Category: Mindfulness

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Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

A Free Meditation to Discover Your Mindful Self-Leadership

What does the experience of leading yourself mindfully look and feel like? This is a 20 minute guided meditation that I did in May 2014 in Singapore at a CLIA event that will give you a chance to really investigate this topic within yourself :

Mindful Self-Leadership Meditation at CLIA (Click to listen online, right click to download)

If you enjoy it and are in Singapore this weekend, on the 7th June I will be doing the Mindful Self-Leadershp 3 Hour Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia  also has an Online course on Mindful Self-Leadership that you can participate in anytime.

You can watch me talking on the topic of “Leaping Like a Tiger – Mindful Self Leadership” on youtube.

Finally, do check out the Mindful Self-Leadership section of this Blog!

Yours in the spirit of mindful self-leadership,

Toby

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Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

The Benefits of Simplicity

Dear Integral Meditators,

Every now and again I write an article that I like right from the moment of completion. The one on simplicity below is one of them. The practice of mindful simplicity is one that helps us to become more effective at dealing with the ever increasing complexity of our daily lives; by becoming simpler we gain the strength to approach complexity with enthusiasm and resilience.

Yours in the spirit of simplicity,


Toby

The Benefits of Simplicity

One definition of meditation is an activity that tends towards singularity and away from diversity.
Another way of putting this is that meditation can be any activity, accompanied by solid states of mindfulness and awareness, that moves towards simplicity and away from complexity.
So what are the benefits of abiding in a state of mindful simplicity? Here are a few:

  • Your body-mind moves from a state of energy expenditure to a state of energy regeneration and renewal
  • By making your mind and activity regularly simpler, you actually enhance your capacity to deal with the complexity of your daily life more adequately and competently
  • With the clarity that comes from simplicity your natural intelligence is able to function better, both in terms of rational and intuitive problem solving
  • It is easier to access positive states of mind such as appreciation and enjoyment
  • You gain greater wisdom and perspective on your life as you step back from it and temporarily disengage
  • You have the opportunity to become aware of deeper levels of motivation and desire within yourself that are revealed only when your everyday business is reduced
  • You gain the strength and presence of mind to do what you need to do in the longhaul of your life (not just the short term) to lead yourself to the fulfilment of your deepest desires.

Creating a state of mindful simplicity


The great thing about simplicity is that it can be cultivated any time you have a gap in your life. It just means creating a space where you are cutting down on the amount of activity and busyness. For example:

You could go for a walk where the aim is to go slowly and mindfully, to not think about the future, simply to enjoy the moment
You could choose to sit on you office chair for five minutes and simply not engage in any tasks, just come back to your body and breathing
You could choose not to fill an afternoon on your weekend with activities, but rather just allow that time to be focused on keeping things as simple and reflective as possible.

Mindful simplicity is available to you every day if you want it to be. If you know the benefits, then what are you waiting for? Create some space for mindful simplicity each day.

Want some more tangible ideas for mindful simplicity?
Check out these previous articles:
Four Zen Meditations
Dropping Your Conceptual Leaves
Small Focused Mind, Big, Open Mind
Fundamental Zen Sitting Meditation Forms

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

Looking for some help to create a space of simplicity in your life? Try these bio-field  tracks from I-Awake:Audio Serenity
Beginners Mind
Harmonic Resonance Meditation
Meditative Ocean

 

Healing Light
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Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Mindful Self-Leadership Free Meditation and Talk Recording

Dear Integral Meditators,

Last weekend I gave a public meditation and talk entitled: “Mindful Self-Leadership, a contemporary paradigm for conscious, integrated personal growth and wellbeing”. Many thanks to those of you who came along to participate live. If you would like to have a listen to the talk online, just click here:

Mindful Self Leadership Talk and Meditation

The first 20minutes or so is a meditation, the rest is a talk. If you enjoy the it, then you can just scroll down to find out more about the two courses that I will be offering on Mindful Self -Leadership:

  • One live in Singapore on the 18th May
  • One online starting on May 22nd. This is the first time I’ve rolled this course out, and I’m pretty excited about it and what it can give to people. With the online course, you can participate in it literally wherever you are in the world!

