Information Creates Overwhelm

Information from the outside creates that overwhelmed feeling. News, social media feeds and other people's ideas. But also information about the inside like seeking the reason for feelings, trying to control our thoughts and searching for calm. All this information and trying to understand fills our heads and if we have a decision to make, it can really get in the way. Because, what is right for you is unique and your right next step is just for you. No-one else.

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's exploration is around information.

Quite often we seek the answer outside of us,

Don't we?

When we've got something we need to solve,

A problem,

A decision to make,

We look to try and find the answer outside of us and there are many many sources of information available to us.

The internet has provided that hasn't it?

That we now have many many sources of information.

We have news and the social media and just other people's opinions.

I attend a lot of networking events where other people will share what they believe to be true about a certain situation.

It's quite a bit of it about at the moment I think.

I think that always has been but it seems very clear at the moment and if we're looking to solve something in our lives and we're looking outside of us there is an element by which we want some perhaps some knowledge about something,

How something works.

So for me that might be technical information or a YouTube video telling me how to do something and that has some use I think.

But if the information is opinion based then I feel like it tends to fill our heads and it's as if we're going to base a decision about our future on somebody else's past because somebody else's opinion is created from their past,

From their thinking,

From everything that they've seen and learned over the many many years of their lives.

It isn't something that's true to us and that seeking of information outside of us can become exhausting.

I remember myself looking for the answer to you know to generally make myself feel better,

To have a better experience,

To be more motivated,

To be more of what I thought I was supposed to be and that involved looking at a lot of different bits of information and opinions really.

Generally those opinions were about what had worked for other people in terms of self-development or my business or all sorts of other things.

Even you know parenting there's plenty of opinions on that too isn't there.

And I've spoken before about really the difference between you know having presence and being where you are right now and information in general.

Then I spoke about positive thinking before but generally information against presence.

And it seems to me that if we are looking outside of us and basically internalizing or taking on board other people's thinking about whatever it is,

We're missing something inside of us that is probably in there dying to get out.

And I think that works to fill our heads from the outside in but also there's something about what is then on the back of that filling our heads when we think about ourselves.

The complications that can come from seeking why you're feeling a particular way,

The information that we can create about why we're feeling a particular way that has come from those outside ideas about why we feel the way we feel.

So I know that when I felt feelings I saw that,

Well I thought that that came from my past and so I would be feeling a feeling and then analyzing intensely where that would have come from.

What is it in my past that created that and I did that on my own but I did that also with the help of therapists.

And then there's more thinking and more noise.

If we ask ourselves the question why do I feel this way and we go into one of those spheres of looking at the past or thinking of our labels and how we've perhaps been given a particular label for why we would feel the way we would feel.

I feel like we're making it very very complicated again filling our heads with information.

Most of which again is created by somebody else's ideas about where your feelings come from.

Now of course I share in this content my understanding about where my feelings come from and where your feelings come from but it has a beautiful simplicity to it that when people hear it they do settle because it seems that they can stop that seeking,

Stop looking for the information,

Stop trying to find the answer to why they feel the way they feel.

And the truth is that in any moment you feel the way you feel because of the thoughts that are passing through you,

The thoughts that are in your awareness in this moment.

So what I'm pointing to today is that where we are trying to find the answer outside,

Where we are looking for that information that's going to give us the thing that we think we need,

What we don't have is the space and from the space comes your truth and that is always available for you.

It's always there.

If your head is very noisy and full of information,

If it's full of looking for the answers outside you or that self-analysis that is seeking the reason why you're feeling how you're feeling,

Then your head will be noisy and that overwhelmed feeling that looks like it's coming from outside is really because your head is full because the truth is that overwhelmed feeling comes from overthinking,

It comes from having more in your head than is helpful,

Shall we say.

And there's something here around seeing the joy that's available in simplicity because if you're a bit analytical like me and you like to know why things are the way they are then it's really seductive,

Isn't it,

To go poking and prodding into that information that the answers outside of you or that self-analysis.

It looks really really tempting but really knowing the truth about where your feelings come from,

Knowing that simple truth has created so much freedom for myself and lots of other people who I work with and when there is that space whatever answer it is you're seeking,

Whatever it is you are trying to find in the world,

It's not out there,

It's inside you and whatever you're looking outside,

Wherever you're in that self-analysis,

That which is inside you,

That which comes from that space is just not able to be heard.

The ideas and the difference you can make in the world will come from that space.

They will not come from you living in your life in the information or living your life in poking around in the past.

The past does not have the answers and there's something reassuring about that because for me it meant I could stop,

Stop searching,

Stop looking outside of me and be in that place that is available to all of us,

Available to all human beings where from that space something new can come up and it's exciting to be in the space of not knowing and being okay with that and seeing what comes up and that potential is in you.

Don't hide your light underneath all this noise in your head,

Underneath all that information.

We all have something amazing to give to the world every human being does but when our head is very full the space for that to come through is just not so available to us.

So the invitation today is maybe just for a day to stop looking for the answers outside of you,

Maybe just for one day and see what happens.

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 Car.

Take care and keep listening.