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Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology

“Mindful awareness builds a robust pre-psychological base, meaning the feeling or sensibility you have about yourself before you think or conceive who you are. If we get this base right, many good things follow”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article is on the effectiveness of minddful awareness as a pre-psychological base for navigating and thriving in our lives. If you enjoy it, feel free to join us for the Tuesday or Wednesday meditation class, where it will be a focus point of the meditation. 

In the spirit of awareness,

Toby



Mindfulness – Liberation through pre-psychology
 
In my previous article on the ‘holy trinity of mindfulness’ I outline the role of awareness, intention and attention in mindfulness practice. I describe them as pre-skills that, if you cultivate them will help you develop any other skill relatively quickly and easily.
In this article I want to focus on awareness and what I call its pre-psychological benefits. Again, in the previous article I define mindful awareness as:
“The choice to be consciously aware as we go through life, rather than unconscious, and to direct our conscious awareness skilfully.”
When you make the choice simply to be aware of consciousness in the present moment, there are several fundamental benefits. I want to outline some of these below, in the hope that you will feel inspired to start practicing. Specifically, I want to point out how mindful awareness builds a robust pre-psychological base for ourselves. By pre-psychological I mean the feeling or sensibility you have about yourself before you start to think or conceive who you areIf we get this base right, many good things follow!
 
Full, not empty – When we sit in awareness of the present moment, we start to feel a sense of fullness in that moment. We can then turn up to life with this feeling of fullness, which helps counterbalance the feeling of emptiness that many people feel when they think about themselves and their life.

Empty, not full – Sitting with awareness in the present moment enables us to empty of all the complex thinking and inner noise that our mind is overburdened or overfilled with. We access a sense of ‘empty’ pleasurable inner spaciousness.

Enough, not not -enough – The ‘I am not enough’ script is one of the most common ones that individuals suffer from psychologically. Training to be aware in the present gives us access to a feeling of enough-ness, a sensibility of sufficiency not insufficiency. We can learn to identify with this primary feeling, and meet life from this feeling of ‘enough’, which then becomes a sense of ‘I am enough’.

Strong, not weak – becoming more consciously aware and present leads to a sense of being more gathered and undistracted. Awareness itself is always in the present moment, so focusing upon it leads to less of our energy being dissipated by distraction and thoughts about the past or future. The result of this is a feeling or sensation of being strong in the moment, not weak, and of being centered, not off balance.

Free, not limited – In our mental and physical environment we experience all sorts of limitations,  some external, some internal. In the experience of awareness itself, there is absolute freedom. The choice to be aware is the one thing that no one can take away from us.
 
So, then the practice here is simply to practice being aware of awareness, in the present moment, noticing that when we do so a very basic primal set of pre-cognitive, non-verbal experiences become available to us. We have a sense of being:

  • Full, not empty
  • Empty, not full
  • Enough, not not -enough (sufficiency, not insufficiency)
  • Strong, not weak
  • Free, not limited

If we cultivate these, then we now have a range of pre-psychological, pre-thought building blocks that we can use as a secure base for our sense of self as we think and navigate the world from day to day. This sense of strength, fullness and freedom can accompany us more and more, as our capacity to be aware of awareness grows though our meditation and mindfulness practice.
 
Related readingAwareness, attention, intention – The holy trinity of integral mindfulness
The freedom of awareness

© Toby Ouvry 2024, 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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Breathing through your skin

“Once we have improved our breathing habits, we can use our breathing in a way called ‘still-point breathing’ to slow down both our mind and body, and move toward a state of meditative stillness”

Dear Integral Meditators,

I hope that those of you that are celebrating the Lunar New Year are having a great time!
This weeks article looks at three simple breathing methods to improve our overall habitual breathing, to use the breathing as a way of moving into stillness, and then finally how to access a special type of breathing called ‘pore breathing’.

If you enjoy the article then do consider joining us for the Monthly Qi Gong & Taoist Breathwork Clinic & Mini-retreat this Saturday morning, 28th January, where we will be working with techniques just such as these. 

And final call for the Lunar New Year Meditation 2023: Developing your self-assurance & gracefulness in the year of the Water Rabbit this Tues & Weds evening, all welcome!

