Retreat events this month include a short one: This Saturday morning’s Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat, & for the main event for October, theIntegral Meditation Two Day Retreat on the weekend of the 28/29th. The two day retreat is a great opportunity to really deepen your meditation practice in a profound way. Don’t be deceived by the relative shortness of the time span, the methods we use are designed to get practitioners into the ‘zone’ right from the get go…. The new video I have created, entitled ‘Subjects to objects – How meditation helps you grow to greater degrees of freedom’ explores the essential dynamic of meditation, and how short bursts of meditation such as retreats can really catalyze that process!
In the spirit of turning subjects into objects,
Toby
Summary: This video discusses two main subjects related to meditation. The first part explores why and how a meditation practice helps individuals grow as individuals. Meditation is described as a process that transforms subjects of consciousness (e.g., body, emotions, ego) into objects of consciousness, leading to reduced identification with these aspects and increased inner freedom. It aids in personal evolution by moving from one level of consciousness to another. The second part focuses on the long-term effects of a meditation practice, emphasizing that continued meditation leads to increasing degrees of freedom from the objects within one’s consciousness. This liberation allows individuals to endure stress calmly and undertake challenging tasks with ease. The analogy of dissolving salt in water is used to illustrate how a larger, more expansive mind mitigates the impact of suffering and stress. Ultimately, meditation enhances the quality of life, making it less painful and more enjoyable.
In case you missed it this weeks article: Fourteen types & levels of mindful intention
We almost always have an intention, even in our dreams. Some of these intentions are conscious, some of them are unconscious. These intentions drive our actions & acts as the context for our experiences, shaping them substantially. What intentions have you been oriented around today, and how have they been shaping your experiences and actions? One way you could define mindfulness is ‘Living with conscious intentionally’…read full article
“We almost always have an intention, even in our dreams. That intention drives our actions & acts as the context for our experiences, shaping them substantially. What intentions have you been oriented around today, & how have they been shaping your experiences and actions?”
Dear Integral Meditators,
One way you could define mindfulness is ‘Living with conscious intentionally’. The article below unpacks some aspects of this, I hope you enjoy it!
The Therapeutic mindfulness course is ongoing, with this weeks class focusing on ‘Positive Acceptance vs resignation, repression vs suppression – Understanding the dynamic of good quality therapeutic mindfulness‘.
We almost always have an intention, even in our dreams. Some of these intentions are conscious, some of them are unconscious. These intentions drive our actions & acts as the context for our experiences, shaping them substantially. What intentions have you been oriented around today, and how have they been shaping your experiences and actions?
One way you could define mindfulness is ‘Living with conscious intentionally’
When I was doing my first serious decade of meditation training back in the 90’s I was working with Tibetan Buddhism as a practice vehicle. One of the main practices was a series of twenty one practices called the ‘Lamrim’ or ‘stages of the path. Each stage was had a particular meditation object associated with it. What was interesting was that twenty of the twenty one meditations was about developing a specific intention, which shows you how important intention is in meditation in general, and in Tibetan Buddhism in particular. What I have done in this article is condense the twenty intentions into fourteen, in a way that can be understood and explored by anyone. The premise is that any one of these intentions will cause us to think, feel and act in ways that are beneficial both to ourselves and others. Our actions follow our intentions and thoughts. If you change your intention, you change your life, literally.
The fourteen levels of intention:
The intention to seek out reliable guides who can provide us with reliable wisdom in the important areas of our life
To recognize and appreciate the amazing opportunity of a human life and use it in the most meaningful manner
Mindful of death and impermanence, to not waste our life on meaningless distractions, rather to ‘carpe diem’; seize the day!
