Category: Meditating on the Self

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Awareness and insight Biographical Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindfulness

The Yin & Yang of mindful thinking

Dear Integral Meditators,

Managing your basic thinking processes is one of the most important life-skills that you can develop. The article below explores one simple mindfulness method that can really help!

For those in Singapore, quick reminder of the Tuesday evening class starting on the 8th!

In the spirit of the thought filled journey,

Toby

The Yin and Yang of mindful thinking

As I continue to coach people in the art of mindful thinking it continues to strike me how tricky people find basic positive thinking and care of the thinking mind. This short article is an attempt to explain in simple, practical terms how to think in a way that supports our happiness and wellbeing at the same time as taking care of wounded, negative or challenging thoughts that arise.
The basic principle of this practice is this; deliberately think two constructive thoughts, and then acknowledge a more negative or challenging thought. So, if I take myself right now as an example I bring to mind two good things I’ve experienced in the last 24 hours:

  • I enjoyed listening to Ken Wilbur’s Full body mindfulness module on the bus to work this morning
  • I enjoyed my meeting with colleagues yesterday where we discussed our future plans for collaboration

I note and dwell upon these two positive experiences for a moment, letting my appreciation sink in. On the basis of this simple, positive experience, I then seek out a more difficult or challenging thought or perspective that may be bothering me. For example:

  • I feel somewhat run down physically due to my workload right now

I then spend a few moments simply being aware of, acknowledging and taking care of the feelings associated with this challenge, making my peace with it. Then I go back to constructive thinking and seek out two positives:

  • I enjoyed the conversation I had with my daughter last night
  • I feel grateful for the fact that I can help the healing of some niggling sports injuries I have using mindfulness (great skill to have at my disposal)

I dwell upon these thoughts and the feelings associated with them, so that my sense of my world being basically ‘good’ is re-enforced. Then I deliberately seek out a troubled part of my mind to take care of.  Looking at my mind as an example right now:

  • I feel sad that I don’t have more time to devote to environmental concerns, or to spend more time in and with nature

Again, I mindfully acknowledge that thought, consciously taking care of the feelings associated with it, approaching it with compassion.

And so it goes on. Whenever there is a spare moment I come back to this mindfulness of thoughts; deliberately seeking out and enjoying two constructive thoughts before I then look for a challenging thought/perspective to take care of and process consciously. If I do this mindfully through-out the day, then my mind is going to really start to feel strong and resilient, as my reality is increasingly experienced through the perspective of my positive thoughts, and any challenging thoughts and feelings within me are made to feel supported and cared for (as opposed to feared, rejected or indulged in). One thing that I notice about this practice is that it really affects my physical energy quite tangibly, there is no doubt that having a strong mind helps the body to feel strong to a certain extent and degree!
Like my other integral mindfulness practices, this can be done as a sitting down exercise (even a written one using a note pad), or simply something to be mindful of as you are going about your daily activities.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings from November – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday November 12th, 10am-5pm – Meditations for connecting to the Tree of Life, and growing your own personal Life Tree

19th November – One Heart Celebration Day (Joint event)

Saturday 26th November 10am-5pm – Engaged Mindfulness day workshop/retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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Awareness and insight Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope One Minute Mindfulness Presence and being present

Happiness or impulse fulfilment?

Dear Integral Meditators,

In this day and age when so many of our impulses can be fulfilled at the click of a button or browser, managing your impulses mindfully is an increasingly important life skill. The article below looks at how we can distinguish between impulse fulfilment and actions that lead to genuine happiness.

In the spirit of attention to impulses!

Toby


‘Engaged Mindfulness – What mindfulness is and how we can apply it to our daily lives‘
Last two days to purchase Toby’s new book at the 20% launch price discount! (up until 31st August)

 

 

Happiness or impulse fulfilment?

When you do something are you doing it because it is really going to make you happy? Or are you doing it simply out of impulse and habit? This is an important question to ask yourself, because having the impulse to do something doesn’t mean that that action will result in fulfilment, wellbeing or happiness.

