Category: Meditation and Psychology

Categories
creative imagery Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness Uncategorized

The Mindful Warrior – Using concepts as weapons

Dear Integral Meditators,

Think of your thoughts as being like a weapons, that can be used for good or ill. The article below offers a few pointers to help ensure that you are using your ‘inner weapons’ in ways that are helpful to yourself and others, rather than just using them to cut yourself down all the time!

For those in Singapore, a quick reminder of the Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation tonight and tomorrow evenings, and this weekends workshop An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism!

In the spirit of the mindful warrior,

Toby

The Mindful Warrior – Using concepts as weapons

One of the goals of mindfulness is to realize that we are currently using many negative concepts against ourselves, and to stop this. The flip side of this is to learn to use positive, balanced and intelligent concepts, and wield them like weapons in our lives.

The way in which we use negative concepts
‘If only this hadn’t happened then I could have…’
‘There is no way I can do this when…’
‘If only I had control over the outcome, I wouldn’t feel so anxious…’
If you look at the conversation in your head, you’ll start to notice many different ways in which your habitual thinking and worldview limits you in ways that prevent you from experiencing pleasure and joy and makes you less effective in dealing with the situation you are faced with. These thoughts are like weapons that you wield against yourself in order to keep you feeling limited, dis-empowered, miserable and generally helpless.

Accepting and releasing these negative concepts
The first step in ‘de-commissioning your negative inner-concepts’ is simply to recognize that they are there. Then you can practice spotting them when they arise, accepting they are there, and then letting them go, not letting them impact us or define our experience.

Noticing the way in which we use positive concepts
If you watch your mind you will also notice that sometimes your mind comes up with positive concepts and ways of framing your experiences that make you stronger and more resilient to the challenges you face. These are the already existing ‘conceptual weapons’ that you have within your mind. Once you have identified them, you can then deliberately start to use them more in your life, leveraging upon them to make you happier and more effective as you go about your day.

Creating new positive concepts and weaponizing them
If you are going through a difficult challenge, you can ask yourself, ‘What are the different ways of framing this experience in ways that are going to help me enjoy it and be more effective?’ If you like, as well as thinking about them, you can write them down, so you have them at hand to look at whenever you need.

Becoming a mindful warrior
Whenever you think about your challenge, you then practice deliberately viewing it from the conceptual viewpoints that you have devised. You practice wielding these concepts like weapons, defending yourself against inner thoughts and views that don’t serve you, and using them to ‘attack’ your life with enthusiasm!

An example
As we move into the high summer period, some of my ‘predictable’ sources of work become less. Of course, there is plenty of room for my mind to conceptualize this in an unhelpful way, which I need to look out for and ‘defend’ myself against. But I also take the time to ensure that I have a number of key ‘conceptual weapons’ that I can use to enjoy this time and make good use of it. For example:
‘Its good because I’ll have more time for creativity and new workshop design.’
‘It’ll give me time to rest properly and renew my energy and enthusiasm.’
‘In previous seasons, sometimes this has been my busiest period, and there is a chance it could happen again.’
‘Whatever happens I have made enough money in the last few months to tie me over…’
These are all simple examples of concepts that I use as benevolent weapons to defend against needless mental suffering and derive maximum enjoyment from my time ahead.
Its not enough to simply ‘think positive’ you have to learn to use the thoughts effectively and mindfully in your day so that they hold weight and mass in the face of your challenges!

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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 AsiaOngoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

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

Tuesday 19th & 20th June, 7.30pm – Summer solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Saturday 23rd June, 10am-4.30pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism

Saturday 7th July, 9.30am-12.30pm – Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat

Sunday 8th July, 9.30am,-1pm – Qi Gong for Improving your Health and Energy Levels and for Self-Healing

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Insight Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present Shadow meditation Stress Transformation

Going from clinging on to enjoying (Attachment to appreciation)

Dear Integral Meditators,

What is your relationship to attraction? The article below offers a few thoughts on how you can go about enjoying and appreciating that which you find attractive without clinging or getting unhealthily attached! In short, how to transform attachment into appreciation!

And on the theme of ‘stress transformation’ see the coaching offer below!

