Category: Energy Meditation

A Mind of Ease Energy Meditation Inner smile & Earth healing Inner vision Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Presence and being present Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

Mindfulness, emotions & your MRVA’s (Mass rapid value assessments)

Post author By Toby
Post date April 6, 2026

“If we can allow ourselves to skilfully acknowledge & experience difficult emotions, there is a corresponding release of a range of positive, enjoyable emotions.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article focuses on emotions & how you work with them as a major lynch-pin of your energetic resilience. Its something that we will be exploring in depth in the new Wednesday and Saturday meditation series on building confidence & resilience with the inner-smile practice.

In the spirit of integration,

Toby

Mindfulness, emotions & your MRVA’s (Mass rapid value assessments)

In my upcoming meditation series on building confidence and energetic resilience in life, we will be focusing on developing a range of mindful skills, including:

Healing and regenerating the energy of your physical body and internal organs
Revitalise and transform your emotional vitality
Build a warm, empowered & confident relationship to your life

To really get these skills to work effectively, we need to understand the energy of emotions, their power, and how to get them to flow healthily within us. Emotions are psych-somatic, partaking of both our bodily and mental energy. A good relationship to emotions opens our life-force and joie de vivre tremendously. A blocked or combattative relationship to our emotions tends to constrict our life-force, limiting our energy in life no matter how hard we try. Here is a working definition of emotion from Nathaniel Branden, for the purposes of this article

“An emotion is a value-response. It is an automatic psychological result (involving mental and somatic features) of a super-rapid subconscious appraisal. Emotions are psychosomatic embodiments of value judgments…Since emotions are the product of complex integrations of ideas beliefs and experiences, they cannot be commanded out of existence, neither by and act of will or by repression. It is a disastrous error to imagine that an emotion – merely because it is judged undesirable – can be repressed or dismissed with impunity.” *

Emotions happen very quickly then, as our body-mind engages in many ‘Mass rapid value assessments’ (MRVA’s). Once an emotion has been stimulated, it IS, whether we like it or not. So how should we approach it. To quote Branden again:

“If we acknowledge and permit ourselves to experience our painful or undesired feelings, without self-pity, and without self-condemnation, we facilitate the process of healing integration.” *

If we can allow ourselves to skilfully acknowledge and experience difficult emotions, a corollary benefit will be the release of a whole range of positive, enjoyable emotions.

How to acknowledge and experience emotions

A simple way to begin is to sit down, sense into yourself and simply describe the emotions you are feeling. You can either do this organically with whatever is there in the moment, or with regard to a particular emotion you are struggling with. As you do this you will notice there are both bodily and mental aspects to it. My go-to practice for years now has been something called sentence completion. You create a sentence stem, and then complete it, either writing or verbally around ten times, in whatever way occurs to you, as quickly and non-judgmentally as you can.

Here is an example around depression:
If I allow myself to experience and acknowledge the feeling I am calling depression within me –

I feel like there is a huge weight on my shoulders
My eyes stare from hollow sockets
My mouth hangs open like a zombie
I want to sleep for a thousand years
I feel overwhelmed by all the things I have to do
I resent others for leaving me with all the responsibility
I feel confused about what to do next
The world feels like an insurmountable mountain
I can feel myself more present in my body now, landing and feeling stronger
I feel a release and renewed enthusiasm and I move through it

Here you can see that, by the end of the sentence completion I’m already kind of pulling out of the difficult emotion, and moving toward something better. Better still, I have processed the emotion and an now move on from it into the next part of the day in freedom.
All this can sound a bit too good to be true until you actually try it, but once you get the hang of it all sorts of possibilities start to open up!

* Quote: Nat Branden, from ‘the Disowned Self’, chapter on the undiscovered self (Page 27 & 33)

Related reading: Mindfulness around emotions
Accepting & recycling your difficult emotions
Connecting to higher, deeper emotions (Enjoying emotional resilience)

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming classes & workshops

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

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

Starts Wednesday 8^th April, 7.30-8.30pm, & then ongoing – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Saturday 11^th April, 5.30-6.15pm SG time, & then ongoing – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Energy Meditation Inner smile & Earth healing Inner vision Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation

Mindful of – colour therapy & facial expression

Post author By Toby
Post date March 23, 2026

“Awareness of colour & facial expression are two ways of using mindful attention to improve your mood and energy with very little effort. You just need to remember them & return to them often”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article focuses on working with colour & facial expression, both powerful, enjoyable methods for enhancing mood & energy.