To seek out communities and people who have integrity and can provide us with genuine refuge from suffering, and ‘sail together’ to happiness and wellbeing
To be mindful of our actions and the effects that they have in our life. To avoid thoughtless, counter-productive actions, and engage in ‘constructive’ life-enhancing ones
To practice healthy detachment regarding our desires, and pursue more and more reliable forms of fulfilment, freedom, and wellbeing
To cultivate equanimity and even-mindedness, both in our pursuit of success, and in our treatment of others
To cultivate loving kindness toward ourself, our community and all living beings as far as possible
To wish ourself and others true and lasting happiness
The intention of compassion: To wish ourself and others to be free from needless pain and suffering
The active intention to relieve the suffering & pain of ourself
The active intention to relieve the suffering & pain of others, in fact all living beings
The active intention to give happiness and joy to others, in fact all living beings
The determination to realize enlightenment or awakening ourself, in order to fulfil our intention to relieve the suffering of all others, and bring them true and lasting happiness
Intentions 1-6 are primarily focused on ourself, 7-14 progressively lead us to a concern for others; from our ‘close circle’ (friends, family, colleagues) progressively to include all living beings. The final intention ‘to realize enlightenment and awakening’ means something specific in Tibetan Buddhism. But it can equally be interpreted as simply to become the wisest, most capable person you can be in order to benefit to the evolution of the world. Dwelling upon each of these intentions mindfully can lead us to some powerful, pro-active places within ourselves, you can work with them systematically, or just drop into the ones that catch your attention as you read through.
“Suppression can be used positively and strategically to enhance our effectiveness and wellbeing in life, whereas repression almost always results in long term inner turbulence and interference in our ability to see and work with our present life as it is”
Dear Integral Meditators,
The distinction between suppression & repression is an important one for preserving our overall sense of inner balance & harmony. One requires temporarily foregoing emotional expression, the second engaging emotion that we might not want to face. If you enjoy the article, then do consider coming along for the Therapeutic mindfulness course starting next week. The aim in a nutshell is to re-wire your relationship to your past in order to engage your present & future with vitality & enthusiasm.
Suppression & repression – the difference, & it’s importance
Why is it important to know the importance between these two? Its important to know the difference between these two because one can be used positively and strategically to enhance our effectiveness and wellbeing in life, whereas the other almost always results in longer term inner turbulence and interference in our ability so see and work with our present life as it is.
What does it mean to supress? Speaking in emotional terms, to supress means to be aware that you have that emotion, and to exert self-control in order not to express it in the moment, for example:
I might be very angry, but refrain from expressing it right now
I might feel sad, but put on a ‘brave face’
I might feel affection and want to hug someone, but it just might not be appropriate for the situation
Conscious suppression enables us to go away with our feelings and deal with them later, in a way that is appropriate. It prevents us doing things that we may later regret or consider unhelpful. Done skillfully, we can consider it a good ability to have! This is with the caveat that, having suppressed the emotion we do not then repress it…
What does it mean to repress? To repress an emotion (or an experience that brings up painful emotion) means to push it out of our conscious awareness, and into our unconscious. It means to ‘pretend’ to ourself that the emotion and/or related experience does not exist, that we do not, in fact have then at all.
I am angry, but when asked, “Anger, what anger? Why would I be angry”
Rather than consciously putting on a brave face while feeling sad, I simply am not sad (even though I am)
I am scared by my affection for someone enough to simply squash it and pretend I don’t have it
Repression constricts and uses up our energy (to repress takes effort). It means we have to lie to ourselves. It messes up our rational thinking, turning it into rationalisation of the denial we want to be true. It often results in our feeling and expressing other surface emotions that are really all about the repressed emotion, for example:
I am angry (the repressed), so I react by feeling sad and bursting into tears (the expressed)
I am sad (the repressed), so I lash out and attack my colleague (the expressed)
Repression makes us suffer, often unconsciously. It makes us less capable in the face of reality. It can create unhealthy physical habits, and in the longer term it can even start to cause physical health issues.
Can you supress & then repress? Of course, you can supress and emotion that you know you’re having, and then conveniently ‘forget’ about it later through repression.