In the spirit of pleasure and appreciation,

Toby

Going from clinging on to enjoying (Attachment to appreciation)

What are you deeply attached to in your life? Of these, what or who do you cling to in ways that are unhealthy, addictive, undermining to your self-esteem and create destructive patterns of behaviour? Think of one or two right now…

​

This article offers a few thoughts on how you can transform states of attachment and clinging onto appreciation and enjoyment. From an experiential point of view we have three types of object/person/situation that we encounter:

  • Those that we feel repulsed by or averse too
  • Those we feel drawn or attracted to, magnetised by
  • Those we feel neither attracted to or repulsed by, they are kind of neutral

Right now, we are focused on the second type of object, those we feel attracted to.

Underlying sources of attachment – Not enough, not competent, no joy
So what transforms something or someone that we feel attracted to to something that we feel attached or cling to? Part of it is an underlying sense within ourselves that we are incomplete, incompetent or that we have no joy or pleasure. For example:

  • If I feel incomplete as a man and I meet a woman I find attractive, then I may cling to her as a potential source of ‘completion’. So, what I feel for her is not just an appreciation of her attractiveness, but the idea that by possessing or obtaining her I will somehow ‘fix’ my problem of incompleteness or loneliness.
  • If I often feel incompetent or ineffective in life, then the things that I feel attracted to I may tend to cling to. For example if I feel incompetent in my business practice, I may cling onto a business or romantic partner as a ‘life raft’ saving me from my own confusion in the face of life’s complex challenges.
  •  If I am out of touch with my feelings, both emotional and bodily, then I won’t feel much joy or pleasure in my life. As a result things that I could be enjoying and appreciating such as caffeine, alcohol, sex etc…become objects that I become addicted to, a way of replacing the fundamental absence of joy or pleasure’.

Coming to your objects of enjoyment from the POV of wholeness
If I want to experience objects of attraction in a healthy, pleasurable way then, I need to come to them from with a healthy self-sense, one where I experience myself fundamentally in three ways:

  • I am complete, loved, whole as I am
  • I am competent, adequate (to life’s challenges)
  • I have ready access to the feeling healthy joy and pleasure in my body, today

If you come to the things you currently feel attached to with these three attitudes, then you have the opportunity to transform them from objects of clinging to objects of appreciation and real enjoyment.

Moving from clinging on to appreciating
So then, if I come to people places and things I find attractive in our life with the idea that ‘I am complete, I am competent, and I feel joy’ then:

  • When I encounter an attractive member of the opposite sex it will be easy enough to appreciate them as they are, without needing to ‘possess’ them in order to validate myself.
  • When I face a difficult challenge in my business I won’t be cling to the idea of someone ‘saving me’, but if my business partner helps me out, then I can appreciate and enjoy that!
  • If I have access to joy and pleasure in my body, then I can enjoy sex, caffene, alcohol, endorphins etc…as a complement and enhancement of that, rather than an addiction that I use as a compensation.

Three ‘mindful injunctions’ from this:

  1. Notice when you develop negative attachment or clinging in your life. Study the experience.
  2. Practice coming to the things you feel attracted to from the perspective of ‘I am (already) enough, I am (already) competent, and I have access to joy’.
  3. Emphasize appreciation and appropriate healthy enjoyment of the things you find attractive. Have fun and experience pleasure!

Related articles: Giving your heart whole
Cultivating positive non-attachment
The middle way to enjoying your life fully
Moving from attachment to care

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Saturday 26th May 10am-4.30pm – Mastering your Mind Through Mindfulness Meditation Day Retreat with Toby

Saturday, 9th June, 9.30am-1pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

Saturday 16th June, 10-11.30am – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Saturday 23rd June, 10am-4.30pm – An Introduction to Meditation from the Perspective of Shamanism

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness Presence and being present

Mental framing – Sculpting your view of life

Dear Integral Meditators,

We are never in 100% charge of what we experience in life, but we can determine the way in which we experience what happens. This week’s article explores how to mindfully take advantage of this truth!