If you enjoy it, then do have a look at this Saturdays workshop, that looks at this subject in depth:
Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & Earth Healing meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life, as well as the class & deep-dive series following on from it.

In the spirit of living-in-colour,

Toby

Mindful of – colour therapy & facial expression

The two ‘mindful positions’ that we explore in this article are:

The energetics of colour, and tuning into the colour you need right now
The expression on your face, and working with what it is communicating

What colour does my body need?

If you have ever drawn or painted with colours, you might have noticed that concentrating on colour can feel great. After an hour of working with a green, blue and yellow landscape picture, you can really feel how these colours make you feel relaxed, calm and energised, even if you aren’t a great artist.
Similarly, if you go outside and just notice the colours in the landscape around you, you will notice that certain colours feel great to just stare at, absorb the energy of and relax.
On a slightly deeper level, if you ask yourself the question what coulor does my body energy need right now to move toward balance? Quite quickly you will notice your body intelligence will suggest a colour to surround yourself with.

If it needs energy it may move toward oranges or reds
If it needs lifting, it might move towards yellows
If it needs balancing and harmonizing, it might move toward greens
For calmness blues, and so on…

You can then just imagine yourself surrounded by that colour and let your body-mind absorb it, with often rapid effect. You might feel also that the colour has a ‘sound’ or vibration, which you can enjoy too.

Variation: You can imagine a point of energy in your belly, heart, and head. Ask each of these areas of your body what colour it needs. Breathe each of these colours into the particular area of the body, building that colour vibration there. You will get to know what colours work for you powerfully very quickly if you do this.

Your facial expression

The expression on your face communicates how you are feeling, but often we are unaware of it. If you are on a commute, and look at people’s faces, you will see this quite clearly!
If you become aware of your face, and notice tension, stress or a bad mood there, here are three stages you can try:

Notice the expression and the mood it embodies. Accept it, even exaggerate the expression a little to really get a feeling for what is there
Next, relax your face, release the expression, move your face toward a calm, neutral position, enjoy it
Third, raise the corners of your mouth a little, so that your face is in the position of a half-smile. Feel the gentle joy and radiance of this expression, let it spread from your face into your body, and any parts of your body-mind that might need a bit of warmth and support.

There you go, two ways of playing with your attention to improve your mood and energy with very little effort. It’s just something that you need to come back to often and put to use!

Related reading: Mindfulness, beauty & slowing the effects of ageing
Your Emotional Colour Palette
Practical dimensions of chakra meditation
Inner smile meditation
What your body posture communicates to you

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Ongoing weekly on Wednesday – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & Earth Healing meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

Starts Wednesday 8^th April, 7.30-8.30pm, & then ongoing – The inner smile – Meditations for inner regeneration & connecting to the Earth – An 8-week course

Saturday 11^th April, 5.30-6.15pm SG time, & then ongoing – The inner smile & Earth healing deep-dive – An 8 session practice series

Tags inner smile

Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Enlightened service Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Primal Spirituality Qi gong Tree of Life Tree of Yoga Zen Meditation

Healing thru the Earth, & Earth-as-Self

Post author By Toby
Post date March 9, 2026

“Release the weight & burdens of your life downwards into the Earth. She in turn receives it, taking it into her body, where it can be recycled & renewed”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at ways of relating to the Earth that are healing & regenerative, as well as them relating to ourselves AS the Earth, which can lead us to developing unusual inner strength & independence.

If you enjoy the article, we will be doing a related meditation in this week’s Wednesday & Saturday meditations, you would be welcome to join!

Finally, heads up for the Spring Equinox balancing & renewing meditation on the 18th & 21st March!

In the spirit of resilient identity,

Toby

Healing thru the Earth, & Earth-as-Self

Experience yourself sitting or standing on the Earth. Feel her body beneath you. Feel your body as a part of here body, which of course it is. Imagine your body sinking a few centimeters into the floor, so that you feel like your body and the Earth are connecting energetically. Feel her energy supporting you from below.

Releasing the wounds of adulthood

In the state described above, spend some time getting in touch with the emotional wounds, burdens, and trials of your life. Sense how they turn up in your body and your body energy. As you breathe in, feel yourself getting in touch with the weight of these wounds. As you breathe out, feel yourself releasing them downwards into the Earth. She in turn receives this wounded energy, taking it into her body, where it can be recycled and renewed.

