Category: Mindful Self-Leadership

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creative imagery Energy Meditation Enlightened service Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present spiritual intelligence Stress Transformation

Making yourself big

“It can be helpful to work on changing our idea of our inner self, and the scale on which it is able to work”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

Do you have a question about meditation or mindfulness?
If you have a question about meditation & mindfulness, either that you have been wondering about, or you may have asked people before but not received a satisfactory answer? If so then please send me a message with it to: info@tobyouvry.com. I’d like to start integrating some questions into my articles and videos, and it would be fun to do it with questions from you!

New course coming up: Do check out the mindful self-leadership workshop & six week course that I’ll be putting on over the weekend (the workshop), and then beginning next week (six week course).

And finally, please find below the article relating to this weeks Tuesday & Wednesday class. 

In the spirit of mindful questioning, 
 
Toby 

Making yourself big
 
When we get onto some kind of evolutionary path, we start to develop bigger intentions and aspirations. Rather than simply thinking about ourself and our close circle of family and friends in a material and temporary manner, we start to think in terms of benefitting the planet and the evolution of humanity. When this happens it can feel intimidating, ‘What can someone as small as I do in the face of such large forces? Can I really make any kid of significant impact?’
If we continue to identify our ‘self’ as being a small being trapped in a small physical body, then this can indeed feel overwhelming, as there is a mismatch between ‘self’ and ‘goal’. It can be helpful therefore to work on changing our idea of our inner self, and the scale on which it is able to work. A traditional Hermetic meditation technique is to visualize yourself as becoming very big, literally! Here is a source quote from a text called ‘the Corpus Hermeticum’:

“Increase thyself to an immeasurable height, leaping clear of all body, and surmounting all time, become eternal and thou shalt know God. There is nothing impossible to thyself. Deem thyself immortal and able to do all things…become higher than all height, and lower than all Depth…to be everything at the same time in earth and sea and heaven. Think that thou art as yet begotten, that thou art in the womb, that thou art young, that thou art old, that thou has died and art beyond death: perceive all things together…and thou shalt know God. But if thou shuttest up thy soul in thy body, and abasest thyself and sayest ‘I know nothing, I can do nothing, I am afraid of earth and sea, I cannot mount heaven, I know not what I was or what I shall be;’ then what hast thou to do with God?”

The basic idea here is that, if I identify myself as a small, limited, ignorant being, then I won’t leap beyond that limited idea of myself into my true potential. There are a lot of ideas to work with in the quote, but to make it very simple, as you sit in meditation you could imagine your body becoming larger, to the size of the room, then the house, then the apartment block, then your feet on the floor your head above the clouds, then country-size, then Planet size….You can go as big as you want or feels appropriate. As your body expands, feel your consciousness expanding with it, experience your everyday personal worries as insignificant, and yourself as a powerful effector of positive change on a great scale. If you relax and start to experiment with this, you will find your consciousness, and your sense of who you are and what you are capable of will change significantly. If you do it in a positive, balanced way all these changes can be used for the good.
 
But will I become delusional?
One fear that we may have in doing this is that we will simply become delusional, using this as a way of evading our reality and getting a completely inappropriate sense of who we are and our importance in the world. So of course, everything has to be held in balance here. If we understand the purpose of the exercise is to transcend our limited self-concept, freeing us to work in a way that currently we cannot. Understanding this specific purpose, we can do this exercise safely and get the benefits without falling into any potential dangers. It is also an exercise you can do when your ‘small self’ is simply feeling overwhelmed by life and its challenges. It can change the context of your experience very powerfully for the good.
 
Enjoy working with your ‘big body!

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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 upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Saturday June 10th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Mindful Self-Leadership: A Three-hour mindfulness & meditation workshop

Starts Tues/Weds, June 13th/14th – Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday June 24th, 9.00am-5pm – Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Awareness and insight Inner vision Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Breathing Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Pro-activity in the face of life & breathing pro-actively

‘Mindful pro-activity invites a ‘non-panicking’, playful attitude to our path forward and what is in the way. It means keeping a beginner’s mind and combining it with the voice and wisdom of our experience’

Dear Integral Meditators, 

In last weeks article I cited ‘being pro-active in the face of life’s challenges’ as being a characteristic of someone with good self-leadership & leadership skills. In this week’s article I dive a little deeper into what that means, and how you can start practicing it.
If you enjoy the article, then do check out the mindful self-leadership workshop & six week course that I’ll be putting on in June.

Final heads up for this week’s annual Wesak meditation on Tuesday & Wednesday evening. Your welcome either live or online!

In the spirit of mindful pro-activity, 
 
Toby 

Pro-activity in the face of life
 
One quality that I think is important in enabling confidence and self-leadership capability is to be pro-active in the face of life’s challenges and uncertainties. What does that mean? Three aspects of this are important I think: Trusting your own intelligence, taking the initiative, and being responsive or creative.

