Category: Integral Awareness

Mindfulness of mood & atmosphere of your life-story

Post author By Toby
Post date September 2, 2023

“You might think about your inner mood as being like the weather. If you are playing a game of tennis in a sunny, lightly breezy day, its completely different from playing it on a rainy, very windy day. We can usually shift ourself at least partially toward a better mood if we try, and this then affects everything for the better”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s newsletter slightly early, and has three things in it:

Firstly, an article on the importance of mindfulness around your mood.
Secondly if you are interested in meditation sound technology, I have been using I-awake for many years now. They have some great products, and they are all on a 30% off Labour day sale until 4^th September (US time). This technology is also a great way to help change the mood and ambience of your life for the better!
Thirdly, beneath the article you can find all the courses and workshops for September, quite an exciting line-up, starting with the Qi gong workshop on the 9^th September!

In the spirit of mood & atmosphere,

Toby

Now Live: iAwake Labor Day Weekend Sale

From August 31 – September 4, 2023, we are holding our annual Labor Day Weekend Sale, one of our biggest sales this year. This sale features 30% OFF on Digital Tracks and 25% OFF on CDs + Digital. Check out our catalog and take advantage of this annual opportunity to receive huge discounts on iAwake tracks and add to or complete your iAwake toolkit.

Discount Coupon Code for DIGITAL (30% OFF): IAWAKELABOR2023

Mindfulness of mood & atmosphere of your life-story

When trying to improve our daily experience through mindfulness quite often peoples focus is upon

Focusing better
Thinking more positively
Thinking less
Relaxing more

These are all noble pursuits of course, but what I find often gets missed is attention to the mood and the inner atmosphere that we do things. If you think about it our mood is very important. For example, if your mood is habitually anxious and fearful then this naturally

Interrupts your focus
Makes it difficult to think positively
Creates low-grade mental busyness/ habitual overthinking
Makes it tough to relax

In my classes and coaching recently, one of the things that I have been emphasizing to students and clients is awareness of their habitual moods, and deliberately moving them toward a lighter more benevolent inner atmosphere. For example, if having noticed our inner mood in the moment we then direct it towards a combination of

Curiosity & playful inquisitiveness
Warmth & care

Then if we can establish that as an atmosphere in our body-mind, it then starts to colour our daily experience and activities

Warm & curious atmospheres are easy to build relaxed-focus in
Its natural and quite easy to think positively
We feel less compelled to think all the time
Activities just ‘feel’ naturally more enjoyable

The weather you are playing the game in
You might think about your inner mood as being like the weather. If you are playing a game of tennis in a sunny, lightly breezy day, its completely different from playing it on a rainy, very windy day. We can’t always completely control our mood, but we can usually shift ourself at least partially toward a better mood if we try, and this then affects everything for the better.
Playing with moods therapeutically
In my article last week on Therapeutic mindfulness I outline six practices which might also be thought of as ways of creating inner moods that are both strengthening and healing:

Grounded & sensory
Safety & non-emergency
Warmth & compassion
Appreciation
Curiosity & courage
A sense of being supported

All of these are possible moods that you can cultivate. Of course, there are many more that you could choose to focus on, according to your needs and inclinations. It’s something to have fun cultivating!

If you enjoy this article, you might enjoy the upcoming Therapeutic mindfulness course beginning on 26/27^th September!

Related article: Mindful of your moods, emotions and dispositions

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds in August/Sept – The Wisdom of Awakening Series: Meditations for developing wisdom around inner-growth, happiness & fulfillment

Saturday August 26th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday Saturday 9th September, 9am-12.30pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing

Wednesday 20th September, 7.30-8.30pm – Autumn Equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Starting Tues 26th & Weds 27th September – Re-discovering your inner vitality & joie-de-vivre – An introduction to integrative therapeutic mindfulness & meditation

Saturday 30th September & Sunday 1st October, 9.30am-1pm – Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life, and growing your own personal Life Tree

Saturday October 7th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday & Sunday October 28th & 29th – Integral Meditation Two Day Retreat

Tues/Weds Oct 31^st, Nov 1^st – Seasonal class: Samhain – Healing the wounds & receiving the gifts of our ancestors

Tues/Weds Nov 14^th/15^th – Seasonal class: Deepavali -connecting to your inner light

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

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Creating an inner therapeutic mindfulness space – six positions