Receiving regenerative energy

Now sense downward into the Earth, and feel her energy rising into your body, flowing in particular into the areas of your body that carried the emotional wounds, the fatigue, the world-weariness that you released downwards previously. Feel these areas of your body becoming renewed and strengthened. Spend some time relaxing with this experience.

The Earth-as-Self

Experiencing your connection to the Earth, reflect upon how your body and energy came from her, and is a part of her.

Your body came from your parents bodes, the bodies of all humans come from the Earth
Every time you eat, you take the body of the earth into yourself, her body becomes your body

You are like a leaf, the Earth is the tree. The bigger identity of the leaf is the Tree. You are the Earth!

Imagine your sense of your body expanding outwards, becoming the size of the room that you are in, or the landscape around you. Experience your body as the whole room, and or as the whole landscape around you.
Feel roots growing down from your body into the Earth, filling it. Feel your energy moving down and expanding into the Earth. Feel your massiveness, stability, and solidity. You are the Earth, the Earth is you.

From this position of Earth-as-self, having renewed yourself through the Earth, turn and inwardly face your life, and your life challenges. Feel your strength, equanimity, and compassion. Connect to the new beginning in each moment from this position of calm, resourced Earth-strength-that-you-are. Go and meet your life.

Standing on your own feet

ADULTHOOD, by Anthony De Mello

To a disciple who was always at his prayers the Master said, “When will you stop
leaning on God and stand on your own two feet?”
The disciple was astonished. “But you are the one who taught us to look on God as
Father!”
“When will you learn that a father isn’t someone you can lean on but someone who
rids you of your tendency to lean?”

Related article: Yin stability – Mother Earth meditation
Born from life, not into it
Connecting to your Big Mind

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Date for your diaries:

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

Ongoing weekly on Wednesday – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Wednesday 18th (7.30pm) & Saturday 21st (5.30pm) March – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation

Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & energy balls meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life

Wednesday April 1^st, 7.30-8.30pm & Saturday, 4^th April, 5-6pm – Which meditator are you? – Free meditation seminars: The five types of meditators & how to build your path to inner freedom

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

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Energy Meditation Greenworld Meditation Inner vision Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Primal Spirituality Qi gong Tree of Life

Yin stability – Mother Earth meditation (& new Gaia trance sound-tech track)

Post author By Toby
Post date March 7, 2026

“Experience yourself in an interactive, friendly communion with the Earth, where you feel gratitude and receive sustenance from her, and she in turn enjoys the connection with you”

Dear Integral Meditators,

It has been a fast-moving 2026 so far, both in terms of daily life and in terms of world events! Obviously, meditation and mindfulness are a pillar of how I build capacity to hold space for stress in my life. In my article below I outline a simple meditation for connecting to the Earth that can be done anytime.

Beneath the article is some information on a new track from IAwake technologies called Gaia Trance. I’ve been working with their sound technology since about 2011, and I have found it to be extremely useful. Gaia Trance is a great track collection for attuning to the energies of the Earth, and I’ve been enjoying the effects of listening to it. It is on special offer for the next few days, so if your curious, this could be a good opportunity for you to try it out!

In the spirit of Earth connection,

Toby

Yin stability – Mother Earth meditation (& new Gaia trance sound-tech track)

Looking for stability, calm, coolness? Look no further than below

You can do this exercise either sitting on a chair, or standing in the traditional qi gong horse stance, with knees slightly bent and feet about a shoulders-width apart. Place your hands down, about 10cm from the sides of your hips, palms pulled up so that they are facing the ground.
Breathing nose to belly, start to sense downward with your mind, focusing particularly on the soles for the feet, and the palms of the hands. Move your awareness down into the Earth, sensing her gentle life-force. Imagine your feet sinking down a few centimetres into the floor, so that your body & the body of Mother Earth are connecting more deeply.
Feel the energy of the Earth flowing up into your feet and the palms of your hands.

The energy flowing up from your feet flows into your perineum, lower belly, at the back towards the kidneys, at the front of the belly, to the area just behind the navel
The energy flowing up from your hands flows through the arms into your heart, spreading out from there

You might sense and feel the Earth energy as being golden or blue (or another colour), or you may just feel it as primarily a sensation. Let the Earth energy cool, balance and relax any stressed areas in your body. If you feel the need, you can also send any difficult energy in your body down into the earth, where it can be ‘recycled,’ a bit like compost(!) You can send this energy through your feet or out through the palms and fingers.

Let the energy from the Earth go to wherever it needs to go in your body to effect healing and balancing.