  • To trust your own intelligence means that in the face of something unknown or difficult, you maintain confidence in your perception and ability to work things out through considered trial and error
  • Taking the initiative means you actively look out for the problems and challenges that you face and that prevent you from getting to where you want to go. You initiate possible solutions and ways forward before things become critical, and you are then forced to confront what you have been avoiding
  • Being responsive and creative describes a ‘non-panicking’, playful attitude to our path forward and what is in the way. It means keeping a beginners mind and combining it with the voice and wisdom of our experience. Responsive indicates an acceptance of the realities of the situation, facing them squarely and then letting our intelligence and creativity work from there.

 
What pro-activity is it not
Resisting or repressing – Active resistance and repression of our awareness of problems is active (even if only unconsciously), but not pro-active. It gets in the way of moving forward in life rather than assists.   
Reacting or being impulsive – Mindful pro-activity is thoughtful and considered. Because of this it is intelligent and creative. Reactivity and impulsivity, even when accompanied by swift and sometimes aggressive action generally takes us away from solutions and realizing the potential opportunities in a situation.
 
Breathing pro-actively, a short exercise
As you breathe through your nose over the course of a few breaths, gently flare your nostrils. If you can try and open not just the tips of the nostrils, but the inner part of the nasal cavity, so that as you breathe in it feels as if there is plenty of space for the air to pass in and then down into the lungs. As you do this feel yourself becoming mentally poised, active and creative around the path that you have ahead of you today, or over the next 24hours.
Once you have a sense of how this inhalation feels, then as you are breathing out, feel yourself becoming relaxed, calm and responsive. You might think of this as a state of ‘calm thoughtful intelligence; you are pro-active, but you are also setting the pace, rather than being forced to rush by anxiety, fear or stress.
So, then the final pattern is:

  • Breathing in through open nostrils, connecting to creative pro-activity
  • Breathing out connecting to calm and setting your own pace

Stay with this for long enough to let your body-mind get a feeling of what it is like to be in a state of calm pro-activity. Then when you are ready, finish. Try and keep this feeling with you as you go through your daily journey, being gently pro-active in the face of what arises!
 
Related article: Becoming a Self-determining entity – Five stages to mindful self-leadership
Self-responsibility – Becoming a self-determining entity

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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 upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Saturday June 10th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Mindful Self-Leadership: A Three-hour mindfulness & meditation workshop

Starts Tues/Weds, June 13th/14th – Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday June 24th, 9.00am-5pm – Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Life-fullness Meditating on the Self meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Becoming a Self-determining entity – Five stages to mindful self-leadership

“To practice self-leadership is to be creative, seeing yourself as primarily a ‘producer’ rather than a consumer in and of life. You are the artist; your life is the work of art!”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

I’ve been teaching mindful self-leadership as a central part of my training programs for about a decade now. The way I understand and practice it, with mindful self-leadership there are ‘five-selves’ you need to cultivate in order to develop your competency in this art. The article below gives an outline of the five, and some context for them. 
If you enjoy the article, then do check out the mindful self-leadership workshop & six week course that I’ll be putting on in June!

Final heads up for this Saturday’s Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat, 

In the spirit of self-leadership, 
 
Toby 

Becoming a Self-determining entity – Five stages to mindful self-leadership

I’ve been teaching mindful self-leadership as a central part of my training programs for about a decade now. The way I understand and practice it, mindful self-leadership means:

  • To become a self-determining and self-directing entity
  • To be pro-active in the face of life’s challenges and uncertainties
  • To be creative, primarily a ‘producer’ rather than a consumer in life. You are the artist; your life is the work of art!
  • To take joy in your own intelligence and its function
  • To run towards reality rather than away from it
  • To commit to developing a healthy-high functioning ego (which is a completely different thing from being an ‘egotist’!)
  • To assume radical accountability/ownership for your life

 
Below are the ‘five selves’ that you need to grow within yourself in order to become good at self-leadership. I wrote these down in 2011. With a few small edits today, they are now a part of this article, and the ‘road map’ for you to begin your own self-leadership journey. I’m leaving them as ‘cliff notes’ for you just to read over, enjoy and allow yourself to respond inwardly to the ideas they stimulate:
 
Self-Awareness – Committing to be aware of your reality, that is your feelings, needs, desires, ideas, evaluations and behavior.
 
Self-Acceptance – A refusal to turn away from, deny or disown any of your own inner experiences, behaviors, or other aspects of yourself as they arise. Self-acceptance means not necessarily to approve of these things, but to accept them as real and to accept them as your own. It means acknowledging your experience of reality not just intellectually but also emotionally and experientially.
 