In the spirit of life & living, 

Toby 


Breathing through your skin

From bad breathing habits to good breathing habits
Many of us have bad breathing habits. If you do a little bit of superficial research on the web you can find basic information on this, some of the characteristics and consequences of this are:

  • We breathe shallowly and through the mouth, only using the middle and upper sections of our lungs, which keeps our center of gravity high in the body and reduces the amount of oxygen intake per breath
  • We neglect to use our lower lungs and diaphragm, which means we loose out on the massaging effect of the inhalation on the stomach and abdominal organs
  • The effect of the above two breathing habits is that we keep our body locked in the ‘fight or flight’, ‘sympathetic’ mode of our nervous system, making us often stressed and uptight by habit

So, the first move with our breathing is to work towards better breathing habits. Some characteristics of good breathing includes:

  • Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, or in thru the nose out through the nose
  • Regularly aim to breathe 5-10% deeper and longer, to 65-70% of your lung capacity
  • Start your inhalation by sending the air down to the bottom of your lungs, filling them from the bottom up. Notice movement of the belly when you do this.
  • Make the pace of the inhale and exhale smoothly and even

You can find my full article here on Basic deeper breathing – How to and the benefits.

Still point: From good breathing habits to meditative breathing
Once we have improved our breathing habits, we can use our breathing in a way called ‘still-point breathing to slow down both our mind and body, and move toward a state of meditative stillness. Here is a simple description of the technique:

  • As you follow your breathing, insert a short pause at the bottom of the exhalation before you start to inhale.
  • Within this pause, observe that there is a natural point of balance and stillness.
  • As you breathe, be aware of the point of balance and stillness within the pauses at the bottom of the breath. As you reach the bottom of the out-breath allow your mind to abide momentarily in stillness before you begin to inhale.
  • Stay with this pattern of breathing for a while. Gradually allow the sense stillness in your mind and body to grow deeper with each round of breathing.
  • You may find that your breathing starts to slow a little. Just let the pace of breathing follow its natural impulses, pausing only as long as is comfortable, without getting out of breath.

Pore breathing
At a certain point in the still point breathing, you will really start to notice the pace of your breathing slowing as the body moves deeper and deeper into relaxation. At this point you can then switch the emphasis from deeper and still point breathing to changing the physical breathing itself. You might find yourself taking only 3-4 breaths per minute, and those breaths are shallow and small. At this point your body will be starting to breathe through the pores of the skin quite naturally.
If you like you can enhance this process with a simple visualisation:

  • Feel and imagine all the pores of your skin to be open and respiring gently with your inbreath and outbreath
  • As you breathe in imagine the pores of the skin taking in fresh energy and oxygen from the surrounding air into your body
  • As you breathe out feel your body releasing stagnant energy, stress and toxins through the pores of the body, like steam or smoke

This process can be gentle and need not be forced to feel effective and refreshing.

A simple ten-minute practice
If you started with three minutes of basic deep breathing, then did another three minutes of still-point breathing, then three minute of pore breathing, with a minute or two at the end just to relax and enjoy the effects this is a nice, simple way to get started here.

Related readingBreathing like a baby – Six breathing meditations

 © Toby Ouvry 2023, you are welcome to use or share this article, but please cite Toby as the source and include reference to his website www.tobyouvry.com. Image of Mou’aputa mountain, Moorea (Tahiti) by Natalie Seisser.


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)

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

Tues 24th & Weds 25th January – Lunar New Year Meditation 2023: Developing your self-assurance & gracefulness in the year of the Water Rabbit

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

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


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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


 

Integral Meditation Asia

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What is the point of being more present?

“Imagine you are a tree with deep roots. When wind, rain and storms come, your branches get blown around, but you don’t worry, because the strength of your roots is more than capable of dealing with the stress. You can even enjoy the play of the weather and the extremity of it. Being more present is like that, you can choose to be a bit more like that”

 

Dear Integral Meditators,

 

Why strive to be more present? I hope the article below encourages you to keep persisting!
This week there is a break in the  Tuesday & Wednesday class.  but if you scroll down below you can see all events for May, including the Zen deep dive-mini retreat, and the Qi-gong and Taoist breathwork clinic.

In the spirit of presence,

Toby


What is the point of being more present?

Why is mindfulness a discipline focused on being more present? If I become more present to each moment and my life, what is likely to happen? Here’s a list of six capacities that start to come online when you choose to become more present:

Stability & sanity – Presence implies that you are aware of what is going on in your immediate sensory environment, at least to a degree. This gives a point of grounding and stability for our awareness; not lost in our mind, but present to our senses. From this comes what I would call ‘basic sanity’ or basic reality orientation; our observations and life-strategies start to come more from what is seen and experienced, rather than what our mind is fantasizing about.

Self-awareness and self-regulation – Following on from point one, being present invites a greater awareness of ourself. If we are self-aware in a reasonably balanced manner, then the chances of us doing things to help restore and remain in balance increases. We start to use our natural intelligence effectively.

