Category: Integral Awareness

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Biographical creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Primal Spirituality Shadow meditation Uncategorized

The Gifts & wounds of Our Ancestors

Dear Integral Meditators,

Happy Samhain & All Hallows eve (aka Haloween) everyone! Its a great time to sit down & do a bit of reflection on our genertic & spiritual ancestors. The article below offers a few pointers for gentle contemplation.
Those in Singapore, if you fancy doing a meditation on the subject then do com along tonight or tomorrow: Tuesday 31st October & Wednesday 1st November, 7.30-8.30pm – Samhain Meditation – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

In the spirit of the light within the darkness,

Toby

The Gifts and Wounds of Our Ancestors

Living as securely, affluently as we do to today, and having the choices that we have has a lot to do with the efforts of past generations. Specifically to us as individuals, our immediate ancestors, parents, grandparents and great grandparents have a lot to do with the opportunity we have today to lead a happy, fulfilling and creative life today. You could say we are the inheritors of their gifts.

Conversely we are also an inheritor of their wounds, their unresolved inner conflicts, their vulnerabilities, their struggles, their blindspots & their burdens. Quite often the gifts and the blindspots of our ancestors are interrelated. For example:

  • I am aware of the gift of freedom that I was given from my Grandfathers in their fighting, surviving and perhaps killing in the two world wars. I am also aware of the emotional wounds and handicaps that come with such a sacrifice.
  • I am also aware of the gifts of my Grandmothers as women; their sacrifice and their patience. I am also aware of the wounds that they carry from playing this role and the limitations that it placed upon them.

Thematically, many of the issues that we may now be facing in our life are a continuation of the patterns of previous generations. For most people this goes on quite unconsciously, but by bringing mindfulness and reflection to our relationships to our ancestors we can develop the capacity to consciously guide and direct the energy that flows into us from our ancestors, and thus make better use of it.

A mindful reflection on your ancestors
Take the image of an ancestor that you wish to connect with and reflect upon, perhaps from an old photo. Visualize this image in front of you and allow your mind to mindfully free-associate for a while; notice the feelings, images and memories that may come up.
Now ask your ancestor (as if they are actually present) three questions:

  • What are your gifts to me?
  • What are your wounds?
  • What is it that you wish to communicate with me at this time?

Listen for the answers that come back, and dwell for a while in a state of:

  • Appreciation for gifts received
  • Healing and release of wounds inherited
  • Clear understanding of their message from them to you at this time in your life

We are the ancestors of future generations
Another question that we need to ask ourselves regularly is of course; what are the gifts that I wish to pass onto future generations, and what are the wounds they will have to deal with if I remain the way I am currently?

© 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)

Beginning 14th&15th November – Mastering your mind & thoughts through mindfulness – A five-week course

Saturday 18th November 9.30am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical Meditations And Techniques For Working With your Shadow-Self three hour workshop

Saturday 18th November 2-5pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self three hour workshop
Satu
rday November 25th 10am-4pm – Mini ME Retreat #2 : Mindful Eating + Reiki Sound Bath with Tiffany Wee & Elaine Yang

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Uncategorized

Asserting Positive Selfishness

Dear Integral Meditators,

For most people the word ‘selfish’ has exclusively negative connotations. The article below explores the important idea of ‘positive selfishness’ & how using it mindfully is a really important life-skill!

In the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Asserting Positive Selfishness

What is positive selfishness?


Positive selfishness is the recognition that you have a right to:

  • Pursue your own happiness and to be happy
  • To be fulfilled & pursue your life goals/interests
  • To rejoice in and derive pleasure from being alive, and inhabiting your own creative, expressive space as an individual

With positive selfishness, you are simply recognizing your right to the above three experiences. You are notsaying your happiness is more important than anyone else’s, in fact if you are a ‘positive egotist’ you would tend to vigorously uphold the rights of others around you to happiness, fulfillment and healthy pleasure.

