Dear Integral Meditators,
You can Listen to my 5 minute talk and 10 minute meditation on Dynamic Calm HERE!
Toby
Category: Concentration
Dear Integral Meditators,
We all have complex challenges in our lives these days, how can meditation help you deal better with that? The article below offers one answer!
In the spirit of mindful simplicity,
Toby
Meditation – Centering around simplicity (to thrive on complexity)
Last night I was by myself in my apartment. It has been a busy month, and there are quite a number of ongoing projects that are quite complex and uncertain for me right now. If I had not been a meditator, then my mind may have latched onto any of these complex uncertainties, and started thinking them over. I may have experienced anxiety, doubts or worries, mixed in probably with some excitement and positivity. As it was I chose to let go of all the complexity for a while and just sit quietly, tuning into the solidity of my body, and allow my state of mind to become very simply and uncomplicated. The period of simplicity was refreshing. It allowed me to ‘catch up’ with any unprocessed emotions that were floating around, and enabled me to return to my thinking a while later with a sense of purpose and clarity.
This pattern of movement, from a complex state of mind to a simple, centered one is what distinguishes a meditator from a non-meditator, and it also illustrates much of the value that meditation offers.
Moving from complexity to complexity
For many of us the pattern of our consciousness is to move from one complex state to another. After we wake up we start thinking about work, or we have to get the kids ready for school. On the way to work or school we might start thinking about our romantic relationship, or lack of one, or the problem with the colleague we have at work. After sitting down at our desk we spend a while deliberating whether our work is the ‘right’ work for us? Are we wasting our life? From there we go into the practical challenges of the day….and so it goes on. Our mind moves from one state of complexity to another, to another. All of the complexity, and the associated emotions start to mix in with each other, and we feel almost perpetually anxious. Things feel out of control, unresolved. We solve one problem only for two more to take its place. Our ‘feeling’ that life is complex and/or out of control bleeds into all of our tasks, making us less effective at all of them.
Moving from complexity to simplicity, to complexity
For a meditator, the fundamental pattern of their consciousness changes. Like all of us, a meditator has complex life problems which s/he has to deal with. However, instead of moving from one complex problem to another, a meditator regularly returns their attention to a state of simplicity and non-complexity. So, for example I might go from thinking about the complex problem of ‘rasing my child right’ to a short period where my mind is simply focused on the pleasant feeling of relaxation in my body. From that state of simplicity, I might then think about the content of my next article, and write it. Then back to a state of simple body awareness. From there I might go onto an emotionally sensitive conversation with my neighbour about the volume of their music at night, then back to simplicity, and so it goes on…
A win-win between simplicity and complexity
One of the ideas with meditation is that, by returning regularly to a state of simplicity, your ability to deal effectively with complex problems improves. By returning to simplicity, you can deal with one complex problem separately from the others, rather than have emotions from your work life negatively influencing your personal life, and vice versa. Regularly returning to simplicity gives you a stable center from which you can meet the challenges of your life without feeling so intimidated and off balance.
You don’t have to wait until you sit down quietly to do some formal meditation, you can choose to cultivate a state of simplicity at any time. For example, while you have your morning coffee break, simply choose to come back to your body and the taste of the coffee. Become regularly simple to return to the complexity of your life with appetite and enthusiasm!
Related article: The benefits of simplicity
© 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 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
Tuesday 29, Wednesday 30th May – Wesak Meditation
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
Dear Integral Meditators,
You may have heard or even experienced how mindfulness makes you more productive and increases your potential for success, but how does this actually work in practice? The article below gives a practical example…
In the spirit of quiet power,
Toby
PS: Live in Singapore this week: The Tuesday & Wednesday evening meditation classes this week is the Spring Equinox Balancing & renewing Meditation, all welcome!
‘Going through the motions’ as a mindfulness tool
There are a lot of things that are very necessary and important for you to be successful in life that are not very exciting, motivating or interesting. There are many days when you wake up tired, moody and undermotivated. On such days, even things that normally would excite you or motivate you can seem really uninteresting.
