Dear Integral Meditators,
I’ve been editing a few articles from my archive, you can find them linked below. They date back to the first time I started doing mindful stress-transformation workshops, & this is a theme that ties them together.
Enjoy browsing, if you like the material, do check out the upcoming Stress-transformation meditation courses coming up this September.
In the spirit of the journey,
Toby
The Inner Sharks of the Mind – Staying on the tail
There is quite a famous nature documentary sequence where a seal is being attacked by a white shark. Having escaped from the shark’s jaws one time, rather than making a run (or swim) for it, the seal instead stays behind the sharks tail, following it very closely, until it gets close enough to the land to quickly leap on shore. Rather than running away or confronting the shark the seal dealt with the threat by staying close to the shark, watching and following it very closely…read full article
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Four essential stages to transforming negative stress into positive energy
This article starts with the assertion that stress in and of itself is a neutral energy that can be experienced in a positive or negative way, and that, to a large degree our experience of stress is defined by our approach to the stressful situation, rather than the situation itself. So what is positive and negative stress? Here is a working definition…read full article
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The double bind (& opportunity) of emotional repression
One of the reasons why people find it such a challenge to keep up a daily meditation practice is that, after a while it starts to reveal within them painful emotions that lie repressed, and that they would rather remain repressed and forgotten. The process of meditation itself causes a release of the “knots” in the mind that hold the pain that we have repressed, and this “untying” gives us access to enhanced self-awareness that frankly we might rather we did not have!
However, there is both a carrot and a stick that we can use to encourage us to face our painful emotions and inner stresses with courage…read full article
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The Way to be ok, always – liberation and the Witness-Self
Cultivating the experience of the witness-self means cultivating your experience of self as a detached observer of your mind, body and life experiences, as opposed to having your sense of self totally caught up in them.
The witness or observer self has three main qualities:
- It witnesses our life with detached awareness
- It has no physical or mental form, it is merely formless awareness
- It is the ultimate subject of our awareness, the irreducible ‘I’…read full article
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