On August 17, 2023, Strategic Advisor, entrepreneur, coach and reformed “seeker of success” and ambition Colin Kingsmill and I conversed about cultural cohesion, work-life balance, direction, knowing thyself, antiquated performance reviews, toolkits, integrity, burnout, core values, goals, men/guys (not) expressing needs, nourishment, progressing, living with intention, jettisoning unhelpful conditioning, being free, changing narratives, trauma, awareness, media diets, media as big business, self-kindness, health, reconnecting and rediscovering collective humanity and ourselves, healing in a toxic culture, fear, fearlessness, listening to the body, daily rituals, therapy, resiliency, and addressing psychological suffering by reaching out
Biography
Colin Kingsmill is an entrepreneur, coach and Founding Partner at Whole Human Coaching and a Strategic Advisor to Kaylo. He is currently authoring a book entitled “Fear Less: Crossing the Bridge from Fear to Bliss.”
When people get stuck at critical transition points in their lives, he assists them in deconstructing the stories in their heads, overcoming fear, and reconstructing a new narrative to move forward, live their authentic selves and thrive. He has an acute ability to sense-make in this complex world.
His ability to fast-track clarity of mind with insight and humour guides people of all ages through relationship dynamics, confidence building, self-improvement, overcoming challenges and achieving desired results.
He believes that we have lost touch with our shared humanity and have become distracted by division, identity politics, negative news cycles, corporate and special interest greed and other forces that crush our souls.
He is on a mission to help people rediscover their humanity, be fearless and free, and remember who they are and who they will be to change the world.
About Colin by Colin:
I was born in Canada and raised between the Gulf Islands of British Columbia and the Swiss Alps. I have lived and worked (fallen and gotten back up again) globally, from Bora Bora and Beverly Hills to Montenegro & Serbia, London, Tuscany, the Indian Ocean, Thailand and everywhere in between.
The first part of my career was in Swiss banking. I did it for 10 years; co-founding an investment firm, until I broke in 2001 after having ticked all the boxes of “success”: MBA in Finance and Marketing, marriage, entrepreneurship. Christmas in St. Moritz and Easter in St. Tropez kind of stuff. You get the picture. In 2001 I gave everything I owned away (Buddha style) and moved back to Vancouver to start fresh. Literally, I began to redesign everything from scratch.
I have spend the last 20 years in international sales & marketing, branding and communications. I have really seen it all, from flying in private jets, sailing on super yachts, and mingling with industry titans; meeting Hillary Clinton and Elton John and hanging out in George Clooney’s villa on Lake Como when it was owned by the Heinz family. On the flip side of all the shiny stuff, I have also suffered the hardships of divorce and personal bankruptcy, depression and crippling anxiety.
My whole adult life I have said “yes” to opportunities without knowing what was coming next or what the consequences might be. Now I am writing Fear Less: Crossing the Bridge from Fear to Bliss, 8 steps to fearless living bringing this tapestry of life experiences to serve others.
Thanks to this vast collage of experiences, I have become an expert in helping people fearlessly pivot and make meaningful shifts in their lives when they find themselves stuck or at a daunting intersection professionally or personally.
After spending the last twelve years living and working in Europe, now I reside in the peaceful seaside town of Mahone Bay in Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada connected to nature where I can best serve my high-performing clients.