Post author By Toby
Post date August 28, 2023

“The purpose of therapeutic mindfulness is to go back to previous stages in our development in order to reconnect to feelings, emotions, body sensations & memories that we have repressed, denied, or lost touch with. The healthy re-integration of these experiences sets the scene for a renewed sense of wellbeing within our present life, & for safely engaging in higher, deeper levels of personal growth.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

On the 26th/27th September I will be starting a 10 module program – “An introduction to integrative therapeutic mindfulness & meditation – Re-discovering your inner vitality & joie-de-vivre“, the article below explores how we can create a context for mindfulness as a therapeutic practice. Many of the positions below I’ve written about reasonably extensively before, but the ordering of them is specific to doing therapeutic mindfulness.

If you enjoy the article I invite you to click on the link & find our more about the course!

In the spirit of our inner support system,

Toby

Creating an inner therapeutic mindfulness space – six positions

The purpose of therapeutic mindfulness is to go back to previous stages in our development in order to reconnect to feelings, emotions, body sensations and memories that we have repressed, denied, and lost touch with. The healthy re-integration of these experiences sets the scene for a renewed sense of wellbeing within our present life. It also lays the foundation for then exploring the higher, deeper levels of meditation states (psychic, subtle, causal, non-dual) in a way that is balanced and sustainable. Below are a set of qualities to cultivate when engaging in therapeutic mindfulness. Each one of them has benefits in an of themselves, but practiced together they make for a good combination within which we can then go on to do some inner healing work.

Grounding in the senses – Work that involves contacting potentially volatile emotions or feelings needs to be done whilst grounded enough in the present moment in order to feel the stability of our senses supporting us, so that we don’t feel completely ‘carried away’ by the experience.

Safety – Repressed emotions can feel dangerous, so connecting to the basic safety of this moment – recognizing that there are no immanent threats to our present wellbeing – is a fundamental position to be familiar with.

Warmth & compassion – Establishing as far as we can a feeling of basic warmth and compassion toward ourselves at the beginning of the session, and as we encounter our experiences during the TM session.

Appreciation – Having an appropriate sense of our life being a good place with the existence of people, places and experiences that make it rich and enjoyable. This then means that when we encounter challenges in our therapeutic mindfulness practice, it is always contextualized by this sense of overall appreciation/ positivity.

Curiosity & courage – TM can feel like heavy work sometimes, so cultivating a sense of lightness and curiosity is helpful in this regard. It helps us avoid getting overly caught up and identified in the experience. Similarly, courage can help us hugely as, by its nature TM involves contact and sometimes confrontation with parts of us that we fear or would otherwise wish to avoid. This doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of big hero, just that you have whatever courage you possess present and available to you when doing TM.

A sense of being supported – It can be useful if you have any belief or sense of a higher, deeper supporting being or intelligence to invoke or feel the presence of it/her/him before you engage in therapeutic mindfulness practice. This is personal and can be done any way that the practitioner finds acceptable or appropriate.

With these six positions available to you and in place, you should then feel confident in engaging in any kind of therapeutic mindfulness practice that you might want to, with a sense of these qualities supporting and enhancing your practice.

© Toby Ouvry 2022, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Saturday August 26th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday Saturday 9th September, 9am-12.30pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing

Wednesday 20th September, 7.30-8.30pm – Autumn Equinox balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday & Sunday October 28th & 29th – Integral Meditation Two Day Retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, therapeutic mindfulness

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Meditating with your teenage-self

Post author By Toby
Post date July 31, 2023

“The ‘teenage self’ is one of several aspects of our inner-self or psyche that, if we take the time to connect to, we can find ourselves being enriched. For example, if I am well connected to my inner teenager, then I can draw upon his innate curiosity, ambition and appetite for life in a way that other middle-aged folk who lack a vital connection to their inner teenager cannot!”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article comes under the domain of what you might call ‘Theraputic mindfulness’, & has strong, explicit connections to the wellbeing of our psychological self. It relates to the area of coaching work that I offer in my Mindful self-knowledge program.