In the spirit of sculpting & framing,

Toby

Mental framing – Sculpting your view of life

We are never in 100% charge of what we experience in life, but we can always influence the way in which we experience what happens. How we influence the way in which we experience something is via the manner in which we pay attention to it, and in particular the way in which we mentally frame it. The essential question with mental framing is “What is the optimal way for me to view what I am experiencing, so that I derive maximum value and minimum unnecessary pain from it?”
This question and the answers we get from it are like mental sculpting. The raw materials are our life experiences, and our ways of mental framing are like the tools used to craft and mould the raw materials into the shape that I desire.
Last weekend I was giving the example to a class of my own workshop creation process. I’ve created over 50 meditation and mindfulness workshops in the last decade. Of these only around 50% have gone on to be successful in the sense of attracting a lot of people numbers. So, if I focus purely on the ‘success rate’, then I’m not going to be a very happy boy in some ways. However, there are many ways in which I can use my mind to frame what I am experiencing after a ‘failed’ workshop in ways that are helpful to me. For example:

  1. ‘It is realistic to expect many of the events that I put on to not attract large numbers. It’s simply part of my evolving work progress, and in fact a 50% success rate is very good in the circumstances!’ – This view helps me accept the experience, feel happy about it and sets me up to continue working with it in the long term without feeling discouraged.
  2. ‘A small number of people in a workshop creates an intimate space for me to have a more meaningful, small scale relationship to the participants’ – Again, this view helps me feel enthusiasm for the experience and helps me to keep my appetite for the work in the long term.
  3. ‘I learned a lot from creating the workshop, so it is feeding my own process of self-discovery and growth’ – This is absolutely and objectively true, I do learn a lot, and so the time was not wasted, indeed it was very well spent!
  4. ‘If it didn’t work in this context, maybe I can try it in another context’ – I’ve seen from my own experience how courses that I have created in one arena later became a part of my mainstream ‘successful’ courses later down the line. No creative process is ever entirely wasted! Indeed, some of my most successful material only finds the right audience two or three years down the line.
  5. ‘This is helping my ongoing learning process about value creation’ – Every time I try something out, or put it out to an audience, I learn more about value creation, in business, in relationships and in life. This learning in turn helps me to make the best of what I meet in each day, and to become more successful in life. What could be better than that?

So, there you go; five ways of mentally framing my situation in ways that help me to view and experience it in a positive AND REALISTIC way. Realistic is in caps because for mental framing to be effective it has to be reality focused. You can’t just fantasize any old BS that just isn’t true!
Mindfulness is all about releasing our potential for learning and growth in the moment. Mental framing is a technique that really we can be using all the time during our day to ‘sculpt’ our reality in a way that is useful and desirable. But to get going you might like to take one or two specific situations in life and practice framing them. Happy sculpting!

Related articles: 
How to mindfully develop your self-confidence
Four positions for wrestling with your dark angels
Mastering your mind through mindfulness

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Tuesday 29, Wednesday 30th May – Wesak Meditation

Saturday 2nd June, 9.30-11.30am – The Power of Presence – Mindfulness for managing conflict in your relationships and accessing your inner power

Saturday, 9th June, 9.30am-1pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present

Mastering your mind through mindfulness – Seven skills

Dear Integral Meditators,

What does it mean to be a ‘Master of your mind’? In the article below I outline seven mindful skills that I have found to be particularly useful with regard to my mind, thoughts and thinking. They have continued to be effective for me and deliver value over long periods of time.

In the spirit of finding joy in your mind,

Toby

 

 

 

Mastering your mind through mindfulness – Seven skills

What does it mean to be a ‘Master of your mind’? In this article my idea is to outline seven mindful skills that I have found to be particularly useful with regard to my mind, thoughts and thinking. They are designed to help you

  1. Find enjoyment and pleasure in the use of your mind, rather than feeling overwhelmed by it
  2. Develop confidence in the effectiveness of your own mind and thinking process, so that you can use it to navigate your life challenges more successfully

Here they are:
Not losing your senses – Whether your mind is busy or calm, happy or sad, its useful to have your body and your senses as a stable reference point for your mind. Learn to orientate your mental awareness around the stable anchor of your physical experience of this moment, right now.

Committing to be aware of what’s going on in your mind –  You can’t master what you don’t know. Get used to watching the comings and goings of your mind like a curious scientist. Learn to watch without editing what arises. What does a thought look like? How do thoughts and emotions relate to each other? Get to know experientially by observing regularly.

Being aware of the value of attention and the way you are framing what you experience – You can’t control everything you experience, but you can control the way you frame what you experience! If you are on a bad holiday where everything is going wrong, thinking ‘This is going to give me the material for some really funny stories when I get back!’ will give you a very different experience than if you just wallow in the thought ‘This is a crap holiday’! Pay close attention to the way in which you are paying attention.