Please note that that until the end 9th of May (this Friday) there are some early bird opportunities to get reduced prices on the courses!

Yours in the spirit of the mindful self,

Toby

Mindful Self-Leadership: Take Control of Your Life Direction and Wellbeing Through Awareness, Curiosity, Courage and Care.

Sunday  May 18th – Mindful Self-Leadership Three Hour Workshop
Thursday 22nd May – Five Module Online Mindful Self-Leadership Course Begins

In a sentence: Learn how you can develop deep confidence in yourself, take benevolent control of your life, overcome inner inhibitions such as fear and invite fulfillment and wellbeing into your life through the practice of mindful self leadership.

Overview: The best place to learn how lead is within yourself. Do you agree?

Developing your Mindful Self-leadership is about how you can:

  • Feel increasing levels of comfort and confidence in your relationship to yourself, your life and in your ability to take your life in the direction that you truly want it to go
  •  Develop your self-knowledge and self-understanding so as to find out what will really make you most happy
  • Find ways of being making use of the challenges that you face, by taking responsibility for them and leading yourself to the best solutions to those challenges
  • Learn to communicate with yourself and others in a way that encourages you to express your deeper values in the way you think feel and act
  • Develop a capacity for self-leadership that will be an inspiration to others and encourage them to develop their own self-leadership skills
  • Do all of the above using a set of mindfulness practices that enables you to drop into states of mind that are relaxing, peaceful and regenerative, and that will help you dramatically reduce the amount of negative stress and anxiety in your life.

If you have been answering ‘yes’ to the above points then the course in mindful self leadership is for you!

These courses are suitable for:

  • Those who may be new to mindfulness and who want to learn it in a way that cultivates the self-leadership skills outlined above.
  • People who are already familiar with mindfulness and meditation practice and wish to learn how to use it in a leadership context.

There are two opportunities to participate in the Mindful-Self Leadership training:

  • A three hour Mindful Self-Leadership workshop in Singapore in Sunday May 18th at Basic Essence. For full information see details below.
  • A Five week Mindful Self-Leadership online course that will begin on Thursday 22nd May see below for full details.

What does it cost?:

THE COST FOR  THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 3 HOUR WORKSHOP ON THE 18TH MAY IS SING$130.  TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE 

THE COST FOR THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE BEGINNING 22ND MAY IS SING$190. TO MAKE PAYMENT BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE 

BUY BOTH THE THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 3 HOUR WORKSHOP AND 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE AS A BUNDLE FOR SING$295 (SAVE $25) .TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR  BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE

Details of the Mindful Self-Leadership Three Hour Workshop:

Date: Sunday May 18th
Time: 9.30am-12.30
Location: Basic Essence, (For location Map click HERE)

This three our workshop introduces four fundamental mindfulness practices that you can take into your daily life in order to develop your capacity for confident self-leadership. These four practices are as follows:

  1. Encountering – Developing your foundation for mindful self–leadership by increasing your capacity to encounter ALL of your reality without being intimidated by it
  2. Accepting – Mindfully accepting all of whom you are in order to lead yourself beyond who you are
  3. Envisioning – Connecting to the values of your personal self-leadership style
  4. Empowering – Taking responsibility for respecting who you are and expressing it appropriately in your life

Each of these practices invites the ongoing development of your own personal self-leadership style and understanding of how it can be integrated into your daily life.
As well as guiding these exercises Toby will here will be giving talks on each of them, and there will be time for exploration of the practices through Q&A.