In the spirit of inner vitality,

Toby

Meditating with your teenage-self

Definitions of your youthful and teenage self:
The ‘teenage self’ is one of several aspects of our inner-self or psyche that, if we take the time to connect to, we can find ourselves being enriched in a number of ways. Some of these ways are therapeutic, as in healing inner wounds and burdens from our teenage past. Other ways include connecting to the strengths of our youthful/teenage self that we can draw upon in our present stage of life. For example, at my present age of 51, if I am well connected to my inner teenager, then I can draw upon his innate curiosity, ambition and appetite for life in a way that other 50-somethings who lack a vital connection to their inner teenager cannot!
Our teenage self is different from our ‘inner child-self’ (who is worked with commonly in a therapeutic context) in the sense that our inner child is a pre-sexual being, whereas our inner teenager is an adolescent and therefore sexually defined/sexually activated. Consequently, the concerns of the inner child and teenager, and their perspectives/needs differ substantially.
Below I point out a few definitions and ways of beginning to relate to your inner teenager.

The youthful or teenage self is that part of us that has matured from the child to the early-adult stage of human development. It sees the initial development of an adult personality; it is concerned with things such as:

Defining and distinguishing ourself from others,
Appetite for and ambitions in life,
Career/life goals,
Sexuality and romantic relationships
Willingness to keep learning new things

A psychological definition:

The teenage-self is the component of the psyche containing the “personality” of the adolescent one once was, with that teenager’s range of values, emotions, needs and responses; not a generic teenager or universal archetype, but a specific, historical one, unique to an individual’s history and development.
– Nathaniel Branden, definition taken from the Six Pillars of Self Esteem, page 265ff.

Meditation pointers for the teenage-self:

Free association: Bring to mind the words ‘my teenage, or youthful-self ’. Holding it within your awareness allow your mind to start to free –associate feelings, images, memories, thoughts, and desires around your teenage-self. At this stage the main thing is to focus on being curious as to what sort of memories, feelings and so on arise when you contemplate the idea of your teen self; whether these feelings and memories are pleasant or unpleasant is secondary, the main thing is simply to see what comes up without editing any of the content.
If you like you can use the following sentence-stems as departure points for your free association:

When I think of the young adult or teenager within me –
One of the things that I found challenging about growing to adulthood was –
One of my favourite memories about my teenage or young adult life was –

Connecting to your teenage-self: Imagine yourself in a place that you knew and loved as a teenager. As you sit or stand in that place, imagine your teenage self comes to meet you there. Spend time with your teenager, talking, connecting, and building trust. Starting questions for the interaction might include:

What do you need from me to help feel happy and secure?
Is there anything that you want to say to me or offer me at this time?
What do you think about this (choose your domain) aspect of our life?
How can we find more time for play & exploration in our life together?

Like outer teens, your inner–teen needs parenting with an appropriate amount of firmness and love, but with more freedom and autonomy given than you would with your child self. By connecting to your inner-teenager you can also become a better parental self, both toward your inner-teens, and toward outer teenagers!

Related articles: Meditating with your child-self
Meditating with your parental-self

© Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Self-belief (the most powerful creative force in your life)

Post author By Toby
Post date July 24, 2023

“Once you get used to it, being creatively powerful in your life feels less and less stressful, and more and more of a pleasure. Rather than ‘life happening to me’ I have the feeling that ‘I am happening to life!’”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article explores mindfulness to help you become more powerful, engaged & directed in your life. It’s partly my own response to completing a recent course on mindful self-leadership with some of my students, but thematically it’s fairly central to my overall approach to ‘engaged mindfulness’.

Classes and workshops for August are out, including the wisdom of awakening series, meditating with animal guides & familiars, and a mindfulness course for teenagers.

In the spirit of creativity,

Toby

Self-belief (the most powerful creative force in your life)

I am the most powerful force in my life, you are the most powerful in yours
I’ve recently completed a series on ‘Mindful self-leadership’ with my public program students. It’s a program that I also run with companies and organizations at least six times a year. Each time I deliver it, slightly different themes energy as important for me. This time around the insight that kept coming back again and again as the course went on was ‘I am the most important creative force in my life’. The simple recognition of this is a tremendously powerful object of mindful attention.

The most powerful force in the world?
Of course you aren’t, there are many more powerful forces in the world than you or I. But, in terms of your life, it is you that sits in the middle of it, your energy & focus, your choices to do or not to do, your thoughts & emotions. What you choose to focus on and do in your life is the most powerful directional force in it!

