Tag: insight

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A Mind of Ease Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness One Minute Mindfulness

Mindfulness: The Co-Creation of Happiness and Performance

Dear Integral Meditators,

This is an article that I prepared with some corporate clients in mind, it is another answer to the ever young question “what is mindfulness?”. Also, the practical exercise at the end is short but can have HUGE results.

Yours in the spirit of mindful flow,

Toby

 

Mindfulness: The Co-Creation of Happiness and Performance

Mindfulness is the art and practice of bringing more conscious awareness to your activities, relationships, thoughts, emotions, desires and motivations. It functions primarily (though not only) as a method of strengthening the conscious mind and its attendant natural intelligence.
In each moment we are making choices about how much conscious attention and awareness we bring to our activities; mindfulness guides us to bring a high level of consciousness to the activities in our life where it is most important to be fully awake and engaged both personally and professionally.

Mindfulness functions to bring two main effects to our life:

  • We become happier
  • We become more effective at our chosen tasks

More than this, mindfulness helps create a win-win relationship between these two; the happier we become the more effective we tend to be at work and at home, and the more effective we are the happier we tend to be both in our professionally and in our personal life.

Up to this point in time the majority of people practising mindfulness have been doing so because they have come to understand the benefits of mindfulness to their own personal wellbeing and health. More recently organizations are coming to understand that mindfulness offers one of the best ways to improve employee engagement at work and to improve productivity. But why should this be so? Let’s take a closer look using three examples:

Personal happiness and effectiveness at work
Positively disposed people are more likely to find ways of being happy in their work (rather than looking to find work that makes them happy, which is a crucially different thing), when you feel happy your mind is relaxed, you feel good and so it is actually enjoyable to put effort in to your tasks at work. Enjoyment and effort combine to produce greater effectiveness and engagement at work. Greater effectiveness and engagement in tasks as we all know have a feel-good factor, and so our greater productivity gives rise to more personal happiness in a mutually complementary dance.

The way you feel about yourself directly influences how you manage change
Mindfulness is a way of leaning to bring a conscious appreciation of yourself and what you bring to the world; it helps to create what psychologists call a good self-image or self-concept. People who have solid, secure and positive self concepts are less threatened by external change and thus when change happens in the workplace they tend to have the capacity to respond to it rationally, consciously and intelligently. The capacity to manage change well in turn further re-enforces a positive self-image and concept, so again here we see a mutually re-enforcing relationship between the a strong self-concept and the capacity to manage change, both facilitated by mindfulness.

Confidence and personal responsibility increases both creativity and problem solving capacity
Mindfulness is a space where we can learn to consciously cultivate confidence in ourself and learn to take responsibility for the important things in our life. As we all know, confidence and the capacity to take responsibility are essential qualities that we need to bring to the table to creatively solve problems and put forward new ideas in our professional life.
Conversely, whenever we solve a challenge or come up with a new idea at work both our confidence and our tendency to take responsibility for tasks and problems. So again we see a mutually re-enforcing pattern where mindfulness improves our personal qualities and wellbeing which in turn strengthen and enhance our engagement at work and in life.

It turns out that the best way to improve professional engagement is to work on a person’s personal growth and wellbeing; whether a CEO or a cashier, a happy and centred person is always a more effective professional.

Two questions to begin working with your own mindfulness practice

So what does a mindfulness practice actually look like? Actually there are a variety of mindfulness practices that you can engage in. Here is a two minute one:
Or the first minute focus your conscious attention upon the question “What is good in my life right now”. For that time simply focus upon mentally noting the good and the positive in your life.
For the second minute focus upon one particular situation in your life and ask the question “What is the most important aspect of this situation that I need to pay attention too?” For the duration of that minute see what answer this question takes your mind to.
If you find it helpful you can write down your principal answers to both questions.

Two minutes of mindfulness practice right there. Try it for a week, see where it takes you.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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 

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Energy Meditation Enlightened Flow Integral Awareness Meditation techniques Mindfulness

The Hidden Calm Within the Body

Dear Integral Meditators,

This weeks article focuses on finding aspects of enlightened flow through your physical body, the technique is simple in its basic elements, but you can investigate it in almost infinite depth.