Observing your own habits & patterns mindfully So, the thing here is on a practical level start to watch yourself in real time and assess your patterns of repression and suppression. Just observe honestly and notice if you are using suppression in a healthy or unhealthy manner, and what emotions/experiences you tend to outright repress. Re-working your habits in this domain will serve you well for the rest of your life!
Processing old repressions Of course, all of us have a bunch of repressions from or recent and distant path. Part of the function of Therapeutic Mindfulness is to dig these out and bring them to resolution, so that they stop interfering with our present life and our aspirations for the future. You can see a recent reflection of mine on my own inner child process by clicking the link. The effect of processing past repressions is almost always a resurgence of life force, and an enhanced sense of the joy of being alive.
Special Coaching Offer for the Month of September – Free 20minute coaching session with Toby
For the remaining two weeks of September Integral Meditation Asia is offering free 20minute coaching sessions with Toby! If you have been interested in the idea of getting some personal coaching on a particular issue or challenge, and/or want to explore what 1:1 meditation coaching can do for you in terms of both your quality of and direction in life, this is a great opportunity to find out what it is like with Toby. These 20minute sessions can be done on Zoom or via Whatsapp. You can find read the general write up of Toby’s Life-fullness Coaching here, & his other forms of coaching here. You can read feedback and reviews from Toby’s coaching sessions here.
To arrange your 20minute session or for further enquiries: Email info@tobyouvry.com, or W-App65-96750279
“If you are prepared to do the work, it seems there truly are no edges to your level of inner joy”
Dear Integral Meditators,
The photo of the child with this article is me when I was around 8 or 9. I keep it on the fridge. I noticed last week that the fridge magnet marked ‘l’excitacion’, or excitement in French had been placed on my forehead, which inspired me to write about my own ongoing journey in the domain of Therapeutic mindfulness. If you enjoy the article, then do consider participating in the upcoming Therapeutic mindfulness course, which is full of practices to help you re-connect to the joy of living, and move beyond long-held fears.
Progressively recovering your joie de vivre (Meditating with your inner child)
When I left my life as a Buddhist monk, aged 31, I had been practising eastern meditation forms in a very disciplined manner for a decade. I had experienced many wonderful and amazing meditation states, and had a solid working experience of the awakened state/enlightenment experience. Despite this I noticed that there were still parts of my everyday consciousness that seemed to have been untouched by all this work. I found that certain types of anxiety, irritability and fear had not gone away, and sometimes seemed even worse. This was partly why I left my life as a monk, because I felt I needed to broaden my search for answers to these unresolved areas. The answer was not just ‘do more meditation’, I had to do something differently.
One of the things that I focused on that year was exercises specifically based on the psychological level of my being, based around western theories of trauma and around working with emotional states. I began regular work with my ‘inner child’, exercises including visualization, dialoguing, breathing and body-work. I was very surprised how much work there was to be done! I considered myself pretty well-adjusted as a person, which I think I was, but even so, there was so much to re-connect to, so much to work with, so much to discover. During this period, I really felt I recovered much of my joie de vivre, and got a badly needed ‘second-wind’ for my inner growth that powered me into the next decade of my life. But the amazing thing about this is that even though I felt that I now had a very good relationship to my inner child (and other sub personalities), it is a process that does not seem to end. Fast forward to the beginning of this year. At the beginning of the year, I often check in with my ‘inner family’ in meditation. When meeting my inner child, I had this experience:
“I am walking along the middle of a shallow river that I used to play in as a child. I come to a bridge from which I used to look down at the big fish swimming in and out of the dark water underneath. On the sand to one side of the bridge I see my inner child. I wade over to him, and we squat for a while looking under the bridge. Then he smiles to me and we begin to walk into the water and under the bridge (I never went under the bridge as a child). We stand in silence looking and feeling the fish around our feet, in gentle awe and excitement. After while we walk on and out from the other side of the bridge. We walk on to a meadow next to the river. My child-self utters a cry, and starts to run around the meadow, whooping, and laughing out of pure joy, I watch on, quite amazed, and aware of a new level of joy in myself that I have never experienced before.”