Creativity – Once we have some stability in the present, this then invites a creative response to the present. We start to recognize each moment as an opportunity for self-expression, innovation and evolution. Life becomes playful, fun and enquiring, rather than automatic, monotone and predictable.

Wonderment – When we start to combine presence with creativity, the world starts to glow, starts to feel more technicolor. The term ‘spiritual’ ceases to become about beliefs and philosophy, and more about the direct perception of our world, which becomes mysterious  (in a good way) and invites adventure,  curiosity and luminosity.

Appreciation & generosity – Presence invites appreciation of what is, and a sense of being rich, very inwardly wealthy. We experience what we have in a new way, where we really know it. More than this we start to sense within us an infinite resource of life-fullness. This in turn invites a sense of generosity, a sense of benevolence “I have so much, I’d love to pass some onto you” type thing!

Thinking well about the future and past
Solidly grounded in the present, we can re-configure the way we reflect on the past and plan for the future, we can choose how we frame them, we can enjoy the opportunities of the future, rather than being weighed down by anxiety around uncertainty. We become better at learning from the past and creating (see point three) our future.

So, I hope this has convinced you to persist with any practices you may have for being more present in your life, most of my articles are implicitly about presence and the capabilities that come from it. To end with, here is a simple picture:
Imagine you are a tree with deep roots. When wind, rain and storms come, your branches get blown around, but you don’t worry, because the strength of your roots is more than capable of dealing with the stress. You can even enjoy the play of the weather and the extremity of it.
Being more present is like that, you can choose to be a bit more like that today if you want, and why wouldn’t you?

Related articleCompassionate presence, awakened action
Inner strength – gathering your energy into one place

Article & content © 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


 

Ongoing – The Way of the Mindful Warrior – Meditating with the Warriors creed

In a sentence: Establish the inner strength, skill and courage needed to make you resilient in the face of life’s challenges, and thrive in both times of adversity and times of peace.

Overview: The Warriors Creed is a poem by an unknown Samurai in the 14th century. It outlines a code of conduct and a state of presence based around a series of inner qualities that can be cultivated through mindful contemplation, then applied to our daily life…read full details

 


Saturday 14th April, 9.30am-12noon – Zen meditation deep dive mini-retreat

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


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

In a sentence: Experience unique Qi gong and Taoist breathing techniques to improve your immune system, energy level, psychological wellness and enhance your meditation…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)
Ongoing – The Way of the Mindful Warrior – Meditating with the Warriors creed

Tues 17th/Weds 18th May: Wesak meditation

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

Saturday 14th April, 9.30am-12noon – Zen meditation deep dive mini-retreat


Integral Meditation Asia

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Freedom from inner intimidation – Sitting down to tea with your stress

“If you can sit down with your most awkward, uncomfortable, fearful inner experiences, then it is almost like nothing else can really intimidate you. If you tame your inner monsters, the outer monsters change too!”

Dear <<First Name>>,

This weeks article explores how you can start to find freedom from the things on the inside of you that intimidate you, enjoy!

If you enjoy the article then do have a look at the  Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment that I will be doing on Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm.

I will be doing the coming Sunday and Wednesday online meditations on the subject of this weeks article, on what is sometimes called the beautiful breathing. Click the link to read my article on it!

In the spirit of freedom,

Toby

 


Freedom from inner intimidation – Sitting down to tea with your stress

How do you respond when a difficult, stressful or challenging state of mind or emotion comes up for you? And what are the things that you need to do in order to change your relationship to that experience?

Stress transformation begins with acceptance
The first thing that you need to work on with stress transformation is accepting the stress that you are trying to transform, and get comfortable in its presence. If you are intimidated by the feeling of the stress, are running away from it, or taken over by it, then you can’t transform it.

Acceptance gives you the goal of peace, even without resolution of the stress
You could even think of accepting your stress well as a solution in itself. If you are accepting and comfortable with the stress then, even when it is arising you still have access to a stable degree of peace and calm in that moment. If you can do this then the sense of being intimidated or overwhelmed by the stress goes away. It becomes manageable, even enjoyable. You start to see useful things that you can do with the stress, rather than just wishing that it weren’t there.

Accepting what you can’t accept gives you great confidence and inner strength
Another great side benefit of good quality acceptance is that it gives you tremendous confidence. If you can sit down with your most awkward, uncomfortable, fearful inner experiences, then it is almost like nothing else can really intimidate you. If you tame your inner monsters, the outer monsters change too!