In addition to the workshop you will receive:

  • MP3 recordings of the practices and talks that are done during the workshop
  • Full workshop notes with all of the mindful self leadership exercises included as well as other relevant articles and materials.
  • All in all you will have a very clear idea of how you can continue your mindful self leadership practice in your daily life after leaving the workshop
Taking Control of Your Life Through Mindful Self-Leadership – A Five Week Online Course

Start date: Thursday May 22nd

Course Outline: This five week online course is an in depth exploration of how you can develop your mindful self-leadership style in order to:

  • Develop increasing confidence and self-direction in life
  • Align yourself with what will really make you inwardly fulfilled
  • Take advantages of your challenges in life to further self-knowledge and discovery
  • Assert values and actions in your life that are congruent with who you are
  • Become the leader you want to be when he going gets tough in your life
  • Combine self-leadership with the daily cultivation of inner peace and wellbeing

Module titles:

Module 1: Getting started; a outline and overview of the elements of mindful self-leadership and how to start cultivating your experience of it on a daily basis
Module 2: Accepting who you are in order to go beyond who you are – Exploring the paradox of mindful self-leadership
Module 3: You can’t practice self leadership if you don’t know where you want to go – Getting to grips with what you really want in life
Module 4: You know more than you think you know – Accessing your inner guidance for the purposes of mindful self-leadership
Module 5: The long leadership journey to where you are – Exploring the spiritual dimension of self-leadership

How it works: Upon registering for the course you will be sent the link to the course webpage together with the password to access it. This will be the place you can go in order to access, listen to and download the course materials. Each week during the five weeks of the course you will be notified when the latest module has been uploaded.

For further details: Please contact info@integralmeditationasia.com

TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE

TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 3 HOUR WORKSHOP AND 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE BUNDLE FOR SING$295 BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE

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Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Mindful Consequentialism (Dancing through fear and anxiety)

Dear Integral Meditators,

One of the points of focus for mindful self-leadership is learning how to accept creative responsibility for our choices. This weeks article on mindful consequentialism explores this space.

Yours in the spirit of the endless dance,

Toby
 

Mindful Consequentialism (Dancing through fear and anxiety)

You may or may not have noticed that in practical terms, anxiety and fear exist most often when there is uncertainty and choice. For example:

  • If I am trying to decide which choice of school will be best for my daughter, it is the experience of not knowing which choice is best that is directly a cause of anxiety; “What if I make the wrong choice and she suffers?”
  • If I am trying to decide whether to leave my job to seek a better option; “What if I don’t find one and instead I just loose the security of my present paycheque?”
  • If I am ill; “Should I choose the holistic option for treatment that I believe in or the conventional treatment most people use? What if it doesn’t work?”

In countless small and large ways each day the choices we make in the face of our uncertainty defines the direction of our life. So then the question becomes “What is the choice that I truly value, believe in and, deep down I feel is right for me?”

Every choice has a consequence


It can be helpful to contemplate that any choice that we make has consequences. To stay in a secure job gives you (relative) security at the price of your own fulfillment. Pursuing your own passions in business exposes you to the (relative) risk of failure and reduced income, at least for a while. Both options involve some form of discomfort, but which consequence are you prepared to accept to get what you really want?

To make the choices you need to make you need to be able to accept the consequences.

  • To pursue a passion you expose yourself to uncertainty at the gain of creative fulfillment
  • To leave a relationship that is not working for you, you court the consequence of being alone once more
  • To avoid expressing an emotion that you feel you have to deal with the consequences of suppressing or repressing it
  • To help someone in your care to grow you may have to expose them from time to time to the pain of having to deal with something without your help

There is no-one coming to save you


We can dodge responsibility for our own choices in the face of uncertainty, but at the end of the day all this does is prevent us from making the choices that we truly believe in, even if we get it wrong sometimes.
The thing is, every time we make a choice that does not reflect a trust and confidence in our own judgment we undercut our self esteem, our self trust and our capacity to lead ourself along a path in life that is going to lead to the deepest levels of happiness and fulfilment for us.