Centralizing what’s good in the field of your awareness – There are always good things in your life. Make sure you know what they are, and make them front and center, not peripheral in your awareness.

Taking care of wounded, upset, dysfunctional and disowned thoughts – Often the parts of ourself and our mind that need the most attention are the ones that we reject, disown, repress or try and pretend aren’t there. Reverse this attitude. Learn to look after the thoughts in your mind that need your care and attention to heal and return to health!

Balancing mental activity with mental non-activity – Spend time getting familiar with what it feels like not to think. Get comfortable with empty spaces in your mind. Relax into them and enjoy the regenerative calm that comes from developing this skill, and resting in non-activity.

Bringing mental clarity through asking questions – Often our mind is an unexamined miasma of half processed thoughts, memories and feelings. Learn to consciously formulate questions that will help you bring clarity to the mess. Ones like ‘What’s good in my life?’ ‘What do I need to accomplish today?’ ‘What is my intention for doing this piece of work?’ or ‘What can I do to solve this problem’ are simple examples. Questions like this give your mind a target to focus on and ‘hit’. You can’t hit a target that you haven’t set up!

So, seven basic practices, if you like you could focus on one a day over the next three weeks, which would give you times to cycle though each one three times. See how it improves the way you experience and work with your mind, and how much you enjoy it 😉

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Enlightened love and loving Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Uncategorized

Giving your heart whole (Creating a ‘high functioning’ heart)

Dear Integral Meditators,

In order to get the most out of life, you have to give yourself whole heartedly to it without holding back. But what happens when you give yourself whole heartedly to a person, a project or a cause, and you get hurt, abused, rejected or taken advantage of? This weeks article offers a few perspectives on how to keep giving your heart to life without worrying too much about getting it broken!

In the spirit of the high performance heart,

Toby

Giving your heart whole (Creating a ‘high functioning’ heart)

In order to get the most out of life, you have to give yourself whole heartedly to it without holding back. But what happens when you give yourself whole heartedly to a person, a project or a cause, and you get hurt, abused, rejected or taken advantage of?
Inevitably in life we get our heart wounded. People we trust turn out to be unreliable. Organizations that seem benevolent turn out to have a dark side. The reality we thought was there and that we gave our heart to turns out to be false. Sometimes it’s even malevolent, seemingly taking pleasure in the pain that we experience as a result of having our heart-felt feelings thrown back in our face. With experiences like this it is understandable that many of us become cautious, build up walls around ourselves, and wary of opening ourselves up. We’ve been hurt by opening our heart before, why take the chance of more pain by opening it again? In this article I want to offer a perspective on how to give your heart to someone or something in a way that makes continuing to give it both sustainable and enjoyable.

In romance and friendship – Giving your heart whole


One of the reasons that we get our hearts broken and wounded in love and friendship is because the heart that we are offering to the relationship is wounded and dysfunctional in the first place. If you come into a romance lonely, anxious and dysfunctional, then you are going to form a co-dependent relationship with the person. Consequently, if anything goes wrong, or they turn away from you, its going to place a wound in the already wounded or broken heart that you offered in the first place. This is going to feel really bad and take you a long time to recover from (if you even do recover properly).
The alternative to this is to do some work on yourself and your heart to make it a ‘high functioning, heart’. This means that you go into a relationship already feeling relatively whole, complete and happy within yourself. The relationship offers a further environment for you to express that already whole, complete and functional heart with another person. When you ‘give your heart’ to them, it is a whole, strong, robust heart, not a ‘heart of glass’. If the relationship then goes wrong in some way, or they behave badly, then you can simply take your heart back! Since you gave it whole, you can take it back whole. You didn’t give your heart to the person so they could ‘fix’ it, you gave it to them in celebration, in the spirit of fun, playfulness and possibility. If they were not able to reciprocate, then too bad for them, you just take your strong, whole, healthy heart back. You may feel a little disappointed or sad, but sadness can exist in a strong heart without breaking it.
In fact, if you have cultivated a high functioning heart, then giving it to someone is a kind of win-win scenario. If they reciprocate in kind, then you have a romance or friendship that can last you for a long time, even for life. But if it goes wrong, then you’ve had a good learning experience, no big harm done!
If you have a high-performance mountain bike, then you may like to take it out into the countryside and give it a thorough work-out, taking it through bumpy, muddy, wet and difficult terrain. Because it’s a good bike, its going to perform well, and you’re going to end up thinking ‘that was a great ride, I enjoyed that!’ Similarly, if you’ve invested and done the work in creating a ‘high performance heart’ then you are going to want to ‘put it through its paces’ and find things to test it against. You can ‘take it for a ride’, hit a few bumps and be pleased at how well it responds to genuine challenges.
In order to have a fulfilled life, giving your heart is really essential. But when you give it, give it whole, not broken. That way if you have to take it back, it’ll come back whole too!