If you like you can imagine yourself growing roots down into the Earth, so that you feel grounded and stable, like a tree (see my article on ‘Standing like a tree’).

Try and experience yourself in an interactive, friendly communion with the Earth, where you feel gratitude and receive sustenance from her, and she in turn enjoys the connection with you.

Towards the end of the practice, feel the Earth qi or energy in your body gathering as a ball of luminous light behind your belly button, a few centimetres behind your navel. If you like you can place the palm of one hand over your belly as you do this.

Related article: Tired of being tired – Relaxing into, not fighting with your fatigue

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

From I-Awake: We wanted to let you know about our upcoming release, Gaia Trance: An Ecstatic Resonance with the Living Earth, developed by iAwake’s remarkable friend and colleague, Nadja Lind.
Here’s the story behind Gaia Trance from Nadja:
“There have been times when I felt completely disconnected—my nervous system fried, my body in pain, my mind heavy from PTSD symptoms. In those moments, these neuro-acoustic tracks became my lifeline. Not just to calm me, but to shift me—instantly. From shutdown to clarity. From overwhelm to relief. From numbness to joy. Real joy. And to this day, it still amazes me how effortlessly these tracks work their magic—every single time.”

Gaia Trance will retail at $37. We will introduce Gaia Trance with a limited time offer of 20% OFF ($29.60) from March 5th – 12th only.
Here is more information about this latest release:
Drift into spaces shaped by water, tropical birds, a golden shimmer, and a gentle tribal didgeridoo beat that pulls you forward in waves—rising, expanding, softening—before easing you into a quieter descent. The embedded frequencies sit underneath this flow, with alpha and theta guiding the journey and delta settling in more gently toward the end.

Enter a hypnotic earth trance carried by primal resonance, subtle rhythm, and flowing natural textures
Elevate your consciousness immersed in a finely layered soundscape of live didgeridoo, water, and tropical birds, gently progressing from alpha to theta to delta frequencies

Feel grounded, expanded, and calmly renewed as the journey settles into a soft, restorative descent

Ongoing weekly on Wednesday – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

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

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body Energy Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present Stress Transformation Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

Tired of being tired – Relaxing into, not fighting with your fatigue

Post author By Toby
Post date March 3, 2026

“Relax into fatigue, work WITH your body, rather than fighting with it to complete the task when you are tired”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at how to work with fatigue & stress, rather than against it. If you want to get more done with less effort, this practice can be quite transformative!

Heads up for the Saturday, March 28^th 9:00am – 12:30pm – Inner smile & energy balls meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life, which is very much focused on re-calibrating our energy-fatigue dynamic…

In the spirit of acceptance,

Toby

Tired of being tired – Relaxing into, not fighting with your fatigue

Tired of being tired

When we are tired, often without realizing it we can find ourself fighting with the fatigue. The sensation of fatigue, particularly when we are stressed is uncomfortable, dulling, even actively painful. Consequently, we unconsciously react to the pain by:

Repressing it
Pushing it out of our awareness
Taking our mind away or ‘out’ of our body to avoid the discomfort
Seeking distractions, something to take our attention away from being tired

As a short-term coping mechanism, this can work for a while, but as a method it is very inefficient because:

We must expend effort avoiding the fatigue, and we are tired already
It sets up an antagonistic relationship between ‘me’ and the fatigue. I am fighting it rather than working with it
We start to dis-connect from our body, and the mainly legitimate signals that it is giving us about our energy level and what we are experiencing

If we persist with this approach, then the medium to long term effect is that I become ‘tired of being tired.’ What this means is not only am I literally tired for the first reasons that my body is signalling to me, but I am also tired of having to always fight, avoid and repress my feelings of being tired!

Accepting fatigue

The first step towards a more ergonomic and compassionate way to deal with our fatigue is to get in touch with and accept our fatigue. If we are a fatigue repressor, then this can feel pretty counter-intuitive at first, but it releases the potential for a whole new dynamic. As you are reading, get in touch with your body, and the feelings of fatigue or stress in it.

Notice your resistance to it initially, or your antagonism
Try and relax yourself and your body a little. In particular, soften the area of your body that contains the pain of the fatigue
Breathe in and out of the area, breathing in extend a bit of warmth and compassion to this body part, as you breathe out, encourage it to release the fatigue so that fresh energy can come into the body-tissues

If you build competency at doing this, then temporarily the pain will lessen, and you will feel a bit more energy. If you need to keep on working or doing whatever you are doing, then you do it in a more relaxed way, working WITH your body, rather than fighting with it to complete the task. Working with the body and its fatigue means:

You are no longer losing energy resisting and fighting your fatigue
You and your body-mind become a much more singular energy that can move forward with purpose
Your body responds to your encouragement and acceptance with energy, so it helps you because you help it(!)

