Category: Integral Awareness

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Four tree’s rooted under the sky – six dimensions of presence

“To practise meditative presence is to practise being present to our world, to be ‘where we are’, rather than lost somewhere else”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article describes basic meditative presence in a six-dimensional manner, done well it provides a stable basis for all other forms of meditation, and will enable greater presence in all areas of your life!
 
Up until Monday October 5th I have a special offer of 15% off my Life-fullness life coaching and Mindful Self-Knowledge Programs.
 
This week’s Wednesday & Saturday meditation classes are on the subject of developing playfulness, and learning to work with the ‘inner sea snakes of your mind'(!)
 
In the spirit of presence,

Toby

Four tree’s rooted under the sky – six dimensions of presence
 
The two dimensions of meditative presence
 
I have spoken in other articles about basic meditative presence being like sitting between two trees. To sit in meditation means to have an object of awareness anchoring us to the present moment, such as the body and breathing. If you then imagine you are sat between two trees, one on the left, one on the right:

  • If you go beyond the left tree, that is like you being ‘lost in thought’, loosing track of the present moment by being distracted by thoughts
  • If you go beyond the right tree, that is like falling asleep

So, your basic aim in meditation is to hold this position between the two trees; anchored to the present moment by your object of meditation, not lost in thought, not falling asleep.
Notice that:

  • You can be aware of thoughts without being lost in them
  • You can be feeling sleepy without actually falling asleep

You can relax in the present moment, feeling it to be a relatively broad, forgiving space to center in!

From two to four – the present moment in time

Now imagine you have two more trees, one in front of you, and one behind you. As before, anchoring your presence in the present moment around body and breathing, you hold your position behind the front & back trees.

  • If you go beyond the tree behind you, that is like living in the past
  • If you go past the tree in front of you, that is like getting lost in the future

This then gives you the present moment in time, and a way to keep oriented there. Again, notice that:

  • You can have thoughts about the past & future without being lost in them
  • It’s only when they completely draw your attention away from the present moment that you lose your meditative presence

From four to six – not lost in materialism, not lost in spirit

So, you now have four trees around you, four basic aspects of meditative presence. From here we can add two further dimensions.

As you sit between your four trees, be aware of Mother Earth beneath you, and the sky and stars above you (you can put the sun of the moon in there too if you like!). Feel yourself to be balanced between your nature as a material, physical being, and a spiritual being.

  • If you sink too far into the earth, this is like being ‘lost in materialism’
  • If you start floating too far up into the sky, this is like being ‘lost in the abstraction or etherial-ism of spirit


As you sit with your body and breathing, you do so with balanced presence, poised between the earth & sky.
 
Inhabiting your mandala fully
 
This image then gives you your six basic dimensions of meditative presence. Actually, these six directions around you, with you present in the center, give you your basic mandala, world, or ‘Universe’. Each of us inhabits a space with ourself at the center, with a direction above, a direction below, a left and right, an in front and a behind. Practising meditative presence is practising being present to our world, to be ‘where we are’, rather than lost somewhere else.
 
Any other meditation can fit in this space
 
You can use the simple description and exercise above to build your basic meditative presence. Once you are familiar with it, you can use any object of awareness to stay present in the six directions. For example, you can use it to do visualization, mantra recitation, therapeutic work, any type of meditative activity.
Also, and possible most importantly, you can use it as a way of orienting yourself to be more present in your daily activities, to be present to your life, not missing it by spending most of your time distracted and ‘somewhere else.’
 
Related reading: The foundational pillars or ‘goal-posts’ of meditative presence
Your basic mandala of presence – The four trees

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

Live workshops & online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

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Awareness and insight Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Accelerating your process of mastery (& special offer on Life-fullness Life coaching)

“Sentence-completion practice is a bit like the anti-AI, in that it is designed to stimulate & enhance your active intelligence & capability, rather than reduce it by handing it over to an LLM”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

In this week’s article I describe a way of working that I have been using for many years that is extremely time-effective and accelerates any area that you are trying to achieve mastery in.
It is also a bit like the anti-AI, in that it is designed to stimulate and enhance your active intelligence and capability, rather than reduce it by handing it over to an LLM.
 