Negative selfishness


Positive selfishness needs to be separated from negative selfishness. A negatively selfish person sees their happiness/desires (etc…) as being far more important than anyone elses. They are prepared to use any means possible to get their way. For such a person the welfare of others is insignificant. In contrast, the positively selfish person sees the welfare of others as an innate right, to be defended with the same passion as one’s own rights.

What is your ego?


A useful definition of the ego is ‘our unifying center of awareness’. It is the point of consciousness or self-awareness around which our habitual thoughts and feelings arrange themselves. Having a strong, healthy center of self-awareness (ego) that is able to make conscious choices, assert needs and take responsibility is essential for living a successful life. One of the main points of a mindfulness practice is to build a strong, healthy, functional ego.
Many people enter a spiritual path, or a path of meditation saying they ‘want to give up their ego’. Since most people haven’t really developed a healthy functional ego in the first place,  ‘giving up their ego’ is a strategy that is hardly destined for success.

The hidden paradigm: Bad = the selfish egotist, Good = the selfless sacrificer


One of the unconscious ideas that we inherit from many of our cultures and religions is that  “Good people ‘sacrifice’ their happiness for the benefit of others, whilst bad people are selfish egoists”. Positive selfishness asserts that it is possible to pursue your own fulfilment, whilst at the same time encouraging and enabling others to become happy and grow in their own way.
For example, in a romantic relationship, you can enjoy and derive pleasure from the other person, in a ‘positively selfish way’. In fact, what could be more insulting to the other person than to say to them “I am only here for you, I am not getting any pleasure from the experience myself!!!” Mutually satisfying joy and pleasure can be derived by each partner being ‘positively selfish’, whilst at the same time practising care and concern for the other person.

A positive selfishness mindfulness practice: Creating a win-win relationship between your own and other people’s interests.

This week as a fun exercise, in different situations you might like to ask yourself the questions:

  • What might it mean for me to be positively selfish here?
  • How can I assert my own needs and desires in a way that is complementary to the needs and fulfilment of those around me?

Have fun and see what answers arise from these questions. Enjoy being positively selfish!

© 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)

Starting Tues/Wed September 5th/6th – September & October Five Class Meditation Series: Cultivating Deep Experience of the Present Moment

Saturday 21st October, 2-5.30pm – Going From Over-whelmed to Over-well: Meditation for Quietening the Mind – a three hour workshop

Tuesday 24th & Wednesday 25th October – Meditating with your Shadow Self; Finding Freedom from What Holds You Back in Life – A 1 hour talk & introduction

Saturday November 25th 10am-4pm – Mini ME Retreat #2 : Mindful Eating + Reiki Sound Bath with Tiffany Wee & Elaine Yang

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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A Mind of Ease Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Am I happier now than when I was a Buddhist Monk? (Repetition and inner growth)

Dear Integral Meditators,

How much do you value your happiness? How much of it is in your hands, as opposed to fate? How much effort does it really take to become consistently happy in the way you ‘want’ to be? In the article below I share some of my own story and experience on this topic.

If you like the article & are in Singapore, I will be doing a session on ‘How to rest naturally in the present moment’ in tonight’s Tuesday class, as well as at the Wednesday class.

Full details for workshops for October are below the article.

In the spirit of mindful happiness,

Toby

Am I happier now than when I was a Buddhist Monk? (Repetition and inner growth)

After I graduated from University in 1994, I spent the next eight years focusing very intensively on meditation and inner growth. This included four years as a monk within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. In 2002, I left the ordained life and founded my own mindfulness training business in Singapore, which I am still fully involved in and passionate about.

One of the questions that I am asked quite often at talks, workshops and classes that I facilitate goes something like this: “Are you happier now than you were as a Buddhist monk, leading a relatively simple, worry free life of meditation?”