In this eleventh installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we chat about how complex speaking wisely can be. We get into the confusion of words spoken amongst various social and cultural contexts and situations; guidelines; kindness; authenticity; perceptions, intent; responsibility; non-harm; assumptions; dogmatic ideas; entitlement; empowerment; being of service; infringement; and various polarities like callousness and oversensitivity, saying something despite knowing better and not speaking up when you know you need to, and differences amongst and between genders
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or Wisdom App to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a fewmonthsthereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Wholeness! Insight Timer recently launched “MemberPlus tracks” — audio only available with a “MemberPlus” active subscription, currently consisting of a 7 Day Free Trial then US$ 59.99/year
Below, please listen to some of my MemberPlus tracks to support my work as Insight Timer shares a very small amount of all the MemberPlus subscription funds with teachers based on listens and listener engagement
If for any reason you want to listen and can’t afford a MemberPlus subscription that helps support the oodles and oodles of free material and services on/from Insight Timer, reach out and I’ll see what I can do
I introduce Randi Green’s sequences of various processes of unparalleled and incomparable energy work and processes as happening in real-time including Soul tones / light languages Sound, light, and consciousness fields Past / present life connections Some language origins White Sirian elder races & Pleiadian connections Journeys in vision Cube, spheres, and holographic teaching system tech Working with symbols, genetics, spheres, existences, consciousness, awareness, perception, light, vibration, the radiation center in the middle of the head leading into graduate for existence Brain field rings 2) Holographic code transfer involving entering a pillar and sphere of light; light body transformation and biofield integration 3) Transfiguring Sirian female coding 4) Light, meta consciousness, progressive races 5) Knowledge from the ultimate outcome for template and Heartfield integration Heartfelt exploration of non-existence, beingness, silence, recreation, & infusing positive qualities.
I introduce part 2 of Randi Green’s incomparable energy work and processes as related in real-time. Repeating the previous day’s sequence from vertical position she adds a third component to two newly generated fields and spheres to arrive at a new organic tone of well-being and gratitude. She enters the Sirian library through the merging of 33 buddhas into a light pillar where crystal discs turn into light coding for integration into being a living library keeper perhaps to its finalization. Randi then activates the Aditi layer to access deva realms and limitlessness; explores various realms of Buddhist cosmology; encounters the Lord of the Yakkhas; disentangles from forces like greed, unfairness, and envy; masters the womb; confronts craving for mastery; and explains polarity, primordial Buddha, some of the thunderbolt and Bodhisattva paths, right attitudes for rebirth via the void, still point transformations, and goes in-depth with sexuality as the unification of opposites
I introduce my fiancée Randi Green’s teachings and instructions about the Still Point for meditation and energy work. This recording includes silence, stillness, calm, quiet, cessation, gaps between thoughts, how to better see rising/ceasing, the receiving and perceiving of energy, working with pleasant/unpleasant, how to work with body challenges including right relationship and kindness as preliminaries; vertical sitting position; central nervous system; mental > mind > radiation fields; balancing the emotional system; neither going too far in nor out; contents of the mental fields; identifying what we want to connect to, work with and clear; working with various layers and levels of golden energy around the head and the golden center; receiving and working with other levels of energy from our existence and the exercise of observing the center of the brain for the still point.
This bonus of sorts to my Progressive Breath Awareness Booster course is actually a type of micro-course in and of itself with all new material. To really get the proper instructions on how to work with what you’re about to hear, please check out the first two recordings in my Progressive Breath Awareness Booster course, the brief “Introduction,” as well as “Day 1.” Both of these are free on Insight Timer. Like the main course, there are the questions and practice suggestion sections, but this recording lacks the perceptions section. The intent with such new, unique and sometimes very minutely detailed questions and practice suggestions is to challenge us to access and cultivate awareness of breath on deeper and more expansive levels. This serves to develop greater overall breath awareness mastery in order to simply maintain a more continuous bare awareness of breath on and off the meditation cushion.
This guided practice implements identifying and knowing sensations and energy dynamics on the micro, macro and wholistic scales in order to access somatic subtlety or take current access to the next level. We dive deep into somatically experiencing and knowing the origins of arising bodily energy and sensation; their flavors and types; how energy and sensation can seem to persist, move, change and desist. We also open to phenomena in and around the physical body as well as the general field of awareness by using a predominate locus of attention in the physical body then expand to the entire body, beyond the body finally bouncing back to just body.
. . . most of us have been pushed into other timelines where they have literally worn down our Energy System in whatever projects they have found fruitful for them so they could continue their “progression Sciences,” their continued developmental programs because one of the things that are important in the mission statements from the future was that we had Gene codes to recalibrate and restore genes. And that’s a huge bomb. That’s why we’ve been targeted so hard and pushed into so many negative programs because they’re literally trying to extract that code from our Energy System so they can apply to their own. They have used many of the future human civilizations that have come back — traveled back in time — to be the Breeders within their programs. We didn’t know that when we came here.