After the meditation, this new level of joy within myself has persisted, and it seems clear to me that some level of inhibition or fear in my child has been resolved. This is a full fifteen years after starting my active relationship with him. So even now my life and experience are expanding and growing from my inner work with my child self and other related therapeutic mindfulness practices aimed at building a strong inner-self psychologically. If you do the work, it seems there truly are no edges to your level of inner joy.
Special Coaching Offer for the Month of September – Free 20minute coaching session with Toby
For the remaining two weeks of September Integral Meditation Asia is offering free 20minute coaching sessions with Toby! If you have been interested in the idea of getting some personal coaching on a particular issue or challenge, and/or want to explore what 1:1 meditation coaching can do for you in terms of both your quality of and direction in life, this is a great opportunity to find out what it is like with Toby. These 20minute sessions can be done on Zoom or via Whatsapp. You can find read the general write up of Toby’s Life-fullness Coaching here, & his other forms of coaching here. You can read feedback and reviews from Toby’s coaching sessions here.
To arrange your 20minute session or for further enquiries: Email info@tobyouvry.com, or W-App65-96750279
“Past-focused mindfulness involves delving consciously into past memory & narratives, releasing pent-up energy, and then gently reworking these stories to create a more optimistic and energized outlook“
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article focuses upon how focusing mindfully on the past can change your experience of both your present and future. It’s an important dimension of mindfulness that I’ve enjoyed practising tremendously, particularly over the last 15 years or so. If you enjoy the article, then do consider coming along to my therapeutic mindfulness course starting on the 26th September.
In the spirit of interweaving past, present & future,
Toby
The projector behind you – How the past interweaves your present & future
Imagine you are sitting in a move theatre. Naturally you are facing the screen, where the action seems to be taking place in front of you. It takes place in front of you, but you know that what appears in front of you is being projected from behind, from the movie camara in the projector room. In the physical world we know this, but in the inner world of our mind and perception, there is another projection going on, that of our past onto our present and future. It looks a bit like this: Your present moment and future experience are like the projector screen, but it actually contains content and images of it’s own. However, there is also a series of images projected upon our present moment ‘screen’, coming from our past, and the story that we tell ourselves about the past. To give a few examples:
If at school I was made to feel like an ‘outsider’ by the other children, I may take that feeling of being an outsider into my adult relationships, and that feeling may determine much of how I relate to others socially
My parents and teachers’ ways of dealing with emotion will be something that I have absorbed and tend to imitate in my ways of dealing with my own emotion
My sense of what is possible and appropriate for me in terms of future happiness & wealth may have a lot to do with the social and cultural environment within which I was brought up
Not all past memory and projection is bad, in fact some of it can be very positive. However, for all of us in one way or another, even if we consider ourselves a well adjusted individual, we carry memories of unresolved tension & emotional conflict that are interfering with our ability to process our present and future effectively.
Going into the projector room Practicing mindfulness therapeutically in this sense means revisiting our past in a conscious manner, in order to recognise and release these past traumas and ‘kinks’ in our memory. This is a bit like going back into the projector room in the cinema, and getting the know the different types of film that get projected regularly onto the ‘projector screen’ of your daily life. You then start to see these old movies as they start to come up in everyday situations, and you begin to be able to choose other options and behaviour, rather than always choosing the old suggestions and repeating them.
Basic principles around the qualities of therapeutic mindfulness Here is a brief set of pointing out instructions as to how a person might begin enquiring around his or her past in a therapeutic manner:
Establish a quiet space to sit in contemplation, establish an inner mood and atmosphere of safety, warmth and curiosity
Pick a domain of your past that you wish to explore. This could be a period of your childhood, a past relationship, or a more recent event that you feel somewhat disturbed by. Let your attention orientate around that time, and let memories start to arise
As memories (or sometimes the absence of memories) begin to arise, gently remain present to them with a degree of warm acceptance, even if the memories that come up are painful. At this stage you are not trying to ‘fix’ them, more just use awareness and acceptance as the method by which the memories that hold trapped and unresolved emotions can come to the light of conscious awareness and be released.