To this my answer is always emphatically ‘yes!’ for the following reason: I am happier now because, since moving back into the life of a layman, I have been practising the basic happiness skills that I learned as a Buddhist monk repeatedly for many years and I have got better at them. As a result my happiness has steadily improved year in, year out over the sixteen years since I left the ordained life.  I can also say with confidence that my basic happiness levels will continue to steadily improve in the years to come. This will happen in spite of the added stresses that comes from running a business, marrying, divorcing, starting a family, being a father, a partner and all of the other aspects of ordinary life that I am now fully engaged with.

For me this really boils down to the value of consistency and repetition. Quite often when people think about inner transformation there is a gap in their mind between the amount of effort they THINK it will take to change bad habits, and the amount of effort it ACTUALLY takes. When they realize that the change that they are looking for will take longer than they thought, they get discouraged and give up.

So, what we are looking for from a ‘mental fitness’ point of view is developing the ability to practice good mental, emotional and spiritual habits slowly and steadily over a long period of time. This means becoming more like the tortoise than the hare in that traditional children’s story about the race between the hare and the tortoise. We do not want to start off with a lot of enthusiasm, only to lose it when the going gets tough and give up. Rather we need to practise gentle, sustainable effort over a long period of time, without being in too much of a hurry to see results quickly.

This can be difficult for people in this day and age as we are living in a society that has such a quick-fix mentality, where results are wanted instantly. In my experience there are no such methods for deep sustained happiness and fulfilment. Rather, this comes from repeating good happiness habits again and again until they become hard wired into our system. Once they are hard wired in this way, then happiness really does become effortless because it is just a subconscious habit, and natural way that we have of viewing and engaging our world.
In conclusion, the basic message of this article is: find out what genuine good quality happiness habits are, then repeat, repeat, repeat!

© 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)

Starting Tues/Wed September 5th/6th – September & October Five Class Meditation Series: Cultivating Deep Experience of the Present Moment

Saturday October 21st, 10am-5pm – Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life, and growing your own personal Life Tree

Saturday 21st October, 2-5.30pm – Going From Over-whelmed to Over-well: Meditation for Quietening the Mind – a three hour workshop

Tuesday 24th & Wednesday 25th October – Meditating with your Shadow Self; Finding Freedom from What Holds You Back in Life – A 1 hour talk & introduction

Saturday November 25th 10am-4pm – Mini ME Retreat #2 : Mindful Eating + Reiki Sound Bath with Tiffany Wee & Elaine Yang

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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creative imagery Enlightened love and loving Enlightened service Gods and Goddesses Greenworld Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

Enlightenment as a chase

Dear Integral Meditators,

Its possible you might think of enlightenment as a process of sitting down, going within and finding your inner peace. But what if it were a chase where you had to run, jump, be alert, be fast, be awake? The article below explores this possibility!

In the spirit of the chase,

Toby

Enlightenment as a chase

If you look at the different ideas of spiritual enlightenment you may have, and those that are presented in mainstream spiritualties and religions, you might think of it as a process of sitting down, going within and finding your inner peace. What I want to do in this article is tell an originally Welsh story from the Druid tradition that presents the process of enlightenment as a dynamic chase. The story is that of Taliesin, the poet-saint of the Celts.
In the beginning, before he becomes Taliesin, our hero is a nine-year-old boy called Gwion-Bach. Gwion-Bach is given a task (along with his grandfather). It is given by the Goddess Ceridwen; to tend to a Cauldron containing the ingredients for an ‘elixir of enlightenment’. This elixir is for her ugly son Aggfaddu. Because he is ugly, Ceridwen wants to give her son the gift of enlightenment, hence the cauldron. The cauldron needs to bubble for a year and a day. Young Gwion-Bach has to tend to the fire underneath, and keep it burning. The elixir will work on the first person who tastes it, so Gwion is told under no circumstances to taste it!
On the last day of the year-and-a-day-cycle, Gwion is sitting next to the cauldron as usual. Suddenly, a boiling drop from the cauldron spits out and lands on his thumb. Because it scalds, Gwion instinctively puts his thumb in his mouth and sucks! Accidentally he has tasted the elixir and thus becomes instantly enlightened. He realizes he has made the elixir useless to Ceridwens son! The next moment he realizes he is in big trouble with the goddess, and runs out of the hut….