Whether it’s a boring task, or your feeling under-motivated, it’s really important in terms of being successful that you to keep doing what is necessary, whether you feel like it or not! When we do something that we don’t want to do, we sometimes say ‘I’m just going through the motions’. There are three basic stages to mindfully ‘going through the motions’ to get things done:
1. See the benefit of doing the task or action – This morning I went through a long list of old scripts, to see which ones I might want to re-vamp into new meditations. I was tired and it was essentially mundane work, but it was necessary to do before doing the fun, creative work of re-writing new material from the old. The mundane task sets up the completion of the fun, creative task.
2. Accept you don’t feel like doing it – If I’m feeling tired, run down and insecure on an evening, I may not feel like responding politely and considerately to my partners questions, or dealing with my children’s bad moods. But if I’m intelligent and thoughtful, I know that even though I don’t feel like it, it is in my own, the other persons and the relationships best interests to make the effort. But I accept that I don’t feel like it. I’m going to do it despite the fact that I don’t feel like it!
3. Go through the motions anyway – At this stage I see the benefits of doing the task, I accept the fact that I don’t feel like doing it. Now, I need to go through the motions, just do it! It may feel mechanical and mundane, I may feel I am mentally ‘walking though treacle’, but I just do it. I start writing, I engage politely, I start exercising…I just get going, even if it feels fake. I go through the motions!
The benefits
There are a number of benefits to getting in the habit of going through the motions
You get it done, which feels good – As one writer said “I don’t like writing, but I like having written!” when you complete a task there is a feel good factor and a sense of satisfaction. Sometimes especially if you didn’t feel like doing it!
Sometimes you start to enjoy it and feel good – Once you start and overcome the initial inertia you can find yourself enjoying the activity. You didn’t feel like being polite to your partner, but now the conversation is chugging along very enjoyably!
Mundane stuff can be centering and grounding – If you are doing something boring, the repetition or predictability of the task can create a rhythm that is calming and centering. I noticed this recently painting walls in my apartment. The physical movement and repetition is deeply mind-calming and stress relieving!
You get sh#*t done that sets you up for success – when you habitually ‘go through the motions’ you become capable of doing and achieving things that you could not do if you relied on ‘feeling like it’. GTTM’s gives you the qualities of maturity, discipline and endurance that facilitates the long term fulfilment of deeply held goals and ambitions. You become capable of doing what the ordinary man or woman cannot do.
So, the next time you’re feeling tired, under motivated or despondent, simply set up the next task that you need to get done, and mindfully go through the motions!
Related article: On boredom, creativity & ‘mindful fishing’
© 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 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)
Starts Tuesday & Wednesday March 6-7 th – Inner Peace, Inner Power – An Introduction to Integral & Engaged Meditation Practice
March 20&21st – Spring Equinox Balancing & renewing Meditation
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Dear Integral Meditators,
The ‘beginners mind’ is a fundamental concept in mindfulness and meditation, particularly in Zen practice. The article below explores how you can go about combining your beginners mind with what I call ‘your experienced mind’, in order to create something that is better than both!
In the spirit of new beginnings and wise experience,
Toby
PS: Live in Singapore this week: The Tuesday & Wednesday evening meditation classes this week is focused on how you can play Positive Mindfulness Games, all are most welcome! … and final call for Mindful Resilience – Sustaining effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure through meditation and mindfulness on this Saturday the 17th!
Combining your beginners mind with your experienced mind
Your beginners mind (BM) is your ability to come to a task or experience with curiosity, as if for the first time. It may be an experience that you have had many times before, or you may literally be doing it for the first time. Either way your beginners mind is a learning mindset. It watches closely, absorbing as much information as it can. Think of a child intensely interested and involved in trying to ride a bike for the first time, and you get the idea. Your BM is happy to try and fail, try and fail, try and fail, until it succeeds.
Your beginners mind helps you to keep on learning as you get older, keep your enthusiasm for life, keep you positively humble. Your BM helps you learn new things faster, and prevents you taking familiar good things in your life for granted. Mentally it keeps you young, flexible and joyful.
The beginners mind should not be confused with simply being naïve, childish, or getting bored easily and so giving up on tasks before they are done or mastered!