Initially practice doing this for short, manageable periods of time, gradually extending the time you spend as your confidence and comfort level increases.
The aim here is to get to know your past better, and the way in which it impinges upon your present. The awareness and acceptance of such experiences can also often go some way to ‘healing’ and releasing the unresolved trauma, but our main aim here is simply to get to know and recognize when our past is being projected upon our present & future.
“You might think about your inner mood as being like the weather. If you are playing a game of tennis in a sunny, lightly breezy day, its completely different from playing it on a rainy, very windy day. We can usually shift ourself at least partially toward a better mood if we try, and this then affects everything for the better”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s newsletter slightly early, and has three things in it:
Firstly, an article on the importance of mindfulness around your mood.
Secondly if you are interested in meditation sound technology, I have been using I-awake for many years now. They have some great products, and they are all on a 30% off Labour day sale until 4th September (US time). This technology is also a great way to help change the mood and ambience of your life for the better!
Thirdly, beneath the article you can find all the courses and workshops for September, quite an exciting line-up, starting with the Qi gong workshop on the 9th September!
From August 31 – September 4, 2023, we are holding our annual Labor Day Weekend Sale, one of our biggest sales this year. This sale features 30% OFF on Digital Tracks and 25% OFF on CDs + Digital. Check out our catalog and take advantage of this annual opportunity to receive huge discounts on iAwake tracks and add to or complete your iAwake toolkit.
Discount Coupon Code for DIGITAL (30% OFF): IAWAKELABOR2023
Mindfulness of mood & atmosphere of your life-story
When trying to improve our daily experience through mindfulness quite often peoples focus is upon
Focusing better
Thinking more positively
Thinking less
Relaxing more
These are all noble pursuits of course, but what I find often gets missed is attention to the mood and the inner atmosphere that we do things. If you think about it our mood is very important. For example, if your mood is habitually anxious and fearful then this naturally
In my classes and coaching recently, one of the things that I have been emphasizing to students and clients is awareness of their habitual moods, and deliberately moving them toward a lighter more benevolent inner atmosphere. For example, if having noticed our inner mood in the moment we then direct it towards a combination of
Curiosity & playful inquisitiveness
Warmth & care
Then if we can establish that as an atmosphere in our body-mind, it then starts to colour our daily experience and activities
Warm & curious atmospheres are easy to build relaxed-focus in
Its natural and quite easy to think positively
We feel less compelled to think all the time
Activities just ‘feel’ naturally more enjoyable
The weather you are playing the game in You might think about your inner mood as being like the weather. If you are playing a game of tennis in a sunny, lightly breezy day, its completely different from playing it on a rainy, very windy day. We can’t always completely control our mood, but we can usually shift ourself at least partially toward a better mood if we try, and this then affects everything for the better. Playing with moods therapeutically In my article last week on Therapeutic mindfulness I outline six practices which might also be thought of as ways of creating inner moods that are both strengthening and healing:
Grounded & sensory
Safety & non-emergency
Warmth & compassion
Appreciation
Curiosity & courage
A sense of being supported
All of these are possible moods that you can cultivate. Of course, there are many more that you could choose to focus on, according to your needs and inclinations. It’s something to have fun cultivating!
“The purpose of therapeutic mindfulness is to go back to previous stages in our development in order to reconnect to feelings, emotions, body sensations & memories that we have repressed, denied, or lost touch with. The healthy re-integration of these experiences sets the scene for a renewed sense of wellbeing within our present life, & for safely engaging in higher, deeper levels of personal growth.”
If you enjoy the article I invite you to click on the link & find our more about the course!
