If I experience physical pain because of an injury or illness I use my thinking mind to be constructive, telling myself that the pain won’t last forever, and encouraging myself to practice patience. This is using my thoughts to positively affect my physical reality.
If I find myself having repetitive dissonant thoughts about my pain and illness, then I can temporarily suspend my thinking (this is really where meditation comes into the picture) and move into a state of mind beyond thought. Doing this enables me to release the momentum of all the imbalanced thoughts that I was having, so that my mind becomes a “clean slate” so to speak which I can then replace the cycle of ‘negative’ thoughts with more appropriate and affirmative ones.

So, thinking mind works magic on physical world and emotions, spiritual/non-conceptual mind works to affect and control the thinking mind.

Looking at this example, you might think that this is simply working skillfully and creatively with your mind and consciousness to affect your bodily experience, but in terms of the way we are talking about it, that is exactly what a large part of functional magic is!

I’ll be posting a part 2 of this article next week, or if you like you can read the full original article here.

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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 classes & workshops

Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 15th November, 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Saturday 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

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Squares & triangles – Mindful strengths building

Post author By Toby
Post date November 22, 2025

“Once you know how to breathe in squares and triangles, you can create your own mindful flow practices to build the qualities & capacities that you wish”

Dear Toby,

This week’s article looks at a practice I have evolved over the years, designed to enable creativity within a basic, consistent structure. Enjoy!

Last call for this Saturday 22nd Nov, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

In the spirit of building strength,

Toby

Squares and triangles – Mindful strengths building

Square and triangular breathing, the basic concepts

Square and triangular breathing are methods where you combine your inhalation and exhalation with short pauses. The practice of pausing your breath in itself offers benefits such as:

calming the nervous system, improving focus, and enhancing emotional regulation
increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood, which reduces the excitability of the amygdala (the brain’s fear center) and promotes a sense of calm
greater control over the breathing process, which can lead to increased mental clarity, resilience, and better decision-making

Square breathing is where we place a short pause both at the top and the bottom of the breath. A well-known form of this is called box-breathing where you breathe in, pause, breathe out and pause at the bottom of the exhalation, each for a count of four, hence ‘breathing in a box’, or square.

With triangular breathing there is just one pause, at the bottom of the breath, hence three stages or ‘sides’ like a triangle.

To use these breathing forms for strengths building, we simply combine the breathing with qualities, or states of mind to build them as we breathe. For example in my Wednesday class last week we began by practising breathing in a square in the following manner to cultivate mindful flow and presence:

Breathing in, gathering and focusing our energy in our body
Pause, being focused and present
Breathing out, relaxing our body, relaxing into the present moment
Pause, holding a state of relaxed presence

We practiced with sets of three square breaths like this, with pauses in between just to enjoy the sense of being in state of focused, relaxed presence. Focused, relaxed presence are foundational strengths for building competence in meditation and mindfulness. In this practice we used square breathing to build these strengths systematically.

In the Saturday class last week, we opened with a triangular breathing form, where:

As we breathed in, we opened to a state of adventurousness
Breathing out, dropping into a state of calm
Pausing at the bottom of the breath, relaxing in a state of calm adventurousness

Adventurousness and calm are qualities we can use to meet our challenges and opportunities in such a way that we enjoy them where possible, and also navigate them with calm strength. The triangular breathing provides a structure to cultivate these qualities deliberately in a structured way.

Once you know how to breathe in squares and triangles, you can create your own mindful flow practices to build the qualities and capacities that you wish to develop in our life and work. I like to combine qualities together into polarities that balance and complement each other. From the above examples you can see:

Relaxed and focused
Adventurous calm

There are many, many variations that I have used over the years:

Engaged detachment
Humble self-assertion
Gentle courage
Serious lightness

And so on…

The great thing about meditating with squares and triangles is that you have one technique, with many variations. So, you can create variety and stimulation in your practice, whilst at the same time keeping it basically consistent and ‘the same’.

