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 the thing to ponder on is the noisy search to be calm.
And as you probably listen to that sentence,
You can probably hear the contradiction.
Noise and searching to be calm sound like a contradiction,
Don't they?
But how I've seen this unfolding in my own life is that I went through a phase of searching to be calm,
A number of different phases actually.
I suppose the first one was what led to burnout and that was this idea that if I got everything in my life to be just how I wanted it to be,
That that is what would bring about this state of calm or happiness or I probably can't totally pinpoint the feeling I was seeking.
But it was a noisy,
Noisy search for that nice feeling.
That noisy search to be calm.
I tried to control the circumstances in my life.
I tried to control the people.
I tried to control myself,
But I think that came more into play later on.
So at that point,
I was living in a 100% outside in paradigm,
Searching and searching noisily,
Trying to control everything,
Living in a complete total and utter misunderstanding of how life works.
And I suppose the next phase came after I left education and started my own business and fell into the world of self-development.
And then that search to be calm was equally as noisy,
But it involved controlling the internal of me.
That's still outside in though.
And when you say to people inside out,
They think,
Well,
It's about sorting this out inside,
But still that search to be calm was noisy,
Really,
Really noisy.
It was tools.
It was techniques.
It was therapy.
It was so much noise.
More with the idea,
I think that I could make things be still to stop changing.
Initially I wanted the outside world to get to a certain point where I was happy with it and then stop changing.
So my ex-husband would be okay for a day and I wanted him to stay like that.
Obviously his okayness was made up by me anyway,
But you know,
My,
My,
You know,
My feeling of excitement being in a new job,
I wanted it to stay that way.
I wanted my children to stay well behaved.
All of that.
And then the inside,
Finding a place of calm in me and wanting to make that be there all the time.
Noisy noisy,
Noisy,
All in this quest to be calm all the time.
And I think what is most pertinent about my story,
And I know that it is the story of many of you listening,
Is to know that I got the way life works wrong.
Like,
Like all those tools and techniques are lovely.
They possibly do bring us into a state of calm.
They help lots of people absolutely perfectly.
And they're all innocent in their aim to do that,
To help people be calm.
But for me,
What has brought the most clarity is knowing how life works.
And in a really simple way,
The thing to know about life is,
It is form.
And therefore it is changeable.
What is happening in life outside of us inside of us is changeable.
All the time is changing and changing and changing.
That never ever goes away.
That changeability is the most permanent thing because that is how life works.
I often bring in the analogy of the weather in the UK.
My fiance is not from the UK,
He's from South Africa.
And he is often confused by the changeability of the British weather,
That we can be 21 degrees last week and 10 degrees this week and sunny and then rainy.
It's so variable.
But that's actually the thing that is consistent about the UK weather and life.
It is changeable.
And the thing is,
If it's whether it's trying to out control our outside circumstances and being in the noise of that,
Or whether it's trying to control our inside response and trying to be in control of that,
Trying to control our thoughts or our feelings or our behaviors,
All that control is noise.
And it's all outside.
Inside you is the ability to be calm.
In fact,
Not just the ability to be calm.
Inside you is calm.
But if you are out there trying to control the world and make it be a particular way and stay a certain way,
Or trying to control yourself and make yourself stay a certain way,
You're looking in the wrong direction.
And that's innocent.
It's completely innocent.
Because if you spend a little bit of time searching how to be calm on the internet,
You will find there are millions of different,
I mean,
Hundreds of millions,
I believe,
I probably should do that search,
But of ways to be calm.
Hundreds of millions of them,
Hundreds of millions.
So it looks like that's a thing to do,
Doesn't it?
That you can control your state of mind and be in a pace of calm all the time.
And what I see happening quite often with the people I talk to,
With my clients and other people,
Is that once we have touched that space of calm during a practice or a technical technique,
Then we want to grab hold of it and hold it onto it.
And that creates more noise because actually all the stuff that you're experiencing when you don't feel calm is the resistance to not feeling calm.
Maybe just sit with that for a moment.
The lack of your ability to be calm in this moment is created by resistance to you not feeling calm.
Because resistance is thought.
If there's a thought,
I don't want to feel this way.
I don't want the world to be this way.
And then there's a thought of why is it this way?
And then there's a thought of how do I change it?
And then there's a go looking and seeking and there's more and more noise.
And under the noise is the calm.
Because you're trying to fight against how life works.
It works this way.
It's changeable.
You're changeable.
And all of that is happening whether you like it or not.
If you're in a battle to try and maintain a particular state of mind,
If you're in a battle to try and be calm all the time,
That's where you're coming a cropper.
That's what you're feeling.
You're feeling the opposite of calm because you're noisily looking to be calm all the time.
And all this conversation is about is about helping you to see how life works.
This is just the truth,
Isn't it?
Life isn't static.
It's changeable.
It's moving.
It always is.
Outside is.
You are.
Other people are.
And if it looks like life's got to be a certain way for you to be calm,
Then that's a never-ending journey and that's a lot of noise.
And that noise is what's stopping you seeing the calm that is inherent to you anyway.
That is what you are made of.
So just bring some awareness of this.
That really is all there is to do.
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 Calm Cast with Clare Downham,
Queen of Calm.
Take care and keep listening.