Yours in the spirit of calm,

Toby

 

The Hidden Calm Within the Body

Within your physical body itself there is an ever present space and calm that you can find through mindful reflection.
When you focus on the physical and energetic aspect of your body, there is constant change and flux; sometimes feeling heavy, sometimes light, sometimes healthy, sometimes sick, sometimes energized, sometimes tired, sometimes sensual and pleasurable, sometimes uncomfortable and unpleasant.
Within all of this change there is a part that remains the same, what is that? Well, think about what your body is primarily made up of. It is made up of parts, which are made up of cells, which are made up of atoms, which are made up of a nucleus (made up of neutrons and protons) with electrons orbiting them. The primary element in an atom, that is to say the part that it has by far the most of is space; it is just a few points of energy orbiting around a fixed point.
So if you look at the atomic nature of your body, really what you find is just energy and space, and mostly space. Whilst everything else in your body is always changing, its biggest element, that of space always remains constant; it is just open space.
So, finding the hidden calm in your body involves simply becoming aware of the space element that dominates its construction and tuning into it in order to find a sense of calm and relaxation even when other aspects of your body and mind feel out of balance or disturbed.
As well as an exercise for general pleasure and calm, I personally also find this to be a useful object of meditation and mindfulness when I am sick. The last couple of weeks I’ve had the flu followed by a nose infection. During this time because my body’s energy has been out of whack it is actually very difficult to meditate effectively. One of the easiest ways to find and sustain a sense of meditative calm in such circumstances for me has been to meditate on the space element of the body because, in the midst of all the energetic chaos, there it is, constant and unchanging.
It is difficult to say whether I have actually managed to accelerate the healing of my body through this technique (as there are so many other factors involved), but I would guess that I have, and even if not, it has certainly made the experience of not being well a lot easier and more manageable.

Focusing on the space element in your body

This is a very simple exercise:
First bring your attention onto the physical aspect of your body; sense its texture, weight, shape.
Then focus on the energy of your body; the way it feels, areas of comfort and discomfort ect…
Then become aware of the space element of your body; that fact that each of its basic atomic building blocks consists primarily (99.9 percent) of space; your solid, physical body consists primarily of empty space.
Relax into the space element of your body, naturally calm, constant and peaceful, breathe mindfully with it. You can also reflect if you like that all the other physical elements around you are also primarily empty space. The physical world is much more space-filled than we habitually think!

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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 

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Biographical creative imagery Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindfulness Motivation and scope spiritual intelligence

A Benevolent Universe? (Old Men Fighting)

Dear Integral Meditators,

What do you think the Universe thinks of you? Is it for you or against you? This mid-week article examines this question with a little bit of humor.

For those of you in Singapore, next Tuesday evening , 17th June is the date for the free preview talk on Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release From Stress, see you there if you are interested!

Finally, I am currently offering a decent summer deal on the Soul Portraits I do, see details below.

Yours in the spirit of the journey,

Toby

Special Soul Portrait Summer Sale 11th-26th June!

From the 11th-26th June I am offering a 15% discount on all Soul Portrait orders. For this limited time only the prices for Soul Portraits will be as follows:

For an Individual Soul Portrait:
  • For an A4 size (297x210mm) portrait Singapore $260 Sing $220
  • For an A3 size (297x420mm) portrait Sing $390 Sing$330
  • For an A2 Size (594x840mm) Sing $585 Sing$495

For Couples* (Ideal for weddings, Anniversaries and Valentines!):

  • For an A4 size297x210mm portrait Sing $340 Sing$290
  • For an A3 size 297x420mm portrait Sing $490 Sing$415
  • For an A2 Size (594x840mm) Sing $730 Sing$620

For further enquiries or to order a Soul Portrait please contact me by email:  info@tobyouvry.com

This is a great opportunity to get a Soul Portrait for yourself or as a gift for any of your friends or family for a very reasonable price!

To have a look at slideshows of past Soul Portraits click HERE

To look at past individual Soul Portraits click HERE

A Benevolent Universe? (Old Men Fighting)

Are the intelligent, creative forces behind the creation of our Universe benevolent toward us? That is to say are they friendly and wishing for us to succeed in our endeavours? Are they conspiring against our wishes and plans? Or are they just entirely indifferent?
At some time in our lives we have probably felt each of these three ways. At times  we have felt supported and guided, other times lost and ignored and at yet other times Beelzebub himself seems to be screwing us at each turn. What I want to do in this article is first to flag up how our own relationship to ourself affects this perception, and then relate a little story.