Your experienced mind (EM) is the sum total of all your life experience up to this point. It knows a lot of things that are very useful in helping you navigate all the situations and choices that you have to go through each day. You might think of it as the wise old man or woman within you that compares what is happening in the moment to the past in order to see if there are any patterns, experiences or learning’s that you already have that can help you with what you are facing right now.
Your EM helps you to leverage on what you know already in order to prevent you making mistakes. It saves you time, helps avoid pain, and enjoy greater success with regard to what you are experiencing in the moment. It recognizes that in many situations we are not complete beginners, and that that is a very good thing!
Your experienced mind should not be confused with that part of you that becomes cynical, jaded, or that thinks it ‘knows it all’. It is intelligent, helpful and alert.
Integrating your beginners and your experienced mindsets
From an integral mindfulness point of view, we try to combine the best of our beginner’s mind and experienced mind together, so they are helping each other, and us to meet our life challenges more successfully. One simple way to start doing this is to ask two questions regarding any challenge you have, and want to extract practical learning from:
- If I view this situation as if for the first time, what do I see and observe?
- What is my past experience and learning telling me about this situation?
Sit with each question for a short while, and see what perspectives and insights come from both. You can then combine them into a wise approach to your experience that combines your ability to learn in the moment (beginners mind) with your ability to use past experience effectively (experienced mind).
A simple example
Forty minutes ago I sat down to write this article. I felt a bit nervous and unsure about the content, but my experienced mind (EM) told me that if I just started mapping it out and writing, I would find the idea translated into an article. I then set aside my EM and brought my BM to the task, seeing the content ‘as if for the first time, paying attention to the present, being curious and enthusiastic. Now here I am, at the end of my article, my work complete. It’s a simple example. How could you combine your beginners and experienced mind today in order to be successful in your chosen endeavor?
Related article: Appreciating the past to liberate the present
© 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 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)
Starts Tuesday & Wednesday March 6-7 th – Inner Peace, Inner Power – An Introduction to Integral & Engaged Meditation Practice
Saturday March 17th – Mindful Resilience – Sustaining effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure through meditation and mindfulness – A half day workshop
March 20&21st – Spring Equinox Balancing & renewing Meditation
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Dear Integral Meditators,
In this age of mental over stimulation, how can we find and enhance our peace of mind? The article below considers this question in the context of three qualities, permission, seduction and courage!
Beneath the article you’ll see I’ve placed some info about a product from I-Awake called ‘Sound Asleep‘. If you are looking for a drug-free way of improving your sleep, this is one alternative. I have been using it myself since it has come out, and getting some good results.
Live in Singapore this week: The Tuesday & Wednesday evening meditation classes will be on ‘Leaping like a Tiger – How to be Positively Mindful of your Self-Concept’ . And on Saturday we have the Deep dive meditation & Mindful Walking retreat.
In the spirit of permission, seduction and courage,
Toby
Combating Your Addiction to stimulation (Permission, Seduction, Courage)
If you ask anyone, “Would you like more calm and peace in your life?” the vast majority of us would say “Yes, or course!” With that in mind, what is the mindful gateway that can take us to that greater calm? One answer to this is boredom.
What do I mean by this? Well, in the information age our mind is mostly over stimulated. We are trying to digest too much information at any given time. Whenever our mind feels uncomfortable and insecure, the ‘go to’ activity now is to seek distraction, either on our phone, or on computers, or in the company of others. Our concentration span has become smaller, and our ability to do one thing at a time has decreased. It would be true to say that most of us are addicted to stimulation and as a result our minds are in a state of perpetual agitation. More than that we are addicted to that state of agitation and stimulation.
To move your body-mind into a state of calm, what actually needs to be done is to stop all the stimulation and ‘flipping’ of our attention, and let our mind focus on just one thing for an period of time. Peace and calm in this sense are a side effect of the act of concentrating on just one thing! Because your mind is addicted to change and stimulation, one of the big obstacles that we face to calm may be our mind complaining that it is bored. Focusing on one thing, for the first few minutes that we try to do it feels terribly boring. Our mind twitches around looking for the next thing to grab its attention and stimulate it. Only by patiently enduring, walking toward and through that sense of boredom will our mind start to settle. From this settling a sense of peace and calm will naturally start to emerge.
