Category: Mindful Breathing

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Meditation for cultivating vitality – Three practices

Below are three simple ways in which you can build vital energy in your body through meditation. They can be practised individually or in combination. They have the general meditation benefit of calming and focusing the body-mind, with the addition of specifically promoting the build-up and flow of life-force through the body.

Method 1 – Relaxing into tension:
Rather than fighting and seeking to get rid of tension, discomfort or fatigue in your body, make a point of moving towards it and relaxing into it. Try and locate the principal areas of tension in your body. Once you have identified them, take some time to work with each one in turn. Take a few breaths where as you inhale you allow yourself to feel the tension in that part of the body. Then, as you exhale relax into it and release. The principle here is that, if you focus attention on the area of the body where energy is blocked and work on releasing it, that will allow new energy and vitality to flow into that area of the body. Let your body relax so that vital energy can flow easily to areas where it is needed.

Method 2 – Breathing into your belly
In both the Zen and Qi gong traditions of meditation, there is a lot of emphasis upon breathing into the belly area, where the core of your body’s life-force (see my article on the Dan-tiens in qi gong) is said to be located. Initially, simply placing the palm of one hand on your belly, just beneath the belly button, and focusing on the rising and falling of the abdomen is a good way to start. Then once you have basic familiarity, you can visualize a ball of light about the size of a tennis ball sitting within the centre of the lower belly area. As you breathe in, see the ball glowing gently with vitality and life-force. As you breathe out see the light and energy from the ball expanding out into the rest of your body, filling it with energy. If you do this consistently, you will find that you have a real, tangible feeling of this energy building and expanding as you do the exercise.

Method 2 – Sitting like a pyramid
If you want to bring a sense of solidity and grounded-ness into your belly breathing, imagine your body as being like a pyramid as you sit and do the belly breathing. Imagine your hips and belly are like the broad base of the pyramid, with your chest and head tapering up to a point, so your hips and belly are super stable and broad. As you breathe in and out of the belly, release tension from your upper body downwards into the belly and hips, building the feeling of strength and stability.

Adding a smile
A final simple method you can combine with any of the above methods; add a gentle half smile into the mix:

  • As you release tension from the parts of your body, smile to them gently and warmly
  • As you breathe in and out of the belly, imagine the energy is warm and smiling, positively radiating out from the belly into the rest of the body.

Wishing you enjoyment with your experience of mindful vitality!

Related articles: 
Mindful Centring – three sitting positions
Breathing from your belly

Article and picture © Toby Ouvry 2019, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com 

All Courses at Integral Meditation Asia for February

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)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am, 16th & 23rd February – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 23rd February 11-12.30pm –   Get your meditation practice started now- The shortest and most time effective meditation workshop ever

Saturday 23rd February, 3.30-5.30pm – Developing Your Self-Confidence Through Mindfulness Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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Free Form Breathing – Allowing your body intelligence to decide

Dear  Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is a short, simple and profound breathing meditation technique for getting in touch with your body’s natural intelligence and wisdom. I do it a lot, and when I teach it people give very good feedback on the immediate effects they notice!
Reminder of the next two classes, this Tuesday and Wednesday’s Chinese New year meditation, and the Aquarius meditation on developing your self-knowledge on the 12/13th February.

In the spirit of our body-wisdom,

Toby

Free Form Breathing – Allowing your body intelligence to decide

One very simple technique that can be used both as a meditation in itself, or in order to prepare for other meditation practices is as follows:
Simply ask your body how it wants to breathe in order to find its point of balance, relaxation and calm. Then simply allow your bodies consciousness to guide the pace, depth and manner of your breathing for a few minutes.

In this exercise rather than imposing a technique or form upon your breathing and body, you allow your body consciousness to guide you in the breathing pattern IT needs to do most in order to find centered-ness, relaxation and calm. It may decide that it needs to breathe in short bursts with an emphasis on the outbreath, it may guide you toward long, evenly spaced breathing or whatever (you may be a little surprised!). The point is that you are allowing your body consciousness to do it, rather than dictating to our body what the rhythm should be.
Once you have done this for a while you’ll find that your mind and body are calmer and more centered, and you can go onto engage in whatever activity you then wish with a greater sense of poise and presence of mind.

