Powered By Calm With The 3 Principles

We live in a busy world where feeling stressed out, anxious and overwhelmed seems to have become the norm. But what if it doesn't have to be that way? What if living a wonderful life powered by calm was actually not as hard as you think? Join Clare to explore this from a 3 Principles perspective.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the CalmCast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Clare Downam,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out head teacher 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 going to talk about being powered by calm,

Which really fits nicely with the series of sessions I've been doing at the moment about productivity.

Because I know for a long time,

I just thought that the way I felt,

Which was extremely busy minded,

Overwhelmed,

Stressed out,

Anxious,

Was just how it had to be.

That that was just life.

Life was this busy,

Crazy thing.

And so the way I was feeling was just part of that.

And that if I wanted success in the material world,

As it were,

Then I needed to be part of that.

I needed to be busy.

I needed to be doing lots of things.

I needed to feel those.

Those feelings were just part of it.

Not that I needed to feel them,

But they were just part of it.

They were just part of crazy.

That's what life was like.

And I had to put up with it.

And I don't think I'm the only person who feels like that.

I am not the only person who wakes up each day and drags themselves out of bed and feels terrible and doesn't sleep and has a racing mind and perhaps is noticing other symptoms,

Other things that are affecting their health.

And,

You know,

For me,

There was other things like I started to get ill a lot,

Catch lots of colds and coughs and things.

But I just think that people think that's normal.

I thought that was normal for a very long time.

And I'm actually really grateful that I did burn out in the end.

Or maybe I burnt out for the beginning of my new chapter.

That's a nicer way of seeing it and probably more true.

Because if I hadn't,

I don't know where I would have ended up.

But I suspect in hospital might be the truth.

I think I would have ended up with a heart attack or a stroke or something if I'd carried on the way I was going,

Because I was stressed beyond what's,

Well,

Stress isn't,

This whole thing about let's have good stress.

Just what a load of rubbish.

You know,

There's no such thing.

There's no such thing.

I don't have any stress now about anything.

And my life is,

You know,

It's going OK.

So what's going on there?

Well,

Four on an epic scale is the answer,

Really.

You know,

It didn't used to be like this for human beings.

In,

You know,

In past times,

Life was different.

People did work hard,

But I don't think they brought home so much.

They're thinking about their work or,

You know,

We didn't live in this frenetic,

We didn't live this frenetic life like we're living now.

So what do I mean by being powered by calm?

Well,

It's seeing that that's what's inside you anyway.

So it's almost like there's an engine inside you.

It's full of calm.

And,

You know,

Like if you put the wrong fuel in your vehicle and it doesn't work very well,

Does it?

You know,

And it's almost like we've got this amazing,

Beautiful,

Shiny engine inside us that's powered by calm.

It's sparkly.

It's,

You know,

It's actually made out of diamonds,

This engine.

It's amazing.

And then there's just all this stuff over the top,

All this thinking.

And the thinking,

I think,

In this particular piece of the conversation is,

Is twofold.

It's,

It's the stuff that we've learned about ourselves as we've grown up about ourselves,

About the world,

About what's right,

What's wrong,

Our belief system,

Etc.

But also it's,

It's then this societal extra,

This extra layer of societal stuff on top.

You know,

Success looks like this.

It looks like an amount of money.

It looks like the certain cars on the drive.

It looks like the size of house.

It looks like this kind of relationship.

So there's all this noise out there as well.

But that,

Of course,

Is,

You know,

That,

That noise is,

Is noise that I hear about,

But I don't care now.

I'm deciding what is right for me,

What I would like to create in the world.

It's got nothing to do with out there now.

I don't,

I'm,

I'm seeing the,

The so-called trappings of success that people are pointing towards seeming less and less important to me.

I had a conversation yesterday with somebody where I was talking about the fact that I don't own a car anymore.

I mean,

I own a three and a half ton,

Seven meter motor home,

But I don't own a car.

So,

You know,

Bruce has gone out in the car today.

So I have a car on the drive and I'm not dragging the motor home somewhere,

But it's fine.

If I really needed to go somewhere,

I've got two feet and a bus or whatever.

I mean,

I don't happen to need to go anywhere particularly today.

I've got a lovely friend coming to see me,

But she's,

She's coming in her car.

So,

So,

You know,

That,

That to live life without those things,

Those trappings that seem to be too,

Too many of us so important.

So let's go back to this,

You know,

This,

This energy that we have inside that is more readily available when we are calm.

So we have this connection to the universe,

This connection to,

You know,

You might call it God if you want to,

Or you can call it energy,

Universe.