The feeling of helplessness
Sometimes there can be an overriding feeling of helplessness in the face of events in our life. We can feel like a puppet, the strings of which are being pulled by other people and external forces. Sometimes we can convince ourselves that ‘we have no choice’ and allow ourselves to become a victim of circumstances. There is even comfort in being a victim, we can tell ourselves that we had no choice and blame it on others.

Sometimes things don’t work out
It is true that sometimes things don’t work out as we had hoped, despite our best efforts. But even then, we are the ones who decide how we approach the fact that things didn’t work out how we had hoped. We are the ones who decide how to mentally frame what has happened, and how we are going to work with it. We are the ‘eye of the storm’, we are still the primary causal factor in our experience.

It’s sometimes hard work owning your creative power
If you own your power, then sure, you have to stay alert, think things through, confront difficult choices and people. But all of this is no harder work than not owning your power, and being buffeted mercilessly by the forces of chance and fate. Once you get used to it, being creatively powerful in your life feels less and less stressful, and more and more of a pleasure. Rather than ‘life happening to me’ I have the feeling that ‘I am happening to life!’. We can be calm, collected, and powerful. If we do so we burn less energy, we feel more in control. From this then a stable experience of self-belief starts to emerge, a faith in our ability to work thru and work out our problems, and enjoy doing it!

Meditating:
Sit down quietly. As you breathe, breathe your energy and awareness into the centre of your chest and torso area. Feel your creative power gathering in your body as you inhale, relax into it as you exhale. As you breathe, dwell upon the recognition: “I am the most powerful creative force in my life”. Stay with that recognition and feeling for the time you have set aside for meditation, really letting it sink in.
As you go about your daily life, remember the recognition, and act as if you believed it. Play with your power creatively, taking ownership of it. Notice how your experience starts to change.

Recent articles related to self-leadership & creative power:
A flower opening to the Sun – Choosing (& making distinctions around) joy
Trusting your inner signals
Empowering (& then dropping) the self
Making yourself big
Pro-activity in the face of life & breathing pro-actively
Becoming a Self-determining entity – Five stages to mindful self-leadership

© Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

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How to meditate when you are ill or sick

Post author By Toby
Post date June 26, 2023

“When you are ill, trust your body and it’s capacity for healing. Relax and get yourself out of the way. Dropping into short spaces of non-doing really helps to stay stable and keep on keeping on, even when your energy is low and you are feeling somewhat dis-oriented”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is a personal reflection on some of the basic meditation techniques I use when I get ill. They are relatively simple positions that, if you can remember to do them make a huge difference! If your going through a stage where your being exposed to bugs at the same time as having to work hard (like I am with a pre-schooler in the house), then having a meditation plan around sickness is a game changer…

If you enjoy the article, then you might be interested in the Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy workshop that I will be doing on Saturday the 8^th July 9.30am-12.30pm as a live & live-stream session.

In the spirit of health & energy,

Toby

How to meditate when you are ill or sick

This last week I have been a little under the weather with a flu and cough bug. Even a minor illness has quite a lot of power to incapacitate our meditation efforts, so what I have done below is to outline a few positions I use when I am ill to navigate the process smoothly, and also maintain the basic momentum of my practice even though I’m not feeling great.

Basic positions: Being primarily present & maintaining functional breathing
Your basic task as a meditator is to establish your awareness as being primarily present in the moment, and secondarily thinking about stuff. This is the easiest and most essential position to stay with. You can take your body and breathing to do this, and it’s surprising how calm it can make you feel, even when you’re not feeling great.
Within your ‘primarily present’ position, you can then pay attention to your manner of breathing, and focus on ‘functional breathing’, which is breathing through your nose, and sending the air down into the lower lungs on your inbreath, connecting your nose to your belly. This is often one of the first things to go when you get ill, sustaining it helps your body to get on with its job of healing.
These two practices are your basic ‘navigation tools’ while you are sick. If you stay with them, the journey whilst you heal will be very much a part of your meditation journey.

Extending compassion to yourself & your body
Your body and you are suffering from the illness, so basic care and compassion is a no brainer that is easy to overlook. Will doing this help your body to heal faster? Maybe. It will certainly ease the process of the journey.

Trusting your body & non-doing
Trust your body and it’s capacity for healing, relax and get out of the way! One of the best ways to help your body is to do nothing, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. If you are not able to stop working to recover, then dropping into short spaces of non-doing really helps to stay stable and keep on keeping on, even when your energy is low and you are feeling somewhat dis-oriented.