Defining happiness
For our purposes right now, let’s say happiness has two types; goal oriented happiness and non-goal oriented happiness. These two are interrelated but:

  • Goal oriented happiness is functional. We derive it from actions which lead to achievements. For example, if I keep my attention focused on my work and writing this morning, I will get to lunch and experience the happiness and satisfaction of having achieved my work goals. Goal oriented happiness may involve discomfort, sacrifice and the setting aside of short term impulse fulfilment to achieve, and this is very important to understand!
  • Non-goal oriented happiness is our capacity to rest at ease in the moment, feeling good not because we have achieved something, but because we are in touch with life as we experience it in the moment, on a slightly deeper level. This can be prompted consciously through mindfulness meditation, or it may come upon us when walking or running, listening to music, being with a loved one and so on…

The defining factor of both types of happiness is that they make us feel good in a real and appropriate way.

The deception of impulse fulfilment
Deceptive impulses are ones that prompt us to do something that we think will make us happy, but in reality lead neither to goal oriented happiness or non-goal oriented happiness. Rather they lead to more discontent, insecurity, anxiety and so on. Two examples:

  • I wake up in the morning. I’ve got work to do, but I’m tired, so I switch on my phone and surf the online paper for a while. The impulse to do this is an avoidance tactic to delay the effort of starting work. While I read the news I’m not feeling great because deep down I know I’m avoiding what I need to do. When I finish reading, I don’t feel happy, I’ve dissipated my (already finite) energy, and I haven’t gotten closer to my work goals, and thus am farther away from my goal-oriented happiness. So the impulse to surf my phone promised me happiness, but it didn’t deliver – it was merely an impulse that took me further away from what I want.
  •  I have had just the right amount to drink at a party, but I have the impulse to take another (and perhaps another!) This does not lead me to be any happier ‘in the moment’, and later in the evening/next morning I might even feel substantially worse! So the impulse fulfilment did not lead to happiness in the goal-oriented or non-goal oriented sense of the word. The impulse actually took me away from my happiness.

The practice  
So the mindfulness practice here is simply to challenge ourself when we notice certain impulses within ourself by asking the question ‘Will this action lead to happiness for me, or is it just impulse fulfilment?’ By asking this question we activate our wise intelligence and willpower to make better choices that will serve our happiness in the long term, and not just erode our wellbeing by pandering to our deceptive impulse fulfilment!
In this day and age when so many of our impulses can be fulfilled at the click of a button or browser, managing your impulses mindfully is an increasingly important life skill.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm (next class August 10th) – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

8th & 17th September, 7.30-8.30pm – Free book talks on ‘Engaged Mindfulness’ by Toby

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Concentration creative imagery Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindfulness

Moving From Being a Consumer to a Producer

Dear Integral Meditators,

Is your life a product of your own creative and independent thinking, or is it merely a pastiche of the ideas that you have received from others around you? Possibly it is a mixture of both. This weeks article examines the idea of the ‘mindful producer’ and how we can start to use it to become more of a creative producer in our lives and choices.

In the spirit of mindful production,

Toby


Moving From Being a Consumer to a Producer

To be a consumer in this context means to consume the creative ideas of other people, of society, of your culture, and become a ‘product’ of that consumption. To be a producer means that you are a creative producer of your own choices and ideas in your life; You are actively creating ‘products’ in your life, rather than consuming other peoples.

To be a mindfulness practitioner means to be actively interested in using your awareness, attention and intelligence to become an active producer of your own life, rather than allowing it to become merely a product of what other people around you think it should be.

Let’s take a simple example. If my group of friends are all wearing the latest pair of branded jeans, and in order to become an accepted member of that social group (and their ideas) I am told that I really should be getting a pair of jeans like this, in order to be one of the ‘cool set’. If I am a ‘consumer’, then really I have no choice but to get a pair of trendy jeans because that is the only way I can see to keep on belonging to that group. If I am a ‘mindful producer’ then I might choose not to get the pair of jeans because they might cost more that I’m willing to pay, and/or I don’t personally like the design, and/or I have other fashion ideas that I like better and want to express. Because I am mindfully considering what it is that I want to do with my life, I cease becoming merely a consumer of the culture around me, and instead become a creative producer of my own life path and direction.
Here we are talking about jeans, but we could be talk about your career path, relationship choices and other fundamentals in the same way.