Next couple of week’s there is a special offer of 15% off my Life-fullness life coaching and Mindful Self-Knowledge Programs.
 
This week’s Wednesday & Saturday meditation classes are the  Autumn equinox balancing & renewing meditation. It’s an opportunity to digest & recalibrate as we move into the final quarter of 2026!
 
In the spirit of mastery,

Toby
 


Up until September 9th – Special offer on Toby’s Life-fullness life coaching and Mindful Self-Knowledge Programs
 
Life-Fullness Integral Coaching Program (LICP) is an integral form of 1:1 coaching with Toby that you can sign up for periods of six-months or three-months at a time. It is mindfulness oriented personal coaching that focuses upon the development of three R’s:

  • Re-generate your creative self and curiosity in life
  • Re-connect to deeper levels of motivation and meaning within yourself, your relationships and your career
  • Re-awakening to a sense of your own inner confidence, energy and personal power


Article: Sentence completion – accelerating your process of mastery
 
The process of mastery
 
In his book ‘Mastery’ George Leonard describes the process of becoming a master at anything a journey of peaks and plateaus.

  • The peaks are periods where we make rapid progress, like climbing up the steep part of a mountain ascent, we rise fast, and the feeling is exhilarating. These ‘peaks’ are then usually followed by regressions or descents, where we go back to near the level we were at before we ‘peaked’
  • The plateaus are the longer, ‘flatter’ extended periods after a peak/regression where we practise repeatedly, often with little visible progress, in order to gradually stabilize the previous ‘peak learnings’

In this process, most of the time is spent on the plateau, which involves steady, patient persistence, and the ability to not feel discouraged by the seeming lack of progress. Life on the plateau is very ‘process oriented’, getting gradually, incrementally better. It’s kind of the opposite of a ‘quick fix-immediate result’ mentality, which is why mastering anything is difficult, and most people give up, even though they are capable of it, if they had the persistence.
 
Sentence completion – Helping your mind self-organize
 
One of the things I have found to help my process of mastery is sentence completion. It is a technique I came across in around 2012 in Nathaniel Branden’s work on self-esteem. I order to work on and ‘master’ the creation of self-esteem, he created exercises where you create a sentence stem, and then complete it in 8-10 different ways, as quickly as possible. The effect of this is to invite our conscious and unconscious minds to combine together to develop awareness, insight and integrations around the subject of investigation. In other words, it helps your mind to self-organize, and integrate around the topic, which then increases the overall rate of your subject mastery.
Sentence-completion is an activity that I encourage clients to do quite often in my Life-fullness life coaching, as well as on my Mindful Self-Knowledge Program, as a way of integrating the learning from the sessions.
It is also something that I do for myself. I spent a long-time doing sentence completion around self-esteem mastery, which was Nathaniel Branden main focus, which I thoroughly recommend. Now I do it in any area of my own life where I am trying to master an activity or subject.
For example, I currently have sentence completion processes set up around:

  • My effectiveness in daily-living
  • My business activities
  • My squash game

By doing active sentence completion around these activities, I find that my progress accelerates, and I grow faster. Here are two examples of the first domain, effectiveness in daily living:
 
Example 1:
 
Sentence stem: If I want to stay focused & not procrastinate –
 
Completions:

  1. I can build capacity for humour
  2. I can keep smiling at the stress
  3. I can persist at the list within the list
  4. I can stand & stretch between work stints
  5. I can Relax into the stress & direct it
  6. I can practice witnessing around ‘the drama’
  7. I can stay motivated by my daughters
  8. I can combine the how with the why as motivation
  9. When things get crazy it can all be myself, being the world, doing itself
  10. I can get my inner family to support each other and marshal their resources

 
Example 2:
 
Sentence stem: If I choose the path of skillful acceptance today –
 

  1. I will enhance my effortless-effort
  2. I won’t pretend that I am somewhere that I am not
  3. I will not be overwhelmed by being overwhelmed
  4. I will take the time to be present & aware
  5. I may be more patient
  6. If I am I need of support, I will be better able to extend it to myself
  7. I will be more inwardly coherent
  8. My creative spirit will be in good hands
  9. I won’t feel alone
  10. My ego will be quieter & more singular

 
So, you can see it is quite a simple, time effective way of stimulating insights and helping your mind to self-organize around an activity. The beauty is that once you have done the daily sentence completion, the integration kind of happens ‘by itself’ as a result of the completions.
 