Self-Responsibility – Means taking responsibility for being the cause of your own choices and the cause of one’s own actions. Not responsibility in terms of moral blame but in terms of recognizing you are the chief causal agent in your life and behavior.
More than this, self-responsibility means acceptance of full responsibility for your own existence, for your

  • Metaphysical aloneness
  • And for the achievement of your own goals; no one but you is coming to save you or take responsibility for them

Self-Assertiveness – Means being able to assert your:

  • Your desires and judgments
  • Your needs
  • Your right to exist and be happy

These first four provide the basis for you to develop the internal processes that lead a fulfilled and ethical life based around authentic value judgments and personal integrity
 
Self-transcendence (Awakening) – Means learning to recognize the formless timeless, essentially aware (and ‘enlightened’?)  dimension of yourself, integrating it into your day to day experience of who you are and what you do. Furthermore, to access the creative, regenerative, intuitive and evolutionary capacities of our transcendent-self and integrating them in real and tangible ways into our reality.
 
And these five then lead to….Self-Leadership – The capacity to lead yourself to the fulfillment of your own authentic needs, desires and happiness in life whilst simultaneously accessing your awakened self and using its capacities to live a life of service others and to the greater whole.
 
To say “I love you” one must first learn to say the ‘I’ – Ayn Rand

Related article: Egotistic or strong ego?

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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 upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course
 

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Saturday May 27th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Saturday June 10th, 9.30am-12.30pm – Mindful Self-Leadership: A Three-hour mindfulness & meditation workshop

Starts Tues/Weds, June 13th/14th – Becoming a self-determining entity – A six-week course in Mindful Self-Leadership

Saturday June 24th, 9.00am-5pm – Taoist Breathwork Day Meditation Retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Concentration creative imagery Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present Zen Meditation

Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life

“The effective integration of field-awareness & single-pointedness enables us to become ‘mindful warriors’ in the face of our life challenges, able to pace ourselves patiently through our victories and defeats with grace and stamina”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This weeks article looks at how to integrate fundamental meditation methods into your daily life in a way that makes a real difference.. If you enjoy it, then do consider coming along live or online to this Tuesday & Wednesdays Integral Meditation class, where we will be taking it as our object of meditation. 

This Saturday morning is thePsychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop . If you want to “Building your personal foundation of psychic positivity, resilience, self-esteem , energy and renewal”, then this is definitely the workshop for you!

In the spirit of the big & the focused picture, 
 
Toby 

Integrating field awareness & single-pointedness in daily life
 
Basic meditation technique has two main types of awareness:
Single-pointedness: When you are trying to narrow your focus onto one single thing, such as the breathing or a visualized object in your minds-eye
Field awareness: Where you are trying to take in the ‘big picture’ of all that is in your field of awareness, you are trying to observe it as a whole.
 
If you think about field awareness as like sitting on a balcony looking at a whole landscape, letting your eyes range across the totality of it. Then single pointedness is like zeroing in on a blade of grass, or a leaf, or a rock in the landscape, and staying with just that one thing.
In formal meditation you can train in one or the other in any given meditation, or you can combine them together. For example, in a 20-minute meditation you could do:

  • Five minutes single-pointedness
  • Five minutes field awareness
  • Five minutes single-pointedness
  • Five minutes field awareness

That would give you a pretty good ‘basic workout’!
 
However, these two practices really start to come into their own when you use them effectively in daily life. During your day you are trying to spend your time mostly either:

  • Focusing on doing one thing or
  • Panning back, taking in the big-picture, assessing and relaxing before you identify and zoom in on the next task single-pointedly

If you spend your day really working on this format, you will find it is very conducive to relaxed effective productivity, a healthy degree of peace of mind. It also helps you tend toward good/better decision-making skills.
 
Lost in the cracks
Much of our anxiety and stress inwardly speaking comes from being ‘lost’ in between focused and observational states. We are not particularly focused, we are thinking in an anxiously about a number of things in a personal, non-objective manner. In this state we are easily unbalanced, easily experience insecurity, and lack confidence in our capacity to guide ourself effectively and reliably through the day. Getting good at daily combining of field-awareness and single-pointedness is a recipe for confidence in getting through the day effectively, even when there are stresses and uncertainties tugging at the edges of our attention. We become ‘mindful warriors’ in the face of our life challenges, able to pace ourselves patiently through our victories and defeats with grace and stamina.

Related reading: Single-pointedness & going with the flow
Working samadhi – The way of the mindful warrior

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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
 

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A Mind of Ease Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Inner vision Integral Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques mind body connection Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Hopeless relief & the brightness of optimism

“With hopelessness in place, we can then cultivate it’s ‘bright twin’, balanced optimism. It is remarkable how coming back to and centering yourself in a state of optimism can change your sense of how your life is going, and your sense of what is possible”

Dear Integral Meditators

This weeks article pairs hopelessness and optimism into a dynamic partnership that we can cultivate together to increase our energy levels, and also to make our energy more balanced and consistent. If you enjoy it, then do consider coming along live or online to this Tuesday & Wednesdays Integral Meditation class, where we will be taking it as our object of meditation. 