What does “good” and “evil”, right and wrong even mean
In what context is it used
One’s perceptions of this
What’s helpful to oneself
Expanded awareness
For self, other and reality
Highest progression for all
Polarity (of high energy)
In the long-term
Harm and ill-will
Being the lighthouse so not to fall into darkness
Artificial 4D and 5D cloaking after Atlantis reseeding
Individual energy systems and genetics
A type of future holographic network technology:
it’s meant to literally combine the different levels of genetic and Consciousness potentials that are represented in the council members and from that connect to the different past / present / future timelines from where it can process the most optimal outcome of what is seen and perceived when it scans this reality compared to what they offer in the councils
In this tenth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore fundamentals of mediation via the questions: How do I meditate? Am I meditating right? We addressed some of the groundwork in What Is Meditation? | 11/2/2022 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #02.
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or Wisdom App to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a fewmonthsthereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
I first heard about the IceCube Neutrino Observatory in Antartica on a long kind of roundtable on all kind of strange topics with claims it can also act as mind control, earthquake manufacturing, and interstellar communications at greater than light speed.
Here’s what the thing officially is according to wikipedia:
Similar to its predecessor, the Antarctic Muon And Neutrino Detector Array (AMANDA), IceCube consists of spherical optical sensors called Digital Optical Modules (DOMs), each with a photomultiplier tube (PMT)[4] and a single-board data acquisition computer which sends digital data to the counting house on the surface above the array.[5] IceCube was completed on 18 December 2010.[6]
DOMs are deployed on strings of 60 modules each at depths between 1,450 and 2,450 meters into holes melted in the ice using a hot water drill. IceCube is designed to look for point sources of neutrinos in the teraelectronvolt (TeV) range to explore the highest-energy astrophysical processes.
In November 2013 it was announced that IceCube had detected 28 neutrinos that likely originated outside the Solar System.[7]
Then there’s longer in-depth information via remote viewing with modern technological scientific research added on later the about the observatory’s capabilities to send and receive encoded messages in neutrinos; detect other information like radiation signatures from (UAF) crafts as well as detect artificially created signals from other civilizations:
But what I really want to share is Randi’s new brief cursory take on this thing. She recommends watching the related clip from the movie 2012 beforehand:
OK, finally, here’s what Randi has to say:
Audio: Randi Green on the IceCube Neutrino Observatory
For more information regarding the work of Randi Green visit the HAL Academy Website https://toveje.dk
Michael and I sat down at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in June 2023 to chat a little about life while positioned between East and West Germany during the Cold War and how ensuing fear contributed to stress, an interest in existentialism and what to do and how to be. We also explore loneliness, rate of change over time, the three characteristics of existence, expatriatism, belonging, interconnectedness, ground (of being), groundedness, and trust.
Causes and conditioning factors of different types of kamma
Optimism of the 1960s and 70s
Rise and fall of dhamma in the world
Interplay of trust
faith in capacity (for equanimity)
testing limits/boundaries
learning from mistakes
growing self-confidence
hinderance of doubt
Trusting the wisdom of the body
Perhaps I felt the general anticipation of the day’s meal quickly approaching and reverted to the habit pattern of a rapid fire jumping around and circling back on topics while oversteering and not providing adequate time for responses in our unplanned conversation. In short, rushing, and for that did a bit of a disservice.
Michael’s book Milestones on the Path of Dhamma: Stages Of Inner Freedom is based on his own experience of 30 years of Vipassana meditation in the tradition of Sayagyi U Ba Khin. He describes 14 milestones of a progressive meditative development which leads to increasingly subtler stages of the body-mind process. It is probably the first independent comprehensive study by a long-term student of S.N. Goenka that clearly explains important psychological insights that are bound to arise in anybody who seriously walks on this path. These Stages Of Inner Freedom ensures us that even today we can still witness the same milestones that the ancient texts like the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta mention, one after another, provided we correctly understand and apply the teaching and continue our daily practice.’
In this ninth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore language and the variability in interpretation especially in the light of how we use English terms for ideas and may not actually understand them
Wendy writes:
I was thinking about the history of translating Pali terms and how culture has played a big role in poor translations, e.g. dukkha, sunyata, sati, dhamma, sangha, bodhi.