What areas of your life could you accelerate your process of mastery around with sentence completion today?
 
Related reading: Re-discovering joy in your thinking – Five aspects of mindful mental mastery

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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 
 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

Live workshops & online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

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A Mind of Ease Concentration Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Stress Transformation

Does meditation always make things better?

“Meditative presence & mindful-flow are what you might call perineal life pre-skills. The better you are at them the more ways you find to be effective & content amidst a wide range of circumstances”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article explores meditation as a life-skill, as opposed to a formal practice. It articulates why, if you understand this, the danger of your meditation becoming imbalanced in any way reduces substantially.

This week sees the start on Saturday of the  Meditations for transforming negativity and stress into energy, positivity & empowerment deep-dive sessions. All welcome, particpation can be doen in person, on line or via recording.

In the spirit of flowing presence,

Toby


Article: Does meditation always make things better?
 
I recently received an article from a college entitled Meditation can help and it can harm. This is what happens when it goes wrong. It legitimately points out that not everyone who tries meditation benefits from it, and that sometimes meditation can ‘make things worse’ in the sense of creating imbalances, or increasing things like anxiety. What I want to do in this article is:

  • Offer some pointers around what meditation and mindfulness are in the broadest sense
  • Propose that, done in balance, these three fundamental aspects of meditation will be helpful to anyone
  • And give an example from my own experience 

Meditation is:
 
So then, speaking in broad, overarching definitions, the basic meditation state is:
 
“Not being lost in thought, not falling asleep, present to an object of awareness in the moment, and aware that you are aware of it”
 
This definition is basically a fancy way of saying that meditation is practising being present! When you are meditating you grow capacity high quality presence. Broadly speaking, the greater your capacity for presence and being present is, the more effective you will be in life. The reason for this is that good quality presence releases what I would call your natural intelligence in that moment. This facilitates better self-regulation, awareness, decision-making and so forth.
 
Mindfulness is:
 
Broadly speaking (again) mindfulness is attention training. In order to be present, you need to be able to pay attention well. Good quality mindful attention has two aspects, focus and flow.
 
There are essentially two extremes that you can go to with mindful attention:

  • You can try and focus too hard which means the mind can’t settle
  • You can relax too much, and forget what you are trying to pay attention to

Like meditation presence, building mindful flow, i.e. balanced, good quality, sustainable attention will generally only help you in your life. It will help you with being present, with basic reality orientation, with sustainable effort and so on…the better you are at it, the more capable and resilient you will be in the face of life challenges.
 
Another definition of meditation:
 
“Meditation means to focus our attention on an object that, when we contemplate it, causes our mind to become positive, calm and/or happy, in a balanced way”
 
This is a definition that I was taught in my Tibetan Buddhist days, back in the 90’s. In this sense, meditation is simply the art of remaining oriented in a positive manner as life happens to you. Like the first two definitions, the better you are at the ‘positive mindfulness game’ of meditation, the better things will get.
 
A personal reflection:
 
When I left my life as a monk in 2001, I was in many ways under a lot of stress:

  • I had left an old familiar life
  • I was in a foreign country with no job, so a lot of uncertainty
  • I was quite isolated
  • There was a lot of emotional trauma I was working thru
  • I had a high learning curve from starting my own business

 
I was also quite burned out from having overtrained in formal meditation (over quite a long period of time), so doing a lot of formal, sitting meditation was not that helpful for me. However, the fundamental meditation/mindfulness skills of:

  • Being present in a relaxed, focused manner
  • Orienting and centering around positive objects of awareness

 
Was always fundamentally helpful to me during that time. The fundamentals of meditation and mindfulness are what you might call perineal life pre-skills. The better you are at them the more effective you are, and the more ways you find to be content amidst a wide range of circumstances.
 
One final point, understood in the above manner, we can start to understand that meditation is a creative activity, not a narrow, rigid set of parameters. Without wanting to fall into a cliché, it’s a way of life!
 
Listen to Toby’s meditations on Presence & flow, as well as mindful positivity.
 