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Saturday 28th April, 9.30am-1pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Sunday 20th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop

Saturday 26th May 10am-4.30pm – Mastering your Mind Through Mindfulness Meditation Day Retreat with Toby

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
creative imagery Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Primal Spirituality

Meditating with Your Inner Family

Dear Integral Meditators,
What if as well as an outer family, you had an ‘inner family’ as well that you could draw upon for support as you go through the challenges of your life? The article below invites you to discover just such a family.

In the spirit of your inner family unit,


Meditating with Your Inner Family

Four seasons, four stages of life
The ‘inner family’ as I call it has been a contemplative tool that I started using when during a time when I studied the Wheel of the Year and the Western Wheel of Life in some detail. The essence of it is that, in the same way that a year has four seasons, spring, summer, autumn and winter, so we have four stages of life that correspond to these seasons. These stages are childhood, youth (or young adulthood), maturity (or middle age, the age of ‘responsibility’) and old age/death. The final stage, old age and death in turn leads to rebirth. The idea with your ‘inner family’ is that you have four personalities, or aspects of self inside you that correspond to each of these stages. Regardless of what physical stage of life you are in, each of these ‘four selves’ is available to draw upon as an energy resource, a perspective, a power and a wisdom.

The basic qualities of your inner family members
Your Child self has the qualities of innocence, playfulness, creativity, spontaneity, wonder. To have a functional inner child is to have access to all the above qualities in our life. The child self lacks planning ability and mature wisdom, so needs to be guided and looked after by the older members in order to remain healthy.
Your Youthful or Young Adult self corresponds to the age approximating 17-34. S/he is full of vital energy and life-force, is ambitious, looking to establish her identity in the world and make an impact upon it. S/he is the part of us that may be explicitly concerned with looks and sexuality, being attractive, and so forth. We can draw upon her to get things done, fire our enthusiasm, be determined, and regenerate our appetite for life.
Your Mature self is the part of you that corresponds to middle age. More mature and settled than the youthful self, the mature self is good at planning, being responsible, problem solving, looking after others, and bearing burdens. When we are in actual middle age, this part of ourself can feel pretty run down, and so needs the energy and support of the ‘younger selves’ as well as the wisdom and perspective of the old self!
Your Old or Wise self is that part of you that views life from the perspective of being close to deaths door. S/he has lived through all the previous stages, and the ups and downs that they have brought with them. Ideally this part of you is actively available to the three younger members for consultation and wisdom.

Tapping into the wisdom of your inner family
I often simply imagine myself in a place in nature, and then see the members of my inner family coming to meet me, and sitting around in a circle. Once we have ‘checked in’ with each other, we might then go on to tackle a particular problem together.
For example, I am about to move apartment for the fourth time in a year. My mature self (I’m literally 45 in physical age) is feeling a bit run down and tired by this, mentally and physically. As I sit with my inner family group, I let my mature self-receive the love and playful enthusiasm of my child self. My youthful self offers support and vital strength, as well as keeping my appetite for life and ambition burning away in a healthy manner.  My old or wise self is on hand just to smile, empathizing at the suffering, and gently helping me pace myself through wisely.  All in all having my inner family around makes the experience enjoyable; I don’t feel alone or isolated. It’s a perfect complement to my outer family!
You might like to find your own inner place in meditation where you can meet and get to know your inner family. You can then consult them at will about any situation or challenge you are going through, facing it together, like a team.

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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

New ‘Stealing Flow Gamma’ from I-Awake Technologies

Use Gamma:

  • While working, studying, exercising
  • When you want to shift into creative mode
  • To take in and process complex, detailed information
  • When you want to focus, get motivated

Click on the link or image for full details!