Related reading:
Using mindful flow to train in strengths-building
Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)
Meditation wings – Five foundational meditation polarities

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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 classes & workshops

Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 15th November, 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Saturday 13th December, 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindful strengths building, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Shadow meditation

Re-working the story you tell yourself (about yourself)

Post author By Toby
Post date November 10, 2025

“What of you could re-model the story of your life into one you look forward to engaging with, that energises both your experience of the moment, & your visions for the future?”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article is something of a sequel to last week’s on creativity with our self-concept. What they both offer are creative ways of using mindful observation & imagination to live a fuller, more dynamic & vibrant life.
If you enjoy the articles, then do have a look at the Bright shadow weekday & Saturday series, which explore this type of creative mindfulness extensively. They can be participated in in-person, online or via the recordings.

In the spirit of mindful storytelling,

Toby

Re-working the story you tell yourself (about yourself)

Your story

The story you tell yourself about you is one that emerges substantially from your self-concept, or your idea of who you are. Here is a quote from a past article of mine on ‘the story’:

“The heavy bag of our story: For many of us our ‘story’, our past, our history is something that we are carrying around with us all the time. Unless we are careful it can end up like a heavy bag that we never put down, sapping our energy. It can define what we believe we are capable of; filling out mind with what could have been, what we did wrong, what we wish we could change and so on…”

How your story turns up in your daily life

Often our story doesn’t turn up as a literal voice in our head narrating away. Most often it turns up more subtly in our body and daily actions. It turns up as instinctive feelings and emotions arising in response to the events of the day. If you listen to yourself talking to people, you will hear it in the things that you say, perhaps more importantly in the tone of voice that you use, and the body language that you adopt when saying it. So, what I am saying here is that, although our story is active within us all the time, mostly it turns up implicitly and unconsciously, without our being fully aware of it.

Listening to and observing your story

If you can start picking up cues about your story from your feelings, behavioral reactions and so forth, you can then start to find out the ‘narratives’ behind them. For example, if I notice that often avoid or shy away from confrontations, I can be curious about why that is. I can then enquire within myself about why that is. Listening to the responses I might get answers such as:

“I don’t like being disapproved of, it reminds me of being powerless in the face of stern adults when I was a child”
“I already often find life overwhelming, to confront would only make things worse”
“I hate feeling disliked and judged by others, to confront would risk experiencing this”
I’m afraid that I will be violent if I really express how I feel in a confrontational situation

Simply becoming aware of, accepting, and observing this inner narrative, making it into an object, rather than a subject of awareness can be a powerful step in itself toward becoming free from it.

Putting it down

Having recognised it and observed this aspect of our story, we can than practice dropping it for periods of time. We do this simply by entering into the present moment without the burden of our story, experiencing the freedom of becoming a person without a story, a man or woman of no rank.

Re-telling it

Putting your story down also gives you a space where you can introduce a new story, a new narrative that liberates you from the prison or limitations of the old one. It opens doors rather than closes them. For example, in the case of confrontation, you can look for people who are good with confrontation and model them in your approach. You can rework the wording of your narrative

“Disapproval from others isn’t such a big deal, in fact sometimes it can be a good sign…”
“Confrontations in the present are not linked to my past childhood experiences. I can choose a new way of asserting myself as an adult”
“I can use this experience to build confidence around non-violent ways to deal with confronters and bullies”

And so on…

Being it

The final stage then is to practice doing it and embodying your new story in daily life. By doing so you can gradually go about re-modelling the story of your life into one that you look forward to engaging with each day, and that energises both your experience of the moment, and your visions for the future.

