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Meditation & inner healing

“Sometimes simply to sit with the intention to look within and heal can be a powerful practice in itself. The journey to wholeness begins with mindful orientation around this”

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

To be a meditator can be considered in a number of different ways, in my second article on the subject below we look at a meditator as someone committed to self-healing on a deeper level.

If you enjoy the article, the subject is covered in my latest class series, An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice that starts on 16/17th August, and can be participated in live, online or using the recordings.

In the spirit of  healing,

Toby


Meditation & inner healing (What is a meditator? Article 2)

In my previous article I outlined two definitions of what it means to be a meditator:

  1. To be an Adventurer in consciousness
  2. A practitioner of the primary life-skills of awareness & attention

In this article I’m going to outline a another; a meditator as someone deeply committed to self-healing. I’ll outline a bit of what I mean by this, and then I’ll suggest come ways to start practicing.

Definition 3: Someone committed to self-healing – A meditator is someone who is committed to looking inward in order to see, take care of and heal the parts of themselves that are injured, wounded or broken and returning them to health. I’m talking primarily about the psychological parts of self here rather than physical self, although meditation can and does have a substantial effect on physical healing.
I’m suggest three practices for self-healing below. The practices can be done as sitting exercises, or taken as principles to be mindfully integrated into your overall approach to your life.

Practices for self-healing

1. Letting old wounds heal – If you keep picking at a scab on your knee, it will keep re-opening the wound, and prevent it from healing. It can be a great approach to inner healing just to acknowledge a particular wound (Eg: A bad relationship from the past that scarred us emotionally), and then leave it alone, let time pass and gently heal the damage that has been done, a little bit like vegetation and grass reclaims land that has been dug up or overused. ‘I choose to relax and let old wounds heal naturally, and in their own time’.

2. Revisiting difficult emotions therapeutically – This second practice involves deliberately invoking the memories and experiences of wounds and burdens, specifically in order to acknowledge, accept and then release them. Unlike the previous method here we are engaging the wound in order to use the knowing and experiencing of the wound as a healing agent. A key to understanding this technique is to know that awareness heals. By mindfully revisiting past blocks and breakages, we can begin a process of tangible movement towards wholeness.

3. Expanding beyond and transcending your wounds – In this section I’m just going to place a Jung quote that explains the principle very well. Essentially to expand and grow broader is, in many ways to heal:
The greatest and most important problems of life are all in a certain sense insoluble…They can never be solved, but only outgrown. This outgrowing as I formerly called it, on further experience was seen to consist in a new level of consciousness. Some higher or wider interest arose in the person’s horizon, and through this widening of view, the insoluble problem lost its urgency. It was not solved logically on its own terms, but faded out when confronted with a new and stronger life-tendency.”

A final comment here, sometimes simply to sit with the intention to look within and heal can be a powerful practice in itself. The journey to wholeness begins with mindful orientation around this intention.

In case you missed my previous article: Adventuring with attention (What is a Meditator?)

© 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

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practiceOverview: Life is an adventure in the experience of being conscious. To meditate and to be a meditator is to engage in this experience full-bloodedly, with the intention to get the very most out of the opportunity that we have been given, both in terms of enjoyment, and in terms of our potential to achieve worthwhile goals that are congruent with our inner values. This is a dynamic meditation course that covers…read full details


Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Session overview: These 2.5hour Zen ‘mini-retreats’ are a chance to go into much deeper meditation states than you would be able to in your own personal daily practice, or even if you came to a one-hour class. Using sitting meditation methods in combination with breathing techniques and gentle stretching/mobility exercises Toby will guide you into deep meditative flow states that create the experience of a calm, unified, harmonized, resilient body, mind & heart…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)

Saturday August 13th, 9.30-12noon – Zen deep-dive mini-retreat

Starts Tues 16th /Weds 17th August – An Adventure in Consciousness – The What, Why & How of integral & engaged meditation practice

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


 

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Categories
Awareness and insight creative imagery Energy Meditation Integral Awareness Integral Meditation Meditation techniques Mindfulness

Three Levels of Mindful Healing

Dear Integral Meditators,

What sort of healing potential does mindfulness have to impact your life on a practical level? The article below explores three levels of this.

Yours in the spirit of mindful Healing,

Toby


Three Levels of Mindful Healing

The three levels of mindful healing as I often work with it are:

  • healing through awareness,
  • healing with subtle energy
  • and healing through primal awareness

All of them are relatively simple in terms of the technique used, and can be practiced by anyone. The level of effectiveness depends upon the skill of the practitioner which he or she acquires with practice over time.

Healing through awareness
This type of mindful healing is done simply by placing awareness in the area of the body that needs healing. Yesterday on the bus journey to see my daughter perform in the school play I spent about two-thirds of the journey just sitting still, focusing my mind upon the front part of one of my shoulder joints, which is slightly strained due to a sport injury. Occasionally moving the joint and sometimes placing my hand upon it as well I just ‘felt’ deeply into the joint with my mind, relaxing it deeply. After a while I started to feel the joint warm up, and then some gentle shooting pains coming out of it (good healing pain). By the time I got off the bus my shoulder (and body) felt relaxed and energized, and the soreness and stiffness was much reduced.
People without experience of this type of mindful healing may find it difficult to believe the simplicity of it, but once you start to get a bit of experience of it, it is deeply empowering! It also teaches you an ever deepening awareness of what is going on within your body, and the power you have to benefit your ongoing health using the power of your mind!

Healing with subtle energy
With subtle energy healing you become aware of the earth beneath your feet as a bio-energetic energy source, and the sky and stars above you as a similar (but slightly different) source of energy. You can then imagine the energy from the earth rising up through the soles of your feet and up the back of your body to the crown of your head. The ‘sky’ energy comes into the crown and down the front of your body, going all the way to the toes, so you have a circuit of energy rising up the back and going down the front of your body. You can then focus this circulating energy anywhere you want in the body in order to promote healing and wellbeing, also using your hands if you like.
This form of mindful healing is more ‘advanced’ as it requires an awareness of the movement of subtle energy in the body. This awareness will develop quite naturally over time if you practice level one regularly.

Healing with primal awareness
This level is the most ‘advanced’ as it requires a little bit of experience of the deeper, very subtle, formless timeless dimensions of consciousness, but the technique is very simple. You focus on the area of the body that you want to heal, then you recognize that, in the very same space that that part of your body occupies there is a formless timeless dimension of existence from which can be drawn infinite energy and renewal. You then focus your attention on bringing that energy of deeper consciousness ‘out’ into the physical level, where the part of your body that is being healed is.
This third level may sound a little abstract to some of you, but actually it is just a type of healing that you naturally progress to as your meditation practice deepens. If you practice the first level; ‘healing through awareness’, then over time you start to progress toward this third level.
So there you go, three levels of mindful self healing. Just doing level one regularly will make a tremendous difference to your understanding of how to apply mindfulness practically to bring about healing in your body.

Related articles:
Taking Care of Your Nervous System Through Meditation
On Healing and Meditation
Energetic Self-Healing

© Toby Ouvry 2015, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com


Upcoming Courses at Integral Meditation Asia in May:

Friday 29th May 7.30-9.30pm –  Integral Meditation Session @ the Reiki Centre – Travelling deeper into the present moment through integral meditation

Saturday 30th May, 2.30-5.30pm – Enlightened Flow: Finding the Ultimate Relaxation and Release from Stress


Integral Meditation Asia