Walking through boredom with permission, seduction and courage
For this exercise you can take any suitable object as your object of focus. Here I’m going to suggest you take something predictable and boring like the breathing, perhaps just seeing if you can count from 1-5 breaths at a time without getting distracted, and repeating this on a loop for the duration of the meditation. Having chosen your object, I then suggest that you can use three states of mind to help you as you focus:
- Give yourself full permission to drop everything else and focus on your breathing (or chosen object). Make sure your mind understands that all emergencies are suspended for the duration of the session, it really can put down distractions. This way as it starts to ‘detox’ from its overstimulated state, it can relax into the boredom and discomfort, rather than turning away from it.
- Use seduction. Tell yourself and your mind how much you will enjoy it if you can really let go and rest at ease. Empathize with the overstimulated distraction-addict in you. Let her know that you are there to help and that beyond the boredom lies peace!
- Courage. As peace and calm begin to kick in, there can also be an enhanced awareness of all the fears, insecurities and anxieties that are behind your most compulsive distractions. You place courage in the center of your awareness as these fears kick in, enabling you to ‘hold your position’ long enough for the calm to emerge stably, and for your mind to settle!
So, there you go! A simple exercise for walking though the gateway of boredom to deeper peace and calm. And a way of gently combating our addiction to stimulation.
© 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
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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 February 3rd, 9.15am-12.15pm – Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat
February classes coming soon!
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Categories
Wrestling with your Dark Angels
Dear Integral Meditators,
What happens when your meditation practice becomes difficult or challenging due to your life circumstances, and how can you keep going? The article below explores this using the image of our having ‘Dark Angels’. Enjoy!
For those in Singapore, a final reminder for the Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat this Saturday January 13th, 2-5pm.
In the spirit of the journey,
Toby
Wrestling with your Dark Angels
When our life is pleasant, and our emotions are stable it can be easy and enjoyable to sustain a meditation practice. We experience for ourselves how it increases our peace of mind and pleasure. We enjoy the effects of greater focus in our work. We notice our body feeling lighter and more healthy.
For a lot of people however, when our life takes a turn for the worse, the temptation can be to stop meditating. This is because when we sit down to meditate, our difficult emotions confront us and we want to escape from them. Siting meditating becomes a place where, rather than feeling peaceful and blessed, we feel as if we are wrestling with a dark force within us that we would rather run from and forget about.
However, it is precisely at this stage, when we are “wrestling with our dark angels” that it can be most useful to keep meditating and keep on engaging with our challenging mind states. It is by being persistent in this way that we often have real insights into the deeper meaning of what we are going through, and the opportunity that it is offering us.
Wrestling to become stronger
At times like these it can be useful to change your expectations of your meditation practice. When you sit down, don’t expect greater peace of mind to come to you as you sit. Instead, expect to wrestle with what is in your mind, and for that to be the point of your practice. Understand that by wrestling with it you are developing new strength, skills and stamina that you would not be able to develop of your ‘dark angels’ were not arising and inviting you to wrestle with them.
Some examples:
Since the new year I have had certain additional financial responsibilities to take on, so I need to further develop my sources of income. This has become a dark angel for me. I experience the thoughts and feelings coming from these demands, I wrestle with the uncertainty, the insecurity, the fears. As I do so in a mindful way, I notice myself learning, becoming stronger, becoming more confident. I couldn’t grow in this way without this dark angel of mine.
Another example of a dark angel for me has been my desire for certainty and control in my relationships; Part of me want my partner and our daughters to be safe always, I want our futures to be fixed, guaranteed. Sometimes when my mind reflects upon this desire, all the uncertainties that we face, all the possible challenges, all the things that might go wrong rise up. I have to wrestle with these ‘dark angels’, I have to let them train me to be stronger, more compassionate, to change my idea of what I can take, and what I am capable of.