As soon as Ceridwen realizes what has happened, she chases after Gwoin in a vengeful rage. There then proceeds a chase through the four elements, earth, water, air and fire. Seeing Ceridwen is on his tail, Gwion back transforms into a hare. Ceridwen transforms into a greyhound. She is just about to catch him when Gwion leaps into a river and swims off as a salmon. Ceridwen transforms into an otter and the chase continues. Again, just as the goddess is about to catch him, he leaps out of the water and transforms into a wren (a bird smaller than a sparrow), and flies off! The goddess transforms into a hawk, and pursues him through the air. She is on the verge of grabbing him out of the air when he again transforms, this time into a grain of wheat, falling into a barn full of wheat grains amongst which he hides. The goddess then transforms into a hen, picks him out and eats him!


But the story does not end there. Gwion then transforms into a baby in Ceridwens womb. After 9months he is re-born, emerging from her as an enlightened baby, declaring his name to be Taliesin! She then puts him in a sealed bag and throws him in a river (what a Mum!), where he is later discovered amongst the reads by a queen, who adopts him as her child.
A few points from this story:

  • Here the hero/ine is pursued by the forces of enlightenment (here the goddess), who are relentless and dynamic in their pursuit.
  • S/he is placed under maximum duress by the pressure from the enlightened forces. S/he is forced to develop and evolve herself to the limits of her ability. The hero must use all of her resources and cunning to survive!
  • Once achieved, enlightenment is a beginning, and not an end, the work begins here!

Your life challenges as a path to enlightenment


One possible way of using this tale is to then start to think of the obstacles and challenges in your life that are putting you under pressure as ‘the forces of enlightenment’. Their pressure is an invitation to you to evolve and develop. You must grow your inner and outer abilities, to move step by step, day by day toward the next level of enlightenment in your life.
If you choose to play this game, then be alert, be ready, the path to enlightenment begins right here, in this next moment….

© 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)

Starting Tues/Wed September 5th/6th – September & October Five Class Meditation Series: Cultivating Deep Experience of the Present Moment

September 19th/20th: Autumn Equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday September 16th, 10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop

Saturday September 30th, 10am-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day!

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mindful dreaming Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

The web of time & the intuitive present

Dear Integral Meditators,

We normally think about time as being in a straight line, running from past to present to future. but what it it were more like a web? The article below investigates how we can begin to meditate on the web of time, and the intuitive present that is its gateway.

In the spirit of intuition,

Toby

The web of time & the intuitive present

According to our concrete, logical, linear mind, time unfolds in a sequence, from past to present to future. Time looks like a straight line.
If you look at the way in which we experience time from moment to moment, you can start to see that we experience time in other ways too. From the point of view of our intuitive, or non-linear mind time can be more like a web, with the present moment in time like being in the center of that web. In each moment we are receiving images, ideas, impressions, feelings and so on from these intuitive dimensions of our being and time.

You might think of your intuitive mind as the non-logical, non-rational part of your mind that includes areas such as the subconscious, the creative and imaginative, as well as the higher, trans-rational mind, our ancestral consciousness and dream states. These parts of our mind do not experience time ‘in a straight line’. The past and the future, things that have happened, things that have not happened all appear in a seemingly jumbled up, but often meaningful sequence.

Some of the information we receive in this way can be quite random and not very useful. However, some of it can be very worthwhile and valuable. Indeed, some of it can be more valuable than the information we receive from our logical mind, as our intuitive mind is connected to sources of information that are beyond the reach of our everyday sequential thinking and thoughts.