Becoming a mindful producer is not easy
Early on in life we are taught to jump through hoops and play the game others created;

  • ‘If I can just pass this exam then I’ll be accepted to the next level of school’
  • The advert suggests to us that by buying their product we will become a successful member of society – no need to think about it for yourself, just possess the object
  • Well established patterns and ideas of success and happiness seem to be so certain and solid, why would I think to challenge them?
  • By stepping outside of other people’s ideas of what I want and what I do I’m taking risk, stepping into uncertainty, courting disapproval, why would I want to do that?

And of course market forces in the world have an active interest in keeping us merely consumers, buying into and digesting products that they have designed.

What do you have to gain from becoming a producer?
Becoming a producer takes a type of engaged mindfulness where we are taking responsibility for our choices and for articulating our deepest needs and wants and expressing our individuality in a benevolent and creative way. It is a challenging and sometimes difficult habit that we are creating so as to find deeper levels of fulfillment, enjoyment and meaning in our day to day life.

You can still enjoy being a consumer
Of course we cannot avoid being consumers, but we can enjoy being conscious consumers; digesting only the things that are useful, healthy and supportive to the life that we wish to live and express!

If you were to express 5% more of you ‘mindful producer’ today, and each day for the rest of this month, what might change?

© Toby Ouvry 2016, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday May 28th, 2.30-5.30pm – Finding Liberation Through the Witness Self – Connecting to Peace, Abundance and Creative Freedom Though Mindfulness Practice

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Dropping Your Hope & Fear

Dear Integral Meditators,

What would happen if, just for a while, and on a regular basis were to put down both your fears AND your hopes? The article below explores this from a mindfulness perspective.

In the spirit of liberated hope and fear,

Toby

Dropping Your Hope & Fear

Much of the roller coaster that our mind and emotions are on during the day is due to the things we are hoping for, and the things we are afraid of. For example:
Hope: ‘If I can just get this job, I’ll be able to afford the lifestyle I want for me and my family’
Fear: ‘If I screw this talking engagement up, all the people attending are going to think I’m a jerk and laugh at me.’

The point of mindfully dropping our hopes and fears is not to get rid of them permanently, but rather:

  • To awaken more fully to the possibilities of the present moment as we find it
  • And to see that hope and fear are things that we can pick up and put down, rather than being an intrinsic part of every moment of our life.

When we drop hope and fear, we find ourself alert and present to the life that we find in front of us, rather than lost in fears and hopes regarding the past and future. In many ways we are in a much better position to ‘size the day’.
When we are not slaves to our hopes and fears, we can make better more conscious use of them – responding more intelligently to our fears, and planning more effectively with regard to our hopes and dreams.

You can do this practice in three simple stages:


1) Spend time mindfully observing the movement of your hopes and fears as they come and go on your mind. See how your addictive attachment and involvement in them causes you to get lost in your mind and less sensitive to the present as you find it.
2) Gently put down your fears and hopes for a set period of time. During this period the rule is simply that you don’t dwell on your hopes and fears, you just put them down and don’t pick them up.
3) At the end you can pick up your hope and fear again, but with the awareness that they are tools to be used by you, not masters whose voice you must obey.

Liberating yourself from your hopes and fears enables you to use and enjoy them better.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday  March 19th, 2.30-5.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-Defence – Practical mindfulness meditation techniques for taking care of your energy, mind & heart in the face of the push & shove of daily life – A three hour workshop

Saturday  March 26th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment – A three hour workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Shadow meditation

Six Aspects of Good Psychic Self Defence

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is a practical exploration of psychic self-defence, specifically from a mindfulness perspective, I hope you find it practical & useful!