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Saturday 28th April, 9.30am-1pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Sunday 20th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop

Saturday 26th May 10am-4.30pm – Mastering your Mind Through Mindfulness Meditation Day Retreat with Toby

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Energy Meditation Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present Stress Transformation

Dealing mindfully with anger and conflict in your relationships

Dear Integral Meditators,

There is a strong relationship between anger and power. If you can own your anger and learn to wield it as a force for the good in life, your sense of personal power will increase correspondingly. The article also looks at how to mange conflict in your relationships using mindful questions and attention. Enjoy!

Wishing you well,

Toby

The Power of Presence – Dealing mindfully with anger and conflict in your relationships

How can you deal more effectively with anger and conflict in your life? Here I am referring specifically to the anger and conflict that you experience in your outer relationships with other people. What I am going to do is give you some pointers for becoming more mindful in this area. This in turn will then naturally start to suggest to practical ways you can be more successful dealing with the challenges presented.

1) Observe the way in which you currently experience anger and conflict
Ask yourself the question: What is my current relationship with anger and conflict, both within myself and into relationships?
Bring to mind a time when you have been angry. What happens when you get angry? How does your body start to feel? Practice mindfully creating anger in your body and mind, and learn to relax into it, without being panicked by it or forced into a reaction. Get used to holding anger in your body comfortably, letting it flow.
Similarly, bring to mind a conflict you have in your outer relationships right now. Observe how you feel in the face of another persons anger, disapproval or aggression. Practice mindful holding your own space and breathing with the experience of conflict, so that when it happens in real time, you are not panicked or intimidated.

2) A working definition of anger – ‘Anger is a powerful emotion centred around issues of justice and fairness’. In its negative expression it is incredibly destructive and dangerous. In its positive expression it can be a powerful cause for order, justice and good in the world. ‘Positive anger’ might be thought of as simply the benevolent expression of justice and fairness in the face of malevolence or aggression. There is a lot to be gained from working to transform your own negative anger into positive anger. See my article on Act your rage – Three useful ways of thinking about and using your anger

3) Working with conflict in your relationships
Once you have done a little contemplation around section 1 above, here is a short exercise you can apply to any relationship you may have where there is anger and conflict. Firstly, consider the situation from three perspectives –
1st person – I/mine/ours – What is happening in this situation from your personal point of view? What are you feeling?
2nd person – the other(s) – What is the other person/people experiencing? What do you start to see if you mindfully take their perspective for a period of time?
3rd person – It’s, objective (fly on the wall) – What do you start to see if you take a more objective/detached point of view, outside of all the personal stuff?

Based on your insights from these three perspectives then decide ‘Am I going to’:

  • Change myself/adapt to the other person/people, (maybe not worth the hassle to confront?) or
  • Try and change the other person, or take a stand for what I feel is right (genuine issue if justice, and or ‘worth it’)?

Finally, having made your decision, strategize! Use your natural intelligence to come up with a way of approaching the relationship conflict, communicating skillfully in a way that you think is going to give the best result!

Experiment with small conflicts
A final point here, small and relatively insignificant conflicts are great places to start working with the above methods. Finding ways to gently work with conflict, anger and confrontation in minor situations helps you build the skill and confidence so that when something big kicks off, you are able to hold your own and enjoy learning how to articulate your own power in relationship conflicts.

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Tuesday & Wednesday’s in March/April – Inner Peace, Inner Power – An Introduction to Integral & Engaged Meditation Practice

Saturday 28th April, 9.30am-1pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Sunday 20th May, 10am-5pm – How to do Soul Portraits Workshop

Saturday 26th May 10am-4.30pm – Mastering your Mind Through Mindfulness Meditation Day Retreat with Toby

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Concentration Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindfulness Motivation and scope Uncategorized Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

‘Going through the motions’ as a mindfulness tool

Dear Integral Meditators,

You may have heard or even experienced how mindfulness makes you more productive and increases your potential for success, but how does this actually work in practice? The article below gives a practical example…

In the spirit of quiet power,

Toby

PS: Live in Singapore this week: The Tuesday & Wednesday evening meditation classes this week is the Spring Equinox Balancing & renewing Meditation, all welcome!