Related reading: The foundational pillars or goal-poste of meditative presence
Your basic mindful flow state
Meditation – Life as a positive mindfulness game

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

Live workshops & online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

Categories
Enlightened Flow Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present Stress Transformation

Patient, or positively impatient?

“Is now the time to be patient and accepting, or is it time to rattle the cage, shake the tree and be positively impatient?”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article focuses on a theme that I have found very real and useful in a number of my coaching sessions with clients over the past few weeks.

Making the distinction between patience and positive impatience releases the potential for greater balance and harmony in our life, even when under duress! 

The 15minutes a week Stress-Transformation online program starts next Monday!
It is available at a 50% discount if you get it with either the Wednesday class, Saturday Deep-dive or workshop versions of the stress-transfromation programs (which can be done live, online or via recording). 

In the spirit of patient impatience,

Toby


Article: Patient, or positively impatient?
 
Patience, and patient acceptance are major life-skills that, when applied effectively give us more peace of mind, help us reduce unnecessary energy wastage, and increase our effectiveness in the face of challenges.
Patient acceptance can be contrasted with impatience, pushing too hard and at the wrong time, in a way that is often impulsive and not thought out.
 
However, the patience described above also has a ‘lower expression’ characterized by:

  • Accepting things that we should not/ don’t have to accept, for example out of fear and insecurity
  • Going with the flow of a situation that it may be better not to tolerate or stay in
  • Not recognizing that things have changed, and what was appropriate to have been accepting is now something to be appropriately intolerant to

 
Similarly, the imbalanced impatience described above also has a place or context where it becomes ‘positive impatience’. We can use the energy of positive impatience to change things that it is time we changed, break out of patterns that it is time we broke out of.
 
Micro and macro expressions of this balance
 
The patience/positive impatience balance can play itself out on both a larger scale and a more short-term daily/hourly manner.
On a larger time-scale for example, this year I have decided to make certain changes to my work-life where I am really trying to be intolerant to certain older patterns that served me in the past, but if they persist, they are I danger of limiting my progress. Towards these I am applying ‘positive impatience’ or ‘balanced intolerance’. At the same time, I have also noticed that I am feeling tired and impatient with certain of my work practices, but I feel the time to change these or give them up is not yet here. So, in regard to these, I am adopting an attitude of patience and acceptance, relaxing into the flow of them rather than agitating for change.

On a smaller, micro timescale, today I am mixing up family activities, work and household tasks. There are times where I am itching to get on with work, where I will need to accept that urge and then let it go, being accepting that now is not the time. At other times in the day, I may be feeling lethargic or avoidant regarding work but, because it is the right time, I need to be positively impatient and push through the resistance, utilizing my positive impatience. On a daily basis I might oscillate several times between the two, moving from acceptance to impatience as the circumstances demand, or as I see fit.
 
So then, a good question to ask yourself in situations that you face is:
“Is now the time to be patient and accepting, or is it time to rattle the cage, shake the tree and be positively impatient?”
 
 
Related article: Are You Going With the Flow or Just Drifting With the Current?

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

Live workshops & online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

Categories
A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation

The Way to be ok, always – liberation and the Witness-Self

“Skilful witnessing creates an increasing sense of ever-present calm even when under multiple forms of stress. We find ourself increasingly “always ok”, nothing we can’t handle”

Dear Integral Meditators,

 
This week’s article looks at the relationship between witnessing practice & your fundamental sense of freedom. It’s a slighly edited verson of something I wrote in 2013, witnessing practice is something that just gets deeper & better over time. It was working well for me in 2013, but the experience I have now 14 years later is undoubtedly richer & better!

This week’s chakras & non-duality meditation sessions: Wednesday @ 7.30pm SG time,  at 5.30pm, Saturday afternoon, & noon at Space2B. The subject will be ‘Third chakra – Confidence, power, union with mind’.

Heads up for the new series’ for September are out, The weekday & Saturday ‘ Meditations for transforming negativity & stress into energy, positivity & empowerment sessions. 

In the spirit of liberation, 

Toby


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:

  1. It witnesses our life with detached awareness
  2. It has no physical or mental form, it is merely formless awareness
  3. It is the ultimate subject of our awareness, the irreducible ‘I’

 
The path to liberation from pain and suffering has an enormous amount to do with the cultivation of the witness self.
 