In the spirit of hopeless optimism, 
 
Toby 

Hopeless relief & the brightness of optimism
 
Appreciating hopelessness
Hopelessness for most of us has a strong negative connotation, and exists in our mind along with things like despair, depression, giving up and so on. As an object of meditation, we can clarify what we are working with here by defining hopelessness as simply ‘the absence of hoping for anything’. Understood this way, the practice of hopelessness then becomes the discipline of not hoping for anything, and therefore allowing our mind and energy to rest, relax and become fully present, absolutely at ease in the not-wishing/hoping to be somewhere else.
If you reflect upon it, much of the ups and downs in our life, the anxiety, the dis-ease comes from the hopes that we have in the face of the ongoing uncertainties. Often-times we get most hurt or have the most trouble recovering when one of our dearest-held hopes is not fulfilled. So, with hopelessness we are learning not to be beholden to our hopes, and also the fears that come from our hopes. We relax into the present and a type of genuine liberation that comes from strategically putting down our hopes for a while and becoming a hopeless person! Once you get a taste for how balancing hopelessness can be, you will start to feel real enthusiasm for it as an object of mindful attention.
 
Balanced optimism
With hopelessness in place, we can then cultivate it’s ‘bright twin’, balanced optimism. Here are a few of the basic characteristics of optimism, taken from my past article on ‘mindful optimism’:

  • Joyful-ness, enthusiasm
  • A sense of being supported by tangible and intangible forces in the world
  • The feeling of a bright and possibly exciting future ahead
  • The reasonable expectation good things are going to happen to you, both now and in the future
  • An expansive, bright, and comfortable feeling in the body, as if you belong in the world, and you can operate there with ease

It is remarkable how coming back to and centring yourself in a state of optimism can change your sense of how your life is going, and your sense of what is possible.
 
Putting them together
In a meditation you can practice putting these two together as a complementary pair. For example, if you had a twenty-minute meditation you could spend:

  • Five minutes putting down all hopes and relaxing into hopelessness
  • Five minutes opening to optimism, both the feeling in general, and also specific areas and instances in your life where you want to cultivate it as a supporting state
  • Five minutes return to hopelessness
  • Ending with five minutes back to optimism

As you go about your daily life, you can use them both to help each other; balanced presence through hopelessness, bright optimism to balance it out.
 
Related reading: Hopefully hopeless
Mindful optimism
Optimistic stoicism

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

Saturday 13th May 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Overview: This workshop aims to answer the following questions: 

  • How can I keep myself strong, directed & happy when other people around me are negative, unhappy or even consciously or unconsciously verbally/psychologically attacking me?
  • When I am under stress and can feel my own negativity, anxiety, depression, anger & so on surfacing, how can I defend myself effectively?
  • How can I cultivate awareness of the way environments and places affect my energy & protect myself from unwanted influences?
  • Is it possible to develop my own ‘psychic faculties’ & ‘inner senses’ in a way that is experiential, useful & genuine without having to buy into any form of ‘new age metaphysics’?

Read full details…


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing Tues/Weds, 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Saturday 13th May 9am-12.30pm – Psychic & Psychological Self-defence half day workshop

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Saturday May 27th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Inner vision Insight Meditation Life-fullness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Presence and being present Stress Transformation Using the Energy of Negative Emotions

Discovering the pleasure of alone

“Enjoying your alone time then offers a whole new experience of being in the company of others. You can enjoy humans and other living beings for what they have to offer, and for the joy of connection, rather than the fear of loneliness”

Dear Integral Meditators, 
This week’s article explores our relationship to being alone, and how to move from being lonely to enjoying being alone. 
This Tuesday & Wednesday is the annual Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation , with the Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat on the Saturday. You are welcome to join either or both, live or online.

Finally, heads up for the next major weekly meditation series starting mid-April: Starts Tues/Weds April 11th/12th , 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

In the spirit of alone not lonely, 

Toby 

Discovering the pleasure of alone

In this article I want to focus on a few points that lie between going from feeling lonely to the pleasure of being alone. It’s a huge advantage to feel comfortable being alone, and is entirely complementary to a real and deep enjoyment of being in the company of others.

Mammalian and existential loneliness
As humans we are naturally a fairly lonely lot. On the mammalian level we crave the security of the pack, and tend toward a primal nervousness and vulnerability when alone because of this. We also have a natural and understandable desire to be seen and appreciated by others as an affirmation of our fundamental value. On a deeper existential level there is also the challenge of knowing that we are all alone in our experience, no one can truly know us and what we are going through. This is something that we tend to resist, trying very hard instead to been seen, heard and recognised by others.  All of this becomes particularly acute if our self-image, and therefore or basic sense of our value and capability is shaky.

Avoiding alone because of loneliness
For all the reasons above we can find ourselves avoiding being alone in order to avoid having to confront our loneliness. This then means that we miss out on all the opportunities to experience what you might think of as the joy of being alone. After all, people can be quite bothersome, and this can be compounded by our own neediness of them. These two together often results in us seeking people out, and then at the same time disliking being in their company, which is a bit of a lose-lose situation!