Your perception of your relationship to the Universe
Our relationship to the universe is directly affected by our relationship to ourself, as Emerson said “If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.” The corollary of that is that if I can maintain genuine and deep self confidence, self belief, self esteem and self trust (and demonstrate all of these things to myself through my actions) then even in the face of adversity there is the experience that, even though circumstances conspire against me the universe provides me with the solutions through the resource of myself.
So this is a first point to consider and contemplate. You can see this explored also in the recent meditation on Self-Trust that I posted.

Old Men Fighting
Recently, after finishing my regular Monday evening squash session with friends around 10pm I walk from the sports centre to a local open air coffee shop by myself,  order a beer and sit for a while sipping and contemplating the universe (you know the dodgy middle aged white blokes you see sitting alone at these places? Yup, like that).
I get up to go and as I do so a fight breaks out between two of the fifty-plus year old group of ‘serious drinkers’ near the exit. I have to walk towards them to get out, so I try and do it quietly and unobtrusively. As I’m going past I see that one of the guys is punching the other very slowly and consistently on the nose, gradually the nose breaks and blood starts to go everywhere, but it is all like watching a SLOW motion movie because they are so drunk and uncoordinated. So I put down my bag and make to break it up. I’m immediately accosted by the rest of the drunk old men who forbid me to do so. I’m not going to get into a fight with them, so feeling sad about the state of the universe (at least in this coffee shop) but clear that this is not my problem.
I’m crossing the road right next to the exit, and I see a white car with big blue letters coming towards me. Not only that, it has lights on the top, it is a police car! Joyfully I wave stop and wave my hands at it, as it slows down I point to the old men fighting. Two appropriately big and cheerful looking policemen get out, smile at me, say thanks and walk over to deal with it. I smile all the way home, safe in the knowledge that two drunk old men are now no longer punching each other in slow motion.

Who knows, perhaps the universe really is a big friendly giant? Or maybe it just has a lower tolerance level to sheer ridiculousness than other forms of human suffering.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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 

Categories
A Mind of Ease Awareness and insight Enlightened Flow Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindfulness

Non-Striving

Dear Integral Meditators,

June and the summer sees a change in the pace and  of my working routine, and as a way of making the adjustment to that new routine I’ve been working this week with the practice of non-striving. Details of what it is and how to practice it are in this weeks article!

Yours in the spirit of non-striving,

Toby

Non-Striving

Non-striving is a refusal to be in conflict with yourself and your life. Put another way, rather than seeing yourself in an adversarial relationship to yourself and your circumstances, you practice accepting and working with what is there.

For example, if I am over-tired non-striving is not simply the practice of stopping what I am doing and having a rest (although I may do that), it is the practice if not getting in conflict with myself about the reality of my fatigue, and thus even if I have to work on for a while, my mental approach is not being hampered by the friction of me fighting the reality of my fatigue.

If I have a business deal that I am anxious should happen, and then it seems as if the other party will not close on it, then I can recognize my attachment to making it happen, and my disappointment at the fact that it has not happened, and then make a point of not fighting that disappointment; rather I accept it and flow with it even whilst I see if there is any way that the deal may still go forward.

If I have a social commitment that I am not looking forward to, then if I can accept and practice non-striving with the reality that I have to go (assuming that there is no choice), then my chances of actually enjoying that social engagement even though I may not find it ideal is much greater

The thing about non-striving is that when we are in a state of non-conflict with ourself, then our natural intelligence functions far better and so our chances of actually finding solutions, enjoying ourselves, transforming difficulties to our advantage and so forth actually increases.

So often our instinctive idea of how to get what we want in our life is based around striving, battling, being effortful and fighting and there is no doubt that on occasion this approach may have its place. However if we can develop our competency at non-striving then we discover that it is possible to get what we want or at least what we need with much less effort than we deemed necessary.