Sitting in the web of time as the ‘spider of the intuitive present’


Imagine you are sitting in the ‘web of intuitive time’, with threads all around you connecting you to different parts of time and areas of your consciousness. Imagine you are the ‘spider of the intuitive present’, sitting in the middle of your web, waiting, watching and observing. You are very still, feeling the vibrations coming along the threads around you, receiving different impressions, images and information from your intuitive mind. You simply watch, observe and sift through the information distinguishing that which is worthwhile and interesting from that which is probably not useful.
You can do this as a meditation form in and of itself anytime to attune yourself to the web of time and the intuitive, or non-linear present moment.

A personal example: The Buddha & his coat of many colours


A lot of the information I tend to receive from the intuitive present tends to be in the form of images. For example, a few months ago, I started seeing in my meditations a fat, Buddha like figure (a Maitreya figure for those of you who may know him as the popular Chinese laughing Buddha), wearing a coat of many coloured cloths and colours. He was sitting on a pile of gold coins, and seemed to be radiating abundance and wellbeing. Observing and experiencing this I had a feeling that my business was going to take a turn for the better (financially) over the coming months. Sure enough all sorts of business opportunities started coming in. It isn’t that I would not have had the business if I had not seen the image, but the image was an intuitive guide for me to the landscape of my business for the subsequent few months, which was very useful, and complementary to my ‘hard-nosed’, linear and rational methods of planning my work and income!

© 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)

Starting Tues/Wed September 5th/6th – September & October Five Class Meditation Series: Cultivating Deep Experience of the Present Moment

September 19th/20th: Autumn Equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday September 16th, 10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop

Saturday September 30th, 10am-4.30pm – One Heart Open Day!

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

Dipping under & dancing within time

Dear Integral Meditators,

A lot of the mental stress that we feel is based upon our experience of time, so approaching the way in which we experience time mindfully, consciously & with awareness is really important. The article below explores practical ways of beginning to do this.

Toby

PS:  For those in Singapore, tonight’s and Wednesday evenings see the beginning of a new meditation class series: Five Class Meditation Series: Cultivating Deep Experience of the Present Moment  all welcome!

Dipping under & dancing within time

A lot of the mental stress that we feel is based upon our experience of time, so approaching the way in which we experience time mindfully, consciously & with awareness is really important. What I want to explain here is two methods of meditating on time for reducing mental stress when we are under pressure. These methods can be done formally as sitting meditations, or they can be done informally, as contemplations while we are going about our daily lives. Like all meditation techniques they can be used as methods for building our inner strength, focus, concentration and calm. Where these methods come into their own is as ways of liberating us from the ‘tyranny of time’, inviting us to feel as if we are the master of our time, rather than it being the master of us.

The pre-present moment – Getting out of time by dipping under it


Time is essentially a mental construct; past, present and future are essentially ideas that we use in order to function. Whenever you choose to ‘drop’ these concepts, you enter what I call the ‘pre-present moment’. This is the space before time existed, or was brought into our existence by mind. You can open a door to the pre-present moment using your imagination. For example, one technique I teach is imagining yourself as a rock or stone at the bottom of a river. Because you are a stone, you have no thoughts. Time essentially doesn’t exist from your point of view. If you like you can imagine time as the water flowing above you and past you in the river. You simply sit there and relax as the stone; inert, non-thinking, entirely peaceful and relaxed, at the bottom of the river, in the pre-present moment. I sometimes vary this image, for example the other day I imagined myself as sand on a beach, or the seaweed in the water. All of these images are doorways to the relaxing experience of the pre-present moment. By ‘ducking under time’ in this way for short periods, you can return to to your experience of time and your life feeling refreshed and with a new perspective.

The present moment in time – Dancing with linear time


The present moment in time is always right here, and here, and here. The more you can pay attention to your experience of this moment right now, the more you are going to feel that you are able to cope and thrive as the past and future dance around you in your mind. A really simple way to do this is to just use your breathing to center yourself in the present moment. Try and stay focused in the present moment just for three breaths, then relax for a few moments and watch your mind exploring the past and future. Then come back again to the breathing for three breaths. Keep coming back to the breathing for a few rounds, really centering yourself in the present so that you start to feel really solid and grounded there.
As a second stage to this practice, as you are doing your three breaths, at the bottom of your exhalation, rest in the natural point of stillness and presence that is in that pause. By doing this you can further deepen your anchor in the present-moment-in-time.