I’m calling these types of obstacles dark angels because, although they are ‘dark’, if we let them, they become our angels. They bless us by training us to develop qualities and strengths that, without them we could not develop. They are inviting us to become bigger and better versions of ourselves.
What are the dark angels in your life right now that you might like to start sitting down and wrestling with?
© 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 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 2nd & Wednesday 3rd January – 2018 New year releasing and inviting meditation
Saturday January 13th, 2-5pm – Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat
Saturday January 20th – 9.30am-1pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Dear Integral Meditators,
Integral mindfulness & meditation aims to create positive relationships between different elements of our mind, so that they can support each other and help us become more resilient. The article below uses safety/ease & fear/anxiety as a practical example.
In the spirit of resilience,
Toby
How to mindfully thrive with today’s stress (safety & fear)
The stress that we face today is a little bit of a paradox. On one level, we are safer, more affluent, healthier, and have more freedom than we have had at any other time at human history. On the other hand it seems like we are surrounded by multiple uncertainties, insecurities and tensions (for example the speed of the information age and technology, globalization, environmental degradation, global warming) than we have ever been before. The aim of the meditation below is to create a positive polarity between:
- On the one hand mindfully resting in the safety, security and ease of this moment and at the same time,
- Acknowledging our fears, stresses and anxieties, helping our body & mind to process that tension effectively.
The practice has two stages:
Stage 1: Resting in safety – Recognize in this moment that you are:
- Physically safe; there are no immanent threats to your wellbeing
- Psychologically safe; you are not being actively attacked by yourself or others
- If you want you can also bring ‘spiritual safety’ in here, which might simply involve recognizing a sense of something bigger than your individual self that is looking over and guiding your life, and that has some power to keep you safe/ help things work out for the best
As you breathe in, recognize this safety, as you breathe out let your body, heart and mind relax into this safety. Allow your mind to rest at ease and your body’s nervous system to switch over from ‘fight or flight’ mode to ‘rest and recuperation’ mode.
Stage 2: Processing fear, anxiety, stress – In this second stage, deliberately recall something that has been making you fearful or anxious in your life: An uncertainty, work overload, emotional tension in a relationship, anything that is causing fear for you, great or small. Sometimes it can be good to start with a small one and gradually build toward working with bigger ones.
As you bring the fear to mind, focus upon the feeling that it creates in the body, and the particular area of the body within which it is located. Then let your body’s natural or instinctive intelligence set up a pattern of breathing that helps it (the body) to process that fear or anxiety energy. As you breathe in acknowledge and feel the fear, as you breathe out let the fear energy come up and out of the body; let it go, let it flow. Use this method to become more comfortable acknowledging, feeling and releasing your fear.
You can alternate between these two practices in a single session. For example, you might spend 5minutes ‘resting in safety’, and then 5mins mindfully ‘processing fear’. Then you might repeat that for a few rounds. As originally stated, the idea here is to integrate our capacity to recognize safety and rest at ease in the moment with the ability to process fear mindfully and effectively, without ‘living in fear of our fear’.
© 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 April 18th&19th – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention – A six week course
Saturday 29th April, 10am-5pm & Monday 8th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop
Saturday May 6th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindfulness deep dive half day retreat
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Dear Integral Meditators,
Youthfulness and ‘staying young’ is something that a lot of people are concerned with for many different reasons. The article below explains how mindfulness can help us age slower, more gently and more gracefully.
In the spirit of beauty,
Toby
Mindfulness, beauty & slowing the effects of ageing
If you look at the ageing processes of those around you, people your age, some younger, some older, you will notice that they seem to age at different rates. Some look truly young for their age, whilst others seem literally physically older and worse for wear than they are.
What are you in control of?
As an ex-Buddhist monk I have spent and do spend quite a lot of time recognizing and accepting the inevitability of old age and death, as well as the things that accompany it. But I am also interested in how I can age well, age slower, and bring as much of my youthfulness into my ageing process as I can. One of the ways in which we can start to exert positive control over the way we age and the preservation of our youthfulness is through regular mindfulness. Here are a few reasons why:
Energy preservation – Mindfulness practice invites ergonomic use of our physical, emotional and mental energy. It invites us to be aware of how to not burn our life force up needlessly, and to set a pace of acting, thinking and being that is conducive to ageing slower.