In the spirit of our inner support system,
Toby
Creating an inner therapeutic mindfulness space – six positions
The purpose of therapeutic mindfulness is to go back to previous stages in our development in order to reconnect to feelings, emotions, body sensations and memories that we have repressed, denied, and lost touch with. The healthy re-integration of these experiences sets the scene for a renewed sense of wellbeing within our present life. It also lays the foundation for then exploring the higher, deeper levels of meditation states (psychic, subtle, causal, non-dual) in a way that is balanced and sustainable. Below are a set of qualities to cultivate when engaging in therapeutic mindfulness. Each one of them has benefits in an of themselves, but practiced together they make for a good combination within which we can then go on to do some inner healing work.
Grounding in the senses – Work that involves contacting potentially volatile emotions or feelings needs to be done whilst grounded enough in the present moment in order to feel the stability of our senses supporting us, so that we don’t feel completely ‘carried away’ by the experience.
Safety – Repressed emotions can feel dangerous, so connecting to the basic safety of this moment – recognizing that there are no immanent threats to our present wellbeing – is a fundamental position to be familiar with.
Warmth & compassion – Establishing as far as we can a feeling of basic warmth and compassion toward ourselves at the beginning of the session, and as we encounter our experiences during the TM session.
Appreciation – Having an appropriate sense of our life being a good place with the existence of people, places and experiences that make it rich and enjoyable. This then means that when we encounter challenges in our therapeutic mindfulness practice, it is always contextualized by this sense of overall appreciation/ positivity.
Curiosity & courage – TM can feel like heavy work sometimes, so cultivating a sense of lightness and curiosity is helpful in this regard. It helps us avoid getting overly caught up and identified in the experience. Similarly, courage can help us hugely as, by its nature TM involves contact and sometimes confrontation with parts of us that we fear or would otherwise wish to avoid. This doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of big hero, just that you have whatever courage you possess present and available to you when doing TM.
A sense of being supported – It can be useful if you have any belief or sense of a higher, deeper supporting being or intelligence to invoke or feel the presence of it/her/him before you engage in therapeutic mindfulness practice. This is personal and can be done any way that the practitioner finds acceptable or appropriate.
With these six positions available to you and in place, you should then feel confident in engaging in any kind of therapeutic mindfulness practice that you might want to, with a sense of these qualities supporting and enhancing your practice.
“The silence, the absence of contact with others, the empty freedom of aloneness is something that we can discover, drop into and be renewed, fed and nurtured by”
Tides of emptiness & fullness – On meditation & being alone
Human & mammalian contact As humans and as mammals we naturally crave company, touch, relational contact. This can make us afraid of being alone, and of aloneness, because the immediate experience of being alone makes us feel lonely. This instinctive aversion to alone-ness can prevent us from experiencing the pleasure and restorative energy of being alone.
Meditation – Building comfort & ease in your own company Meditation, even when we do it on a group is very much about getting comfortable being alone and enjoying the experience of being in our own company. Therefore, in order to meditate implies an ability to confront and come to terms with our loneliness. It means to be able to sit with ourselves in a warm, friendly way that can feed, rather than drain us energetically.
Encountering & plugging the tide of loneliness When we sit alone with ourselves, one reason that we find it uncomfortable is that our insecurity often causes us to start thinking and reflecting on our life in a negative or imbalanced manner that is unpleasant to experience. To be alone can sometimes feel as if we are being flooded by a tide of negativity and paranoia which makes us run back to the company of others and to being ‘busy’ simple to escape it. When we sit at the beginning of meditation then, it can be useful to ‘plug’ this tide by anchoring our attention to sensations, images and thoughts of a benevolent nature, so that we don’t get swept away or panicked by the flow of lonely, alienating thoughts and feelings.