To the extent that we are able to detach (not dissociate) ourself from our pain we can control it. If we can detach ourself from our pleasure we can engage it without clinging to it and thus avoid the experience of pain that happens when we are separated from that pleasure.
 
In meditation we cultivate and strengthen the witness self, but it is important to understand that the witness self is present with and available to us right now, whatever stage of development we are at. Hee are two short stories that illustrate this in a slightly funny way:
 
As a fifteen year old at school I had a friend the same age (let’s call him Tony) who went out with a seventeen year old girl. She left Tony for an older boy who was a mutual friend. Tony subsequently told me the story of how he had confronted the older boy, shouting and screaming at him in an emotional outburst. He then told me, looking slightly sheepish about how he had felt that there was a part of him watching the whole episode (including himself screaming and shouting) that was not upset at all, but felt detached and calm. That “watcher” that he had experienced amidst his emotional outburst was his witness self.
Later I had a female friend at collage who similarly discovered that her boyfriend had been having an affair with another woman whilst away at university. Again with a similar sense of sheepish confusion she described to me how she had shouted and screamed at her boyfriend whilst simultaneously feeling that a part of her was observing the situation with total calm and detachment. Like my friend Tony, my female friend had found herself aware of her witness self at the same time as she experienced, and was identified with, her emotional turmoil.
 
So, with meditation we cultivate awareness of this witness self, making it increasingly “front and center” of our daily experience, finding an increasing sense of ever-present calm even when under multiple forms of stress. We find ourself increasingly “always ok”, nothing we can’t handle.
 
Reading this some people may think that cultivating the witness self may make us cold, uncaring, emotionally mono-syllabic and so on. The reality is however that when practised in an integrated, balanced way, centring our awareness in the witness increases our capacity to enjoy deeper and more positively a wider range of emotion, pleasure, happiness and wellbeing. You could say that it liberates us to a whole new level of the human experience. We leap in and out of our roles with playful freedom.
 
A final point; being centred in the witness self also liberates us substantially from the fear of making mistakes, looking foolish, taking an appropriate chance. So, whilst finding an experience of liberation through the detachment of the witness, we concurrently find a new way of engaging in our world and human experience more freely and dynamically.
 
Related reading: Witnessing – Being That Which is Not


© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

Live workshops & online Courses * 1:1 Coaching * Books * Corporate Mindfulness Training *Life-Coaching *  Meditation Technology

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A Mind of Ease Biographical Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present Videos

Mindfulness for Traders: Flow State, Emotional Control & Life Mastery

Dear Integral Meditators, 

Last week I was interviewed by Simon Ree from the Tao Of Trading to give a talk to his community on ‘Mindfulness for Traders: Flow State, Emotional Control & Life Mastery.’

It was a pleasure to be on the show, I’ve done a lot of coaching with traders over the years, & this video captures some major aspects of the sort of mindful processes I go through with them in the sessions.
 
Watch Mindfulness for Traders: Flow State, Emotional Control & Life Mastery

Even if you are not particularly interested in trading, there are a lot of mindful life-themes that you might enjoy. The section beneath the video gives you the option to just click on the segments you are interested in!
 
Here is a summary of the key subjects of the talk, with added links to related articles of mine.
 
Key principles covered include:

The McLaren Problem: why reaching your financial goals doesn’t automatically mean peace of mind, and the psychological work most successful traders never anticipated.
Related article: Wanting what you like, or liking what happens?

The 4 Trees Exercise: a 3-minute practice to anchor yourself in the present moment before you trade. The simplest pre-trade ritual I’ve seen.
Related article: Sitting between the four trees – your basic mandala of presence

The Repression Fallacy: why willpower alone cannot eliminate fear and greed. Suppressed emotions don’t disappear. They re-emerge during your worst trades. His words, not mine.
Related article: Mindfulness, emotions & your MRVA’s (Mass rapid value assessments)

Wu Wei (Non-Doing): when you’re in a hole, stop digging. When you stop forcing, you start noticing what actually opens up.
Related article: Effortless effort – Making everything workable

Optimistic Stoicism: face the worst-case scenario. Inhabit it. Discover you can endure it. Then open the door to genuine optimism.
Related article: Optimistic stoicism

“Could be good, could be bad”: the equanimity of the Chinese horse farmer. Probabilities, not certainties. Managing risk without catastrophising about outcomes.