When you need to rest, rest!

When we fight with our fatigue, this can de-sensitize ourself to it so that sometimes/often we fail to respond in the most obvious way, which is to build in time for more rest. Instead, we just keep pushing on, we procrastinate, we ignore the signals until we are in a state of different degrees of burn out or over-fatigue. This then takes much longer to recover from that plain old tiredness.

Practice points

Notice your resistance to fatigue
Practice relaxing into and working with your body and feelings of fatigue
Notice the greater enjoyment and efficiency of working with, not fighting your tiredness
Be decisive around rest

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body Energy Meditation Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Breathing Mindful Resilience Qi gong

Stress resilience through Cauldron breathing – Keeping your belly energy soft

Post author By Toby
Post date February 27, 2026

“If we don’t keep moving our belly energy, the stress can really get stuck, becoming a permanent, or semi-permanent feature of the way we are”

Dear Toby,

Awareness of energy, breathing and movement are all keys to building a multi-dimensional resilience practice. The article below outlines a classic qi gong breathing technique that I recommend you make a regular part of your routine!

If you enjoy it, then do have a look at the Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing workshop that I will be doing this Saturday morning. Its a practical introduction to next level sustainable energy.

In the spirit of the cauldron,

Toby

Stress resilience through Cauldron breathing – Keeping your belly energy soft

Much of the stress, and the resistance to stress that we accumulate as we go through our day works its way down to our abdomen. If we are stressed, we can lose our appetite, or get indigestion. We talk about having a ‘knot’ in our stomach, or ‘butterflies in our tummy’. If we don’t keep moving our belly energy, the stress can really get stuck, becoming a permanent, or semi-permanent feature of the way we are. This pattern then leads short- and medium-term stress to become longer term, chronic stress.

Belly breathing in Qi gong, and reverse belly breathing are techniques of breathing that you can turn into habits, that keep the energy in the belly moving. If your abdomen gets stressed, the breathing will help to gently shift the stress out. It works basically as a massaging mechanism for the abdominal organs. It can also be practised as a breathing meditation technique, where you can build depth of meditation at the same time as doing a deeper de-stress.

Here are the basic stages of the practice, you can do it as a gentle, yin breathing practice, or as a more yang deep-breathing practice according to preference:

Stage 1: Practice breathing nose to belly: Breathe in through the nose, activate your diaphragm, sucking the air down into the bottom of your lungs. If you do this, you will notice your belly moving out a bit as you inhale. The diaphragm pushes down on the internal organs below it, creating a gentle squeeze, as it moves down, and release as you exhale. This squeeze and release creates a massage effect, helping the belly to release any tension that it may be holding onto.

Stage 2: To increase the massage, squeeze the muscles in your perineum to about 25-35% power as you inhale. This firms up the pelvic floor, so that as the pressure comes down from the diaphragm, it is sustained because the pelvic floor holds its ground below. If you do this you will feel a greater pressure build up in the belly as you inhale, and a greater release as you exhale. This gives a more powerful massage to the inner organs as you breathe. As you breathe out, relax the muscles in the pelvic floor.

Stage 3: As you inhale, gently tense the muscles in the front of the abdominal wall, so that the belly cannot move outwards. If you do this, you will feel a greater pressure in the belly; diaphragm moves down, pelvic floor holds its position, and now the belly keeps position, so the pressure has no where to go. Release the belly muscles as you breathe out. This creates a ‘cauldron’ effect in the belly, building pressure and squeeze as you inhale, releasing it as you exhale, helping any stress-knots in the belly to be released, so that energy can keep flowing through it.

Optional stage 4: As you do the cauldron breathing from stage 3, imagine an energy ball, about the size of a golf ball sitting behind your belly button, a few centimetres into your abdomen. As you breathe in, feel this ball filling with light and energy, as you breathe out, feel that light and energy expanding out from your belly into the rest of your abdomen, body and aura, dispersing stress and energy blocks as it moves outwards.

Doing a few of these breaths when you are stressed can really help. It is a great general health practice. If you create a habit of it, you will be helping your body to help you regulate your stress, and build energetic resilience for a lifetime.