© Toby Ouvry 2019, 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)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

January 29/30th, 7.30-8.30pm – Lunar new year meditation 2019: Being benevolent and big-hearted in the year of the Pig

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am, 16th & 23rd February  – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturdays February 9th & 23rd, 4-5.30pm , 4-5.30pm – Mindfulness group coaching sessions with Toby

Tues & Weds February 12/13th – Monthly astrological meditation – Aquarius: Developing your inner knowing and self-knowledge

Saturday 9th February, 9.30am-12.30pm  – Going from overwhelmed to overwell meditation workshop

Saturday 23rd February 11-12.30pm – Get your meditation practice started now- The shortest and most time effective meditation workshop ever

MARCH

Saturday 16th March, 9.30am-12.30pm – Meditation for self healing and creating high levels of energy

Integral Meditation Asia

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Stabilizing your pyramid of consciousness

Dear  Integral Meditators,

What is the simplest, stabl-est and most basic way to stabilize your mind and attention? The article below explores one answer to this in a practical way.

In the stability,

Toby

Stabilizing your pyramid of
consciousness

Within your field of awareness, you have three basic areas; your senses, your feelings and your thoughts. Of these, which do you imagine is the most stable and reliable? Which of these three moves slowest and is the most predictable? If you watch for a while, you will see clearly from experience that the answer to this is your senses. The mind and emotions can move and change very quickly and unpredictably. Your physical awareness and senses however are much slower moving. For example, if you bring your attention to the sensation of your physical body over a one minute period, you’ll see that it remains fairly constant, even as your mind moves here and there, and your moods shift.

Anchoring your attention to your senses
In mindfulness terms then, if you want to establish basic stability in this moment, the obvious place to go is to your physical body and senses. You can use them as an anchor for your attention. If you think about your attention as like a boat, and your thoughts and feelings as being like the waves, wind and other moving conditions around the boat. Your body and senses then become like the anchor that keeps the boat in one place. You don’t even need to try too hard still your mind and feelings. Just keep coming back to the anchor of your body, and you’ll find this gives you the basic ‘weight’ and stability for a sense of calm to start to come into your mind.

The weight of your body
I find it particularly useful to focus on the weight and solidity of my body. In particular the sensation of the weight where my body is on contact with the floor or surface where it is sitting or standing. So, if you are standing, that would be the soles of your feet, or if you are sitting it’s the back of your legs and butt that is on contact with the seat. If you like you can focus on the weight of your body as you inhale and then feel the tension in your upper body flowing down into the floor through that contact point as you exhale.

Your pyramid of consciousness 
If you think about your consciousness as being like pyramid, with your senses as the broad base, your mind and emotions as the mid-section, and consciousness itself as the top tip (see the article diagram). In this exercise, we are focusing upon stabilizing the ‘base’ of our pyramid by paying attention to the weight of the body. If the base is stable, then everything above it is going to feel basically strong and stable, even when your under pressure.

You don’t need perfect concentration!
Even if as you are focusing on the weight of your body you are only able to concentrate 10-20% of your attention on it, then that is still 10-20% more stability and centre than you have when your lost in your thoughts and feelings. What’s more, if you lose focus on the weight of the body, its very easy to find again, as it is such a simple, obvious sensation. When you have a sensory ‘anchor’ for your consciousness, then even if you ‘get lost’ its easy to find centre again!

This week you might like to spend a few minutes each day ‘stabilizing the pyramid of your consciousness’ by paying attention to the weight of your body.

© 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)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday mornings 9-10.15am : 1st,15th, 22nd, 29th December – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturdays December 15th & 22nd – Mindfulness group coaching sessions with Toby

Tues & Weds Dec 18/19th, 7.30-8.30pm – Winter Solstice balancing & renewing meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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Learning to conserve, build and circulate your energy

Dear  Integral Meditators,

How can mindfulness improve your energy levels and energy efficiency? The article below looks at this question in general, but also specifically from a qi gong perspective.
Two classes related to this topic, firstly the Qi gong workout and meditation class this Saturday morning. Secondly this week sees the beginning of a new series:  Five stages of integral meditation practice, from beginners to advanced. A five module course the first class of which will be in how to create an integrated, energetically strong body-mind.

