Tag: shadow mindfulness

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Awareness and insight creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Life-fullness Meditating on the Self Meditation techniques Shadow meditation

Re-working the story you tell yourself (about yourself)

“What of you could re-model the story of your life into one you look forward to engaging with, that energises both your experience of the moment, & your visions for the future?”

Dear Integral Meditators, 

This week’s article is something of a sequel to last week’s on creativity with our self-concept. What they both offer are creative ways of using mindful observation & imagination to live a fuller, more dynamic & vibrant life.
If you enjoy the articles, then do have a look at the Bright shadow weekday & Saturday series, which explore this type of creative mindfulness extensively. They can be participated in in-person, online or via the recordings.
 
In the spirit of mindful storytelling,

Toby


Re-working the story you tell yourself (about yourself)
 
Your story
 
The story you tell yourself about you is one that emerges substantially from your self-concept, or your idea of who you are. Here is a quote from a past article of mine on ‘the story’:
 
“The heavy bag of our story: For many of us our ‘story’, our past, our history is something that we are carrying around with us all the time. Unless we are careful it can end up like a heavy bag that we never put down, sapping our energy. It can define what we believe we are capable of; filling out mind with what could have been, what we did wrong, what we wish we could change and so on…”
 
How your story turns up in your daily life
 
Often our story doesn’t turn up as a literal voice in our head narrating away. Most often it turns up more subtly in our body and daily actions. It turns up as instinctive feelings and emotions arising in response to the events of the day. If you listen to yourself talking to people, you will hear it in the things that you say, perhaps more importantly in the tone of voice that you use, and the body language that you adopt when saying it. So, what I am saying here is that, although our story is active within us all the time, mostly it turns up implicitly and unconsciously, without our being fully aware of it.
 
Listening to and observing your story
 
If you can start picking up cues about your story from your feelings, behavioral reactions and so forth, you can then start to find out the ‘narratives’ behind them. For example, if I notice that often avoid or shy away from confrontations, I can be curious about why that is. I can then enquire within myself about why that is. Listening to the responses I might get answers such as:

  • “I don’t like being disapproved of, it reminds me of being powerless in the face of stern adults when I was a child”
  • “I already often find life overwhelming, to confront would only make things worse”
  • “I hate feeling disliked and judged by others, to confront would risk experiencing this”
  • I’m afraid that I will be violent if I really express how I feel in a confrontational situation

Simply becoming aware of, accepting, and observing this inner narrative, making it into an object, rather than a subject of awareness can be a powerful step in itself toward becoming free from it.
 
Putting it down
 
Having recognised it and observed this aspect of our story, we can than practice dropping it for periods of time. We do this simply by entering into the present moment without the burden of our story, experiencing the freedom of becoming a person without a story, a man or woman of no rank.
 
Re-telling it
 
Putting your story down also gives you a space where you can introduce a new story, a new narrative that liberates you from the prison or limitations of the old one. It opens doors rather than closes them. For example, in the case of confrontation, you can look for people who are good with confrontation and model them in your approach. You can rework the wording of your narrative

  • “Disapproval from others isn’t such a big deal, in fact sometimes it can be a good sign…”
  •  “Confrontations in the present are not linked to my past childhood experiences. I can choose a new way of asserting myself as an adult”
  • “I can use this experience to build confidence around non-violent ways to deal with confronters and bullies”

And so on…
 
Being it
 
The final stage then is to practice doing it and embodying your new story in daily life. By doing so you can gradually go about re-modelling the story of your life into one that you look forward to engaging with each day, and that energises both your experience of the moment, and your visions for the future.
 
Related reading: Change your idea, change yourself – (Five stages to) Working creatively with your self-concept
Mindfully dropping (and picking up) your story
Making Objects of Your Subjects

 
© Toby Ouvry 2025, 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 classes & workshops

Ongoing on Tuesday’s & Wednesday’s (live & online), 7.30-8.30pm – Weekly integral meditation classes

Saturday 25th October, 9am-12.30pm – Finding Freedom From What Holds You Back in Life: Practical meditations & techniques for working with your shadow-self

Starts Tuesday 11th & 12th November, 7.30-8.30pm – Going beyond your limitations, tapping into your hidden strengths – Meditating with your bright shadow, a 6-week course

Starts Saturday 5.30-6.15pm SG time – Bright shadow meditation Deep-dive – A 5 session practice series

21 Nov & 28th Nov, 8am-12pm – The wisdom of Zen meditation practice retreat & course, levels 1&2

Saturday 22nd November, 9am-12.30pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self Workshop

Saturday 29th November, 7-9pm – Living Life From Your Inner Center – Meditations for Going With the Flow of the Present Moment

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Inner vision Integral Awareness Integrating Ego, Soul and Spirit Meditating on the Self Meditation and Psychology Mindful Self-Leadership Mindfulness Shadow meditation

The essence of shadow integration

Dear Integral Meditators,

The article below looks at the essence of shadow integration practice. I’m writing it as I prepare for three shadow events.

In the spirit of the shadow,

Toby

Id to ego, It to I; The essence of shadow integration
 
As you may be aware, it was Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung who first coined the term ‘shadow’ as an aspect of their theories of the conscious and unconscious minds. They indicated the split that can occur between the two when parts of our personality/psychological self are repressed and banished to the unconscious mind, with the resulting phenomenon of the shadow self being a part of the result.
When Freud was asked about the essence of his method, he is famous for saying “Where the Id was the Ego shall be”. Essentially his meaning appears in translation as being our unconscious passions and desires (the Id) shall be consciously integrated into our ego-self, thus affecting a healing of the personality, and a move toward wholeness.
 