Reframing alone

  • Being alone is a way to re-connect to yourself, and make your own inner connection to yourself warm, healthy and stable
  • It’s time to catch up with yourself, heal your wounds and return to wholeness
  • Being alone is freedom to enjoy your own company and not be obligate to others for that time
  • It’s time to enjoy your creativity and imagine new possibilities
  • It’s time to recover your energy
  • It’s time to connect to silence, or at least less inner noise
  • It’s time for you to arrange your thoughts and thinking in a way that sets you up for success in life
  • And of course, it’s time to meditate and pursue your other interests

What other reasons can you think of to help you start looking forward to the next time you are alone?

Meditation and the freedom of alone
Meditation of course is, at least in part the art of enjoying being alone. Before you start to really enjoy being alone, meditation is a great place to start learning how to enjoy being alone, to notice and make peace with your loneliness, and the other reasons that compel you to seek out company as a way of avoiding yourself. If you sat for five-ten minutes each day for the next week, oriented your mindful attention around the ‘reframe list’ above you might find yourself enjoying it faster than you think.

Happy alone, happy in company
Enjoying your alone time then offers a whole new experience of being in the company of others. Rather than being there because you need to be, you can be there because you want to be in their company. You can enjoy humans and other living beings for what they have to offer, and for the joy of connection, rather than the avoidance of loneliness.

Related article: Independent interdependence

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

Read full details


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Tues 21st & Weds 22nd March, 7.30-8.30pm – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation

Saturday March 25th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Sat & Sunday 1st, 2nd April – Two day integral meditation retreat

Starts Tues/Weds April 11th/12th , 7.30-8.30pm – Meditations for thriving and energy creation – An eight week course

Saturday 15th April 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Tues 30th/Weds 31st May – Wesak meditation

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
Integral Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope Presence and being present

Building functional & wise compassion, systematically

“Good quality compassion contains within it the ability to experience both its subjective and objective aspects in a balanced way, and to be wisely present to the pain of the world and of ourselves”

Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article outlines a practice that we can do to activate and explore our wise compassion. At the bottom of the article you can also find the links to a number of related articles on compassion. 
The new workshops and class details are out. Amongst other things we have the Shadow meditation workshop on the 18th March, which is a powerful way of integrating and making use of the parts of yourself that currently seem to be getting in the way of your progress… 

In the spirit of compassion, 

Toby 

Building functional & wise compassion, systematically

Compassion is a powerful driving force within us that, if we cultivate in a balanced way, can be a transformative and energizing force in our lives. It is built of a number of parts:

  • Our sense of natural warmth extending outwards toward others and toward ourself
  • The recognition of the suffering of others, of ourself and in the world
  • The desire where possible to make a difference and relieve that suffering

We can experience compassion in an intensely subjective way, where the existence suffering is felt very personally. We can also experience it more objectively, being present to the suffering of ourself and others with a sense of distance and perspective. When compassion is not balanced it can lead us to either:

  • Experience the pain of self and others too subjectively in a way that unsettles and confuses us
  • Or to detach from the pain, and feeling disconnected to the pain of the world, others and ourself

Good quality compassion contains within it the ability to experience both its subjective and objective aspects in a balanced way, and to be wisely present to the pain of the world in a way that when something can be done, we do it. If not, we can still extend our presence and compassion gently and warmly.
The exercise below, done in six stages, is designed to build a functional, robust and wise compassion if we practice it consistently. We begin by practicing simple single-pointedness and field awareness before moving onto compassion itself. If you spent three minutes on each position, this would be a 21minute meditation. You can lengthen or shorten it by adjusting the amount of time on each section.

Position 1– Building single-pointedness around the breathing & body
Here we are just practising focusing on one thing, the breathing within the body, to the exclusion of all other things within the field of our awareness.
Position 2 – Practising field awareness
Panning back from your breathing and observing the totality of your field of awareness with curiosity, warmth & care
Position 3– Subjective self-compassion
Observing and moving into your own pain (could be an aspect of your physical pain, emotional or psychological), close up and personally, breathing with it, letting it come and go
Position 4– Objective self-compassion
Observing and detaching from your pain, viewing it from a distance and with warm impersonality
Position 5 – Subjective compassion for others
Observing and moving into the pain of others, close up and personally, breathing with it, letting it come and go
Position 6– Objective compassion for others
Observing and detaching from the pain of others, viewing it from a distance and with warm impersonality
Position 7 – Integration and active contemplation time around the previous six stages

If you practice this meditation a few times it will enable you to get a feel for both what balanced subjective compassion feels like, and balanced objective compassion feels like. It will then enable you to start moving organically between these two positions according to your needs and circumstances, keeping your compassion both functional and wise as you deploy it within your life.