In the spirit of energy,

Toby

 

Learning to conserve, build and circulate your energy (not waste it though dissipation and distraction)

One of the basic principles of Qi gong is that, through our awareness of energy we are trying to learn not to needlessly dissipate or “throw off” our mental, emotional and physical qi. Instead we learn to keep it within our energy field and circulate it within our mind-body continuum. Here are some practical ways in which we waste our qi and life force habitually:

  • Continuous physical fidgeting and habitual muscle tension (often due to lack of awareness of how our busy mind is causing our body to feel uneasy all the time)
  • Discomfort with feeling deep emotion (positive or negative), due to a habitual aversion to the vulnerability that deep emotion makes us feel. In general, deep emotion carries with it large amounts of qi that we can learn to circulate in our energy system. Repressing emotion, or becoming addicted to it/acting compulsively on it, causes us to lose our ability to use its qi in an effective way
  • Doing our physical actions, using much more muscle power than is necessary. For example typing at a computer with our facial muscles locked in an unconscious frown.
  • Compulsive and excessive (mindless or meaningless) speech
  • Compulsive and excessive thinking or worrying

In all the above ways and many more, we dissipate our qi on a daily basis. So, one of the best ways to start practising Qi gong is simply to make it a daily habit and discipline to be aware of how you are using your qi on a moment to moment basis. Ask yourself questions like:

  • “In the last hour, how effectively have I been using my life-force?”
  • “How much physical energy do I really need to walk from one place to another, how can I make my walking more energetically efficient?”
  • “Is the amount of thought that I am giving this problem really ergonomically effective?” (ie: the amount of good results relative to energy spent on the issue)

Here is a simple, 6 minute exercise that you can do to help develop awareness of your qi, and start to build it in your mind and body, rather than dissipate it needlessly. If you do this and nothing else as a Qi gong practice it will help you raise your energy levels:

For first two minutes:
Sit in a comfortable position. Visualize an energy field around your body, the shape of an egg, extending roughly 10-20cms from the surface of your body. Simply sit still, and focus on the physical stillness of your body. Notice the temptations to fidget and don’t follow them. Try to keep all of your energy in the present moment, and within the boundaries of your energy field. Use your breathing, your still body, and the edge of your energy field as your basic points of focus

For minutes 3-4:
Use the core body breathing technique to breathe energy into the core of your body and out to the edge of your energy field. As the qi moves in and out of the core of your body, retain it in your energy field so that you can feel it building and increasing.

For minutes 5-6:
Relax and breathe naturally, your body and energy field will now feel energized. Practice keeping mentally and physically still, whilst at the same time feeling full of energy and life-force.

This final state is the one that we are aiming to make the base line of our daily life and awareness as Qi gong practitioners particularly, but also as any type of meditation and mindfulness practitioner really: Simultaneously relaxed and energized.

​© 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)

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

September: Saturday 29th , October: Sat 6th/20th , Fri 5th/26th– Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Begins September 26th/27th – Five stages of integral meditation practice, from beginners to advanced. A five module course

Saturday 29th September, 2-5pm – OneHeart Open Day ‘Activating your journey of healing and empowerment’.

October Events:

Saturday 6th October 1-4pm – Mindful Resilience: Sustaining your effectiveness, happiness and clarity under pressure

Saturday 20th October 10.30am-5.30pm – Integral Meditation for Intermediate and Advanced Meditators

Saturday 27th October, 9:30am – 12:30pm – Meditations for creating a mind of ease, relaxed concentration and positive intention 

Saturday 27th October, 4-5.30pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Tues & Wednesday 30 & 31 October, 7.30-8.30pm – Samhain Meditation – Acknowledging the gifts and wounds of our ancestors

Integral Meditation Asia

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Qi Gong 101: Mindfully increasing & harmonizing your subtle energy 

Dear  Integral Meditators,

Qi gong is a way of working mindfully with the subtle energy in your body. This week’s article reflects upon two fundamental questions: What is Qi Gong? And what are the different elements of qi gong practice? I have placed the answers in six parts or divisions. You’ll see links embedded in the article that will take you to some simple practices from my Qi gong blog.

In the spirit of energy,

Toby

If you enjoy the article, then do check out my QG coaching and healing page. On the coaching page I share a little about my own personal journey with qi gong meditation!