Related reading: Functional breathing
Reverse abdominal breathing

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Tags breathing meditation, inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, qi gong, stress transformation

Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Energy Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Presence and being present

Accepting & recycling your difficult emotions

Post author By Toby
Post date February 23, 2026

“The quickest way to get to where you want to go is often to accept where you are.”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article looks at mindfulness around emotions, and working with emotional energy. If you enjoy it, we will be exploring these methods in both the weekday (Weds eve) and Saturday sessions this week. You are invited!

You might also consider the Inner smile & energy balls meditation workshop – Build health, confidence & energetic resilience in life.

Final call for this weekends Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels & for Self-Healing!

In the spirit of inner recycling,

Toby

Accepting & recycling your difficult emotions

In last week’s article on ‘Your emotions as horses’ I led with this quote:

“The emotions you currently think of as being the most useless in your life might just be the ones that you need to learn to ride better”

In this piece, I want to explore the theme of accepting and recycling difficult emotions, as well as the mental narrative and the bodily/somatic states that goes with them.

To recycle the energy of difficult emotions, they first need to be acknowledged and accepted. There is a Zen saying that goes “Pulling the weeds we give nourishment to the plant,” meaning that we can learn to be grateful to our inner difficulties, if we know how to use their energy, like pulling and then burying weeds next to a plant so that they can nourish it.

Our ‘normal’ approach to a difficult emotional state is to try and push it away, so that we can replaced it with a more ‘positive’ state. Another quote I often use in my trainings is:

“The quickest way to get to where you want to go is to accept where you are.”

What this points to is that, counter-intuitively, if you can accept and be at peace with a difficult emotional state, the state itself can change more rapidly to something more constructive. It is the accepting and not resisting that enables the transformation.

For example, if I am hurt or disappointed by someone’s behaviour, acknowledging that feeling of hurt or disappointment is a first step towards transforming it.

Smiling at it to accept and soften the energy

From acknowledgment I can then move onto acceptance. Even though we may understand intellectually the principle and benefit of accepting, it is not easy to do! The gateway to accepting a difficult emotion is often guarded by resistance. One technique I find helpful when in a state of resistance is to gently smile at my resistance, inviting it to soften its hard, rigid stance. Smiling and inviting our resistance to let go (and not being in a hurry about this) enables us to access the feeling of the emotion itself. Once we have this access, we can then use the smiling technique to work with the emotion. In my example of hurt and disappointment, I can smile inwardly to the part of me that feels this way, encouraging a softening of the emotion, making its energy more malleable. This opens up the emotional energy to the ‘recycling’ or transformational stage of the practice that I explain below.

Recycling emotional energy using the microcosmic orbit

I have talked about the microcosmic orbit in a previous articles this year. With emotional energy we raise its vibration by looping it up the back of the body, and re-directing it down the front, which is the basic pattern in all M-O meditations.

Imagine two points of light within your body, one at the bottom of your perineum, the second at the crown of your head. Now imagine a golden thread running up the back of your body, from perineum to the base of the spine, up the back of the body to the crown. It continues thru the crown to your third eye, and down the front of your body, through the belly and back down to the perineum (see diagram).

As you breathe in, feel the energy in your body flowing up the back of the golden thread to your crown, raising and purifying the vibration of the energy as it does so. As you breathe out, feel energy flowing down the front of the body, bringing the higher vibrational energy back down into the torso. As you do this, imagine that the energy of your difficult emotion is being ‘sucked’ into this loop, recycled up the back of the spine and returning down the front of the torso, as neutral/positive emotional energy, ready to be deployed by you in other directions.

Recycling rather than avoiding emotions is a great way to increase your energy levels and resilience in life. Initially the techniques can sound a bit eccentric, but once you try them a few times, the principles are not that complicated.

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

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 & emotions, meditation in singapore, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind

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

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

Post author By Toby
Post date February 16, 2026

“The emotions you currently think of as being the most useless in your life might just be the ones that you need to learn to ride better”

Dear Integral Meditators,

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

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

In the spirit of Lunar fire,

Toby

Your Emotions as Horses

Your emotions are like horses; powerful, fleet, full of energy and vitality. They are also willful and sometimes volatile. The flip side of this is they also contain their own instinctive and natural wisdom. You are the rider of the horses of your emotions.

If you try and control them by whipping and abusing them then they, like real horses will either become resentful, rebellious and devious or they will become broken, sad and scared.

If you simply indulge the horses of your emotions without directing them then they will simply run wherever they want without control, with the according results in your life.