So, there you go, two simple methods for building a more positive, mindful relationship to time, as well as managing your mental stress more effectively!


© 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)

Starting Tues/Wed September 5th/6th – September & October Five Class Meditation Series: Cultivating Deep Experience of the Present Moment

September 19th/20th: Autumn Equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday September 16th, 10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope One Minute Mindfulness

Liberating your Personal Power

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is another from my archives. It used to be on my ‘mental fitness blog’ when I had it. Apart from a few tweaks, it is the same, as I still agree with what I wrote (Nice when that happens!) If you can understand intelligibly what personal power is, then you can start to work with it mindfully. That is primarily what this article aims to do.

In the spirit of inner power,

Toby

Liberating your Personal Power

What is personal power?

Personal power means making a habit of taking responsibility for the situations that you find yourself in, and for the direction that your life is taking.  You may not be able to control everything that happens in your life, but you can take control of your RESPONSE to all of the things that happen to you.
In this sense you could say that owning personal power gives you a type of liberation. It is a form of liberation because it liberates you from all the inner sufferings, anxieties and problems that you experience when you:

  • Forfeit your ability to choose your response to what is happening to you in any given situation
  • Allow your emotional reactions to slide out of control and cause your thoughts to get locked in a negative spiral
  • Blame things that you are experiencing inwardly on something that someone else has done externally
  • Give up on a goal too early saying “If only this had not happened then I might have made it”
  • Cannot appreciate all the good that is going on in your life because all you see is the bad. This  deprives us of an abundance of both happiness and pleasure that would otherwise be readily available
  • Feel like a victim of circumstance

On being a victim in life


The opposite of owning our personal power is being a victim in life. Nothing saps our energy in life more than having a victim mentality. Many people allow themselves to feel like a victim in life because it is an obvious and manifest truth that we cannot control everything that happens to us. However, as I mention above, this is to miss the point. Being a master in our life and owning our personal power means taking control of our inner response to what happens in our life and thinking, acting and speaking in a way that reflects that.

Two, two minute methods for beginning find liberation in your life through personal power:

  1. Spend a couple of minutes reflecting on the last time you gave up control of your response to life and became a victim. For those two minutes re-live all the pain, suffering and anxiety that you experienced. End the exercise with a firm mental determination “No more will I give away my personal power and become a victim!”

The point is to use past experiences to make you totally determined to mould a new positive future, free from victim consciousness.

2. The next time you can feel your personal power being challenged by an inner or outer event say to yourself “I may do many things in response to this situation, but the one thing that I will not do is relinquish my personal power and become a victim”. Focus on this determination mentally for a minute or two.  As you then progress to deal with the issue, stay mindful of your determination and act accordingly.

Do bear in mind with the above exercises that the primary aim is to explore and become aware, rather than to achieve. Exploration, curiosity and awareness of our own relationship to personal power and victim consciousness with lead gradually to achievement and progress over time!

© 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

Restarting August 15th: Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Restarting August 15th: Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Starting Tues/Wed August 15th/16th – August meditation three class mini-series: Cultivating engaged-equanimity & positive non-attachment

Saturday August 19th, 10am-5pm, & Monday August 21st,  10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Closing the gap between what you think, say and do

Dear Integral Meditators,

Do your thoughts, speech and actions match up, or is there a gap between them? The article below offers some thoughts on mindfully aligning these different aspects of ourself, and why we should be interested in doing so!

In the spirit of integration,

Toby

Closing the gap between what you think, say and do

One of the main functions of mindfulness is to facilitate integration within the self. This can be done in many different ways. One way is to become more aware of the relationship between what you think, what you say, and what you do. Are they consistent and aligned with each other or not? You can stimulate mindfulness in this area by asking questions such as:

  • Is what I said just now (for example to my friend or colleague) representative of what I really think, or did I just say what I thought they wanted to hear?
  • Have my actions this morning really been representative of the values that I hold in my mind and thoughts?
  • Have I done what I said (to myself or others) I’d do, or is there a contradiction, or gap between my words and actions?