Qi Gong 101: Mindfully increasing & harmonizing your subtle energy 

What is Qi Gong? Here are six different ways of answering this question, that together give an overview of the different aspects of qi gong practice.

1) Qi Gong is developing awareness of and circulating ‘qi’ or subtle energy.
All qi gong practices really focus around this basic point. They are all methods to improve the amount (quantity) of qi flowing through our body and mind, thus giving us more energy. Secondly, they improve the harmony and balance (quality) of the qi/energy flow. What is commonly referred to as ‘qi’ in qi gong is the subtle magnetic or bio-electrical energy that flows through the energy meridians in our body. The qi in our body is a part of a vast field of bio-electrical energy that pervades and infuses planet Earth. Other equivalent words for qi are vital energy, prajna, etheric force and “ki” (as in the Japanese word “re-ki” or “universal energy”).

What does Qi Gong practice consist of?

2) Standing
Qi gong practices teach us how to increase and harmonize the flow of energy through our body by adopting certain special standing positions. If you think about the sky and stars above you as being the positive pole of an electrical circuit and the Earth beneath you as being the negative pole, then your body is like the conductor of electrical energy between these two poles. Qi gong standing postures show how to tap into the energy of the universe simply by standing in an optimal manner.

3) Breathing
Qi gong practice teaches basic breathing techniques to develop and enhance the flow of qi around our bodies. At any given time, if you observe your breathing, you will find that it reflects the way in which your body and mind are feeling at that time. Qi gong breathing techniques focus on giving our breathing patterns eight fundamental qualities; Silent and fine, slow and deep, long and soft, continuous and even.

4) Smiling
This is such a fundamental part of qi gong that I tend to draw it out as an individual element. The expression on our face has a fundamental effect on the energy in our mind and body. By practicing a technique called the “inner smile” we can harness this form of qi or energy for many positive purposes in our life.

5) Movement
Qi gong promotes special types of gentle physical movement to help promote the flow of qi through the body. There is also a mechanical (in the positive sense of the word) aspect of qi gong movement that focuses on putting the joints of our body through their full range of movement on a regular basis. “A used door hinge never rusts” as the saying goes. Qi gong movement help us to exercise our joints and basic muscle groups in a way that helps to maintain them in a healthy, optimal state.

6) Practical philosophy
Qi gong is based around a great wealth of practical wisdom from the (mostly) Taoist tradition of health, primal psychology and spirituality. This provides a context and way of life that surrounds, infuses and informs the Qi gong practices outlined in points 1-5 above.

​© 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

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Incremental Breathing – Relaxing and energizing at will

Dear  Integral Meditators,

How can you use your breathing consciously to both energize and relax yourself at will? The article below offers a simple, easy to practice technique.
For those in Singapore, a reminder that the weekly evening meditation classes start again this week, full details here. This Saturday we also have a new  Qi gong meditation workout and meditation, as well as the monthly meditation for beginners workshop.

In the breathing and feeling alive,

Toby

Incremental Breathing – Relaxing and energizing at will

Incremental breathing is a way of using the breath to both energize and or relax our mind and body. Taking a few of these breaths at regular times during our day can really make a difference to the quality of our life, as well as making us more aware and empowered regarding how we can influence the energies of our mind, body and nervous system for the better using such an easy technique. Incremental breathing can be practiced on the inhalation when we want to energize our body, and on the exhalation when we want to calm and relax our body.
Practicing either of these two forms of breathing will be enhanced if we first bring our torso’s center of gravity down low into the belly and breathe with the whole lung. I explain these two points fully in my article on Belly breathing.

Incremental breathing on the inhalation.
As you breathe in, divide your inhalation into three even lengths or ‘sips’ as follows:
Breathe into about 25% lung capacity, pause*, breathe in to about 50% of lung capacity, pause, breathe into about 75% of lung capacity, pause. By this time your lungs are comfortably full. Then, breathe a long, slow exhalation. Repeat 3-9 times.
(*the pause here should be short, a half second or one second max).
Once you have become used to the above technique, as you are inhaling incrementally, feel all the cells of your body becoming more and more energized as you inhale, so by the time you reach the top of your inbreath, your whole body feels full of Qi /energy).