Related reading: Single-pointedness & going with the flow
Karuna – Compassion arising from wisdom
Compassionate presence, awakened action

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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 upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing – Introduction to Integral Meditation & Mindfulness Practice – An eight-week course

Saturday 18th March – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Tues 21st & Weds 22nd March, 7.30-8.30pm – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation

Saturday March 25th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Sat & Sunday 1st, 2nd April – Two day integral meditation retreat
 

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 Meditation Life-fullness Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership

Messy wisdom & Wabi-sabi meditation

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This weeks article looks at how to work with the messiness of life through mindfulness. If you enjoy it, then do consider joining us this Saturday for the 
Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership workshop

Other news , I’ll be doing a Two day integral meditation retreat on the weekend of 1st/2nd April, click the link for full details!

In the spirit of messy wisdom, 

Toby 

Messy wisdom – Accepting & working with everyday reality

Were almost five weeks into the new year now, I have a sense of a tidal shift in my work. Things being let go of, new ideas and projects to create and bring into manifestation. It feels like there are a lot of moving parts that aren’t fixed in their alignment, and it’s all a bit cloudy and messy.
For a lot of people, cloudiness and messiness are things that are to be avoided or are irritating and unsettling, stressful even. And yet many passages in our life are characterized by this ambiguity and open-endedness. Our path wanders and meanders through different stages and chapters, if we are attached to things being neat, tidy and ‘controlled’ all the time, we are going to suffer.
In the Wabi-sabi aesthetic we learn to value and be mindful of three messy things: The imperfect, the unfinished and the impermanent. By doing so we accomplish two main things:

  • We gain access to light, peaceful states of body-mind that enable us to navigate the messy patches of our life with a degree of enjoyment
  • We learn to take intelligent initiative within that messy space, developing the capacity to lead ourself and others creatively to our goals and towards order 

Below are three practice pointers for developing your messy, or wabi-sabi wisdom:

The imperfect & unbalanced – Acceptance & caring appreciation of process
By accepting the imperfect, eccentric and unbalanced aspects of ourself, our experience and our world we can begin to care for them and appreciate what they have to offer. Too often and on multiple levels we get caught up in the trap of negative imperfection-ism, that causes us to reject our experience of the moment and what we find there. By accepting what we find in the moment, imperfect as it is, we can begin to care for it, nurturing what is there toward whatever potential is possible.

The unfinished & unresolved – Acceptance or the open-endedness, taking courage and initiative
Our attachment to having things ‘right’ and ordered makes us uncomfortable with all the things that are still forming and finding their place in our lives. When we accept ongoing lack of resolution, we get comfortable with being ‘in process’. We simply and courageously set our own pace and look for the next thing that we can do to move toward eventual resolution, without feeling rushed or panicked.

The impermanent & uncertain – Accepting change & the unknown with curiosity & imagination
Rather than resisting and fearing change, we can accept and flow with it. We can be curious about both the change and our fear of it, allowing our imagination to respond to the possibilities that it offers.

You may notice that each of these practices are really different aspects of empowered acceptance. So, ‘messy wisdom follows on very much from well-balanced mindful acceptance.

Specific things to practice with
It’s good if you can take specific situations and experiences to practice around. For example, today I’ll be dipping in and out of a number of messy, unfinished areas:

  • Around a new retreat project
  • Around some long-term financial investments
  • Around my daughters University application

All of the things in your life today that are messy and unresolved are the practice, they aren’t in the way of it!

Related articles:
Cultivating your positive imperfectionist
Applying the Three C’s of Engaged Mindfulness
A wheel spinning out of balance
Allowing your mind to be messy

© Toby Ouvry 2023, 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 upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing – Introduction to Integral Meditation & Mindfulness Practice – An eight-week course

Saturday 11th February, 9am-12.30pm – Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership workshop

Saturday February 26th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

Tues 21st & Weds 22nd March, 7.30-8.30pm – Spring Equinox balancing and renewing meditation

Sat & Sunday 1st, 2nd April – Two day integral meditation retreat
 

Integral Meditation Asia

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

Categories
A Mind of Ease Concentration Integral Awareness Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Presence and being present

On meditation & ‘tantric self-esteem’

“Essentially then, to sit in your own company with ‘tantric self-esteem’ means to relate with feeling of warm friendliness (self-respect) toward yourself, and a confidence in your fundamental efficacy or adequacy to life”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

Why is it so difficult to sit in the present? In my previous article on ‘Making it easier to focus deeply‘ I look at one aspect of this. In the article below I continue that exploration. 
If you enjoy the article, do pop down either live or online to the Tuesday or Wednesday evening meditation class, where we shall be exploring this theme experientially. 

