Clarity

Clarity can seem like something we need to get. That we must work on it endlessly. But what if you just trusted that it is always there? That even when you are caught up in misty thinking, you could access that clarity in a moment. Once you see this, clarity emerges naturally. Join me as I explore this topic from a new perspective.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,

And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music,

With an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So today I'm talking about clarity.

I talk about calm a lot,

Don't I,

And I actually do say to people that I help them to experience calm,

Clarity and contentment,

So I thought maybe clarity was the thing to talk about today.

But I love how I end up talking about these subjects,

Because this morning I was a bit like,

Oh,

What am I going to talk about today?

What am I going to share?

I didn't really have anything.

But I had been on a beautiful walk yesterday,

And I'd really seen something around having trust that the clarity is going to be there,

Because that was my experience of going on this walk.

So perhaps if I share that with you,

It'd be a good place to start.

So yesterday,

My fiance and I and his little boy drove up into the Yorkshire Dales National Park,

And the aim being to walk Penny Ghent.

So at Easter this year,

Bruce and I walked up Ingleborough and back,

Which is one of the three peaks.

And then we did Wurmside for Charity a month or so ago with Ethan.

And then we'd said,

Let's try and get Penny Ghent done before the end of the year.

Let's have done all three at least throughout the year.

The aim next year is to do all three in one day.

So watch this space for that.

I'll probably be sitting down to do the live that day and to do this recording.

So we set off,

And it was all right at home.

But as we got on our journey,

This mist came down,

And it was what we call here a pea super.

It was very,

Very thick fog.

I have to call it fog rather than mist.

It was really foggy.

And as we went on our journey,

It cleared up sometimes,

But then it came back down really thick again.

And we're getting closer and closer to the place where we were going to be walking.

Now throughout that journey,

I kind of had to check the weather app,

And I'd seen big suns across the place where we were going to be walking.

So this mist didn't seem quite right.

It felt like it wasn't supposed to be there,

Which sounds a bit strange.

But as we went on the journey,

I just had this deep sense of this is not going to be our experience on the walk.

By the time we get there,

The weather will be fine,

And we will have clarity.

It's there.

I kind of knew it was there beyond the mist or behind the mist,

That the blue sky was still there.

And every so often,

As you looked through the mist,

You could see the mist had a blueness to it.

The blue sky was really behind there.

And literally,

Maybe 10 miles away from where we were going to get out of the car and start the walk,

The clouds and the mist and the fog just disappeared.

And all of a sudden,

We just drove into blue sky.

It was as if someone had unzipped the sky and allowed the blue sky through.

Now fortunately,

It's not as hard for us as human beings to access that leg.

We don't have to get somebody to unzip a great big layer of cloud.

The feeling I had on that journey in terms of the sky was going to be fine and it was going to be blue.

And if you look at my posts on social media of the pictures of the day,

It was absolutely pristine.

There was not a cloud in the sky.

It was actually,

Bearing in mind as I'm recording this,

It's the 14th of November.

So it's not normally particularly good weather in the UK,

But we were down to just one long-sleeve t-shirt walking uphill.

It was because it was hard work as well,

But the sky was blue.

I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.

It was absolutely beautiful.

And I suppose the metaphor is that on that journey,

I felt this trust,

I suppose,

This reassurance that there was going to be blue sky when we got to where we wanted to walk,

That it was going to be fine.

And I suppose that's what I see more and more in,

Well,

I see it in other human beings,

But I see that other human beings don't see it themselves.

And I see it more and more in myself that if I'm not in a place of clarity,

Then all I need to do is wait and it will,

It will come.

But there's something about the waiting being from a place of trust,

Knowing that you are not broken.

There is nothing wrong with you.

You,

You know,

You're not,

You know,

The cloud isn't permanent,

The mist,

The fog,

None of that is permanent.

None of that is who you really are.

That in any moment,

If you're not feeling,

Feeling it,

If you're not feeling the clarity,

If you're not feeling calm,

You're not feeling content even,

That you are just momentarily caught up in temporary thinking,

Like temporary fog.

It's not going to stay foggy forever.

It's foggy again today at my house.

I don't know what it's like at Pennegan.

It'd be interesting to see what it's like in the Yorkshire Dales today,

Whether it's still clear,

Who knows,

It doesn't really matter.

But if we go through life with this sense that there is something hugely wrong with us,

That we are damaged,

That we are broken and that there is a lot of work to do to change whatever it is we want to change,

Then that can.

But I think that sits in the way of change.

And it doesn't really matter what you're trying to get some clarity of or what you're trying to,

To be different about.

It doesn't matter whether it's your,

You know,

Your behaviour and your personal life,

Whether it's something in your business.

You know,

I read something the other day where somebody said that they,

They're not getting videos out onto,

You know,

Into the world because they retake them so many times.

I literally never retake a video.

Doesn't really matter what it is anymore.

Now I would have done in the past,

I would have perfectionised that.

That's a word now apparently perfectionised.

But I would have,

I would have gone over and over and over things redoing them.

But clearly,

You know,

I record this and it's done.

I don't go back to it.

You know,

No matter what we think is not okay about us,

About our life,

About everything,

That clarity is,

Is inside us all the time.

It can't be taken away.

It can get covered over sometimes.

And that's really very different to a lot of psychological models that say that,

Well,

You're,

You're kind of broken,

You're going to have to put up with being like this for the rest of your life.

There's no way out.

You know,

You'll just have to learn to manage it for the rest of your life.

And I just do not hold with that.

I don't think it's a helpful,

Kind,

Compassionate message for people.

We are absolutely fine.

We are this complete clarity,

Calm,

Contentment.

We're all of that,

But sometimes we are caught up in rubbishy thinking that gets in the way of that.

And that's like the mist or the fog.

But the blue sky is pointing to,

You know,

The metaphor of the blue sky is pointing to the fact that there is something at your essence,

Something at your heart,

Something in your soul that is beyond your thinking.

It's beyond the mist and the fog.

And really when you see that it has a profound,

A really profound impact on,

On trust,

I think.

Like for me yesterday,

Driving up to the walk,

I just had momentary thoughts of,

Oh my God,

I'm going to be walking up Penny Ken in the fog and we don't really know.

We've not done it.

I've not done it for 20 odd years,

30 years maybe.

And you know,

I don't know my way.

So we were kind of relying on maps and things like that.

I just knew it was going to be okay.

And if you can imagine going through life,

Knowing that you're okay,

Not that you're going to be okay,

You're already okay.

Momentarily you are caught up in some very realistic looking thinking,

But it's not true.

You are something more than that thinking.

And I,

I wish,

I wish I,

I dream of everybody being able to see that because there is so much suffering at the moment and it's people suffering because firstly they believe they're thinking and secondly,

They think they are their thinking.

And there's so much more to that.

There's so much more to life than that.

So I'd love you to see that you're the blue sky and the sun and that that is always available to you just one breath away all the time.

Never,

Ever.

It can't be taken away from you.

It's always that.

So sending you lots of love today and in the hope that if you can just spend today looking in that direction,

Trust me,

Your life will unfold in a very different way.

Lots of love.

Thank you so much for listening.

There's nothing to do now,

But bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.

This has been the Calmcast with Clare Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.