In the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Six Aspects of Good Psychic Self Defence

Psychic self-defence is that art of effectively defending yourself and your energy from negative people, energies and places outside of yourself, as well as the fears, inner demons and problematic emotions that you feel present within yourself.

Below are six fundamental aspects of psychic and psychological self-defence that are practical and useful to know.

1. Don’t attack yourself !– sounds obvious, but often we are the ones who are attacking ourselves most vehemently with negative thoughts, judgments, regrets and so on. Make the mindful effort each day to be a friend to yourself, extend warmth and support to yourself, and thereby make yourself automatically more resilient to negative energies from other people or from your environment.

2. Develop your psychic awareness – Ask yourself the question “What is my body’s intuitive and instinctive response to the energy of this person (or place or situation)?” Temporarily stop rationalizing/thinking and enter into a state of awareness where your are opening to the feedback that your body, senses and feelings are giving you about your experience. If you do this regularly your awareness of the subtle psychic dynamics of any given situation will naturally increase.

3. Know your vulnerabilities – Make list of times, places and people in your life right now around which or whom your energy and mind tend to become chaotic, fragmented or confused. Take time to explicitly focus on these experiences mindfully, get to know them and take care of them. Make a note of your vulnerabilities,  so that when you find yourself under pressure in real time you will be ready and bringing your full attention to what is going on.

3. Building your sources of support – When you are under pressure energetically and psychologically you can feel isolated and alone. As well as supporting yourself (see point 1 above) being aware of and receiving positive energy and support from friends, family, close colleagues and others who are ‘for’ us is a really important part of fending of negative psychic energy.

4. Disciplining your attention & choosing your attitude – Negative psychic environments and people can make it very easy for our own attention to be drawn to negative contemplation, thinking and feelings. When you feel under attack be very conscious about where you are placing your attention, don’t allow it to settle upon objects that break up and fragment your attention.

5. Practising non-resistance – This is a technique that I discuss at some length in my article ‘Soft Forms of Psychic Self-Defence’, but essentially it means learning to let negative or difficult energy pass through you; letting it come and letting it go without resisting or holding onto it.

6. Say no to people – Cultivate your awareness of the intentions of others and what they are projecting onto you, why they are saying what they are saying, what it is they (consciously or subconsciously) want from you. If you don’t feel comfortable receiving any of these things, say no, either literally, or by inwardly simply choosing to not receive or engage with the energy they are extending to you. Keep the boundaries regarding what you are prepared to accept and not accept clear, and assert them.

A practical exploration of psychic self-defence in your own life
You might like to pick a situation you are experiencing in your life right now where you feel under attack energetically, feel fragmented or confused, or that is a challenge for you. Go thought each of the six points above with your challenge in mind and think about how you can apply them to your own circumstances on a practical level.

© Toby Ouvry 2016, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday  March 19th, 2.30-5.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-Defence – Practical mindfulness meditation techniques for taking care of your energy, mind & heart in the face of the push & shove of daily life – A three hour workshop

Saturday  March 26th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment – A three hour workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Presence and being present Primal Spirituality

Dropping Your Self

Dear Integral Meditators,

What happens when you simply stop thinking about yourself for a while? What benefits might there be? The article below explores these questions in a mindfulness context, enjoy!

In the spirit of the no-self,

Toby

Dropping Your Self

When I was a Buddhist monk doing my studies there was a lot of emphasis placed upon the  study of the self, and the study of the no-self. What it all basically boils down to on a practical level is this; we are deeply attached to our idea of what we think of as ‘I’. This attachment to our idea of who we think we are acts as the foundational basis of almost every thought, emotion and action that we have/do, and it gives rise to a huge amount of stress, anxiety, pain and confusion.

Dropping your I
So, one of the quickest ways of finding a freedom, or liberation from this confusion is simply to spend periods of time where we simply stop thinking about ourself, or ‘drop the I’. You can do this as a mindfulness meditation by choosing a fixed period of time, say 5-15mins to sit quietly. During this time there are basically two rules:

  • You can think about anything you like except your I or self
  • You drop all the labels that you usually associate with your idea of who you are; job title, gender, pretty/ugly, strong/weak (etc), position in society, married or single, successful or looser. Any concept, idea or habitual way you have of thinking or describing yourself or I; drop that

Your job for the time you have set aside is simply to drop the self and be aware; put it down and not pick it up.