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

Ongoing on Saturdays, 5.30-6.45pm SG time – Saturday Integral meditation deep-dive sessions with Toby

Ongoing on Wednesdays – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Ongoing on Saturdays – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series
 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality Stress Transformation Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

The seagull whirlpool & other stress transformations

“You are the seagull above the whirlpool of your life. See yourself centred, relaxed, skilfully adapting to the wind changes, accepting them, working with them moment to moment. You are entirely at home”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article offers an image for experiencing mindful stress transformation that really struck me. 
 
If you enjoy the article, & would like to shift your own ability to transform your stress tangibly, then do check out my Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Workshop on this Saturday 16th & then 23rd of May.
 
Also the Wednesday & Saturday Inner smile meditations are also focused on energy and emotional stress transformation, this week we look at moving from fear to fear & stress to gentleness/calm.
 
In the spirit of seagulls, 

 Toby


The seagull whirlpool & other stress transformations
 
At the end of 2014 I wrote an article called ‘The stability of uncertainty’. In it I write about my experience of working with high degrees of uncertainty, stress and change, and learning to quietly thrive on it rather than be oppressed by it. It was a real ‘best of times, worst of times’ period in my life, when I was learning that uncertainty can be transformed and thrived upon if it can be accepted. After awareness, all stress transformation practice begins with acceptance. It is the sure footing that you build in order to then gain the confidence to work with pressure dynamically. Looking back and reading that article, I’m struck by how much of it I still agree with, and find relevant to my own process right now, at this later stage in my life and growth.
 
On the original article post I noticed that I had used a picture of two seagulls circling above a whirlpool. Looking at it now, I am struck by what a great image this is for becoming a stress transformer. If you imagine you are one of those seagulls. Above the whirlpool there will be strong, fast changing winds, the birds have to adapt moment to moment. Below is a whirlpool that if they get caught up in it would pull them under the ocean. But for a gull, despite all the chaotic energy around them, this feels like home. In fact, this IS their home, their native environment. They are able to stay centred in their bodies, making skilful adjustments to their wings, rejoicing in their capability, enjoying the dance. Compared to the forces around them, they are tiny, like small specks, but they are not thinking about their size or significance, they are busy enjoying being who and what they are, knowing that they can survive, thrive and make their living amidst the turbulence.
Thinking about one of the really big gulls, the albatross, it can go out flying over the open ocean for 6 months at a time, which is really quite something!
 
You are the seagull above the whirlpool of your life
 
Imagine yourself now as the seagull above the whirlpool of your life. All of the chaos, the turbulence, the uncertainty, the contending forces in your life are like the whirlpool below you, and the wind and weather around you. See yourself centred in your body, relaxed, skilfully adapting to the wind changes, accepting them, working with them moment to moment. You don’t know exactly what comes next, but you deeply trust in your capability to meet and adapt to it. Constantly moving and adapting, you feel stable in this environment, like it is a home. In the sky and above the whirlpool you live, confident in your ability to find what you need to survive, and able to enjoy what comes your way in the moment. You have made tension your friend, and so you feel free, relaxed, the sovereign of your world. You are connected to your natural intelligence and dignity.
Bring to mind a challenge you are facing in your life right now. Feel the fear, anxiety, overwhelm, or whatever else you feel around it. Now be the seagull.
 
 
Related reading: Rats, meadows, & the World doing Itself (Stress tolerance & transformation)
The stability of uncertainty

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Ongoing on Saturdays, 5.30-6.45pm SG time – Saturday Integral meditation deep-dive sessions with Toby

Ongoing on Wednesdays – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Ongoing on Saturdays – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

Saturday 16th & 23rd May, 3.30-5pm on both days – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment Workshop
 

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

How to stop difficult feelings becoming negative emotions

“Can you distinguish your feelings from your emotions? Oftentimes this skill can help you navigate stressful situations more successfully, & with less effort!”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article looks at how to distinguish feeling states from emotional states, & use it to navigate difficult circumstances more easily. If you enjoy it, then I invite you to my Mindfulness for emotional intelligence masterclass this Saturday 25th April, 2.30-4.30pm, live or online! 

