Location: Can be done onsite, or at Toby’s workshop space
Format: Can be done as a day or half-day workshop, or as a series of 4-6 1-hour modules. Online & hybrid also possible.
For further enquiries: Email info@tobyouvry.com, or sms 65-96750279
Location: Can be done onsite, or at Toby’s workshop space
Format: Can be done as a day or half-day workshop, or as a series of 4-6 1-hour modules. Online & hybrid also possible.
For further enquiries: Email info@tobyouvry.com, or sms 65-96750279
Overview:
So much of what we do in life is motivated by the pursuit of love, and the idea of the happiness that we can gain by receiving it from, and giving it to others. Yet so often we find ourselves feeling starved of love, kindness and compassion, and struggling to find the inner resources and wellbeing to give and express it to others.
This course takes practical look at how love and compassion can be combined with meditation and mindfulness; combining the healing and strengthening benefits of both…
This course is about how we can build an experiential abundance of love and compassion in our life, regardless of the obstacles, through a simple set of meditation practices that can be integrated into our life in a flexible format.
The SKILLS AND CAPACITIES that you can expect to gain from engaging in this workshop are:
- An understanding and practical experience of the energetic, psychological and spiritual dynamics of love, ensuring that you are receiving enough love and compassion into yourself to consistently feel happy, balanced and able to give it to those around you, even when you are under pressure
- Ways of building stable and effective structures in your mind that enable us to channel, store, and increase the energy of love effectively within yourself
- The ability to use your own sufferings and challenges to re-enforce your compassion and empathy, rather than having your own pain decrease these capacities and trap you in self-involved patterns of egoic pain
- To progressively increase the scope and scale of your love over time
- Learn how you can rest in a state of love in order to regenerate your energy and inner strength, even in some instances using it as a force for physical healing
Course Details:
Topic 1 – The structure of love and compassion and how they grow
This opening class takes a big-picture look at how love grows within our awareness and maps out an inner structure that we can build within ourselves that can progressively hold greater and deeper levels and experiences of love and compassion. We will be engaging in a meditation that enables us to feed and build our love and compassion in a real, practical way each day of our lives, particularly in our relationships.
Topic 2 – Love at each stage and station of your Life: Mindfulness of the psychological and archetypal dynamic of love within self
This second class takes a look at the psychological dynamic of love within us, and how we can create an “inner communication network” within ourselves that enables the different parts of our self to receive and give love to each other in a mutually supportive and beneficial way. This in turn gives us the resilience to maintain a loving and compassionate approach to ourself even when under inner and outer pressure. The external effect of this improved psychological dynamic is the ability to relate to others with whom we have daily contact in a more loving and compassionate manner.
We will also be looking at how we can be mindful of all the different sources of love that we have available to us in our life, and how we can leverage on these sources more effectively through mindfulness and meditation.
Topic 3 – Love as our romance with life
Class three takes a look at our life as:
- A romance between ourself and the fundamentally mysterious nature of life
- A romance between the different elements of our inner being
- A romance between ourself and other humans
- A romance between ourself and nature
- A romance between ourself and our work-as-art
The meditation and mindfulness practice in this class explores practical and experiential ways in which we can experience our life as a journey toward romantic fulfillment in the integral sense of the word!
Topic 4 – Love, compassion and the shadow
Class four takes a look at all the hidden obstacles to experiencing a stable and deep flow of love and compassion in our life. In particular it looks at aspects of our thinking and feeling that we may be prone to repressing and denying, and consequently we may be blind to/unaware of. We will be engaging in mindfulness techniques for uncovering our repressions and denials so that we can be free to love and care in our life with depth, freedom and authenticity
Topic 5 – Practices for connecting with deep empathy and compassion
Class five focuses upon the development of empathy and compassion, and in particular in its potential for healing and transformation. The meditation techniques taught in this class will draw upon the traditional Tibetan Buddhist Tonglen or Lojong techniques (interpreted in an integral manner) which are well known for developing an especially strong and resilient form of compassion and mental strength.
Topic 6 – Resting in Cosmic, timeless and non-dual love
This final class focuses on love as a cosmic force that exists within and flows all the way from the physical world up through the emotional and mental world into the domains of timeless, formless spirit. The meditation and mindfulness practice taught in this class is a method of tapping into and accessing this “cosmic force” in a way that is deep and profound, but simple enough for us to use as a daily meditation practice for reducing stress. Learn to plug youself into a deep, gentle and primal expression of love!
Classes are suitable for:
- Beginners to meditation who are particularly interested in how meditation can help them increase the amount of love and compassion in their life, and all the wellbeing benefits that this provides
- Those who have been practicing meditation for a while and wish to integrate specifically more meditation on love and compassion
- Those who are interested in what an integral/holistic practical model for developing love and compassion looks like, and want to know how it can be practically integrated into their daily life
In addition the workshop itself you will also receive:
- A full set of MP3 recordings of each of the classes to review and re-listen to whenever you want
- Short MP3 studio recordings of the basic meditations covered in each class, in order to help facilitate your own daily practice
- A workshop handbook detailing all of the meditations covered, plus other relevant diagrams, articles and information of developing integral love and compassion