The discovery of a new self in the no-self
When we drop the self in this way, one of the things that we discover is an open spacious experience of self that we were previously unaware of. It is a self that is free from labels and preconceptions; a self that is open to the moment, to learning and to being genuinely creative and spontaneous. Because it resists all labels we might describe it as a ‘no-self’, but it might also be described as a deeper self or truer self. In Buddhism one of the terms used to describe it was our ‘Buddha Nature’; it is our deeper nature and everyone without exception has it.

Picking your everyday I back up
Once you become familiar with dropping your everyday I, you can then pick it back up again and use it in your daily life, but you always know that you are free to pick it up or put it down; you have a choice, and you are free to choose. You are not a slave to your I.

Relaxing and Awakening together
Dropping your I is a simple but profound practice that we can use to both deal with our everyday stress and challenges more effectively, building our concentration, and awakening to a new, deeper awareness of who we are and what we might be. It can be done on the train or even whilst walking. If you have a few moments after reading this article, you might like to try it straight away!

© Toby Ouvry 2016, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday  March 19th, 2.30-5.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-Defence – Practical mindfulness meditation techniques for taking care of your energy, mind & heart in the face of the push & shove of daily life – A three hour workshop

Saturday  March 26th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment – A three hour workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

 

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Awareness and insight Biographical Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self

That Essential Feeling of Being Alive

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is a simple reflection on mindfulness as the simple act of opening to life as you find it. Happy reading!

In the spirit of the journey,

Toby

That Essential Feeling of Being Alive

We’re all looking deep down for that essential feeling of being alive. A lot of our actions; seeking a particular type of work, seeking romance, traveling, studying, watching or reading stories, achieving this or that. All of these things are ways in which we seek to connect to that essential feeling, and yet often it can remain elusive; we feel a disconnect; we mistake it for the excitement of a new activity and then get bored; we need to have achieved all the things we think we need to before we give ourself permission.
The open secret here is that we are all alive now, and all we really need to do to connect to feeling truly alive is to open to it in the moment that we find ourself in at any given time, to simply be what and who we are now.
Our conceptual mind gets confused about this, it thinks that there need to be criteria met, goals achieved, boy/girl met, rank achieved. After we have gotten these, then we can give ourself permission to feel alive (!) But the thing about needing criteria to be ‘met’ before you allow yourself to open to life is that once one set of criteria is met, we tend to create another set of criteria in its place that we have to meet; another reason to withhold that essential feeling of being alive from ourself for another moment, day, week, month, year…
An essential dimension of the way of mindfulness is to open to the feeling of being alive first, and then decide what you are going to do to express and enjoy that feeling further. The approach for many people is to give yourself a list of things to do/get/achieve and then, at some point in the future you may be able to open to being fully alive.
Right now I’m getting over a few days of fever. On one level I’ve felt like these days have been somewhat crummy/not fun/unfortunate/painful (insert adjective here…) for me, but despite this I’m always kind of fine with what happened because at the core of my basic experience is this essential, fundamentally pleasurable feeling of being connected to life, to being here and to participating. This is the sort of way that mindfully connecting to being alive starts to affect your experiences on a day to day level.
Don’t wait for that essential feeling of life to come to you, it’s right here, now, waiting for you to open to it!

© Toby Ouvry 2016, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia:

February 2016

Ongoing on Wednesday’s (Jan 13th, 20th) 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Saturday  February 27th, 2.30-5.30pm – Growing Your Mindful Freedom – The Essential Meditation of the Buddha: A Three Hour Meditation Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindfulness Uncategorized

The Inner Sky of the Mind – Distraction, anxiety, mood and the principle of awareness 

Imagine you were to spend a week everyday looking at the sky, just watching and witnessing it. Some days it would be bright and full of light, other days there might be light clouds, sometimes monotonously grey, or aggressively rainy with thunder and lightning. Every time that you looked, the idea would be simply to witness and observe the sky closely, like an artist or a scientist.
In mindfulness and meditation the principle of being aware of our mind and its contents is like this sky watching exercise; we learn to watch the inner sky of our mind using awareness to witness its contents rather than be involved with it.