This week’s Wednesday & Saturday class continue our inner-smile meditation series, which is also focused on mindfulness around emotions. All welcome.

In the spirit of ease,

 Toby


How to stop difficult feelings becoming negative emotions
 
The difference between feelings and emotions 

One of the most useful distinctions in Buddhist insight meditation that I have found is the distinction between feelings and emotions. Broadly speaking feelings are simply the experience of that which is pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. By contrast emotions arise from a psychological process that involves thinking in a particular way about a feeling. Here are two simple examples:
 

  1. I see a person who has wronged me in the past, instinctively an unpleasant feeling arises. I then start to reflect on the harm that they have caused me and develop anger or anger. This anger is the emotion, arising from the psychological process of paying attention to the harm done in combination with the initial unpleasant feelings.
  2. I am sick, giving rise to unpleasant feelings in my body. I start to think about how this sickness is ruining my only two weeks of holiday in the year and I start to develop the emotions of frustration, despair and sadness.

 
Here we can start to see the basic distinction; pain is simply the feeling arising within the moment. We experience emotion when we combine a feeling with a psychological process of focusing on the feeling in a particular way.
With regard to painful feelings, often we compound the pain they cause us by focusing on them in a way that causes us to experience emotional suffering, as in the examples above. The key therefore in preventing painful feelings becoming full blown emotional suffering is to avoid thinking about them or focusing on them in such a way that negative emotions are stimulated.
 
Some sources of painful feelings

The five sources of painful feelings below are a non-exhaustive list, but it gives an idea of the variety of different sources that can cause painful feelings within us. Any of them if focused on in the wrong way can cause negative emotions to arise:
 

  1. Physical pain arising from sickness or injury
  2. Pain or irritability arising from hormonal or other biological or energetic imbalances within the body
  3. From people who say or do harmful things to us or have done so in the past
  4. From psychological and/or existential anxiety, e.g.: Worried about not being good enough, fear of dying, fear of stepping out of comfort zone etc…
  5. From spiritual crisis; for example, when the old self or ego structures are collapsing in order for a new level of self-sense to arise.

 
 
An insight meditation for acknowledging and releasing negative feelings 
 
Here is a brief insight meditation form that we can use to prevent difficult feelings turning into negative emotions:
 
Stage 1: Breathing in I am aware of my painful feelings,
Breathing out I acknowledge those feelings fully.
Stage 2: Breathing in I experience my tight grasping at those painful feelings,
Breathing out I relax my grasping at those feelings,
Stage 3: Breathing in I detach from those feelings,
Breathing out I extend compassion and understanding to those feelings.
 
In stage one as we breathe in, we become consciously aware of any painful feelings we may be experiencing, as we breathe out, we acknowledge them fully. Often, we try and repress or deny negative feelings, which in turn allow them to build and transform into negative emotions. Fully acknowledging what is there and gives feelings the attention they need in order to be addressed.
 
In stage two we observe how we are clinging to these painful feelings, grasping at them tightly. Then, as we breathe out, we consciously release that tight grasping, energetically relaxing our body and mind.
 
In stage three we detach from those painful feelings, at the same time as extending a feeling of compassion and understanding toward them. We combine the objective experience of detachment with the positive emotional tonalities of compassion and understanding.
 
Suggestions for Daily Practice

The essential point is that feelings can be distinguished from emotions, and we can prevent negative emotions from arising by avoiding focusing on painful feelings in the wrong way.
The brief meditation technique I describe above can be done as a two-minute exercise or as an extended meditation, taking a few minutes to focus on each of the stages. It is a meditation that is worth doing sometimes even if we are not fully aware of any negative feelings inside us, as often it will bring to light feelings within us the need a bit of tender loving care.
Of course if there are also practical things that we can do to alleviate the negative feelings, like taking medicine, or having a conversation to clear the air with our partner about a hurt we have then this should be done to!
 