Dancing with fear and anxiety


I’m not sure you can really get around the anxiety and fear that come from making choices in the face of uncertainty. However, if you can accept the presence of this fear and anxiety, you can consciously build a positive relationship to it. You can learn to dance with it, even enjoy it, accepting of the consequences of your choices; both the nice ones and the challenging ones. This in turn enables you to get progressively BETTER at making the choices that are really right for you.

An image to practice with


If you would like to take the ideas from this article into your life over the next week or so, use the image of a dancer. Every time you feel the fear and anxiety around uncertainty and choice making, bring to mind that image and dance with it; keep light, don’t get too heavy. With a real and mindful awareness of the consequences of your choices, make the choice you believe in and will respect yourself for.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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creative imagery Enlightened Flow Enlightened love and loving Enlightened service Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

That Which Solves All Your Problems and None

Dear Integral Meditators,

All of us crave a final solution to all our problems, a place where we can go and find true peace. The good news is that such a solution it always available to us in each moment.  The challenge is that after we have solved all our problems in this way, we still have to solve all our problems. You’ll see what I mean below.

I’ll be doing a free talk on Mindful Self-Leadership on the 4th May, full information can be found HERE.

Yours in the spirit of problem solving,

Toby

That Which Solves All Your Problems and None

One of the fundamental insights from the enlightenment experience induced by meditation is that, behind every tangible experience that we have there is an experience of formless, timeless awareness which embraces, enables and transcends that experience.

The interesting thing is that, whereas the experience itself may give rise to pleasure and pain, dilemmas, anxiety, elation, depression etc, this formless timeless dimension that lies behind the experience is simply and continuously present to what is arising, witnessing what is going on with both benevolent intimacy and (to our perception), terrifying indifference.

Whereas I, Toby as a body-mind am a distinct person on a personal (hopefully developmental) journey through life, the part of me that is simply formless timeless awareness is already at the destination to that journey, and at the same time has never begun that journey in the first place.

Whilst the Toby in this world works to develop a business, become a better, kinder person, work off the weight that the Easter eggs have put on his waist line, sets goals, suffers, and has successes, the formless timeless Toby has no ambition to develop or to achieve because from its perspective everything has been achieved already, and ultimately there was no-thing to achieve in the first place.

While the Toby in time and space craves resolution to his problems, anxieties and dilemmas, as well as the fulfillment of his deepest wishes, the transcendent Toby has no problems, and even if he did (which he doesn’t) they would be solved instantly in the experience of the timeless present.

So, as I think you can start to see spiritual enlightenment, that is a living connection to the formless, timeless, ever present dimension of reality solves all of our problems ultimately, but in the mean time it solves none of them at all! We are still challenged to face off with our challenges in time and space each day with curiosity, courage and care, and do the best we can.

There is no doubt that many people come to meditation and spirituality as a means of escaping from a seemingly intractable, chaotic and painful world, and it is an easy trap to fall into. I however like to think of the peaceful, problemless space of the timeless present as an invitation to get our hands dirty in the world of time and space, to participate fully, to play the game.

As an exercise for this week if you choose, simply sit quietly and think to yourself “Ultimately all of my problems are solved”. Enter, sit with and breathe in this space where everything is well, and all problems never existed. Recognize this space, let yourself go into it.
As you reach the end of the exercise, let your mind full up again with the intractable messiness, imperfection and vulnerability of your life.

Now, go and solve your problems.

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Uncategorized

Curiosity, Courage and Care – Cornerstones of the Mindful Encounter

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is an exploration of the mindful encounter – what it takes to stay truly alive and curious to our own life path each day. I hope you enjoy it! The article also explores three of the core components of Mindful Self-Leadership.

Wishing you all the very best for the Easter weekend,

Toby

Curiosity, Courage and Care – Cornerstones the Mindful Self-Leadership Encounter

What qualities are going to enable you to successfully encounter and lead yourself through the challenges of your life with success in the terms that you (not somebody else) define it?