 
 
The act of being aware under pressure
Normally we are not used to witnessing the contents of our consciousness in this way. Particularly under pressure we feel as if we are completely caught up in the contents of our mind; tossed around by our distractions, feeling as if we are our moods, and overtaken by our anxiety. To be mindfully aware means to practice the discipline of awareness even when under pressure, and using the principle of awareness to unify and relax our mind, even when it contains multiple impulses to feel fragmented or un-peaceful. For example:

 

  • My mind feels distracted and disoriented, but I can reach a feeling of centeredness despite this by being aware
  • I am anxious about the choices I have to make, but I can relax into that anxiety using the act of witnessing and being aware
  • My mood feels disturbing, but I can learn to benevolently tolerate it because I can witness it, just like watching a cloudy sky

Action or non-action subsequent to awareness
What practising the principle of awareness enables us to do is to connect to a state of peace, centeredness and presence within ourself even when we are feeling moody, disturbed or anxious, and to keep making conscious choices about how we are going to respond.

Last week whilst seeing a series of arguments occurring between colleagues, I was feeling disturbed, like I needed to ‘do’ something in order to help them resolve their dispute. Checking with myself however I could see that most of the impulse that I had to act was mainly due to my own discomfort (“I need to fix this for them so that I can feel more comfortable”), and that the best thing that I could do (in my opinion) was to simply be present and let the drama play out for now. Practising the principle of witnessing awareness enabled me to feel comfortable not acting, even though part of me felt emotionally uncomfortable and impulsive.
Practicing the principle of awareness gives us the freedom to act or not to act as our circumstances demand of us, rather than be pushed around by the tension and impulsiveness that we may feel.

This week you might like to practice watching your mind as if you were watching the sky, just for a few minutes each day. By doing so you will be building the principle of witnessing awareness in your mind in such a way that you can start to use it practically when you are really feeling under pressure.

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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

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Enlightened love and loving Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindfulness Motivation and scope

Mindful of: Your Relationship to Giving and Receiving

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below offers some simple methods for exploring and developing a healthy relationship to giving and receiving through mindfulness.

In the spirit of giving and receiving,

Toby

 

Mindful of: Your Relationship to Giving and Receiving

What is your relationship to the process of giving and receiving? Every day we exchange words, energy and activity with others and our environment  in both healthy and not so healthy ways. How can we use mindfulness to explore how this process is playing out in our life?

Basic awareness practice around giving and receiving
Here is a simple practices you can do to attune yourself to the basic experience of giving and receiving.

  • As you breathe in, feel yourself moving into a state of receptivity and receiving. As you breather out focus on a state of giving. In a literal sense we are taking in and giving out air from and to the atmosphere, but breathing like this also helps us to become aware of the psychological state of giving and receiving that we are alternating between during the day. Do a few rounds of 3-5 breaths like this, with short breaks in between just to explore the experience
  • As a second stage to this exercise, as you breathe in really try and feel yourself receiving energy from the world, and as you breathe out feel yourself giving back to  it. Set up a benevolent cycle of giving and receiving with each breath.

Becoming more mindful of your experience of giving and receiving, and its power
Think of a time when you have received the energy of kindness, care or confidence from someone else. What did it feel like to receive such energy? Was it a powerful experience? Correspondingly think of a time when you gave the energy of confidence, care and kindness to others. What did it feel like to give this? How did the other person/people respond to it? Did you find it easy or difficult?
Now think of a time when you were on the receiving end of difficult energy such as aggression, hatred of confusion from someone. What did it feel like to receive this energy, how did it affect you?
Correspondingly think of a time when you gave the energy of anger or aggression, or anxiety to another person. How did they respond? What did it feel like to give such energy? If you were more aware of what it is like to receive such energy, would you give it out so much?