Your emotions are tremendously strong. If you are scared of the strength of your emotions then they will sense that, and like horses with a nervous rider they will react to it.

If you learn how to ride your emotions with love and care, but at the same time with discipline and direction, then you have a tremendous energy source that you can put to positive use in your life, taking you faster in the direction that you want to go – So there is a lot ‘riding’ on the way you as the rider relate to the horses of your emotions!

Imagine you are on the back of a powerful horse now. It is the horse of your emotions. Feel the raw power, energy and life-force of the horse between your legs. When the horse wants to run, let him do so, feel the elation and the freedom as you gather speed, the wind in your hair, the trees and landscape flying by. Where do you want to go? You are the rider and director of this horse, and s/he wants your benevolent guidance.

Working mindfully with the image of yourself as rider and your emotions as horses can help us find out a lot about our current relationship to our emotions, and how we can learn to ride them better, with both more freedom and more control.

One of the keys to understand about emotions is that ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ emotions are like black and white horses (or brown etc…); it doesn’t matter what colour they are, what mainly matters is how you ride them. The emotions you currently think of as being the most useless in your life might just be the ones that you need to learn to ride better.

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Follow Toby on: LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram

Integral Meditation Asia

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

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body Energy Meditation Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Breathing Mindful Resilience Primal Spirituality Qi gong

Creating ‘healing & energy snacks’ – meditating on Jing qi

Post author By Toby
Post date January 21, 2026

Dear Integral Meditators,

Movement coaches that I follow often recommend ‘movement snacks’, meaning short mobility and movement breaks in your day to keep your body and joints nourished. I think this can be applied just as easily and importantly to nourishing our mind, heart and inner energy. To this end, here is an example of a short meditation snack to promote healing and energy:

Stand or sit comfortably, feet shoulder-width apart, spine straight, shoulders relaxed.
Place hands over the lower abdomen.
Inhale slowly through the nose, letting the belly expand.
Exhale gently, drawing the belly inward.
Repeat for 6–12 breaths, focusing on building warm, grounding energy in the belly.

Try it 3x a day for the next 5 days and notice how you feel!

There is an article of mine explaining a bit more about energy in the belly (from a qi gong perspective) below if you want to find out a bit more.

And if you want to learn a whole range of healing and energy snacks, as well as full meditations, then I invite you to this Saturdays workshop Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy, live or online.

In the spirit of healthy snacking,

Toby

Article: Guided qi gong healing visualization and breathing exercise for developing, maintaining and increasing our Essential energy or “jing-qi”

The main body of this article is going to be a practical guided exercise, but first I want to mention expand a little on the term “jing qi” (see also my article of the four levels of qi).

What is jing qi?

Jing qi translates as meaning “essential energy.” Our essential energy is derived from the potency of the fluids in our body that carry the energy of our life force, particularly our sexual fluids, hormones and neuro-chemicals.
Qi gong exercises and lifestyle advice often centre on the development of this form of qi within our energy system, as when it is strong our immunity system will be strong and our energy levels will be high.
Our jing qi is supported by our “Yuan qi” or primordial energy (the pre-natal life force that we received from our parents) and “Jen qi” or true energy (postnatal energy derived from breathing and metabolism of food). Thus, qi gong exercise nurtures our jing qi, and we support this by good diet and breathing habits (yuan qi), and the preservation and care of our yuan qi.
In general our jing qi pervades our body and all of the subtle energy meridians that interpenetrate our physical being. However, in qi gong the focus or fulcrum of our jing qi is explained to be in our lower dan-tien (dan tien meaning elixir filed or energy centre). For this reason the exercise below uses the lower belly area as its point of focus.

Qi gong healing visualization and breathing exercise for developing, maintaining and increasing our Essential energy

Preparation
Sit or stand in a relaxed position, with the head, neck, chest, belly and pelvis aligned vertically with each other, so that the weight of your upper body is able to travel down your lower torso in to the chair (if seated), or down your lower torso and legs into the floor (if standing).

Finding your core
Visualize a line of light and energy coming down from the sky, passing through the dead centre of your crown, brain, neck, chest, belly and pelvis, exiting through your perineum and passing down into the centre of the Earth. This is the vertical core line of your body. Once you have a clear image or feeling for it, breathe in and out of it gently for a little while.

Focusing your jing qi
Now see along the core line of your body at the level approximately 3cms beneath your belly button there is a ball of light about the size of a golf ball. This is the fulcrum of the jing qi or essential energy in your body. Focus on it gently for a while, as you focus on it you will feel its light begin to glow and intensify.
(See general article for core body breathing HERE).