What qualities will encourage a living (rather than mechanical) experience of encountering your life, and encourage you to live your own life story in a meaningful and engaged way?

The cornerstones of this type of ‘mindful-encountering’ are three; curiosity, courage and care:

Curiosity – To practice mindful curiosity means to be committed to being deeply interested and thoughtful about what is arises in your life. This applies not only to the things that are pleasant and desirable, but also the things that make you feel vulnerable, uncomfortable and afraid. Curiosity means a full blooded commitment to being aware of everything that comes into the field of your awareness in each moment and to stay with that awareness throughout the day.

Courage – To sustain a commitment to conscious awareness in your life, to be ‘naked’ to what is arising without editing, armouring or avoiding takes courage; it takes courage to be curious and to be courageous means to engage in our life with constant, unwavering curiosity.

Care – Many of the realities of our mind, of our feeling and of the world around us can encourage us to anesthetize, insulate or armour ourself from our reality, to cut ourself off from it, to not feel it, to look away from it. So the third quality of the MS-L encounter is care; to commit to caring, to not cut ourself of from, to not turn away from that which comes into the field of our awareness.

What are the consequences of not engaging in the mindful encounter?

If you are not prepared to be deeply interested and curious about your life, your wants, your needs, your direction, your meaning, then why or where would you expect to find someone else who is?

If you are not prepared to have the courage to face what needs to be faced in your life, why would you expect someone else to do it for you?

If you don’t deeply care about your life, yourself and the people you share it with, no one can create that experience of caring for you; it comes from committing to it.

Conversely:
If you care, have courage and are deeply curious in your life, significant people around you will tend to see that and respond by giving their own curiosity, courage and care to your endeavors. And even if they don’t, you will have found something that no one can take away from you.

A Meditation Image for the Mindful
Self-Leadership Encounter

I found the image for this image on pinterest.  It is of a baby being held by a rescue worker during the London blitz.
Your life is like the baby, it is vulnerable and needs someone to be curious, care for it and have the courage to do what needs to be done to keep it safe and take it in the direction it needs to go. You are the rescue worker holding the baby; it is your job to save the baby and take it to where it needs to go to grow up safe, happy and fulfilled.
There are no other rescue workers; you are the rescue worker of your own life. Other people; parents, coaches, friends, partners can assist but cannot do it for you.
You are in charge of your own mindful self-leadership encounter.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation class and workshop updates Meditation Recordings Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Stress Transformation

Leaping Like a Tiger: Mindful Self-Leadership

Dear Integral Meditators,

What sort of ideas spring into your mind when you think of the words self-leadership? I have created a five minute video Leaping Like a Tiger – Mindful Self Leadership which you can view here:

Yours in the spirit of leading and leaping,

Toby

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present

Experiencing, Feeling, Interpreting – Mindfully Processing Our Reality

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article looks at three domains of our reality that often get confused, and how by cultivating awareness of them we can increase our capacity to respond wisely to the challenges in our life.

Beneath the article there are full details of the “Way of the Enlightened Fool” meditation class on the 11th March. And a final reminder on the course front, the special early bird offer for Meditations for Integrating your Ego, Soul and Spirit  on the  ends March 6th

Yours n the spirit of wisdom,

Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia 

Tuesday 11th March, 7.30-8.30pm: Monthly Integral Meditation Class: The Way of the Enlightened Fool

Sunday 16th March, 2.30-6pm: Meditations for Integrating your Ego, Soul and Spirit 

Saturday 5th April, 2.30-5.30pm: Meditations for Creating a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention

Experiencing, Feeling, Interpreting – Mindfully Processing Our Reality

When attempting to mindfully process our reality effectively, it can be useful to break it up into three parts:

  • What is experienced
  • What is felt
  • What is interpreted

These are three separate and distinctaspects of any event in our life. If we confuse one or more of them with the other, then this can cause a lot of unnecessary confusion and difficulty.
For example if I am already feeling low about myself and someone mentions in passing that I look tired (this is what I actually experience) then I may interpret that comment as an attack and respond aggressively. The other person may become confused or insulted and I may damage the relationship.
If however I break down and analyze the event down into its three aspects, my capacity to respond appropriately and without confusion is enhanced:

  • First in terms of my experience I isolate what has been literally experienced; an innocuous comment about the way I look
  • Secondly I am aware of how I feel; I realize that the feeling of low about myself was already there, it was not caused by what they said to me
  • Finally as a result of the mindful attention I have paid to steps one and two I interpret the situation effectively, thus not taking insult and over reacting

So, for this week if you would like to work with this, every time you come across a situation that you find challenging or where it is really important that you react/respond well and wisely just ask yourself these three questions:

  • What has been experienced in the literal sense of the word?
  • How do I feel about what has been experienced?
  • How have I interpreted what has happened, and is it appropriate?

Allow these three questions to lead you into a mindful investigation of what is really going on and help you to respond in a wise and thoughtful way.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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 Class: The Way of the Enlightened Fool

Date: Tuesday March 11th

Time: 7.30-8.30pm

Location: Gallery Helios, 38 Petain Road, Singapore 208103 (click HERE for map)

In a sentence: A chance for mediators of all levels and backgrounds to come together and meditate in a powerful and supportive environment.

Overview: These Integral Meditation Classes combine meditation training in the five stages of mediation practice and the five types of meditation skills with a particular theme. This month’s class focuses on an exploration of the enlightened fool.

Crazy Wisdom: The Way of the Enlightened Fool

In common language we normally use the term fool in a derogatory manner, in the same way that we might use the term ‘idiot’. However in terms of our growth as a person and a spiritual being the archetype of the fool has profound and important meaning as:An image that we can use to connect to our playful and creative self

  • A way of inviting ourselves to take positive risks in our life
  • A way of accessing our “crazy wisdom”
  • A way of positively accessing and dealing with our fears
  • A way of connecting to primal spirit in an unique and particular way

In this class you will be guided by Toby in meditation though a series of imaginative keys to help you gain personal access to your own crazy wisdom and enlightened fool!

Conditions for attendance: As mentioned above, this class is suitable for all levels of practitioner; beginners will feel supported, and more advanced practitioners will find that there is plenty of opportunity to develop, explore and consolidate their meditation.

This class is also available as an MP3 recording for those not able to attend in person.

Cost: $20, you can pay on the day, or make payment online below.

CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THE MEDITATION CLASS BY PAYPAL

For more information or to register your attendance contact Toby on info@integralmeditationasia.com or sms 65-96750279

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present Uncategorized

Bringing Congruence to the Mind Through Meditation – Three Ways

Dear Toby,

Congruence – To bring harmony, agreement and compatibility. This mid-week article is about how to bring congruence to the different elements of your mind.

After an enjoyable Greenworld Meditation Workshop last Sunday, there is a chance for anyone who wanted to come but could not to come along this Sunday, 2nd March for the second date!
Also on Sunday is the Introduction to Walking Meditation Workshop, registration for this will close on Thursday evening.
Finally, date for your diary I will be doing the Meditation and Mindfulness For Developing a Mind of Ease, Relaxed Concentration and Positive Intention on Saturday April 5th at the Reiki Centre.

Yours in the spirit of inner congruence,

Toby

Bringing Congruence to the Mind Through Meditation – Three Ways

 Imbalanced, fragmented, confused. Does that ever feel like the state of your mind? Here are three meditative methods to bring your mind from fragmentation to a state of relative balance and unity through meditation:

  1. Still your mind
  2. Focus on one thought or image
  3. Allow it all to be there

1. Still your mind – When your mind is still, all of its disparate parts start to come back into balance and settle naturally. If you can still your mind, you may not solve anything externally, but you will bring the different parts of your mind back into congruence with each other, and so when you do go back to your life you will do so with a new experience and perspective. One simple technique to still your mind is simply to sit still and focus your sensory awareness on the physical stillness of your body. By being physically still and focusing on that, you find that after a time your mind starts to become still through its attention to the body. Once your mind becomes still in this way you can then switch your focus from the stillness of your body to the stillness you feel within your mind, which you can now see and feel clearly.