To practice non-striving means acknowledging honestly what is there and going with the flow of that reality, even as we may work to change it. It is a pleasant and energy efficient way of re-connecting to our sanity and intelligence as well as creating a space where our mind body and spirit can rest and regenerate their energies even whilst we are in the midst of our daily activities.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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 

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Enlightened Flow Integral Awareness

Finding Your Spiritual Flow

Dear Toby,

This is an article on how to find your spiritual flow. In this article there is what I consider to be a really great and useful definition of the word ‘spiritual’. We often use ‘spiritual’ conversationally as if we have a clear idea what it means, but when we check our understanding is often a lot more nebulous. This article on spiritual flow is once again on the topic of flow states in meditation which I will be addressing in great practical depth in my upcoming Enlightened Flow Workshop on the 29th June, with the free introductory talk on Tuesday 17th June . For those of you not in Singapore, don’t worry, the online version will follow 😉

Yours in the spirit of spiritual flow,

Toby

 

Finding Your Spiritual Flow

This is an article about how to find your spiritual or enlightened flow. So, firstly, what do we mean by spiritual. Oftentimes people use the word like we all know what it means, but actually a sound working definition of what it means to be spiritual can be elusive; so here is one that I find very practical and useful from Nathaniel Branden: “Spiritual means pertaining (or referring to) to consciousness and the development of consciousness”.
From this we can see that to be a spiritual person means being interested in developing your inner or non-material self.
Quite often the spiritual is set up in contrast to materialism. A materialist is someone for whom the material world is of primary importance, in contrast a spiritual person is someone for whom the non-material or inner world of consciousness is of primary importance. This is not to say that a single person cannot have an integrated balance of materialism and spirituality in their life, indeed perhaps this would be the ideal.

So to be a spiritual person means to be interested in developing the inner world of your consciousness, and you yourself can assess how ‘spiritual’ you are by measuring how much effort each day you spend on the development of your consciousness.

Now that we have a definition of spiritual, we can look at what spiritual flow means. To be‘in the spiritual flow’ means to be centered in your consciousness, and allowing your life to unfold around that central inner identity of yourself as a non-physical self within a physical body and experiencing a physical world
Deep spiritual flow or enlightened means to be centred on the experience of consciousness itself, so that as well as distinguishing yourself from your physical body and self, you have also distinguished yourself from the contents of your consciousness as well. You are the centre of pure living awareness and/or consciousness that is the possessor and expereincer of your thoughts, feelings and body.

Four images for spiritual or enlightened flow:
So what might that actually look or feel like? Here are four images for getting a feel for what it is like to be in the spiritual or enlightened flow.

1. Think of your actual or spiritual self as being the parent of the contents of your consciousness – You are dis-identified** with the contents of your consciousness, but holding them with care and love
2. To be the ocean of your consciousness but not the waves or ripples – Your consciousness is like the ocean, your mental experience of thoughts and sensory information are like the waves – be the ocean, not the waves!
3. To be the sky and not the clouds – Experience your consciousness itself as being like a clear open sky, and your senses and thoughts as being like the clouds. Be the open sky, not the clouds!
4. Being the tree and not the leaves – The tree cares for and feeds the leaves but is not destroyed when they fall of in the winter, it lets them fall, stands silent through winter and then re-grows them the next spring. Your consciousness itself is like the tree, your thoughts and senses are like the leaves. Be the tree and not the leaves!

If you want some homework from this article, over the next week or so simply take one of these images each day and use your contemplation of them as a way of starting to experience your own spiritual or enlightened flow.

**Please note the difference between dis-identified and dis-associated from . We aim to be in touch with and aware of our thoughts, emotions and senses whilst being dis-identified with them. To be dis-associated from them would be to be completely out of touch with them, which would invariably lead to psychological issues!

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Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Uncategorized

A Free Audio Meditation on Self Trust

Dear Integral Meditators,

Goethe said “If you trust yourself you will know how to live”. More than  that, our trust and confidence in ourself directly affects the way in which we experience our relationship to the world at large, as Emerson said “If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.”

This is a short five minute guided meditation on how to develop and sustain deep trust in yourself. Enjoy!

Meditation on Self-Trust
(click to play, right click download)

A quick reminder that the Mindful Self-Leadership Online Course will be beginning tomorrow, beneath this message I have placed some of the feedback from those who attended the live workshop last Sunday, just to give you a feel of what sort of benefits you are likely to experience if you participate in the more in-depth online course!