Excess tension in the body leads to lines – what is the effect of that line that you habitually crease your forehead with when you stare at your phone? Extend it over 5, 10, 15, 20,40 years and you have permanent lines. When you practice mindfulness you create a habit of a relaxed face and body, breaking up that line-creating tension in your face!
Excess tension and stress leads to bad habits – If you are mentally and physically stressed this very easily leads to bad habits in our diet, lifestyle, sleep patterns and so on that accelerate our ageing. By practising mindfulness we reduce our negative stress and you’re youth depleting habits that go with it.
Preserving the life force through focus – Whenever we focus our mind, our energy gathers and dwells within our body, enhancing and preserving our life-force, encouraging its strength and resilience.
Not letting your life force seep away through distraction – A distracted mind dissipates our life-force, and accelerates the degenerative process of ageing. Just once allowing your attention to be distracted by your phone habits or compulsive thinking won’t kill you, but habitual and chronic distractions over a period of months and years really affects the way you age.
Attention builds natural positivity – When you are regularly making your attention relaxed, focused and present, you naturally start to feel more positive; its like pressing a ‘reset’ button in your body-mind, you come out feeling good. Do this over months and years, and you’re going to look seriously different as a result!
None of the above costs anything, just your own applied effort to building some mindfulness practice in your life!
Smiling and releasing – An anti-ageing mindfulness practice
Here is a really simple mindfulness practice for reducing the effects of age and preserving your natural beauty, youth, looks and vitality. It focuses on the face, but you can easily apply it to other areas of the body:
- Gather your attention onto your face, use the breathing if you like
- Become aware of the parts of your face that are tense or tired, for example around the eyes.
- Place your attention and awareness gently in the area around the eyes. Raise the corners of your mouth to a half-smile and send that smiling energy to the muscles around the eyes. Use this attention to the area around the eyes to focus your mind at the same time as releasing the muscular tension and encouraging healing life-force to flow to that part of the face. Hold for a while.
- Repeat with other areas of the face.
Wishing you health, beauty and long life!
© 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)
Saturday April 8th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindfulness deep dive half day retreat
Tuesday & Wednesday evenings from April 18th&19th – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention – A six week course
Saturday April 22nd, 2-3pm – ‘How to develop your capacity for inner sight, and seeing inner worlds’
Saturday 29th April, 10am-5pm & Monday 8th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology
Dear Integral Meditators,
How can being mindful of our boredom make us more creative and enhance the quality of our life? The article below considers the answer to this question in a practical way.
In the spirit of ‘mindful fishing’,
Toby
On boredom, creativity & ‘mindful fishing’
One of the problems of having distractions always available to us at hand which we all do now with handphones, is that we are not forced to encounter and learn to value the state of boredom. Why is boredom valuable? For the purposes of this article I want to suggest that boredom is a valuable state of mind as it often happens when we are transitioning from a functional, non-creative, information-consuming mental state to a creative, imaginative mind-state.
What do I mean by this? Let’s say I am coming home from work on an evening. My work tasks have been completed, and I find myself on the train or bus. My functional mind that I have been using at work now starts to get bored because there is nothing to do; it wants some information to consume, a distraction, it does not want to have to sit still and simply ‘be’ because it finds it uncomfortable.
At this point, what normally happens is we reach for our phone and distract ourselves by reading the online news, texting, playing a video game and so on. This re-engages our functional, doing mind, distracts us from our anxiety, and alleviates our boredom temporarily. It doesn’t necessarily make us happy per-se, it just alleviates the discomfort of the boredom.
But let’s say we are feeling bored on the train and we resist the temptation to distract ourselves, and just sit with the state of boredom, sinking into it patiently. What we find will then starts to happen is our mind will begin to shift from a consuming, non-creative state to a slightly deeper, creative, contemplative state. Put another way, instead of looking to be entertained or distracted, our mind will start coming up with its own creative content and entertainment, it starts to produce rather than consume.