Context through appreciation
Just because you are ill doesn’t mean there is suddenly nothing to appreciate in life. Recognizing this and appreciating what there is to feel good about undoubtedly helps you get through a bout of illness.

Minimalist meditations
If normally I would do let’s say 100 Medicine Buddha Mantras per day, I might change that to five-ten mins of the following pattern:

Three mantras, followed by a pause (back to basically present & functional breathing), three mantras, pause, and so forth

Less is more!

Mindful pro-activity
Final ‘active meditation’ is to ensure that you put together the best ‘healing protocol’ that you know regarding that illness. Creating and following such a routine is empowering. I have a routine of eastern and western supplementation, power napping (and prioritizing sleep in general) and gentle movement I follow for flu-type sickness. As so as I notice the signs, I activate the plan, and use the strategy to minimize the ability of the sickness to get a grip on my system.
I hope this give you a few ideas for when your next feeling under the weather!

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)

Ongoing, Tues/Weds evening 7.30-8.30pm– Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday the 8^th July 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy

Saturday July 15th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, Meditation & health, meditation & illness, meditation in singapore, mindful health, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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Empowering (& then dropping) the self

Post author By Toby
Post date June 13, 2023

“In meditation we practice both building a stronger more powerful self, and dropping, or letting go of the self. This enables us to lead ourselves consciously and strongly though our life challenges, and at the same time strategically put down our sense of self, and relax into the regenerative space arising when we do so”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article focuses on the self, and using meditation to strengthen it in contrasting but complementary ways. If you enjoy it, then do consider participating in Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership which starts this Tuesday & Wednesday evenings.

In the spirit of empowering & letting go,

Toby

Breathing with your power – Empowering & then dropping the self

In meditation we practice both building a stronger more powerful self, and dropping, or letting go of the self. This enables us to lead ourselves consciously and strongly though our life challenges, and at the same time strategically put down our sense of self, and relax into the regenerative space arising when we do so. As well as practising both individually, it is very important to practice the transition between them, so that we can move from one state to the other in a skillful & flexible way at different times during the day. This article explores how to do this.

Step 1: Empowering the self
Centring: Sit comfortably with your spine, neck and head aligned. Spend a little while relaxing and focusing your body-mind by breathing. As you do so breathe through the nose, and down into your lower lungs, so you are connecting your ‘nose to your belly’

Recognizing your self as the centre of your life:

Breathe into the centre of your torso, somewhere between your chest and solar-plexus. Become aware of your physical body and sensory world, recognize the sense of self that is at the centre of this experience, in the centre of your being.
Become aware of your mind; thoughts, ideas, feelings and desires. Observe the sense of self that lies at the centre of this experience.
Recognize that the ‘self’ at the centre of your bodily and mental experience is the primary causal power in what you experience and do in your life. Ideally it should be this self that leads, chooses and decides the path your life takes. If not you, then who else?
Breathe with this recognition for a while, feeling the power and agency of the self that lies within you

Step 2: Dropping the labels around your ‘self’
This second exercise involves noticing, and then dropping all the labels that you associate with yourself;

The roles you play in your family
The roles and titles you have professionally
Your identification of qualities with yourself eg: strong/weak, masculine feminine and so forth

Drop all these labels that you associate with but that are not you, so that you become a man or woman of no rank or position. You can even drop the label of man, woman, human, and just become a being. Notice that the ‘self’ you now experience is mere presence and being, that you can relax into the spaciousness and freedom of.

Practising the transition
Either of these meditations are good to do by themselves, but it can be nice to alternate between them in a single session, for example over a 20minute meditation you could spend 5 minutes on step 1, five minutes on step 2, and then repeat. This would give you a 20minute practice where you are practicing both positions and the transitions between them.

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Starts Tues/Weds, June 13^th/14^th– Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Tues 20th/Weds 21st June – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday June 24^th, 9.00am-5pm – Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindful self-leadership, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life

Post author By Toby
Post date May 8, 2023

“The effective integration of field-awareness & single-pointedness enables us to become ‘mindful warriors’ in the face of our life challenges, able to pace ourselves patiently through our victories and defeats with grace and stamina”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at how to integrate fundamental meditation methods into your daily life in a way that makes a real difference.. If you enjoy it, then do consider coming along live or online to this Tuesday & Wednesdays Integral Meditation class, where we will be taking it as our object of meditation.