Building and distributing your jing qi

As you breathe in, visualize the ball of light in your belly glowing intensely with energy and qi. As you breathe our, feel light and energy flowing out from your lower belly into the energy meridians of your body. By the time time you finish your exhalation you can feel all the energy meridians of your body from your crown to your toes glowing with the light of your jing qi. Follow this breathing pattern for as long as is comfortable.

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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

A Mind of Ease Beginners mind, resilient body creative imagery Energy Meditation Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral meditation training pages meditation and creativity Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Qi gong Zen Meditation

Not two, not one – The unified body-mind & brain illumination

Post author By Toby
Post date January 20, 2026

“The body-mind are not one, not two, & also both one & two. If you just read these words, it can seem either complex or non-sensical. However, when you actually DO it in meditation, it is quite simple!”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This week’s article has several aspects to it, including recordings that you can listen to to experience the meditations. If you don’t have time for all the material, just focus on the first section ‘Not one, not two – The integrated, or unified body-mind’, and enjoy digesting that!

If you enjoy the article, we will be exploring these subjects in both the weekday (Tues&Weds) and Saturday sessions this week.

And final call for this Saturday’s Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy!

In the spirit of not one, not two,

Toby

Not two, not one – The unified body-mind & brain illumination

This article looks at creating a combination of Zen and energy meditation techniques, putting them together in a complementary, mutually enhancing way.

Not one, not two – The integrated, or unified body-mind

The first position is a Zen meditation on the unified body-mind. The basis of this meditation is explained very succinctly in this quote from Shunryu Suzuki, from his book Zen mind beginners mind:

“Our body and mind are not two and not one. If you think your body and mind are two, that is wrong. If you think that they are one, that is also wrong. Our body and mind are both two and one. We usually think that if something is not one, it is more than one; if it is not singular it is plural. But in actual experience, our life is not only plural, it is singular. Each one of us is both dependent and independent”

Normally in everyday life it feels like our mind and body are separate. Our body is doing one thing whilst our mind is thinking about something else. Often it feels as if our mind is the ‘owner’ and operator of the body. Either way they feel like two things. When we sit in meditation focusing on the body and breath, the temporary cessation of thoughts brings the mind and body together in a unity, or singularity. We experience a unified body-mind, it feels like they are one. In reality, the body mind are not one or two, they are as they are. We can explore this ‘not one-not two’ experience in meditation, using it as a gateway to experiencing our body-mind as they are, in the present moment, not one, not two, and also both one and two.
This meditation by itself is a great way to move beyond conceptual awareness, using the apparent paradox presented. If you just read the words above, it can seem either complex or non-sensical. However, when you actually DO it in meditation, it is really quite simple!

Practice the unified body-mind 10-minute meditation recording

Brain energy activation microcosmic orbit meditation, basic mindful positions

Position 1: Connecting to our light body, or energy body,
Position 2: Visualizing the microcosmic orbit within our energy body, focusing on activating the energy centre within the perineum and coccyx
Position 3: Practicing circulating energy within the M-O, from the perineum and coxyx up to the base of the skull, crown and third eye centers to activate and illuminate the brain.
Position 4: Circulating the energy up the back & down the front of the body. More generally for integration.
Position 4: Pausing the flow of the microcosmic orbit, breathing in and out of our navel/belly area. Letting the energy go to an area of our body that needs healing or energizing.

Practice the microcosmic orbit 12-minute brain activation meditation

If you practice both techniques in combination, the effect is designed to be that:

Your unified body-mind meditation helps you establish a solid based
The brain illumination practice enables you to refine and brighten your consciousness to then go deeper into the unified body-mind state
And so on in a virtuous cycle

Finally, here is a ten-minute combination form that puts them together in a shorter format.

Enjoy!

© Toby Ouvry 2026, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Tues 13^th, Weds 14^th January, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body – a 10-week integral meditation course

Starts Saturday 17^th January, 5.30-6.15pm, & then weekly – Beginners mind, resilient body deep-dive: An 11 -session practice series

Saturday 24th January, 9.00am-12.30pm – Meditation and Mindfulness for Self-Healing and Creating High Levels of Energy

Tags brain illumination, inner growth, integral meditation, integral meditation asia, integral mindfulness, meditation, meditation in singapore, microcosmic orbit, mindfulness, mindfulness in Singapore, mindfulness meditation, power of mind, Zen meditation