Yours in the spirit of self leadership and self-trust,

Toby


Audio Serenity

Last couple of days to get 25% off Audio Serenity!

Go on 61minutes of pure and deep relaxation. Enjoy a drug free vacation from stress and anxiety”.

Click on the link, to listen to a free sample.  Just type in NEWSMAY25OFF into the coupon code section of the purchase section to get the discount.

 

Mindful Self-Leadership 3 hour WS 18.05.14 Participant Feedback

I found this workshop excellent. It gives me a nice set of simple tools. Your talk did open my eyes to various issues and concepts, going beyond just the workshop.
Keep up the good work including your weekly blogs!

Good pacing with the right amount of content. Very useful practical mindfulness exercises to complement the content shared. Great handout and online links (to the workshop recordings). Nice venue and small group. Sentence completion exercises very useful, Thankyou!

I felt a connection with Toby straight away.
I feel more hopeful in how my life will proceed.
His (Toby’s) experience, way of speaking, knowledge and methods resonate with me.
Thankyou Toby.

The workshop was excellent! I really enjoyed not only the content, but also the process. I found the explanation and insights to be truly insightful and informative. Thanks so much!

Really enjoyed the whole workshop – The focus that the sentence completion allowed me to have about my views & thoughts and feelings , plus the really helpful practical experience of the meditation exercises.

It has been really useful for me to understand the stages of thought and mindfulness that lead to actual action. Thankyou!

 

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Biographical Enlightened Flow Enlightened service Inner vision Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Mindful Self-Leadership

Enlightenment and the Call to Awakened Creativity

Dear Toby,

Those of you in Asia I hope you had a nice holiday yesterday as Wesak, or Buddhas birthday was celebrated. The article below is the result of my own reflections on the creative process of enlightenment, thinking about the Buddha in particular.

Final call for those who may be interested in the 3 hour Mindful Self Leadership Workshop in Singapore this Sunday 18th May, 9.30am-12.30. Click on the link for details!

Yours mindfully and creatively,

Toby

PS: Click on the picture to find out about Buddha shaped pears!

Enlightenment and the Call to Awakened Creativity

I’m writing this article on Wesak day, or Buddha’s birthday, and the occasion has led me to have a go at expressing something that has been on my mind for a little while which is basically this; The great enlightened leaders of different eras for example Buddha, the Christ, Krishna responded to their experience of spiritual enlightenment with courageous creative acts of worldly innovation.

For example one of the things that the Buddha did was to create whole new class of citizen. Back in India 600BC as a man you had three options; either you were of the class of nobleman, or the warrior class or the servant/slave class. If you were in the tiny minority of noblemen, then life would have been good, but if you were a warrior or a slave you really were not operating with much freedom. If you were a woman the choices were correspondingly limited.
So what the Buddha did was to create a new class of citizen – the ordained Sangha – or community of monks and nuns who were essentially able to side step the three class options and live peacefully, supported by laypeople and focus on getting enlightened themselves and being of service to the community at large. It is difficult for us to appreciate fully today what an amazing act of social innovation this was on the part of the Buddha, as today we live in a very different society where, relatively speaking we have very different freedoms and limitations. At the time of the Buddha many, many men and women were socially liberated in the way through the creative this creative act of Buddha.

So then, the interesting thing to me is that while the truly great enlightened people and leaders innovate and act with dynamic creativity, the people that follow them mainly seem just to seek to follow the rules that got set down after their death – they do not seem to feel the imperative to act creatively, to take chances, to innovate, to respond to the genuine organic needs of their life and times.

To become spiritually enlightened means basically this; to be interested in developing your consciousness and to be focused on the process of seeing and integrating your inner and outer reality as clearly and courageously as you can. Spiritual enlightenment is a process with many levels of unfolding. I’m at a certain level of spiritual development; you are at a certain level of development. At each level I believe we have a responsibility not just to gain insight into our reality, but also to respond to that insight with action and creativity. This means to be taking active responsibility for expressing your own enlightenment (on whatever level you are at) in your life. Very often that will mean taking a chance, engaging in something a little experimental.