Now that you [Josh, me] live outside the US and are learning Danish, it gives a new perspective on how tricky it is to translate well and how easy it is to misunderstand what people are trying to convey in their own language.
We also mention Wendy’s work with transportation, home retreat, love, belonging, the myth of impartiality, dream like nature of reality, love (as demonstration), waking up, “what ever we think the truth is it’s always other than that,” etc.
And as far as translating Pali I found the following articles from puredhamma.net of particular interest, which we may or may not discuss some of:
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or Wisdom App to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a fewmonthsthereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Audio: Language: Meaning, Interpretation And Impartiality | May 25, 2023 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #09
This article is a hodgepodge collection of various ideas and approaches to particular challenges in various areas of experience. It collects prior Integrating Presence blog posts along with new material.
Challenges: Family, Ex-partners, difficult folks and their social media
Are you a cyber stalker? Do you check in on what your ex is posting on social media? If so, are you noticing how detrimental this is as well as a type of short-term relief from obsessing about them that may actually make it even worse? What about when encountering enemies and checking in with family? Similar or different? What are the solutions for this?
Each of the Five Daily Reflections applied to each of the Five Clinging Aggregates
Is it wise to apply the Five Clinging Aggregates of body, hedonic tone, perception, mental formations and consciousness to each of the Five Daily Reflections of old age, sickness, death, separation and self-responsibility?
Advanced Information and Multidimensional Cosmic Drama
This is actually kind of the opposite of mundane. A lot of information and experiences of non-everyday, beyond-this-world phenomena and stuff not often mentioned in the mainstream can seem very important. And maybe it is. However, if overwhelm creeps in, could the perception of all this be just another drama albeit however influential, grand, refined, intricate, or advanced?
Deep, Whole-Body Listening and Speaking
modify: inspire concord and at proper time
How many times have we wished to be met, seen and heard more optimally? What kind of impact — incident by incident and cumulatively — does not really feeling seen or heard have? After realizing the significance of this how can and ought we meet, see and hear each and every encounter? One way seems deeper and more embodied presence, embodied listening and embodied speaking and speaking wisely — without falsehood, non-harshly, non-frivolously, with helpfulness, at the proper time, and promoting concord instead of division
Insight Dialogue — ‘Insight dialogue is an interpersonal meditation practice that brings together meditative awareness (e.g., mindfulness, concentration), the wisdom teachings of the Buddha, and dialogue to support insight into the nature, causes, and release of human suffering. Six meditation instructions, or guidelines, form the core of the practice.’
What is the point of truth‘s opposite? While falsehoods can bring a false sense of power and comfort they are actually distracting, confusing, foolish and unhelpful illusions leading away from wisdom. Truth may not always be pleasant but it’s a requirement for anything worthwhile. Without knowing the truth of something there really is little possibility to course correct.
While not really a question, the pleading from Bāhiya of the Bark-cloth to gain a teaching from the Buddha resulting in this profound utterance from the Bāhiya Sutta:
“Then, Bāhiya, you should train yourself thus: In reference to the seen, there will be only the seen. In reference to the heard, only the heard. In reference to the sensed, only the sensed. In reference to the cognized, only the cognized. That is how you should train yourself. When for you there will be only the seen in reference to the seen, only the heard in reference to the heard, only the sensed in reference to the sensed, only the cognized in reference to the cognized, then, Bāhiya, there is no you in connection with that. When there is no you in connection with that, there is no you there. When there is no you there, you are neither here nor yonder nor between the two. This, just this, is the end of stress.”
The Way to the Beyond — Questions to the Buddha from a brahman teacher’s students to test if truly awakened. Questions on discernment, contentment, being free, greatness, overcoming aging, grief, doubt, craving, sagacity, entanglements, emancipation, birth, Dhamma, consciousness, nothingness, death, etc.
What is Mindfulness and the Deeper Questions About It?