Incremental breathing on the exhalation.
First take a long, measured inbreath to about 75% of your lung capacity, so that your lungs are comfortably full. Then, as you breathe out, divide your exhalation into three even lengths:
Breathe out to about 50% of lung capacity, pause, breathe out to about 25% of lung capacity, pause, empty remaining air from lungs, pause. Repeat 3-9 times.
Once you have become used to the basic process of incremental breathing on the outbreath, as you breathe out incrementally, feel your whole body becoming progressively more and more relaxed.

Once you have practised them individually, you can combine these two techniques together, so that you are breathing in incrementally to energize your body and mind, and then breathing out incrementally to relax your body and mind. The result is a very pleasant combined experience of energy and relaxation that we can take into and use in our life.

For the insomniacs among you, this type of breathing, particularly breathing incrementally on the exhalation can be good to combine with the ”Hands on the belly to relax the brain”technique in the article I published in July. Enjoy your breathing!

​© 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)

Begins 14/15th September – Effortless effort – Insight meditation for self-healing and transformation – a five week course

Monday 6.15-7.15 & Wednesday 12.15-1.15 – Integral Meditation classes at Space2B on Stanley Street

Saturday 11th August, 9-10.15am – Qi Gong workout and meditation class

Saturday 11th August, 11am-12.30pm – Get Your Meditation Practice Started Now – The Shortest and Most Time Effective Meditation Workshop Ever

Saturday 18th August, 9.30-1pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Integral Meditation Asia

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Hands on the belly to relax the brain (a short cut to sleeping at night?)

Dear  Integral Meditators,

Greetings from Berlin where I’m traveling right now! Before I left for the holidays, I facilitated a Qi gong workshop, which then led me to start having a look at some old qi gong meditation articles that I had written out a decade or so ago. The method below is one that you can use to help you fall asleep at night, and to relax your nervous system whenever you want to dial down and get out of your thinking mind for a while for a while. Enjoy!

In the spirit of conscious relaxation,

Toby

Hands on the belly to relax the brain (a short cut to sleeping at night?)

This is a very simple technique that I use often in order to calm and reduce conceptual activity and center myself fully in my body. I use it most frequently when my mind is whizzing when I lie down to go to sleep at night, or if I want to take a quick nap during the day and want to move into a state of relaxed non-conceptuality relatively fast. It can be done sitting, standing or lying down:
Simply place your hands one on top of the other on your belly, just beneath your belly button. Close your eyes, relax the brain and simply focus on the feeling of warmth that the resting hands create on the lower belly. If you like you can imagine that the lower belly area is like a magnet, and that energy from the brain is gently being attracted down into the torso by the pull of this magnet. However, to be honest I find that this is not necessary, the natural sensation of the hand on the belly does the work for you, without you having to do a lot else!
Related articles: Basic Qi Gong Belly Breathing
Meditation Technique For Brain Relaxation, Non-Conceptuality and Falling Asleep at Night.

​© 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)

August program coming soon!

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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What is spiritual practice? And why bother engaging in it?

Dear Integral Meditators,

Back in 2010 I did a course on ‘Essential Spirituality’. Below are some edited notes on what spirituality is, and what having your own spiritual practice offers you in terms of  value. It also has a practical meditation at the end that you can start working with!

Live in Singapore this week: The Tuesday & Wednesday evening meditation classes sees the beginning of the new course: Inner Peace, Inner Power – An Introduction to Integral & Engaged Meditation Practice all welcome!

In the spirit of spiritual practice,

Toby

What is spiritual practice? And why bother engaging in it?

Many conversations regarding spirituality lack any meaningful substance simply because we have not thought about or defined what it is meant by spirituality and its purpose. Understanding of what the purpose of the spiritual practice is gives us an insight into the benefits to be gained from doing it, empowering us to start doing it consistently in our day to day life!

What do we mean by spiritual practice? 
Spiritual practice means awakening each day to that which is most important and fundamental to our lives. It creates the time each day to reflect upon this and let it inform how we choose to act in our life.
This reflection encourages us to effect meaningful change in our lives, so that we no longer feel like a victim of circumstance. Instead we experience our self as an active participant in our experiences and our destiny.

What is its purpose of spiritual practice? 
Basic spiritual reflection reveals that life consists of the potential for joy, rapture, beauty and ecstasy, within the context of many seemingly unavoidable experiences of pain, suffering and injustice.
Spiritual practice prepares us to meet the challenges, uncertainties and sufferings of life as effectively  as possible, whilst at the same time maximizing our potential for the experience of joy, happiness, ecstasy and rapture.