The main thing is that you get in the habit of expressing your enlightened creativity now, today, at least a little.

Happy Wesak day!

Categories
Inner vision Integral Awareness Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

The Benefits of Simplicity

Dear Integral Meditators,

Every now and again I write an article that I like right from the moment of completion. The one on simplicity below is one of them. The practice of mindful simplicity is one that helps us to become more effective at dealing with the ever increasing complexity of our daily lives; by becoming simpler we gain the strength to approach complexity with enthusiasm and resilience.

How to find regeneration through simplicity is the first of the practices that I will be teaching in the  Mindful Self-leadership workshop on Sunday the 18th of May, you can click on the link to read more about that, and to listen to a 45 minute free preview talk and meditation on mindful self-leadership.

Yours in the spirit of simplicity,
Toby

Upcoming Meditation Classes and Workshops at Integral Meditation Asia:

Mindful Self-Leadership: Taking Control of Your Life Direction and Wellbeing Through Awareness, Curiosity, Courage and Care

Sunday  May 18th – Mindful Self-Leadership Three Hour Workshop
Thursday 22nd May – Five Module Online Mindful Self-Leadership Course Begins

Click on the link for full details!
 

The Benefits of Simplicity

One definition of meditation is an activity that tends towards singularity and away from diversity.
Another way of putting this is that meditation can be any activity, accompanied by solid states of mindfulness and awareness, that moves towards simplicity and away from complexity.
So what are the benefits of abiding in a state of mindful simplicity? Here are a few:

  • Your body-mind moves from a state of energy expenditure to a state of energy regeneration and renewal
  • By making your mind and activity regularly simpler, you actually enhance your capacity to deal with the complexity of your daily life more adequately and competently
  • With the clarity that comes from simplicity your natural intelligence is able to function better, both in terms of rational and intuitive problem solving
  • It is easier to access positive states of mind such as appreciation and enjoyment
  • You gain greater wisdom and perspective on your life as you step back from it and temporarily disengage
  • You have the opportunity to become aware of deeper levels of motivation and desire within yourself that are revealed only when your everyday business is reduced
  • You gain the strength and presence of mind to do what you need to do in the longhaul of your life (not just the short term) to lead yourself to the fulfilment of your deepest desires.

Creating a state of mindful simplicity
The great thing about simplicity is that it can be cultivated any time you have a gap in your life. It just means creating a space where you are cutting down on the amount of activity and busyness. For example:

You could go for a walk where the aim is to go slowly and mindfully, to not think about the future, simply to enjoy the moment
You could choose to sit on you office chair for five minutes and simply not engage in any tasks, just come back to your body and breathing
You could choose not to fill an afternoon on your weekend with activities, but rather just allow that time to be focused on keeping things as simple and reflective as possible.

Mindful simplicity is available to you every day if you want it to be. If you know the benefits, then what are you waiting for? Create some space for mindful simplicity each day.

Want some more tangible ideas for mindful simplicity?
Check out these previous articles:
Four Zen Meditations
Dropping Your Conceptual Leaves
Small Focused Mind, Big, Open Mind
Fundamental Zen Sitting Meditation Forms

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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

Looking for some help to create a space of simplicity in your life? Try these bio-field  tracks from I-Awake:Audio Serenity
Beginners Mind
Harmonic Resonance Meditation
Meditative Ocean

Healing Light
Categories
Integral Meditation Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Meditation Recordings Meditation techniques Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Mindful Self-Leadership Free Meditation and Talk Recording

Dear Toby,

Last weekend I gave a public meditation and talk entitled: “Mindful Self-Leadership, a contemporary paradigm for conscious, integrated personal growth and wellbeing”. Many thanks to those of you who came along to participate live. If you would like to have a listen to the talk online, just click here:

Mindful Self Leadership Talk and Meditation

The first 20minutes or so is a meditation, the rest is a talk. If you enjoy the it, then you can just scroll down to find out more about the two courses that I will be offering on Mindful Self -Leadership:

  • One live in Singapore on the 18th May
  • One online starting on May 22nd. This is the first time I’ve rolled this course out, and I’m pretty excited about it and what it can give to people. With the online course, you can participate in it literally wherever you are in the world!