The main thing worth mentioning is in the question itself. There’s now so much written and spoken about mindfulness I don’t feel called to contribute anything significant at this time other than a few questions below and urging meditators to temporarily place aside all they’ve been taught and even come to know on their own about mindfulness to contemplate what actually is mindfulness, how does it work and what are the deeper questions about mindfulness for continuing contemplation leading to further knowledge and vision culminating in realizing awakening and release for the meditator, others and all beings everywhere as well as leading to practical, helpful wisdom in the meantime?
Some other mindfulness questions:
How did “sati” get translated as “mindfulness”?
Origins of the word “mindfulness” and “sati”?
When and how does attention become mindfulness and mindfulness become awareness? Or do they?
How does that which hinders and unhinders mindfulness happen? What are these processes (like)?
Some have a challenging time even trying to tune into the feelings and experiences of others. Then there’s the flip where some seem to have no choice but to feel others and get completely overwhelmed by it. I wrote an extensive article about the latter where I mostly apply various understandings and techniques from dhamma teachings which often do not directly address empathic overwhelm but seen and applied in certain ways surely help
What is false care? What is true care? What is the importance? Does it differ for men and women? If so how? How does how we view care and enact care differ at different points in our lives? How does it change? How can we care in the most optimal way moment by moment?
The Progressive Breath Awareness Booster course primarily addresses the breath through approaches, observations, perceptions, practice ideas, and with inquiries ranging from simple, commonplace, practical and broad overviews to the bizarre, obscure, esoteric, and minutia. This aim of this course is not to overwhelm, for overthinking, for comparison, or judgement; rather, it primarily intends leveraging cutting edge material to increase and enhance the likelihood of maintaining and prolonging bare awareness or breath for and during breath practices as well as in everyday life.
Below is a small sampling of the creative breathwork portion that if not included in the course itself may be included in some form or another in a later bonus track:
Sightseeing breath:
If breath had eyes, what would it see? How would it look at things?
Equanimity cultivation breath:
Using the following phrase with the breath in order to cultivate equanimity: “Is that so?” and then, if it is so, using the simple question: “So?”
Transmuting Into Equanimity Breath:
Breathing in whatever is (now) transmuting (its energy, consciously and/or unconsciously) into equanimity
Parasite breath:
Imagine and practice with what would it be like if breath was as a parasite or leach attaching itself to the body
Core bhramavihara breath:
Establishing appropriate ((levels) of) the Brahmaviharas as breath container and/or breathing in and out of the Brahmaviharas
Dreamworld Delineating Breath:
Either on the in or out breath asking and/or discerning if this is a dream. And/or imagining dreaming on the in or out breath and awakening and/or being awake on the other half breath
Trance Blasting Breath:
Each breath, no matter the intensity level, blasts further into and integrates into whatever trance (canceling) work is already underway
Vigilante breath:
Gurus, world leaders, ideas, thinking, emotions, pleasures, and desires haven’t set you completely (free) the way you want. What if it is time to let the breath take over your life, surrendering all power and authority to breath?
Plate Droppings Mediation
Meditation consisting of addressing whatever drops on your plate and/or what is already there. Do you ever see what’s on the plate as droppings aka animal excrement? Do you ever drop the plate?
In more commonplace meditative language: what sensations, feelings, emotions, thoughts, memories, plans, sights, sounds, movements, and other phenomena are present? What is the rate of change of these phenomena coming and going? How’s your relationship to how you are viewing, being with and responding to them? And after meditation, contemplating: how might there be wiser and more skillful ways to view, respond and be?
Sensing and/or visualizing past, present and future Buddhas, going from one to another, tuning into the Buddha, Dharma, Sangha fields associated with each Buddha, expanding these in all directions while also connecting to a common thread running throughout them all and even going beyond into other realms for this.
Past Buddhas on the left, future Buddhas on right, past lives behind, (any) future lives ahead, higher realms above, lower realms below; start one lifetime at a time noticing the strongest approximating Buddha, Dharma, Sangha fields then holding and/or being in these fields for one level all around then expanding to two, three (lifetimes) and onwards
Can meditations and techniques like How to Invoke the Medicine Buddha be drawn upon to create (other) similar dissolvable energetic medicinal constructs (for liberation)? If so, how, and what are they? Please reach out to share or share in the comments along with anything else from the material here
Integrating Presence 