‘Going through the motions’ as a mindfulness tool

There are a lot of things that are very necessary and important for you to be successful in life that are not very exciting, motivating or interesting. There are many days when you wake up tired, moody and undermotivated. On such days, even things that normally would excite you or motivate you can seem really uninteresting.
Whether it’s a boring task, or your feeling under-motivated, it’s really important in terms of being successful that you to keep doing what is necessary, whether you feel like it or not! When we do something that we don’t want to do, we sometimes say ‘I’m just going through the motions’. There are three basic stages to mindfully ‘going through the motions’ to get things done:

1. See the benefit of doing the task or action – This morning I went through a long list of old scripts, to see which ones I might want to re-vamp into new meditations. I was tired and it was essentially mundane work, but it was necessary to do before doing the fun, creative work of re-writing new material from the old. The mundane task sets up the completion of the fun, creative task.
2. Accept you don’t feel like doing it – If I’m feeling tired, run down and insecure on an evening, I may not feel like responding politely and considerately to my partners questions, or dealing with my children’s bad moods. But if I’m intelligent and thoughtful, I know that even though I don’t feel like it, it is in my own,  the other persons and the relationships best interests to make the effort. But I accept that I don’t feel like it. I’m going to do it despite the fact that I don’t feel like it!
3. Go through the motions anyway – At this stage I see the benefits of doing the task, I accept the fact that I don’t feel like doing it. Now, I need to go through the motions, just do it! It may feel mechanical and mundane, I may feel I am mentally ‘walking though treacle’, but I just do it. I start writing, I engage politely, I start exercising…I just get going, even if it feels fake. I go through the motions!

The benefits
There are a number of benefits to getting in the habit of going through the motions
You get it done, which feels good – As one writer said “I don’t like writing, but I like having written!” when you complete a task there is a feel good factor and a sense of satisfaction. Sometimes especially if you didn’t feel like doing it!
Sometimes you start to enjoy it and feel good – Once you start and overcome the initial inertia you can find yourself enjoying the activity. You didn’t feel like being polite to your partner, but now the conversation is chugging along very enjoyably!
Mundane stuff can be centering and grounding – If you are doing something boring, the repetition or predictability of the task can create a rhythm that is calming and centering. I noticed this recently painting walls in my apartment. The physical movement and repetition is deeply mind-calming and stress relieving!
You get sh#*t done that sets you up for success – when you habitually ‘go through the motions’ you become capable of doing and achieving things that you could not do if you relied on ‘feeling like it’. GTTM’s gives you the qualities of maturity, discipline and endurance that facilitates the long term fulfilment of deeply held goals and ambitions. You become capable of doing what the ordinary man or woman cannot do.

So, the next time you’re feeling tired, under motivated or despondent, simply set up the next task that you need to get done, and mindfully go through the motions!

Related article: On boredom, creativity & ‘mindful fishing’

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Starts Tuesday & Wednesday March 6-7 th – Inner Peace, Inner Power – An Introduction to Integral & Engaged Meditation Practice

March 20&21st – Spring Equinox Balancing & renewing Meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Concentration Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

Combining your beginners mind with your experienced mind

Dear Integral Meditators,

The ‘beginners mind’ is a fundamental concept in mindfulness and meditation, particularly in Zen practice. The article below explores how you can go about combining your beginners mind with what I call ‘your experienced mind’, in order to create something that is better than both!

In the spirit of new beginnings and wise experience,

Toby

PS: Live in Singapore this week: The Tuesday & Wednesday evening meditation classes this week is focused on how you can play Positive Mindfulness Games, all are most welcome! … and final call for Mindful Resilience – Sustaining effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure through meditation and mindfulness on this Saturday the 17th!

Combining your beginners mind with your experienced mind

Your beginners mind (BM) is your ability to come to a task or experience with curiosity, as if for the first time.  It may be an experience that you have had many times before, or you may literally be doing it for the first time. Either way your beginners mind is a learning mindset. It watches closely, absorbing as much information as it can. Think of a child intensely interested and involved in trying to ride a bike for the first time, and you get the idea. Your BM is happy to try and fail, try and fail, try and fail, until it succeeds.
Your beginners mind helps you to keep on learning as you get older, keep your enthusiasm for life, keep you positively humble. Your BM helps you learn new things faster, and prevents you taking familiar good things in your life for granted. Mentally it keeps you young, flexible and joyful.
The beginners mind should not be confused with simply being naïve, childish, or getting bored easily and so giving up on tasks before they are done or mastered!