This Saturday morning is thePsychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop . If you want to “Building your personal foundation of psychic positivity, resilience, self-esteem , energy and renewal”, then this is definitely the workshop for you!

In the spirit of the big & the focused picture,

Toby

Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life

Basic meditation technique has two main types of awareness:
Single-pointedness: When you are trying to narrow your focus onto one single thing, such as the breathing or a visualized object in your minds-eye
Field awareness: Where you are trying to take in the ‘big picture’ of all that is in your field of awareness, you are trying to observe it as a whole.

If you think about field awareness as like sitting on a balcony looking at a whole landscape, letting your eyes range across the totality of it. Then single pointedness is like zeroing in on a blade of grass, or a leaf, or a rock in the landscape, and staying with just that one thing.
In formal meditation you can train in one or the other in any given meditation, or you can combine them together. For example, in a 20-minute meditation you could do:

Five minutes single-pointedness
Five minutes field awareness
Five minutes single-pointedness
Five minutes field awareness

That would give you a pretty good ‘basic workout’!

However, these two practices really start to come into their own when you use them effectively in daily life. During your day you are trying to spend your time mostly either:

Focusing on doing one thing or
Panning back, taking in the big-picture, assessing and relaxing before you identify and zoom in on the next task single-pointedly

If you spend your day really working on this format, you will find it is very conducive to relaxed effective productivity, a healthy degree of peace of mind. It also helps you tend toward good/better decision-making skills.

Lost in the cracks
Much of our anxiety and stress inwardly speaking comes from being ‘lost’ in between focused and observational states. We are not particularly focused, we are thinking in an anxiously about a number of things in a personal, non-objective manner. In this state we are easily unbalanced, easily experience insecurity, and lack confidence in our capacity to guide ourself effectively and reliably through the day. Getting good at daily combining of field-awareness and single-pointedness is a recipe for confidence in getting through the day effectively, even when there are stresses and uncertainties tugging at the edges of our attention. We become ‘mindful warriors’ in the face of our life challenges, able to pace ourselves patiently through our victories and defeats with grace and stamina.

Related reading: Single-pointedness & going with the flow
Working samadhi – The way of the mindful warrior

© Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Finding energy through meditation – Aspects of meditating with your energy body

Post author By Toby
Post date April 10, 2023

“It’s really worth spending time being present to and mindful of your physical body. If our sense of our physical body is as ‘low resolution’ and disconnected as many peoples are, then awareness of the energy body is going to feel quite abstract“

Dear Integral Meditators,

My series on Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course starts this week. It looks at key states of mind and body that we can cultivate in meditation to create more energy consistently. The article below is a way of beginning work on your ‘basic energy body’. If you enjoy it do consider coming along to the Tues or Weds class this week, as it will be the subject of the sessions.

And final reminder of the Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop this weekend!

In the spirit of energy,

Toby

Finding energy through meditation – Aspects of meditating with your energy body (part 1)

Working on and with an awareness of your energy body can be one of the most transformative and catalytic aspects of a meditation practice. In the sections below I outline some basic pointers for meditation on your energy body. Each is a domain by itself, but put together integrally these body offer a rich way of working with your energy body.

Cultivating awareness of your physical body
Before trying to become aware of your energy body, which is a relatively subtle object, it’s really worth spending time being present to and mindful of your physical body. If our sense of our physical body is as ‘low resolution’ and disconnected as many peoples are, then awareness of the energy body is going to feel quite abstract.

Basic awareness of your energy body
To quote directly from my previous article on ‘Regenerating within your energy body’: “For the purposes of this meditation, consider your energy body as being essentially the biological life-force that flows through and radiates from your physical body, but then includes the emotional, mental and consciousness dimensions within you. It can be imagined simply as a body of light, same shape and size as your physical body, and occupying the same space. You can also imagine it as having an energy field around your body, like an egg or sphere of light. Beginning the meditation includes simply relaxing and gently sensing into your energy body, getting a feeling for it as you breathe”.
Once familiar with with your basic energy body, you can then work on awareness that other people and the objects in your environment have energy bodies, and practice working with an awareness of these. You can also do this as a walking meditation form, not just as a sitting one.