The original statement from Freud in German is “Wo Es war soll Ich werden”. In order to make it sound a bit more ‘academic’ James Strachey, Freud’s English translator translated ‘Es’ into ‘Id’, and ‘Ich’ into ‘ego’. However, as I understand, the two terms have a more common, colloquial meaning:

  • ‘Es’ is the German personal pronoun es is the English equivalent of ‘it’
  • ‘Ich’ is the German pronoun meaning ‘I’
     

So then, if you re-translate Freud’s statement you get:

“Where the it was the I shall be”

This then throws a clarifying light upon the process of shadow integration that goes something like this; Our shadow is all the primal and instinctual passions (‘bad’ and ‘good’) within us that we have pushed out of our conscious mind into our unconscious. Here they have become something that is not ‘me’ but an ‘it’, something not me, alien and threatening to myself. Shadow integration involves noticing the clues regarding what lies in my repressed unconscious, for example:

  • Repeating dreams about being chased by a monster
  • Being unusually emotionally triggered by particular types of people (Eg: aggressive, powerful or egotistic people)
  • Suffering baffling anxiety in the face of certain life circumstances

Having picked up on these clues we then work on owning and re-integrating the repressed material, making it into part of ‘me’. By doing so what was previously an ‘it’ in my unconscious becomes part of my ‘I’. This is what Freud meant when he said “Where the it was the I shall be”, and that is really the essence of shadow work.
 
De-fragmenting the self
If you can imagine how fragmented our self-sense is when lots of parts of it have become ‘its’ within our shadow unconscious, then you can also start to see how empowering and positive shadow work is. As we collect the fragmented ‘its’ and gather them back into our I, our I starts to feel strong, resilient and whole in ways that we had forgotten was possible. Our vigour and appetite for life returns, in tandem with our peace of mind and a sense of profound, relative calm.
 
Read more of Toby’s articles in the Shadow section of his blog: https://tobyouvry.com/category/shadow-meditation/


© 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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creative imagery Inner vision Integral Awareness meditation and creativity Meditation and Psychology Meditation techniques Mindful Confidence Mindful Resilience Mindful Self-Leadership Motivation and scope One Minute Mindfulness Shadow meditation

Four Positions for Wrestling with your Dark Angels

Dear Integral Meditators,

When you find yourself wrestling with difficult or challenging mind-states, what mindfulness practices can you actually ‘do’ that will make a difference? The article below investigates four practical ‘mindful positions’ that you can start working with.

For those in Singapore, we will be exploring these positions in the Tuesday & Wednesdayevening classes, and doing related work in the Language of the Shadow workshop this Saturday.

In the spirit of mindful wrestling,

Toby

Four Positions for Wrestling with your Dark Angels

In my previous article I talked about the ‘Dark Angels’ that we sometimes have to wrestle with. These dark angels are states of mind that arise from challenges in our life. They are characterized by:

  • Feeling as if you are wrestling with a dark force within that you would rather run from, hide from and/or forget about.
  •  It being difficult for you to sit down and be present with yourself because your mind cannot rest at peace.
  • If you do choose to sit down and wrestle with them you develop new strength, skills and stamina that you would not be able to develop of your ‘dark angels’ were not arising and inviting you to wrestle with them.

So, then the question may arise “Ok so if I do choose to sit down and ‘wrestle’ with them, how can I actually ‘do’ that?” With this in mind, here are four basic ‘mindful positions’ that you can adopt and develop your ‘wrestling skills’ with.

Position 1 – Observational curiosity: This first position involves taking one step, or at least half a step back from your experience, and from there be curious and gather information about what you are experiencing. Quite often just this simple act of stepping back and observing starts to reap insights quite quickly. There is a certain stability that comes from the position of observing. It puts us in the position of being in the calm centre of the storm, rather than simply being tossed around by it.

Position 2 – Courage and care: This involves extending the energy of care to yourself, and if possible to other people involved in the situation. Whatever is arising, you make care and compassion the basic perspective from which you experience the challenge. The same principle applies with courage; you simply hold the position of courage mentally, and see how it starts to work on and affect your experience of the situation…

Position 3 – Mindful framing: With this stance, you simply look for ways of mentally framing what you are experiencing that help you to see it in a positive light, for example:

  • This health problem is good because it is helping me to become more mindful of caring for my body, and look after my health more
  • The stress in my relationship is good because it is helping me to really work on and strengthen my appreciation of what my partner is doing right, rather than being fixated on what they are doing wrong
  • This financial demand is useful as it is helping me to become a better business owner and make more money whilst at the same time holding to my core values.

Your mental perspective defines your experience (and the choices you make) in large part!

Position 4 – Coming back to your body: Often when we are struggling emotionally our mind speeds up as we seek for a solution. This fourth position involves getting out of our head and into our body and senses. Come back to your body or one of your senses and use it as a stable, non-conceptual base where you can relax and gather strength and relief from the activity in your mind. Let the emotions flow through your body, just feel them somatically, without judging them, repressing them or intellectualizing them.

So there you go, four positions that you can play around with whenever you find yourself being confronted with one of your ‘Dark Angels’!

© Toby Ouvry 2018, 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

Ongoing on Wednesday’s, 7.30-8.30pm – Wednesday Meditation Classes at Basic Essence with Toby

Ongoing on Tuesday evenings, 7.30-8.30pm – Tuesday Meditation Classes at One Heart with Toby (East coast)

Saturday January 13th, 2-5pm – Integral meditation & mindful walking deep dive half day retreat

Saturday January 20th – 9.30am-1pm – Meditations for Developing the Language of Your Shadow Self 

Integral Meditation Asia

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