Please note that that until the end 9th of May (this Friday) there are some early bird opportunities to get reduced prices on the courses!

Yours in the spirit of the mindful self,

Toby

Mindful Self-Leadership: Take Control of Your Life Direction and Wellbeing Through Awareness, Curiosity, Courage and Care.

Sunday  May 18th – Mindful Self-Leadership Three Hour Workshop
Thursday 22nd May – Five Module Online Mindful Self-Leadership Course Begins

In a sentence: Learn how you can develop deep confidence in yourself, take benevolent control of your life, overcome inner inhibitions such as fear and invite fulfillment and wellbeing into your life through the practice of mindful self leadership.

Overview: The best place to learn how lead is within yourself. Do you agree?

Developing your Mindful Self-leadership is about how you can:

  • Feel increasing levels of comfort and confidence in your relationship to yourself, your life and in your ability to take your life in the direction that you truly want it to go
  •  Develop your self-knowledge and self-understanding so as to find out what will really make you most happy
  • Find ways of being making use of the challenges that you face, by taking responsibility for them and leading yourself to the best solutions to those challenges
  • Learn to communicate with yourself and others in a way that encourages you to express your deeper values in the way you think feel and act
  • Develop a capacity for self-leadership that will be an inspiration to others and encourage them to develop their own self-leadership skills
  • Do all of the above using a set of mindfulness practices that enables you to drop into states of mind that are relaxing, peaceful and regenerative, and that will help you dramatically reduce the amount of negative stress and anxiety in your life.

If you have been answering ‘yes’ to the above points then the course in mindful self leadership is for you!

These courses are suitable for:

  • Those who may be new to mindfulness and who want to learn it in a way that cultivates the self-leadership skills outlined above.
  • People who are already familiar with mindfulness and meditation practice and wish to learn how to use it in a leadership context.

There are two opportunities to participate in the Mindful-Self Leadership training:

  • A three hour Mindful Self-Leadership workshop in Singapore in Sunday May 18th at Basic Essence. For full information see details below.
  • A Five week Mindful Self-Leadership online course that will begin on Thursday 22nd May see below for full details.

What does it cost?:

THE COST FOR  THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 3 HOUR WORKSHOP ON THE 18TH MAY IS SING$130.  TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE 

THE COST FOR THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE BEGINNING 22ND MAY IS SING$190. TO MAKE PAYMENT BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE 

BUY BOTH THE THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 3 HOUR WORKSHOP AND 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE AS A BUNDLE FOR SING$295 (SAVE $25) .TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR  BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE

Details of the Mindful Self-Leadership Three Hour Workshop:

Date: Sunday May 18th
Time: 9.30am-12.30
Location: Basic Essence, (For location Map click HERE)

This three our workshop introduces four fundamental mindfulness practices that you can take into your daily life in order to develop your capacity for confident self-leadership. These four practices are as follows:

  1. Encountering – Developing your foundation for mindful self–leadership by increasing your capacity to encounter ALL of your reality without being intimidated by it
  2. Accepting – Mindfully accepting all of whom you are in order to lead yourself beyond who you are
  3. Envisioning – Connecting to the values of your personal self-leadership style
  4. Empowering – Taking responsibility for respecting who you are and expressing it appropriately in your life

Each of these practices invites the ongoing development of your own personal self-leadership style and understanding of how it can be integrated into your daily life.
As well as guiding these exercises Toby will here will be giving talks on each of them, and there will be time for exploration of the practices through Q&A.

In addition to the workshop you will receive:

  • MP3 recordings of the practices and talks that are done during the workshop
  • Full workshop notes with all of the mindful self leadership exercises included as well as other relevant articles and materials.
  • All in all you will have a very clear idea of how you can continue your mindful self leadership practice in your daily life after leaving the workshop
Taking Control of Your Life Through Mindful Self-Leadership – A Five Week Online Course

Start date: Thursday May 22nd

Course Outline: This five week online course is an in depth exploration of how you can develop your mindful self-leadership style in order to:

  • Develop increasing confidence and self-direction in life
  • Align yourself with what will really make you inwardly fulfilled
  • Take advantages of your challenges in life to further self-knowledge and discovery
  • Assert values and actions in your life that are congruent with who you are
  • Become the leader you want to be when he going gets tough in your life
  • Combine self-leadership with the daily cultivation of inner peace and wellbeing