Opening to the empty fullness of aloneness Once we have stabilised our position in aloneness using the anchoring to benevolence method in the above paragraph, we can then start to let go of thoughts and thinking, and relax into the empty space of being alone in the moment. The silence, the absence of contact with others, the empty freedom of aloneness is something that we discover, drop into and be renewed, fed and nurtured by.
Returning to company By learning to enjoy aloneness, we also change our relationship to being with others. We can enjoy being with others as a complement to our enjoyment of aloneness. Our way of bonding and forming attachments to others changes, as we connect to them through a healthy sense of independence at the same time as forming interdependent and enriching bonds with them.
So, in meditation there are really three stages to this as described above:
Building a sense of comfort and ease in your own company
Stemming the tide of empty loneliness by anchoring to benevolent thoughts and images
Opening to the empty fullness of aloneness
5-10 minutes on each stage would give you a 15-30minute meditation to begin exploring and enjoying this domain.
Finally, whenever you find yourself alone, you will know what to do with it!
“Using your breathing to facilitate patience does not mean that you won’t have any stress, but it means that your stress will side on eu-stress, or productive stress, rather than negative or debilitating stress”
Dear Integral Meditators,
The article below is a personal reflection on my current situation. It outlines a way of using your breathing to be patient and calm, and using the patience to then be productive. If you get these fundamentals right, it can be life changing!
This article outlines a way of using your breathing to be patient and calm, and using the patience to then be productive. If you get these fundamentals right, it can be life changing! I’ve been on holiday with my toddler for the last 10 days or so without my wife. As a solo parent with a toddler, it can actually be quite stressful and frustrating being on holiday. The routine of the child is interrupted, familiar surroundings are interrupted and so getting anything constructive done beyond the bare minimum is quite tricky. Each day I have had a certain amount of work to do, and only a small, non-fixed window of time to do it in. So, this means that I must take it when I can! In order to do that however, I need to arrive at my work window un-strained and reasonably calm, otherwise I’ll just use quite a bit of my ‘work’ time de-stressing and getting in the mood to work, rather than actually working. The way I’ve been doing this on this holiday has been simply regulating my breathing in an informal way as I’m going about the day and parenting duties. As one of my favourite coaches Scott Sonnon says:
“Nearly half of all stress-regulation, attentional stamina, and calmness are accomplished merely by paying attention to what breathing sensations feel like”
With this principle I mind, I’ve been simply being mindful of my breathing, focusing on good ‘breathing form’ and letting that process modulate my mental, emotional, and physical stress, so that when I arrive at my work window, or find an opportunity to really relax and enjoy the holiday, my body-mind is in a state to really take advantage of the opportunity!
Below are seven basic aspects of Qi Gong breathing as I teach in my Qi gong classes. To begin with you will have to practice each aspect separately, in order to get a feel for it, but after a while you will find that you can combine all the features into a smooth cycle of breathing without having to exert effort. Using these pointers, you can be checking in on your breathing and using good breathing form to help regulate your stress as you go through your day. This does not mean that you won’t have any stress, but it means that your stress will side on eu-stress, or productive stress, rather than negative or debilitating stress.
1. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth*. The tip of the tongue should be placed on the palette behind the top front teeth. *Specifically when practicing formal Qi Gong exercises – In daily life breathing in and out through the nose is generally recommended if possible.
2. Breathe into the belly. This means, as you breathe in, you are directing air down into the bottom of the lungs, so that you can feel your diaphragm expanding downward, and exerting a gentle pressure on the abdominal organs.
3. Breathe in to about 60-70% of your lung capacity, not to shallow, not too deep. Do not breathe in more deeply than is comfortable and relaxing.
4. When inhaling, as well as directing the air down into the bottom of the lungs, try also to utilize the sides, the front and the back of your lower-mid lungs. This means that as you inhale you can feel the front, back and sides of your lower and mid ribcage gently expanding. Then as you exhale you will feel your ribcage contracting accordingly.