Linking your energy body to environmental energies
Essentially, we live our life within four ‘spheres’ of energy, the spheres of the earth, moon, sun and stars. Linking our energy body to these four can be done as follows:

Be aware of the energy of an ocean of light and energy in the centre of the Earth beneath you, where the solar core is located. Visualize a stream of that light and energy flowing up towards you, and connecting with you through the soles of your feet, or point of contact with the earth
Feel this earth light flowing into your legs and feet, energising and relaxing them as it does so. Think to yourself ‘My feet and legs are in the earth’. Have a sense of your body being connected too and in relationship to the living earth beneath you. Feel also the earth element within your body coming into balance.
Feel the light from the earth rising into your hips and belly. See a ball of moon-light building in your sacral-plexus; centre of the belly just above your hips. Think to yourself ‘My hips and belly are in the moon’ Have a sense of your hips and sacral plexus being connected too and in relationship with the living moon orbiting around the earth. Feel also the water element within your body coming into balance.
Feel the light from the earth rising into your heart & chest. See a ball of solar-light building in your heart centre. Think to yourself ‘My heart and chest are in the sun’ Have a sense of your heart and chest being connected too and in relationship to the living sun around which we are orbiting. Feel also the fire element within your body coming into balance.
Feel the light from the earth rising into your head. See a ball of star-light building in your head centre, middle of the brain. Think to yourself ‘My head is in the stars’ Have a sense of your head and neck being connected too and in relationship to the living stars and universe of which our own earth, moon and solar system partakes. Feel also the air element within your body coming into balance.

When you have finished, simply see the energy of the star, sun and moon centres in your body reducing as you gently re-orientate around your physical body and bring the meditation to a close, the duration of the meditation can be as short as 2-5 minutes to connect you to and activate your energy body. It can also be done as a longer form where you are combining energy body awareness with stillness.
Once you have done this a few times in a static position, you can try doing it outside, and even as a walking meditation. This can be powerful as you are interacting more explicitly with your direct environment when you walk in it.

Related article: Aspects of environmental meditation

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)

Starts Tues/Weds April 11^th/12^th, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Saturday 15th April 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday April 29th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Eternal life (& where to find it)

Post author By Toby
Post date March 27, 2023

“By dropping time and your sensory experience regularly, you gently start to acquaint yourself with life beyond form and time, the life eternal that you and all of us are participating in simultaneously with our everyday ever-changing life”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at a perennial meditation theme, and one closely tied up with the meaning of liberation and also very effective overall relaxation and stress transformation.
If you enjoy the article then do feel free to join us for this week’s Tuesday & Wednesday meditation class, where we shall be taking it as out subject for meditation.
The two week integral meditation retreat this weekend is currently full, if you would like to be on the wait-list just let me know.

In the spirit of the life-eternal,

Toby

Eternal life (& where to find it)

From a meditation point of view finding and ‘achieving’ eternal life is very simple. By ‘eternal life’ here we mean that which is not subject to the normal processes of living and dying, and that abides in an unchanging manner. It is a place where all problems are solved, all conflicts harmonized. It is a place of ‘permanent’ lasting peace. In the great wisdom traditions, the realization (not ‘achievement’) of eternal life is synonymous with the attainment of liberation or nirvana.

So where do we find it? Curiously we find it sitting under our noses, but where? If you look at each moment or occasion of your consciousness you will find three aspects:

A sensory dimension, what you see, feel smell touch etc…
A mental dimension, what you think, feel (emotionally) and imagine about it as it is happening
A consciousness dimension – That which is observing and experiencing the mind and senses

If you observe the first two dimensions, sense and mind you’ll see that they are changing continuously. They move thru continuous cycles of ‘life & death’, of coming and going. If you turn your attention to the third dimension, consciousness itself, you will probably notice it’s a little more difficult to observe. This is because there is nothing to it in terms of form and movement; its just a formless, timeless ‘containing space’. It holds space for the impermanent comings and goings of our mind and senses.
Because consciousness itself is formless, it is timeless. Because it is timeless, it is eternal. So, whenever you ‘drop into’ the experience of consciousness itself, you find eternal life there and also that part of you that is eternal. By eternal we mean not beginning, not ending, not subject to change. Consciousness is just a living empty space, nothing there, but pregnant with all possibilities.
In his short story entitled ‘Illusion’ Anthony De Mello gives a few pointers about where to find eternal life:

ILLUSION
“How shall I attain Eternal Life?”
“Eternal Life is now. Come into the present.”
“But I am in the present now, am I not?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you haven’t dropped your past.”
“Why should I drop my past? Not all of it is bad.”
“The past is to be dropped not because it is bad but because it is dead.”