Your experienced mind (EM) is the sum total of all your life experience up to this point. It knows a lot of things that are very useful in helping you navigate all the situations and choices that you have to go through each day. You might think of it as the wise old man or woman within you that compares what is happening in the moment to the past in order to see if there are any patterns, experiences or learning’s that you already have that can help you with what you are facing right now.
Your EM helps you to leverage on what you know already in order to prevent you making mistakes. It saves you time, helps avoid pain, and enjoy greater success with regard to  what you are experiencing in the moment. It recognizes that in many situations we are not complete beginners, and that that is a very good thing!
Your experienced mind should not be confused with that part of you that becomes cynical, jaded, or that thinks it ‘knows it all’. It is intelligent, helpful and alert.

Integrating your beginners and your experienced mindsets
From an integral mindfulness point of view, we try to combine the best of our beginner’s mind and experienced mind together, so they are helping each other, and us to meet our life challenges more successfully. One simple way to start doing this is to ask two questions regarding any challenge you have, and want to extract practical learning from:

  1. If I view this situation as if for the first time, what do I see and observe?
  2. What is my past experience and learning telling me about this situation?

Sit with each question for a short while, and see what perspectives and insights come from both. You can then combine them into a wise approach to your experience that combines your ability to learn in the moment (beginners mind) with your ability to use past experience effectively (experienced mind).

A simple example
Forty minutes ago I sat down to write this article. I felt a bit nervous and unsure about the content, but my experienced mind (EM) told me that if I just started mapping it out and writing, I would find the idea translated into an article.  I then set aside my EM and brought my BM to the task, seeing the content ‘as if for the first time, paying attention to the present, being curious and enthusiastic. Now here I am, at the end of my article, my work complete. It’s a simple example. How could you combine your beginners and experienced mind today in order to be successful in your chosen endeavor?

Related article: Appreciating the past to liberate the present

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Starts Tuesday & Wednesday March 6-7 th – Inner Peace, Inner Power – An Introduction to Integral & Engaged Meditation Practice

Saturday March 17th – Mindful Resilience – Sustaining effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure through meditation and mindfulness – A half day workshop

March 20&21st – Spring Equinox Balancing & renewing Meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Inner vision Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness Stress Transformation

Plan More, Worry Less!

Dear Integral Meditators,

Is it possible to make worry work for you, rather than against you, and if so how? The article below explores this theme, and offers some practical ideas regarding how you can start!

In the spirit of planning, not worrying,

Toby

 

Managing your survival instincts; Plan more, worry less

Planning is what you do when you have a challenge and you deliberately contemplate it in order to come up with an effective plan of action. Planning helps resolve the issues that the problem is causing. Effective planning is a necessary part of a successful life, problem management and dealing with stress.
Worrying (as defined in this article) is what you do when there is something that concerns you, and you are not sure how to resolve it. Worrying can be useful if it leads to effective planning. However, as often as not we worry without doing anything effective about the issue.

  • Worrying that lasts a short time and leads to us sitting down and making an effective battle plan regarding how to deal with a problem is useful
  • Worrying that leads to anxiety, inability to see a problem clearly and fear of acting to resolve the issue is undesirable and serves only to give rise to negative stress
  • Quite often we find ourself worrying about things that WE HAVE ALREADY MADE A BATTLE PLAN TO RESOLVE! This is just plain silly. If you have identified a challenge and made an effective battle plan to resolve it, then one of the whole points of making that battle plan is that you now know what you are going to do to try and resolve the situation. So by definition you should stop worrying about it!

If you are worried about something, then sit down and make a battle plan about how to deal with the situation. Having made your battle plan, then simply follow the plan of action that you have made and stop worrying!
If you have made an effective plan to deal with a problem, then there is no need to worry, as there is already a plan in place!
The key practice here is to be more mindful. When you are thinking of a challenge in your life ask yourself the question “Am I worrying about this, or am I planning a way to deal with it?”

  • If you discover you are worrying, then stop worrying and start planning.
  • If you have already made a plan, then you can stop worrying anyway, because you have a plan.

Know the difference between planning and worrying; Plan more worry less!

© Toby Ouvry 2018, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com

Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia

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

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

Starts Tuesday & Wednesday March 6-7 th – Inner Peace, Inner Power – An Introduction to Integral & Engaged Meditation Practice

Integral Meditation Asia

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