It doesn't really matter what you call it,

But I think we all have this sense that there's something that comes through us sometimes,

But what if that was available to us more of the time?

What if in the space of calm,

There is this power that we can access and we don't access it so much when we are caught up in our busy minds,

When we're in our psychology,

When we're going through the same old habitual thoughts every single day?

Because we do,

Don't we?

Have you noticed how repetitive your thinking is,

Particularly your thinking about you?

Same,

Same thing day in,

Day out.

None of that true.

And if we,

If we really sit with the idea that there is this calm energy inside us and that that can actually create everything.

So,

You know,

For me,

Productivity was a massive issue and it,

I spent a lot of time and had a very busy mind trying to make myself more productive.

And this is so interesting that now when I'm calm more of the time,

Productivity is just a natural consequence of that.

Because from a calm mind,

There is space to do things,

The space to pick up the next task,

There's space to create new things.

And that's really exciting to see,

See the possibility of that.

So,

There's this amazing,

Powerful,

Calm energy inside us.

And,

And we're not connected to it.

But this is where seeing that feeling,

The stressed out,

Anxious feeling I spoke about at the beginning,

That's where seeing that as being not the norm is so important.

So,

If we think that's the norm,

So if we think that's the norm,

We're just going to kind of live our life in this slightly wired place all the time.

But when we start to see that that's a warning system,

To let us know that we're really caught up in our thinking,

That we are,

We're caught up in our psychology,

That we're caught up in some old habitual thinking,

An old belief system.

Then we start to take more care of ourselves to move away from that.

And really moving away from that is often a breath or a,

You know,

A heartbeat away.

It's not a great big piece of work to do that.

It can look,

It can look like it is,

Because that's the story we've been told,

You know,

To be calm,

You have to be doing things,

You have to be meditating every day,

Or you have to be,

You know,

Going for the right number of walks in the sunshine,

Or whatever,

You know,

You have to be doing something.

But in actual fact you don't.

It really is a breath away.

So,

You know,

Let's take an example of somebody who's,

You know,

And I've been in this position,

Driving somewhere,

Running late,

Horrendous traffic,

You know,

Hands on the steering wheel,

Kind of,

Oh,

You know,

I need to get there,

Right,

Really stood up.

But imagine then that the thought,

You know,

I don't want to feel like this while I'm in this traffic,

I'm in the traffic,

Nothing much I can do about it.

And you feel the hands on,

Your hands on the steering wheel,

You take a breath and you find yourself back at calm.

All you need to see is that it's not the traffic,

And it's not the lateness,

And it's not anything else outside of you,

It's your thinking about that.

And then you can take a breath and you can stop.

And then the access to that calm space is just there,

It's not,

There's nothing in the way,

Really,

Apart from your thinking,

And when you step away from that,

It's readily available.

We are productivity at our core,

We are powered by calm.

We only have to look,

As I keep saying,

At the little children to see that,

To see that's how it is.

Little children are powered by calm,

We're powered by calm.

How wonderful to be able to see that.

Be able to see that.

And to see that from that calm place we can create anything.

I think people associate calm as being,

Lying on a sun lounger doing nothing,

And that's the issue.

I do when I talk to clients and I talk to people who are considering working with me,

There's sometimes this element of fear,

But what if I don't do anything?

What if I get lazy?

What if I'm so calm and relaxed,

I'll not do anything?

But the opposite is true.

Because little children are calm,

They're not wound up and they're not having anxious thinking,

And they're not caught up in their thinking about their money and the clients and whatever else we might be thinking about.

And they're just flowing through life,

Creating all the time,

Being productive all the time.

Naturally,

That's how they are.

That's how we are really underneath our thinking.

That's what's available to all of us.

I absolutely love exploring this topic of productivity because it's so,

It's the piece for me where I've seen,

I think,

That and my relationships where I've seen the biggest transformation in terms of me reaching my potential.

Because I'm doing things in the world that I never would have done before,

Because I would have procrastinated and not done them.

So I hope you're going to have a beautiful day and create some things in the world that help people or whatever it is you do.

I really do hope you enjoy that.

If you want to explore this more,

Of course,

Do join me for sessions that I'm doing on Insight Timer.

You follow me here and explore more with me and join me on some of those courses,

Join me on some of those life sessions,

See what else I'm talking about.

I hope to see you in there.

Have a beautiful day.

Take care.

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 Calm Cast with Clare Downam,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.

Reviews

You sound So chilled. Going to check out more of your podcasts. Thanks.