Related reading: Change your idea, change yourself – (Five stages to) Working creatively with your self-concept
Mindfully dropping (and picking up) your story
Making Objects of Your Subjects

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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 classes & workshops

Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Starts Tuesday 11^th & 12^th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, shadow, shadow mindfulness, your story

Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Presence and being present Shadow meditation Stress Transformation

Change your idea, change yourself – Working creatively with your self-concept

Post author By Toby
Post date November 5, 2025

“We can learn to relate creatively to our self-concept in a way that opens doors, rather than closes them. The older we get, the more important this creative capacity becomes”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article explores a creative & psycho-dynamic meditation form. The stages of it form the basis of my upcoming weekday & Saturday series on ‘how to work with your bright shadow’. If you enjoy the article, then do consider attending one program, or even both of them!

In the spirit of opening to possibilities,

Toby

Change your idea, change yourself – (Five stages to) Working creatively with your self-concept

By the time you get to adulthood, your dominant sense of self, at least for most people, is an idea. This idea is called your ‘self-concept.’ It is a dynamic collection of conditioned beliefs, assimilated past experiences, habitual emotional states, absorbed philosophies, learned behaviour and so on that you identify as ‘me’.

“I am an extrovert”/introvert
“I am an Asian/European/African and therefore I can/can’t….”
“I’m an optimist/pessimist”
“I am good at/not good at…”

You get the idea. Your self-concept is just an idea of who you are, but it is an idea that you are completely or at least very closely identified with. It defines most of how you turn up, how you behave and what you feel yourself to be capable of.
Furthermore, your self-concept has two parts, conscious and unconscious. The conscious part of yourself concept is your self-image. The unconscious part is the part that is not acceptable to your self-image, and that you repress and reject. Any part of your self-concept that you don’t like or feel threatened by, you can push into your unconscious, where it becomes a part of your shadow, or dis-owned self.

What I outline below is a way of working creatively with your self-concept, to open possibilities, rather than close them. By doing so it becomes possible to relate to our idea of ourself in a way that opens doors, rather than closes them particularly, but not only as we find ourselves getting older.

For this work, it is a good idea to take a specific area of your life and self-concept, bearing it in mind as you work your way though the five stages below…

Step one, observing – noticing the narrative, conceptual and non-conceptual

Firstly, take the position of the observer in your field of awareness, and practice, observing, listening to and accepting this part of your self-concept, and your close identification with it. For example, if you are taking your idea of self-as-parent:

Notice the commentary within you about what a parent should or shouldn’t be, and how you are measuring up
Observe the emotional range coming up within you, and your judgements about those emotions
Accept whatever arises as fully as you can

At this stage I find working on accepting and observing with the qualities of curiosity, courage and care to be particularly useful.

Step two, dis-identifying – dropping the labels, badges, and roles

Secondly, practice putting down, or dis-identifying with all the labels, roles and badges that are involved in this part or aspect of your self-concept. Practice becoming a man or woman. A person of no-rank, no position in life. Practice just being a being, and enjoying the freedom of that space.

Step three, imagining – exploring new ideas of self-in-role

From your position as a person of no-rank, explore new ideas, and possibilities of yourself in the role you are working on (parenting, romantic partner, professional, etc…). Connect to new ideas and possibilities that you might integrate into this area of yourself in this role.

Step four encountering – meeting and communicating with your new self

Visualize the self that you have imagined in step three as a person in front of you. S/he looks very much like you, but embodies the qualities that you have been imagining. As you see this person in front of you, invite a communication. Ask them a question such as:

What are you asking of me right now?
How can I integrate you more fully into my daily life?
What is your perspective on this situation/problem that I am facing right now??

Have a chat and see what transpires!

Step five role-playing – developing yourself in your new role

Imagine the ‘self’ in front of you steps toward you. Imagine you step toward them. Another step and you step into each other, and merge. Experience yourself AS this newly imagined self, BE them.

Once you have finished the meditation, work on role-playing this new self into your daily life. Meet your challenges AS them, particularly with regard to the specific roles you identified in step 2 above.

Related articles: Why we may repress our strengths – six reasons
The bright shadow, the one who can do what you cannot do

© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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