How does spiritual practice affect practical change in our life?
Spiritual practice aims to affect positive, practical change in our life by improving the integrity and strength of your being. It encourages our body, mind and spirit to work together in harmony to meet life’s challenges and to grow.
Often in daily life our mind, body and spirit are either not communicating, or actively fighting against each other. An example of this might be a busy person whose body gets sick due to work fatigue. Instead of treating her body with compassion, she may get angry with it for malfunctioning, and resist giving it the rest it needs. As a result, the body takes longer to recover, and may even become more sick.
Integrated spiritual practice aims to flag up all the conflicts between the different aspects of our being, so as to resolve them. We can then face the challenges of our life as a whole, integrated and strong individual, who does not break apart under pressure.

Listening to three voices: A basic practice for bringing us back to that which is fundamental to our life.
This is a very simple, practical three stage self-awareness meditation. If you spend two minutes each day on each stage, that will give you a basic six minute spiritual practice!

Stage 1: Listening to the voice of your body: Sitting quietly, tune into your body’s intuitive/instinctive consciousness. Let your body guide you to a pace and rhythm of breathing that will best promote relaxation, healing and regeneration at this moment in time.
Stage 2: Listening to the voices in the mind: Now turn your attention to the thoughts in your mind. Observe the inner chatter in your mind, avoiding getting involved in the discussion. Practice inwardly smiling and extending warmth to the thoughts in your mind, whether they seem to be positive or negative, happy or sad.

Stage 3: Listening to the voice of silence: Now turn your attention from the discursive thoughts in the mind to the space and silence that lies between your thoughts. The space that surrounds them and interpenetrates them. Think of this inner silence in the mind as being like sky, with the discursive voices being like clouds. Relax into the sky-like silence and clarity of your inner being.

© 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

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A Mind of Ease Concentration Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Breathing Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present spiritual intelligence Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

Combating Your Addiction to stimulation (& New Meditation Sleep Technology)

Dear Integral Meditators,

In this age of mental over stimulation, how can we find and enhance our peace of mind? The article below considers this question in the context of three qualities, permission, seduction and courage!

Beneath the article you’ll see I’ve placed some info about a product from I-Awake called ‘Sound Asleep‘. If you are looking for a drug-free way of improving your sleep, this is one alternative. I have been using it myself since it has come out, and getting some good results.

Live in Singapore this week: The Tuesday & Wednesday evening meditation classes will be on ‘Leaping like a Tiger – How to be Positively Mindful of your Self-Concept’ . And on Saturday we have the Deep dive meditation & Mindful Walking retreat.

In the spirit of permission, seduction and courage,

Toby

Combating Your Addiction to stimulation (Permission, Seduction, Courage)

If you ask anyone, “Would you like more calm and peace in your life?” the vast majority of us would say “Yes, or course!” With that in mind, what is the mindful gateway that can take us to that greater calm? One answer to this is boredom.
What do I mean by this? Well, in the information age our mind is mostly over stimulated. We are trying to digest too much information at any given time. Whenever our mind feels uncomfortable and insecure, the ‘go to’ activity now is to seek distraction, either on our phone, or on computers, or in the company of others. Our concentration span has become smaller, and our ability to do one thing at a time has decreased. It would be true to say that most of us are addicted to stimulation and as a result our minds are in a state of perpetual agitation. More than that we are addicted to that state of agitation and stimulation.

To move your body-mind into a state of calm, what actually needs to be done is to stop all the stimulation and ‘flipping’ of our attention, and let our mind focus on just one thing for an period of time. Peace and calm in this sense are a side effect of the act of concentrating on just one thing! Because your mind is addicted to change and stimulation, one of the big obstacles that we face to calm may be our mind complaining that it is bored. Focusing on one thing, for the first few minutes that we try to do it feels terribly boring. Our mind twitches around looking for the next thing to grab its attention and stimulate it. Only by patiently enduring, walking toward and through that sense of boredom will our mind start to settle. From this settling a sense of peace and calm will naturally start to emerge.

