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 asking the question,
What feels important right now?
What seems like if it doesn't happen the way you'd like it to,
If it doesn't change,
That you can't be okay?
Understandably,
Of course.
So whether that's plans that you're making or something in the future you want to happen in your business or your life or work or whatever,
Maybe,
But maybe it's a way you're feeling right now and you want that to change.
You want it to go away,
The feeling that you don't like.
I had a lovely conversation with a client yesterday who wasn't feeling so good and there was a sense that they were the one who had to make it be different in some way.
And what this looks like,
Whether it's how we're feeling inside or how the world needs to be outside for us to be okay,
It's like we're pumping extra energy into that thing,
Grasping at it,
Adding weight to it.
I heard it described recently as being like,
You know,
Just pumping more and more and more air into a balloon.
And we all know what happens to a balloon when we've pumped a lot of air into it.
When we're thinking about something and it feels like we need that thing to change,
We need something to be different in our world,
It's just putting a lot of weight on it.
I recently spoke about goals and desires in this very similar way.
And of course,
The thing of thinking that it's going to be all that anyway when we get there,
How many times do we get there to wherever there is?
And it's not what we thought.
But the thing about making something important is that that's extra thinking about that thing.
I totally understand wanting things to be different.
There are things in my life I would like to be different,
Lots of things,
Trust me.
And day by day,
I take action in the world to move myself towards those things.
And sometimes they do feel heavy and important.
But what I'm really noticing is on the days when I don't add so much weight to them,
There is something different about how I am in the world.
There's something different about the actions I take.
There's something lighter because it is in the lightness,
In lightly holding those things,
Those things we desire.
Like don't get me wrong,
As I say,
There are things I would like to happen.
Sometimes I would like to feel different.
But where it looks like life depends on it,
There's just a lot of noise in our heads.
And almost from that place of desperation,
There's just a lot of noise that doesn't allow us to connect to our own inner guidance,
To our own intuition,
To wisdom,
What wisdom has to offer when there's so much in our heads.
And of course underpinning all of that is this idea that there is a self that needs all these things to be a certain way.
That this set of beliefs and ideas that is this thing we call the self,
Well,
It's just a belief,
Isn't it?
That we need things to be a different way.
Maybe it doesn't.
I mean,
I heard it described that it's like over chewing.
Have you ever over chewed food?
I don't eat meat anymore,
But when I used to,
I have this recollection of being a child and over chewing meat to the point where you can't really do anything with it other than spit it out because it's just gone to the stage where it's this horrible,
Over chewed,
Dried up.
I don't know what happens to it in there,
But it's just horrible.
And I remember as a child getting to the stage where it would either be really horrible to swallow it or,
You know,
You just get it out of your mouth because it's so unpleasant.
If we're,
You know,
Chewing and chewing and chewing on an idea of how life needs to be for us to be okay,
There's a lot of noise and it just becomes really hard to swallow.
Because actually what a beautiful metaphor.
Because what is there when we swallow the bit of over chewed meat?
There's just space.
Space for us to get a drink of water,
Space for us to do something that's nicer to chew,
Space for us to enjoy the rest of the meal,
Space for us to be present with the people around us,
Which perhaps when we're over chewing the piece of meat we can't.
We're too caught up in here trying to sort this piece of meat in our mouth out and we're missing what's happening right now,
What's pleasant in our lives,
The people around us,
The things that are happening in the here and now.
I mean it really is a beautiful metaphor.
Because what there is now is no words.
Isn't that interesting?
There's words now obviously.
So maybe there's something here to bring some curiosity to,
To see what looks really,
Really important right now.
What looks like my well-being depends on it.
What looks like if it doesn't work out that way I won't be okay.
And I am not saying don't pursue something different,
Don't look in that direction.
But there is something about how important it seems to be that seems to me to add a lot of extra thinking that perhaps isn't helpful to us.
And you know this is not about you trying to force yourself not to think about something because that's just not possible.
But to perhaps just get curious about how much more likely you could hold that thing.
Could it be held a little lighter?
Could it be it would be fun to have?
It'd be nice if rather than this has to be this way.
As we see increasingly the inside out nature of life it does get easier to hold those things lighter and that is the joy of this conversation.
Just it seems to me that gradually over time everything can be held a little lighter.
And for me where I'm really noticing that is other people's behavior.
Because my history around other people's behavior is that I'm right and everybody else is wrong.
That's kind of how I used to see the world.
And as I hold that more lightly or not hold it at all really it seems to me more and more that other people don't have to be any different.
Because that's really got nothing to do with me or how I feel and that's really is freedom.
That really is freedom.
I think we could all do with a bit of that freedom right now couldn't we?
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 Claire Downham,
Queen of Calm.
Take care and keep listening.