So, to find eternal life (which is found in the state of consciousness itself) we need to drop time, past and also future. This helps still our mind enough to start to see consciousness in the present.
Another thing we need to do it withdraw our attention from our senses. As Lao Tzu says in verse 12 of the Tao Te Ching:

“Colours blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavours numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart.

The master observes the world
But trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky”
(Chapter 12 Steven Mitchell translation)

So, to find eternal life experientially in meditation you need to drop the past and future, withdraw your attention from the senses and allow your perception of consciousness itself to start to gradually come into focus. In doing so you gently start to acquaint yourself with life beyond form and time, the life eternal that you and all of us are participating in simultaneously with our everyday ever-changing life. In this sense ‘heaven’ is not something that we may or may not experience after our death. As Thich Nhat Hanh says “The pure land is now or never”. You ether see it or you don’t. If you are waiting and hoping to encounter it sometime in the future, you’ve missed it already, its right here where it always has been.

Related reading: That which solves all your problems and none

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (East Coast)

Sat & Sunday 1st, 2nd April – Two day integral meditation retreat

Starts Tues/Weds April 11^th/12^th, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags eternal life, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, liberation, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, nirvana, power of mind

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Breathing with your inner wounds

Post author By Toby
Post date March 6, 2023

“When we breathe with our inner wounds, the primary activity is being present to our wounds in a compassionate manner. We start to notice that the state of being warmly present to the wound starts to ‘change’ it without us trying to change it per-se”

Dear Integral Meditators,
Breathing with your wounds is a fundamental therapeutic technique that I have been using quite a lot recently. In the article below I explain the principles and how to try it for yourself.
Some of the deeper principles behind the below meditation can be learned and practiced in the Shadow meditation workshop on the 18th March. If you enjoy the article, you’d be welcome to attend.

In the spirit of healing,

Toby

Breathing with your inner wounds

Breathing with your wounds is a fundamental therapeutic technique that I have been using quite a lot recently. The basic principle is very simple:
As you breathe, be aware of any inner wounds, conflict or unresolved energy within yourself.

As you breathe in, extend the fundamental warmth of your compassion toward, around and into that area of yourself
As you breathe out, sustain relaxed focus on this, exposing the wound or conflict to the warm, compassionate energy

You can do this as a formal, sit down meditation, or just take it as a mood and atmosphere that you return to regularly though-out the day. For example, today is Sunday, and the pace/cadence of the day is that things are relaxed enough for me to be doing this type of breathing as I cook or walk, or am in between activities or direct interactions with others.
You can make the way in which you extend your compassion very subjective as you breathe, or you can make it slightly more objective and detached. Either works well in different ways. See my article on Building functional and wise compassion.

Compassionate presence heals
With our inner wounds it often feels as if we need to ‘do’ something in order to fix our wound. When we breathe with our wounds, the primary activity is being present to our wounds in a compassionate manner. We start to notice that the state of being warmly present to the wound starts to ‘change’ it without us trying to change it per-se. I mentioned in the paragraph above that I enjoy practising this on a Sunday. On Sunday we have the opportunity to be present to all of the half-processed emotions that are within us from the events of the week. Where we notice there is a wound or conflict, we can acknowledge and breathe with it, which will help to process it, enabling us to reset effectively for the beginning of the next week.

Breathing with wounds in relationships
If your inner wounds and conflicts are with people, you can practice compassionate breathing whilst bearing in mind the other person or people involved. Again, you are not trying to ‘fix’ the relationship, just extending healing presence to it, and observing the change in your perception that starts to take place. I find this is often somewhat magical, as the tone of the relationship the next time I meet the person or people often changes for the better.

Final point, sometimes it may not be possible to extend warmth and compassion to yourself or the wound. If that’s the case, simply acknowledging it and breathing with it, letting it come and go as you breathe in and out can still be very helpful. Often doing this for a while will then enable you to access the compassionate awareness.

Related reading: Lazy compassion
Building Your Compassion and Reducing Your Own Suffering, Everyday

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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