Giving and receiving in real time with others
As you are going about your daily life, try and be aware of the dynamic of giving and receiving between yourself and the others that you meet.  Become aware of when to open and receive energy from others in a healthy way, and when to close to it. Similarly be aware of how and when you are giving; when it is healthy and appropriate and when it is not really serving either yourself or others. The idea is to try and use your natural intelligence and awareness to set up positive cycles of giving and receiving in your life, so that you are receiving healthy energy from others and also giving healthy and sustaining energy to them in a mutually reinforcing feedback loop.

A couple of fundamental mindful questions to ask yourself during the day:
What is it that I am giving or receiving from myself and/or others right now? Now that I am conscious of it, are there any adjustments I need to make?

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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

 

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Enlightened love and loving Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindfulness

Four Levels or Dimensions of Conscious Self Love

Dear Integral Meditators,

Our relationship to ourself is the basis of our relationship to the rest of the world, this weeks article looks at how we can consistently improve that relationship by working with four levels of self-love.

In the spirit of celebrating self,

Toby

Four Levels or Dimensions of Conscious Self Love

Self love and the challenges associated with it remains one of the most consistent themes that I hear coming up in my 1:1 coaching practice, so I thought it might be interesting to outline four basic levels of  mindful self love practice that you can start working with on a practical level. Generally each of us has each of these four levels within us, and we oscillate between them (and the ‘pre-level) during the day.

Pre-level 1 –Unconscious self hatred or dislike:All of us have parts of ourself that we dislike, hate or fear. Many people remain unaware of their self-dislike because either they have buried it within their mind to the point where they really are unconscious of it, or they know about it peripherally, but they choose not to look at it because it makes them feel uncomfortable . At this level our self-dislike influences a lot of our behavior, thoughts and feelings, but we are not really aware of it.

Level 1 – Conscious self hatred or dislike: At this first level then we commit to becoming mindfully aware of all the ways  in which we negatively judge, reject and dislike ourself. We commit to caring about ourself, to acknowledge the wounds in our relationship to ourself, and bring them into the light of our conscious awareness. This then starts to offer us a choice as to how we are going to act upon or respond to these wounds.

Level 2- Self acceptance: So from level one we then go to level two, where we consciously work upon accepting ourself in general, and in particular working with accepting the parts of ourself that we habitually reject, dislike or alienate. Self acceptance implies a tolerance of ourself, not yet a liking, but nevertheless an ability to look ourself in the mirror and accept what we see open heartedly without looking away.

Level 3 – Liking & embracing self: Self acceptance then builds the basis for level three, where we move toward enhancing the healthy self love and like that we have from ourself to ourself, and actively embracing and loving the parts of ourself that we previously rejected.

Level 4 – Celebrating self: Liking and embracing self provides the basis for level four, where our loving and liking of ourself invites us to start expressing that self in creative ways that celebrate, grow and enhance our experience of who we are and what we do in the world. On this level we are enjoying playfully engaging ourself in the world. This fourth level is not the same as negative egotism. Negative egotism sees itself as more important than anyone else in the world; to celebrate self means to embrace and enjoy expressing who we are, which does not mean we are degrading or diminishing others. Indeed it might be said that it is only when we are celebrating ourself that we can truly say we are nurturing and cherishing others, and encouraging them to celebrate themselves.

Closing points
So there you go, four levels to be aware of and practice, levels 1&2 provide the ‘bottom of the self love pyramid’ so to speak, which then enables us to enjoy the higher levels and peaks of levels 3&4 consistently and safely. If you can apply these four stages to yourself, you will also find that you can start mindfully applying them to your relationship to other people…

Four Mindful Self-Love Questions
Which parts of myself to I hate, fear or reject?
If I were to practice 10% more self acceptance today, what might change?
How difficult or easy do I find it to connect to myself with warmth and affection? Can I find that connection now?
What way can I celebrate and enjoy who I am today?

© Toby Ouvry 2015, 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