Module titles:

Module 1: Getting started; a outline and overview of the elements of mindful self-leadership and how to start cultivating your experience of it on a daily basis
Module 2: Accepting who you are in order to go beyond who you are – Exploring the paradox of mindful self-leadership
Module 3: You can’t practice self leadership if you don’t know where you want to go – Getting to grips with what you really want in life
Module 4: You know more than you think you know – Accessing your inner guidance for the purposes of mindful self-leadership
Module 5: The long leadership journey to where you are – Exploring the spiritual dimension of self-leadership

How it works: Upon registering for the course you will be sent the link to the course webpage together with the password to access it. This will be the place you can go in order to access, listen to and download the course materials. Each week during the five weeks of the course you will be notified when the latest module has been uploaded.

For further details: Please contact info@integralmeditationasia.com

TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE

TO MAKE PAYMENT FOR THE MINDFUL SELF-LEADERSHIP 3 HOUR WORKSHOP AND 5 WEEK ONLINE COURSE BUNDLE FOR SING$295 BY CREDIT CARD, CLICK HERE

Categories
Integral Awareness Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness

Mindful Consequentialism (Dancing through fear and anxiety)

Dear Integral Meditators,

One of the points of focus for mindful self-leadership is learning how to accept creative responsibility for our choices. This weeks article on mindful consequentialism explores this space.

 

Yours in the spirit of the endless dance,

Toby
 

Mindful Consequentialism (Dancing through fear and anxiety)

You may or may not have noticed that in practical terms, anxiety and fear exist most often when there is uncertainty and choice. For example:

  • If I am trying to decide which choice of school will be best for my daughter, it is the experience of not knowing which choice is best that is directly a cause of anxiety; “What if I make the wrong choice and she suffers?”
  • If I am trying to decide whether to leave my job to seek a better option; “What if I don’t find one and instead I just loose the security of my present paycheque?”
  • If I am ill; “Should I choose the holistic option for treatment that I believe in or the conventional treatment most people use? What if it doesn’t work?”

In countless small and large ways each day the choices we make in the face of our uncertainty defines the direction of our life. So then the question becomes “What is the choice that I truly value, believe in and, deep down I feel is right for me?”

Every choice has a consequence
It can be helpful to contemplate that any choice that we make has consequences. To stay in a secure job gives you (relative) security at the price of your own fulfillment. Pursuing your own passions in business exposes you to the (relative) risk of failure and reduced income, at least for a while. Both options involve some form of discomfort, but which consequence are you prepared to accept to get what you really want?

To make the choices you need to make you need to be able to accept the consequences.

  • To pursue a passion you expose yourself to uncertainty at the gain of creative fulfillment
  • To leave a relationship that is not working for you, you court the consequence of being alone once more
  • To avoid expressing an emotion that you feel you have to deal with the consequences of suppressing or repressing it
  • To help someone in your care to grow you may have to expose them from time to time to the pain of having to deal with something without your help

There is no-one coming to save you
We can dodge responsibility for our own choices in the face of uncertainty, but at the end of the day all this does is prevent us from making the choices that we truly believe in, even if we get it wrong sometimes.
The thing is, every time we make a choice that does not reflect a trust and confidence in our own judgment we undercut our self esteem, our self trust and our capacity to lead ourself along a path in life that is going to lead to the deepest levels of happiness and fulfilment for us.

Dancing with fear and anxiety
I’m not sure you can really get around the anxiety and fear that come from making choices in the face of uncertainty. However, if you can accept the presence of this fear and anxiety, you can consciously build a positive relationship to it. You can learn to dance with it, even enjoy it, accepting of the consequences of your choices; both the nice ones and the challenging ones. This in turn enables you to get progressively BETTER at making the choices that are really right for you.

An image to practice with
If you would like to take the ideas from this article into your life over the next week or so, use the image of a dancer. Every time you feel the fear and anxiety around uncertainty and choice making, bring to mind that image and dance with it; keep light, don’t get too heavy. With a real and mindful awareness of the consequences of your choices, make the choice you believe in and will respect yourself for.

© Toby Ouvry 2014, 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