How to do it: Sitting down to tea with your challenge and the feelings around it
So the way to start practicing this type of acceptance is to deliberately sit down and bring to mind a circumstance where you have uncomfortable, stressful emotions. You then basically bring it to mind and practice sitting with it, relaxing into the discomfort for a few minutes each day. You ‘sit down to tea’ with your stress, deliberately exposing yourself to it so that, over time it becomes comfortable and easy. It becomes like you are sitting down with an old friend at  cafe, having some tea and passing the time of day.

An example: holding space for the suffering of another
One thing that I notice at the moment is that I experience stress around the distress of others around me who are going through their own issues. The fact that I can’t ‘fix’ it or control their responses to it makes me uncomfortable and distressed. So when I notice this coming up for me, I am making a point of holding my attention gently upon it; “Hello there, how are you doing” I say. I invite it to sit down, and have a cup of tea. No hurry to get rid of it, it would be welcome to hang around all day if it wanted! Its welcome to be there whenever it wants, and I welcome it with openness and acceptance.

Watch Toby’s video on “Sitting down to tea with your problems”:

 

Related articleMindful Inoculation

Article content © Toby Ouvry & Integral Meditation Asia 2020. you are welcome to share, but please cite the source, thanks! Contact info@tobyouvry.com  


Saturday August 15th, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

One sentence summary: Learn how to understand, re-direct and make use of stress, anxiety and difficult emotions through mindfulness and meditation.
what if there was a way in which we could learn to work with these negative and difficult energies in such a way that we could transform and redirect them, making them sources of positive and empowering energy, helping us to accomplish our goals and awaken to a new level of fulfillment
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


Tues 18th of August & Weds 19th August 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

These are meditation classes done monthly around the turn of the new moon that enable us to open to new beginnings, new possibilities and make a fresh start with regard to:

  • Our health
  • Our inner growth
  • And our life’s purpose and future goals

View full details


Online Integral Meditation & Mindfulness classes

Build focus, beat stress, cultivate wellbeing!

Each session involves simple practices that you can apply to make a real difference to your wellbeing and effectiveness in life…full details of classes

 


At a glance: All upcoming classes and workshops for at IMA:

Ongoing – Weekly Sunday, 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 15th, 2.30-5.30pm – Meditations for Transforming Negativity and Stress into Energy, Positivity and Enlightenment

Tues 18th of August & Weds 19th August 7.30-8.30pm – Monthly new moon, new beginnings visualization and envisioning sessions

Saturday August 22nd, 3-5.30pm – Integral meditation deep dive mini-retreat

Coming soon – High performance bootcamp: Using mindfulness to operate at your peak without burning out


Integral Meditation Asia

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

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Mindfully unhooking your mind

Dear Integral Meditators,
Why not take a bit of time each day to ‘mindfully unhook’ yourself from the repeating thoughts and feelings that are tearing you up, and return your body, mind and heart to health and balance…the article below explains one way you can do this!
A quick reminder of the  Stress-transformation coaching offer details below, and the Stress transformation workshop this Saturday…In the spirit of unhooking,Toby

Special offer on Stress-Transformation coaching
Stress transformation coaching with Toby helps you to transform your present overwhelm, stress, anxiety and other difficult emotions into forces for the good in your life. The coaching focuses upon thriving in situations and circumstances that would previously make you unhappy, fearful, inhibited and so on…See full details here.

Get 15% off the usual cost, offer ends on Tuesday 16th April 


Unhooking your mind

A few days ago, I was feeling over-tired, over-stretched and over-whelmed. When I’m in this state I know that its very easy for challenging thoughts and emotions in my mind to become a lot more dramatic/catastrophic than my life is, in reality.
I knew from past experience that, in this situation, what I need to do is just stop for a while and gather myself.
So, I sat down to do a bit of meditation. As I began to calm down and breathe, I saw an image of myself underwater, with many little fishhooks in me. I was struggling around, and this was causing the hooks to tear my flesh even more. I saw myself in the image stop struggling, becoming still and relaxing. As I relaxed, I could feel the pain in my mind becoming less, and I could see the hooks stop tearing at my flesh in the image. I started to feel comfortable, gradually I could see the hooks in my body gradually dissolving away, and my flesh healing. As the image changed I could feel the energy in my body, mind and heart calming and regenerating. I became comfortable.
By the time I had finished sitting, I felt centred and recharged. My challenges had not gone away, but they felt different. I felt stronger, and able to take courage and continue moving toward the best that my life has to offer, and to continue to express myself according the values that mean the most to me.

This is a simple imaginative technique that you can use yourself anytime to ‘mindfully unhook’ yourself from the repeating thoughts and feelings that are tearing you up, and return your body, mind and heart to health and balance.

Related articles: When you are trapped in a thornbush
Big Enough, Specific Enough (Dealing with spiky minds)

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


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