In the spirit of presence,
 
Toby 

On meditation & ‘tantric self-esteem’
 
The problem: To be present means to become more self-aware
One of the challenges that we face with meditation is that it makes us more present, which in turn brings us into a more conscious relationship to ourself and what is going on within ourselves. Of course, that is also the benefit and opportunity of meditation. But, if you don’t have a great relationship to yourself, and if there are things about yourself in the moment (body awareness, thoughts, emotions) that make you uncomfortable, then trying to be more present often becomes the last thing that you want to be! Much more attractive to be lost in thought, distracted, not present.
So, in a sense the art of meditation begins with getting comfortable with yourself in the moment.
 
The characteristic of good quality self-esteem
Who feels comfortable with and by themselves in the moment? One answer to this is someone with healthy self-esteem. What does that mean? Here is a working definition of self-esteem from Nat Branden:
“Despite the abundance of books, studies, workshops and committees devoted to the subject of self-esteem, there is little agreement about what it means. Self-esteem has two essential components:

  • Self-efficacy: Confidence in the ability to cope with life’s challenges. Self-efficacy leads to a sense of control over one’s life.
  • Self-respect: Experience oneself as deserving of happiness, achievement and love. Self-respect makes possible a sense of community with others.

Self-esteem is a self-reinforcing characteristic. When we have confidence in our ability to think and act effectively, we can persevere when faced with difficult challenges. We succeed more often than we fail. We form more nourishing relationships. We expect more of life and of ourselves.
If we lack confidence, we give up easily, fail more often and aspire to less. We get less of what we want.”
Essentially here then, to sit in your own company with self-esteem means to sit with a feeling of warm friendliness (self-respect) toward yourself, and a confidence in your fundamental efficacy or adequacy to life.
 
Tantric self-esteem: Sitting ‘as if’
Tantric practice in meditation is essentially to act ‘as if’. You use your imagination to bring the desired result into the present. In this case we are concerned with self-esteem, so in meditation we sit down and become present to ourself ‘as if we already had healthy functional self-esteem’:

  • As we sit and become present to our body-mind in the moment we extend warm, friendly, respectful feelings to ourself, as if we deserved a healthy degree of basic joy and wellbeing
  • We sit with ourselves as if we were siting with someone we trusted and whose fundamental capability we feel confident in

If we sit in this way, then the present moment, and our awareness of ourselves becomes a comfortable, attractive place to be. It is a place where we feel safe and welcome, as if in the company of a really good friend.
Done in this way, meditation becomes much less effortful because our resistance to the present is much reduced, it’s a place we like to be rather than have a vested interest in avoiding!
 
Practice
You can try it for a few minutes a day, just sitting and breathing with yourself and your tantric self-esteem. If you can familiarize yourself with this feeling and experience, then you will start to notice it becoming a normal part of the way you relate to yourself. This is not just in meditation, but in your daily activities, your way of going, being and interacting with the world.

 © Toby Ouvry 2023, 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

Saturday 11th February, 9am-12.30pm – Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership workshop

In a sentence: Learn how to work creatively with uncertainty, imperfection and life’s inherent messiness to realize your leadership and self-leadership potential.  Manage stress and anxiety better using mindfulness in combination with the practical philosophy of Wabi-Sabi.

Wabi-Sabi is one of the definitive aesthetic movements to emerge from Japan. With origins starting in the early 15th Century and influenced from Zen Buddhism, Wabi-Sabi became an aesthetic found in the arts and crafts such as ceramic, flower arranging and interior design. It also became a practical philosophy and approach to life. Principle aspects of Wabi-Sabi include:

  • An appreciation of the beauty of the impermanent, the imperfect and incomplete
  • A recognition of the value of humility
  • A willingness to engage with the unconventional

Mindfulness is the art of attention training and presence….read full workshop details


All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Ongoing – Introduction to Integral Meditation & Mindfulness Practice – An eight-week course

Saturday 11th February, 9am-12.30pm – Wabi-Sabi mindfulness – The art of creative leadership and self-leadership workshop

Saturday February 26th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat
 

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 Insight Meditation Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership

Moving toward or away from reality?

“Good quality rational thinking is not rushed thinking, it is not emotional thinking, or impulsive thinking. You could say that rational thinking is mindful thinking, where we take the time to ‘reason’ things out in an appropriate way, and to really watch and observe”

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article is an exploration of the theme of mindful thinking which, in the context of this article means thinking that takes us toward reality, rather than away from it! I hope you enjoy it.

In the new year starting Jan 10th 2023 I’ll be running the Introduction to Integral Meditation & Mindfulness Practice – An eight-week course . If your looking to really get your teeth into your meditation practice next year, this is a great way to start!

Closer to then, this Wednesday 21st is the Free Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only). All are welcome, its a nice way to mindfully wrap up the year and o on an inner winter-time journey!

In the spirit of  the solstice and wishing you a fulfilling and mindful Christmas,

Toby

 

Moving toward or away from reality? – Rational vs rationalization

With regard to the mind, of the main things we are trying to do in integrative mindfulness is to slow it down enough to make it conscious and high-quality in terms of its thinking. Once we have done this, we can then actually speed it up again and it will serve to reduce our stress and increase our effectiveness, rather than getting in the way!