Once this shift happens we naturally transition out of our ‘bored’ mind state, and begin to enjoy the relaxed, contemplative, imaginative state that our mind has now moved into, because of having patiently tolerated and moved through our boredom.
Basically, what I am advocating here is that when we find ourselves getting bored, instead of looking impulsively for distractions, we can mindfully relax into that state of boredom. This in turn will enable us to transition from a non-creative, functional mind state to a creative, contemplative, ‘self-entertaining’ state. In this creative state, we discover the part of us that is ‘the artist and philosopher’ in our life; that part of us that is self-directed and self-entertaining. This part of ourself enjoys thinking for him/herself, enjoys finding her own opinions, enjoys seeing things from new angles and thinking thoughts that have not occurred to us before.
Transitioning boredom though ‘mindful fishing’.
The next time you are in a place where there is nothing to ‘do’ (Eg: a commute home) and you sense your mind getting restless, bored and looking for a distraction, recognize the opportunity at hand to transition to a more creative mode. Relax into your boredom, perhaps imagine yourself fishing by a lake, just looking at the line and the water in front of you; relax into that state of ‘waiting for a bite from the fish’. In this case the ‘bite from the fish’ that you are looking for is the emergence of creative thoughts and ideas as you transition into your creative contemplative state. This happens not by trying hard, but relaxing into the boredom and allowing your mind to ‘change gears’ naturally, by itself, without being in a hurry.
So, the next time you start feeling bored instead of finding something to distract yourself, try a bit of mindful fishing!
© 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
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Dear Integral Meditators,
Is it possible to create your own, personal objects of meditation, your own ‘mindful vocabulary’? The article below explores how you can start doing exactly that, today!
In the spirit of creative awareness,
Toby
Five steps to creating your own meditation objects (Building your own mindful vocabulary)
For me meditation is not just about following a formal set of rules and processes like a robot, it is about being creative and building my own mindful language of living ‘meditation objects’ that I experience in a very personal way and that moves me, changing the way in which I experience my world. This article explains a simple method by which you can create your own meditation objects using a simple, five stage process, using compassion as an example:
Stage 1: Select and define your object – If I want to meditate on compassion I need to come up with a working definition. When doing this by yourself, you have full license to define it in your own way, but here is mine for the sake of this example: Compassion is a state of mind that arises when I experience care or love for others or myself, I understand the ways in which they or I suffer, and I develop the wish to alleviate that suffering, or at least express understanding and/or healthy empathy.
Stage 2: Contemplate in a freeform way around your object – Having defined it, now ask key questions about your experience of compassion such as:
- When have I personally experienced compassion in the past, what did it feel like?
- Which people I know, personally or from the public sphere really embody the energy of compassion for me?
- If I practised 10% more compassion today, what might change in my perception and experience?
Contemplate these questions one by one in a freeform way. Explore the ways in which you have experienced compassion, who inspires you in terms of their compassion, and what the benefits of compassion might be in terms of bringing it into your own life.
Stage 3: Focus in – Having contemplated in a general way, now select the most powerful experience of compassion that arises from stage 2; the most powerful memory, the most inspiring person, or the most motivational insight into the benefits of compassion. The defining characteristic of your selection is that it must move you personally, such that the emotional experience/energy of compassion arises in your body, it is not just an intellectual abstraction.
Stage 4: Sink into, absorb – Once you have decided on the particularly powerful object of compassion in stage 3, you then simply focus your attention gently upon your object, allowing the feeling and power of it to sink deeply into your awareness, creating a gentle but powerful impact. It can be nice at this stage to mount the feeling of compassion in the breathing; as you breathe in feel yourself connecting and experiencing the compassion, as you breathe out feel yourself sinking into and absorbing the experience.
Continue to explore in daily life – After the formal meditation, keep looking for ways to explore, feel and express compassion in your life. Flex the ‘compassionate muscle’ that you have started to build in your meditation as you go about your daily activities, looking for ways to integrate it into your way of going and being in the world.
So there you go, a five stage process for building your own meditation objects. What objects of meditation would you like to build into your own practice this week?
© 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
Integral Meditation Asia
Online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Live Workshops * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching * Meditation Technology