Internal Ruler

How accurately can we actually measure how we are doing, feeling, and being? I suspect not very because it is the same conditioned thinking doing the measuring as being measured. It's the same set of beliefs and you might have noticed that a ruler cannot measure itself. How we are feeling right now is being seen through different eyes to the ones who saw how we were feeling yesterday. All these are here is something to notice and hold more lightly.

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 considering The Internal Ruler and this will hopefully unfold beautifully as it sounds like a very strange title, Doesn't it? Yesterday I was in a beautiful conversation with someone who felt that they weren't relating to something that was going on in their life in the way that they thought they should be relating to it. And that just, That kind of, First of all, That just adds so much to our plate, Doesn't it? Like there's what's happening and then there's the meaning we make up about ourselves in relation to what's happening. So this person was experiencing something that in the external world wasn't ideal and then they were, You know, Relating to that. First of all, Not relating to it very well. They were upset about it. They wanted it to stop. They wanted this situation to not be there. But then on top of that, They had the idea that they should be feeling better about it than they were. That they were missing something in their spiritual journey or their journey of understanding themselves because they were caught up in their thinking about this thing and wanting it to be different. And we got onto talking about how do we measure like how we are, How we're doing or how well we've absorbed some learning that we might be doing to help ourselves. Like, How do we even know what's what with that? And as it happened, I have this wooden ruler on my desk and I suspect it came from a primary school I used to work at. It looks like an old primary school ruler. It's a wooden ruler and how I don't think you can get wooden rulers anymore. And it's accurate. You know, It tells me on one side, Centimeters. It's a 30 centimeter rule on the other side. It tells me how many inches that is, 12 inches, Approximately. And it's got some accuracy to it in terms of measuring the size of things in the outside world. You know, If I hold it up against something that's five centimeters long, I can tell that thing is five centimeters long. That is an accurate way of measuring length. As far as we know, Who knows what that is? Well, Centimeters, Of course, Are made up and so are inches. But anyway, That's just something we standard. We do a standard, Don't we? In the human world, We measure things with measuring implements like rulers. But that is not available to us in terms of how we're doing internally, How we're feeling, How much we get things, Especially things to do with psychology, Whether we are further down a path that we're going on or not. Because well, For a couple of reasons, The first one that comes to mind is that you're measuring yourself. It's the same set of conditioned beliefs and thinking and stuff that is measuring how calm you are, Let's say, As is creating the feeling of calm. It's the same thinking because, Of course, Our feelings come from thought in the moment. And then we're measuring our level of calm with the same set of thinking. And I don't think scientifically that sounds like a good idea. It's like the ruler trying to measure itself and a ruler is a solid stick, So it's not going to be able to do that. We can't get a clean view of this. It's just not possible for us to do that because while ever we are considering anything in the world or anything inside of us, We're considering it from the same viewpoint as is creating the feeling. So there's some messiness there around our ability to measure. And I quite often, When I speak to people that I'm helping, That there is this idea that they know categorically that they are worse than they were yesterday or better than they were yesterday. And there's this last Tuesday afternoon, I had a really great afternoon, And this Tuesday afternoon is a bit rubbish. I'm not feeling as good. That is an accurate measure of our state, I think is just not true. It can't be because it's not metric or imperial measurements. It's our perception of that, Perceiving ourselves through our own perception. I hope you can hear the layers in that and how they just don't, It doesn't quite gel, Does it? And the other thing is the time lapse. Even how I felt five minutes ago is not, I can't compare that accurately with how I'm feeling now because I'm still looking at all of that through, You know, The perception of me five minutes ago is different to the perception of me now. That's moving and changing all the time. We're always changing, We're always new thinking, We're always moving on. And what you might be thinking now is, Well, How on earth do I go through life like in this place where I don't really know how I feel? And I would say that, Well, Actually, Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing because how much time do we spend thinking about how we're feeling and thinking we've got to do something about it and judging it as right or wrong? And maybe that's the thing, It's the comparison and the judgment because sometimes that comparison is to somebody else, Isn't it? You know, Who doesn't do this at a networking meeting, For example, Particularly at the moment when lots of them are on Zoom that you go to a networking meeting, You turn up, You know, There's you thinking, You know, Thinking about yourself, But then you're noticing all the people and what they're saying, What they're doing. And we might think somebody looks calmer than us and well, We're really riled up inside. I remember physical networking meetings sitting around the table and I had clients a few times who came to me to help them get over the fact that they thought they were falling apart inside and everybody else was cool, Calm and collected. Again, We're comparing from a place that just isn't accurate. I think what this brings is a bit of a nice space for curiosity, Really. Just a bit of space for that. If I'm not such an accurate measure of my feeling state from moment to moment, Then maybe I don't have to be quite so attached to it. That just came to mind. Maybe coming from this place of knowing that it has this amazing capacity to pass all by itself without that investment in and analyzing it and comparing it and messing it about and thinking we know what's what compared to last Tuesday afternoon and this Tuesday. Without all of that, There's just, I think, A bit more space for that system in us that works beautifully when we let it to allow the feeling to pass. As soon as we start comparing that to where we think we should be or where we were last week or how somebody else is and we start to judge that we're not at the level of calmness, For example, That we think we should be at, That there's just a whole extra layer of thinking and always I think we are benefited by less on our minds, Less thinking and certainly less comparison and judgment. The invitation here is to, I guess, Bring some curiosity to this. Just some openness around what there is is possible to see by looking in this direction. That's the invitation really. 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. Learn regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm. This has been The Calm Cast with Clare Downham, Queen of Calm. Take care and keep listening.