The goal of mindfully integrating your thoughts, words and actions is to:

  • Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
  • To do what you say, and say what you (actually) do, or are going to do
  • To make your actions and speech in the outer world the embodiment of the thoughts and values that you believe in and hold most dear in your mind.

The Payoff

This type of mindful integration takes some effort, honesty, skill and courage. So what’s the payoff? Some of the benefits include:

  • Greater self-esteem and confidence arising from the consistency of your words, thoughts and actions.
  • More natural inner harmony and peace, as these different parts of yourself align with each other and support each other benevolently.
  • Pleasure derived from expressing who you really are in the world, rather than feeling like a fake.
  • A feeling of being more fully alive to your experience of the moment, and bringing the best that you have to it.

Being Strategic in Your Speech and Actions

This type of mindful work does not mean that you just speak and act blindly, without awareness of your context. Of course we need to be aware of what is appropriate, who we are with, and what sort of speech is likely to bring a good result, and what is not.
What it does mean however, is that we do not blindly betray our authentic thoughts and self just to please or appease others in a way that betrays our values, and what we really think and feel. Only we can truly represent ourself to the world, and it is up to us to take mindful self-responsibility for this.

© 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

Restarting August 15th: Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Restarting August 15th: Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday August 19th, 10am-5pm, & Monday August 21st,  10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindfulness Positive anger Presence and being present

Is calmer always better?

Dear Integral Meditators,

Is the goal of meditation and mindfulness always to make you calmer? The article below considers this question from a number of angles that are important to consider in our day to day practice…

In the spirit of dynamic calm,

Toby

For those in Singapore, this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday class will be meditating on ‘Enlightened Imperfection‘, all welcome!

Is calmer always better? (Passionate preferences)

Is the goal of meditation and mindfulness always to make you calmer? Yesterday I was talking with a friend in the tech and start-up industry who was telling me the story of how he came to mindfulness practice. In short he became so stressed due to his work that he started having physical heart and chest pains. Upon going to the doctor, he was told there was no physical problem, it was mainly psychological stress. It was at that point that he started meditating.
Many people come to meditation and mindfulness in a similar way; the absence of calm in their life forces them to seek out a way of dealing with their stress, and they start using mindfulness meditation as a way of moving toward a less frenetic and frantic state of body, mind and heart.

The spectrum of mindful attention
Once we get beyond mindfulness as an ‘emergency band-aid’ way of calming down, we discover that mindfulness and meditation when done well does not always mean becoming calmer. In fact the help us consciously move ourself along a spectrum of attention. This spectrum of attention moves from a state of total calm & relaxation on one end (On a scale of 1-10, let’s call this 1) and a state of dynamic passion and action on the other end (on our scale of 1-10, this would be 10).
Your ‘job’ as a mindfulness practitioner is to bring the level of mindful intensity appropriate to the particular task at hand, in order to optimize your experience of it both in terms of your effectiveness, and your ability to experience happiness. Here are some examples of how this can go wrong or right:

The lower expression: 
Negative calm – Not enough passion: Let’s say I am having a discussion with my partner about our relationship. If I remain totally calm and dispassionate to the point of dis-interest, this is not going to serve the purpose of our discussion.
Too much passion: To continue with the above example, if in my discussion with my partner I become too passionate and not calm enough, then this can sabotage the conversation as well, so here too much passion becomes negative stress.

The higher expression – Mindful passion or mindful engagement:  In the discussion with my partner I need to bring my emotions and passion to the conversation to communicate that I care, and invest deeply in the process of the relationship. I need passionate engagement, with just enough calm to keep the conversation reasonable, considered and polite!