Related reading: “Insight Meditation – Improving Your Subjective Experience by Developing Your Objective Perspective” 

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Ongoing on Saturdays, 5.30-6.45pm SG time – Saturday Integral meditation deep-dive sessions with Toby

Ongoing on Wednesdays – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Ongoing on Saturdays – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

Saturday 25th April, 2.30-4.30pm – Mindfulness for emotional intelligence masterclass
 

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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creative imagery Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Stress Transformation Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

Your emotions as horses (& Lunar NY fire horse meditation)

“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”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article is one I wrote in 2015, it seemed like a good time to post it, coming into the Lunar new year of the fire-horse!
If you look up a summary of the fire-horse year, you might get something like this:  “The 2026 Year of the Fire Horse (beginning Feb 17, 2026) is a rare, high-energy 60-year cycle event symbolizing rapid change, intense passion, and bold action” 

If you would like to tune into this energy for yourself, then I will be doing a Lunar New Year Meditation 2026: Connecting to the energy of the Fire Horse session at 5.30pm SG time this coming Saturday, both in person & online.

In the spirit of Lunar fire,

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 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
A bag of rats & a big meadow (tactics or strategy?)


© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Stress Transformation Zen Meditation

A bag of rats & a big meadow (tactics or strategy?)

“When you practice the ‘sheep in the meadow’ form of awareness, you can keep your attention on your ‘bigger Why’s,’ accepting the small obstacles that you encounter on the way toward your larger goals”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week I outline two images to help you refine and develop your awareness in a way that can significantly transform your daily experience. If you enjoy it, we will be exploring these methods in both the weekday (Tues&Weds) and Saturday sessions this week. You are invited!

If you are interested in Qi gong, do check out the Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing that I will be facilitating on the 28th Feb.

In the spirit of the meadow mind, 

Toby

A bag of rats & a big meadow (tactics or strategy?)
 
This article explains what is essentially a perspective shift that changes your relationship to your thoughts, and how you experience them. It looks at how we can create an inner space for ourselves that contains a lot more acceptance and allowing. We will then look at some other applications of this principle in daily life.
 
The bag of rats – Your everyday ‘small’ mind
 
Imagine you are a rat in a dark sack. There are several other rats inside. It is dark, hot, and claustrophobic. You feel agitated by the rats around you, they in turn feel agitated by you. You have a very limited sense of where you are and what is happening to you, it is all close-up, friction-loaded and conducive to irritation, even paranoia.
In everyday life our mind can feel a bit like this bag of rats. It feels trapped inside our body. Often, we feel trapped in an even smaller space, the one between our ears, inside our skull! There are many thoughts about many things in this small space, bumping into each other, creating friction as they rub-up against the thoughts next to them. A lot of feelings and emotions are created from this rubbing. It is difficult to know which feelings come from which thoughts, and what emotional state came from where. It’s difficult not to get confused, to difficult to see our life clearly.
When your mind is like a bag of rats, life naturally feels a bit tough and contentious. States like acceptance, flow, curiosity come at a premium and are difficult to maintain.
 
The open meadow – Making your mind bigger
 
“To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him” – Shunryu Suzuki
 
The quote from Suzuki above refers both to the method to control one’s mind, but also an approach to working with other people, and with experiences in our life. In terms of mind-training and meditation, this instruction stands in contrast to the ‘rats in the bag’ image from the first section. When sitting with the thoughts in your mind, rather than trying to control them, stop them or ‘fix’ them, you simply make your mind and awareness bigger, like a large open meadow. Rather than having your thoughts ‘in your head’ like rats in a bag, you make your mind big, with the thoughts like sheep in a big, spacious meadow. In such an environment an animal will tend to simply wonder off, find its place in the field and be content. So, when you make your awareness big, you can sit there watching the thoughts without being so bothered by them, and they in turn tend to gradually return to equilibrium, without you having to work that hard to control or fix them.
 
The movement from tactics, and making room for your ‘Big Why’
 
When your experience of your mind is of the ‘rats in the bag’ type, it is difficult to keep perspective. Everything that you are doing tends to be tactical, small picture, just dealing with what is right in front of you. When you practice the ‘sheep in the meadow’ form of awareness, you can keep things more in perspective. You can ‘choose your battles’. You can keep your attention on your ‘bigger Why’s’, accepting the small obstacles that you encounter on the way toward your broader goals.
 
Enjoy the meadow!

Related article: Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life

© Toby Ouvry 2026, 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

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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