2. Focus on one thought or image – Use one thought, image or even a physical object as your point of focus. By anchoring your attention to it, the other elements of your mind can ‘swirl’ around it, and gradually come back into balance simply as a side product of you placing your attention on one thing and letting everything else ‘even out’.

3. Allow it all to be there – Simply sit with everything in your mind without trying to focus, control or judge it. This technique involves gaining control and congruence within your mind by abandoning all attempts to control it. Simply sit and watch it, be with it without feeding any of it. The by-product of this allowing is that once more the different elements of the mind gradually come back into congruence and balance with each other.

None of these practices ‘solves’ anything, but by bringing congruence to your mind  they enable your natural intelligence to function freely, and encourage you to have confidence in your own natural capacity to bring your personal best to the challenges you face each day.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

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Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present spiritual intelligence

What is Mindfulness? – Remembrance, Penetration, Assimilation +1

Dear Integral Meditators,

This mid-week article attempts to give a really practical working definition of mindfulness that will enable you to see how it might be applied to multiple circumstances in your own life.

 

Yours mindfully,

Toby

What is Mindfulness? – Remembrance, Penetration, Assimilation +1 

What is mindfulness?

To be more present is the most common generic answer that you might receive when you ask such a question. What I want to do in this article is to give a clear working definition of mindfulness and its process, and talk a little about its applications. This working definition has four parts.

Part 1: Remembrance
First of all to be mindful of something means to keep it in mind. Therefore if you want to practice mindfulness you need to be able to develop the skill of being able to remember, or keep in mind that which you wish to be mindful of over an extended period of time, without forgetting it. To take the simple example of the breathing, if you wish to practice mindfulness of the breath you need to be able to focus on the breathing without forgetting it!

Part 2: Penetration
So, why bother being mindful of the breathing (to stay with this example). The purpose of being mindful of the breathing is to gain an intimate knowledge of it, to understand it truly, or to put it another way, to penetrate it. If you are mindful of the breathing for a while you start to discover its nuances; how it reflects and describes your emotional state, how it relates to how you feel about your body, how it reacts to the different thoughts as they pass through your mind. Previously the breathing seemed like an uninteresting object. Now as a result of being mindful of it, it begins to reveal its secrets and wisdom to us. The penetration of our object is the second part and goal of mindfulness practice.

Part 3: Assimilation
Stage three of mindfulness practice is to assimilate the knowledge and wisdom that your remembrance and penetration have given to you, and to make them a part of your life. When we discover the wealth of information and knowledge that our breathing is giving us about our emotions, thoughts and body, we can then start to use that knowledge to do things like:

  • Treat our emotions with more compassion and positive control
  • Help us to deal with stress and anxiety more wisely and detect it earlier
  • Help us carry our body in a more relaxed and confident way
  • To open our mind out to our reality even when we may feel like closing it.

This third stage of assimilation is the process of learning to apply your mindful insights in a way that has real, tangible effects on your daily life.

Stage 4: Expression 
The fourth stage of mindfulness practice is to then demonstrate and communicate the essential energy and wisdom that you have gained into your daily life. To demonstrate to others what it means to be mindful of your breathing and the benefits that come. You can do this just by example, or there may be some form of formal way in which you teach it.

So, there you go, Mindfulness = the process of remembrance, penetration, assimilation and expression. The nice thing about this definition is that you can use it to develop mindful penetration of any number of different objects. For example there are 33 different objects that I outline in the “One minute mindfulness” section of my meditation blog. Once you know what mindfulness consists of you can even create your own mindfulness practices to help you accomplish the goals that you have in your own life.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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