Rationality – Thinking that takes us toward reality

Conscious, high-quality thinking really means rational thinking in the holistic sense of the word. It means thinking that is based around the observable facts that are available to us in any given situation. It means setting aside pre-conceived ideas and biases with regard how we think or want things to be. It is letting the objective evidence inform us as far as possible. Rationality is designed to take us toward reality, to help us understand it as clearly as is possible.

Rational thinking is trustworthy thinking. If we trust our own thinking process, we will gain confidence and trust in our mind and in our intelligence. It means being disciplined and rigorous in our observation of ourself and our world.

Good quality rational thinking is not rushed thinking, it is not emotional thinking, or impulsive thinking. You could say that rational thinking is mindful thinking, where we take the time to ‘reason’ things out in an appropriate way, and to really watch and observe.

Rationalization – Creating the fantasy that you want

Rationalization is the inverse of rationality. If we understand it, it really helps clarify what true rationality is. To ‘rationalize’ means to take an idea that we want to be true, and create reasons why it is true. It takes what we want and then uses the intellect to fabricate ideas to support it.

  • If I am angry, I can ignore the clear body-signals that I am angry, and tell myself that I am not angry because I am not the sort of person who gets angry in these situations
  • If I fail in a business venture I don’t want to be at fault, so I blame it all on fate and circumstance, rather than looking for evidence of mistakes I made and what I can learn from them
  • Out of fear I find reasons not to trust others, and use it to justify my own lack of trustworthiness, rather than assessing each person on their individual merits, and make myself accountable for my own trustworthiness.

Rationality takes me towards reality and makes me effective there. Rationalization often takes me away from reality and makes me less effective; my mind is somewhere other than my reality.

A four-question rationality process

This is a variation on a previous four-stage engaged mindfulness process that I created a while back. It is designed to put in place some of the essential thought strictures you need to be rational in a given situation. You can ask these four questions one after the other and they will lead you rationally from awareness to appropriate action, step by step

  • What are the facts that I need to be aware of here?
  • What are the realities here that I need to accept?
  • What do I need to take responsibility for here?
  • What do I need to do next to move toward the best possible result?

Final point here, to be rational really takes presence. You have to be present to what IS, to be rational! Wishing you well in the noble and often-not-easy pursuit of mindful rationality.

© Toby Ouvry 2022, 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

Wednesday Dec 21st, 7.30-8.30pm – Free Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

In Celtic the name of the winter solstice is ‘Alban Arthan’ or ‘The Light of Arthur’. In this case Arthur refers to the Sun God who, at this time of maximum darkness in the year dies and is reborn in the world of nature and within ourselves. This will be a chance to reflect on the spiritual meaning and power of the winter season. We will look at the different ways our own inner light can ‘die and be re-born once more’….read full details

Starts Tues 10th, Weds 11th January – Introduction to Integral Meditation & Mindfulness Practice – An eight-week course

Integral Meditation Practice (IMP) is a different kind of mind-body training, that aims to provide optimal inner peace, centeredness, energy and insight for the contemporary meditation practitioner. It combines eastern and western forms of practice, as well as ancient and modern ones into a series of integrative practices. The practices enable the meditator to remain resilient, energized and creative in the face of the multi-faceted challenges of modern life. These eight classes give an introduction to IMP, in a simple, accessible manner…see full details

Tues 3rd & Weds 4th January, 7.30-8.30pm – 2023 New year releasing and inviting meditation

This meditation session is focused upon setting up the 2022 new year energies in a way that invites the best possible experience moving forward. We will be:

  • Releasing and letting go of energies, events and experiences from the past year that may hold us back from moving into our full potential
  • Developing a flexible, soft, ‘beginners mind’, renewed and ready to be ‘born again’ with energy and enthusiasm in 2022

Read full details


Life-fullness – The Integral Life-Coaching Program with Toby
 

Are you looking a coach who can help you to:

  • Meet the challenges, stress and changes that you face in a more effective and mindful way
  • Become happier within yourself, in your relationships and at work
  • Be actively accountable for finding a sense of balance/well-being in your life and fulfilling your personal potential?
  • Guide you to find and operate from a deeper sense of meaning, motivation and connectivity in your life?
Read full details…

All upcoming classes and workshops at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Tuesday, Wednesday Online class schedule

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby (Bukit Timah)

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation for stress transformation and positive energy with Toby  (East Coast)

Wednesday Dec 21st, 7.30-8.30pm – Free Winter solstice balancing & renewing meditation (Online only)

Tues 3rd & Weds 4th January, 7.30-8.30pm – 2023 New year releasing and inviting meditation

Starts Tues 10th, Weds 11th January – Introduction to Integral Meditation & Mindfulness Practice – An eight-week course

Saturday January 28th, 9.30-11.30am – Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat

 

Integral Meditation Asia

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