The above is an example of informal mindfulness in everyday life. Similarly, in our formal meditation practice we need passion and motivation in order to avoid our sense of meditative calm becoming too robotic and cold (see last week’s article on ‘Witnessing like the Sun’). So, in both our formal and informal practice of mindfulness and meditation, there needs to be a balance of calmness and excitement, a harmony between relaxation and focus, an equilibrium between our passion and our detachment. Sometimes we need to dial town toward the calm end of the spectrum, but equally sometimes we need to deliberately engage more passion, excitement and positive urgency!  This deliberate engagement of passion is as much a part of the conscious meditative process as cultivating our inner calm.
Each experience in our life is different, and being mindful in each moment helps us to determine the optimal balance of calmness and passion for that particular situation.

Related articles: The spectrum of mindful attention
Engaged detachment

© 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 August 19th, 10am-5pm, & Monday August 21st,  10am-5pm –  Shamanic mandala meditation & art workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindfulness

Mindfully building your mental & emotional resilience 1 – The cycle of mindful positivity

Dear Integral Meditators,

How can we make our minds and emotions more resilient? One method is to build our store of strengths and positivity. The article below explores a simple, practical method of  going about doing this….

In the spirit of emotional & mental resilience,

Toby

Mindfully building your mental & emotional resilience 1 – The cycle of mindful positivity

How can we make our minds and emotions more resilient? One method is to build our store of strengths and positivity, the other is to make the way we deal with our challenges and energy drains more ergonomic, authentic and skillful. This article outlines a three stage process for doing the first, building mindful positivity. I will write about the second method at a later date. Here are the three basic stages:

1. Recognition of the good – From a mindfulness perspective, building positivity can be achieved on a basic level simply by spending definite time each day recognizing and paying attention to things that are positive, that we appreciate, that we are proud of, that we have achieved, that we are lucky to have, and so on, in our life. Recognition of these things contextualizes our daily experience in a positive light.

Feeling the good – It’s not enough just to recognize intellectually the things that are good, we are lucky to have and so on. We have to take these things and mindfully dwell upon the positive feelings that they generate in our body and emotional being. For example today I had a meeting with a client that was a really warm, positive exchange of insights and values. In order to gain the maximum positive energy from that experience I need to dwell more than just intellectually upon the experience. I need to accept, experience and feel the positive feelings that the meeting gave rise to, experiencing them in my body.

Embodying & expressing the good – As a final aspect of this ‘mindful digestion’ of positive energy, I can look for ways to express and act upon my positive experience. This in turn will create more ‘fuel’ for the first stage of my mindful positivity process ‘Recognition of the good’. So, we find this positive, three stage cycle becomes circular and mutually re-enforcing in our lives, helping us build our mental and emotional resilience.

Building mindful positivity as an exercise
This can be done very simply, as an exercise that lasts just a couple of minutes, or as a longer, more extended one.

  1. Spend some time dwelling upon the things that you appreciate, are excited by and/or consider good in your life. Direct your attention to these with appreciation
  2. Select one of these things (eg: for me my meeting with a client described above). Focusing upon it ask yourself the question ‘Where is the positive feeling I am getting from this experience located in my body, and what does it feel like?’ Bring your attention to the part of the body that the feeling is located in. As you breathe in allow yourself to experience the feeling fully, as you breathe out allow the good feeling and emotions to flow out from that part of your body into your body as a whole, filling you with positivity, enthusiasm and gentle excitement or appreciation. Make the experience as real and visceral as you can on an emotional and body level. Stay with this stage as long as you like, enjoy it!
  3. Finally, ask yourself, ‘How might I go about expressing or communicating these good feelings in my life to enjoy them further and spread them around?’ Try and find ways to follow up on the answers to this question after you have finished the exercise.

Related article: Mindfully balancing positive thinking with healthy realism , Facing what you cannot face – Mindful inoculation

© 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 June 6-7th – Practical meditations for spiritual awakening & enlightenment – A six week course

June 20th & 21st – Summer solstice  balancing and renewing meditation 

Integral Meditation Asia

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