5. As you inhale, gently (no more than 40% strength) contract the muscles in the perineum, so that you can feel your pelvic floor rising and becoming firm. As you do this you will feel a gentle squeeze or pressure being exerted upon the abdominal organs as the diaphragm pushes down on them from above, and the pelvic floor rises from below. You don’t need to do this all the time during the day, but regular ‘sets of 3-6’ are really helpful.
6. Make your breathing regular and balanced. Below is one Qi gong method, it is an example, not the only option you might choose! Make quality of the breathing should be smooth, gentle and continuous, without a gap or break between the inhalation and the exhalation. This is called circular, or wave breathing. In the same way that as soon as a wave has broken upon the shore it begins to ebb and be absorbed back into the ocean, as soon as we have reached the peak of our inhalation, we should begin our exhalation. Likewise, at the end of the exhalation, we should begin the inhalation immediately and smoothly with no break between.
7. Combine your breathing with your movement. For example, if you are walking, co-ordinate your inhaling and exhaling with your stepping. There is a lot of possible depth and variation in this subject, but it can be done in simple ways right away.
“Once you get used to it, being creatively powerful in your life feels less and less stressful, and more and more of a pleasure. Rather than ‘life happening to me’ I have the feeling that ‘I am happening to life!’”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This weeks article explores mindfulness to help you become more powerful, engaged & directed in your life. It’s partly my own response to completing a recent course on mindful self-leadership with some of my students, but thematically it’s fairly central to my overall approach to ‘engaged mindfulness’.
Self-belief (the most powerful creative force in your life)
I am the most powerful force in my life, you are the most powerful in yours I’ve recently completed a series on ‘Mindful self-leadership’ with my public program students. It’s a program that I also run with companies and organizations at least six times a year. Each time I deliver it, slightly different themes energy as important for me. This time around the insight that kept coming back again and again as the course went on was ‘I am the most important creative force in my life’. The simple recognition of this is a tremendously powerful object of mindful attention.
The most powerful force in the world? Of course you aren’t, there are many more powerful forces in the world than you or I. But, in terms of your life, it is you that sits in the middle of it, your energy & focus, your choices to do or not to do, your thoughts & emotions. What you choose to focus on and do in your life is the most powerful directional force in it!
The feeling of helplessness Sometimes there can be an overriding feeling of helplessness in the face of events in our life. We can feel like a puppet, the strings of which are being pulled by other people and external forces. Sometimes we can convince ourselves that ‘we have no choice’ and allow ourselves to become a victim of circumstances. There is even comfort in being a victim, we can tell ourselves that we had no choice and blame it on others.
Sometimes things don’t work out It is true that sometimes things don’t work out as we had hoped, despite our best efforts. But even then, we are the ones who decide how we approach the fact that things didn’t work out how we had hoped. We are the ones who decide how to mentally frame what has happened, and how we are going to work with it. We are the ‘eye of the storm’, we are still the primary causal factor in our experience.
It’s sometimes hard work owning your creative power If you own your power, then sure, you have to stay alert, think things through, confront difficult choices and people. But all of this is no harder work than not owning your power, and being buffeted mercilessly by the forces of chance and fate. Once you get used to it, being creatively powerful in your life feels less and less stressful, and more and more of a pleasure. Rather than ‘life happening to me’ I have the feeling that ‘I am happening to life!’. We can be calm, collected, and powerful. If we do so we burn less energy, we feel more in control. From this then a stable experience of self-belief starts to emerge, a faith in our ability to work thru and work out our problems, and enjoy doing it!
Meditating: Sit down quietly. As you breathe, breathe your energy and awareness into the centre of your chest and torso area. Feel your creative power gathering in your body as you inhale, relax into it as you exhale. As you breathe, dwell upon the recognition: “I am the most powerful creative force in my life”. Stay with that recognition and feeling for the time you have set aside for meditation, really letting it sink in. As you go about your daily life, remember the recognition, and act as if you believed it. Play with your power creatively, taking ownership of it. Notice how your experience starts to change.