Walking through boredom with permission, seduction and courage
For this exercise you can take any suitable object as your object of focus. Here I’m going to suggest you take something predictable and boring like the breathing, perhaps just seeing if you can count from 1-5 breaths at a time without getting distracted, and repeating this on a loop for the duration of the meditation. Having chosen your object, I then suggest that you can use three states of mind to help you as you focus:

  1. Give yourself full permission to drop everything else and focus on your breathing (or chosen object). Make sure your mind understands that all emergencies are suspended for the duration of the session, it really can put down distractions. This way as it starts to ‘detox’ from its overstimulated state, it can relax into the boredom and discomfort, rather than turning away from it.
  2. Use seduction. Tell yourself and your mind how much you will enjoy it if you can really let go and rest at ease. Empathize with the overstimulated distraction-addict in you. Let her know that you are there to help and that beyond the boredom lies peace!
  3. Courage. As peace and calm begin to kick in, there can also be an enhanced awareness of all the fears, insecurities and anxieties that are behind your most compulsive distractions. You place courage in the center of your awareness as these fears kick in, enabling you to ‘hold your position’ long enough for the calm to emerge stably, and for your mind to settle!

So, there you go! A simple exercise for walking though the gateway of boredom to deeper peace and calm. And a way of gently combating our addiction to stimulation.
© 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

SOUND ASLEEP – A deeply soothing guided meditation with embedded brainwave frequencies for restorative, sound sleep
One of the most effective things you can do to enhance your wellbeing is to improve the quality of your sleep. A good night’s sleep makes you healthier, happier, and more creative.
With Sound Asleep, I-Awake have created a sound technology tool to gently lull you into the very deepest stages of sleep.
A soothing, dream-like blend of words, ocean waves, and advanced brainwave entrainment, Sound Asleep is designed to give you more peaceful, restorative sleep, night after night.
Click on the link to find out more and listen to the free sample! 20% off until February 1st!

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 February 3rd, 9.15am-12.15pm – Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat

February classes coming soon!

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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A Mind of Ease creative imagery Energy Meditation Essential Spirituality Greenworld Meditation Integral Meditation Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditation techniques Mindful Breathing Primal Spirituality spiritual intelligence

Light reborn from darkness (Winter Solstice meditation 20/21 Dec)

Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope you are enjoying the run up toward Christmas! In the article below I share a meditation practice that I use quite a lot at this time of year s a way of aligning myself with the seasonal energies, I hope you enjoy it!

In  the spirit of the solstice & the festive season,

Toby

Light reborn from darkness

One of the meditations that I use quite a lot over the Winter solstice period is something I call ‘Resting in regenerative darkness’. It’s a very cozy, ergonomic meditation form that also aligns well with the greater darkness of the season. Its use however does not have to be limited to this time of year.


To do this you can either literally place yourself in a dark or dimly lit room, or simply use your imagination. If you wish you can also have an unlit candle in front of you, ready for the second stage of the meditation, although this can be imagined if you don’t have one at hand.


Sitting or lying comfortably, take a few breaths where, as you breathe out you imagine you are moving into a sleepy, restful, dark state. You might feel you are sinking gently into the darkness of night, or the darkness of deep space. You could imagine yourself sinking into the dark soil of a forest, or sitting in cave or cavern beneath the earth. Feel your conscious mind switching almost completely off. Feel your body moving into to a deeply restful, regenerative state, surrounded by darkness. Let your mind become blank, almost like it is in hibernation. Feel like a soul that has died and is waiting quietly to be reborn.
Breathe and relax into the darkness.

The light reborn. 
After you have spent a while resting in the darkness, imagine a single light appears, like a single candle flame. If you have an actual candle flame in front of you, you can light it at this stage. Focus on the light. You might see it in the centre of your heart space –  a new light re-born from the darkness. This new light is the light of new life within you, the renewal of your spiritual being and creative potential in the world. For now, it is just a single light in the darkness; calm, bright and able to grow gently into its own power. Spend some time breathing as you focus on the light; inhale as you focus upon it, as you exhale relax into it; become the light in the darkness. Let yourself feel like a bright soul that has been re-born anew and playful in the darkness.
Finish when you are ready.

I invite you to enjoy this technique over the festive & new year season, if you want to explore it along with other seasonal meditation themes, do have a look at the winter solstice meditation below!

© Toby Ouvry 2017, 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