The Same Old Moves

Are you using the same old moves when life gets tricky? Perhaps this is something you have noticed or maybe not because we humans are pretty habitual creatures. We have things we turn to in our hour of need. It might be a drink to relieve stress or even a bar of chocolate, losing your temper and scolding a loved one, or even meditating and trying to control your state of mind. Their call comes from the outside in misunderstanding even though we see some as healthy and some as not!

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 the same old moves and I think I actually heard this on a show that we're watching.

My fiance and I are watching this show called New Girl on Netflix which is just very light,

Easygoing comedy but I love to watch things that are about people and their relationships because it is really interesting.

In the conversation where this phrase,

The same old moves,

Came up was actually,

As soon as I heard it I thought,

Oh that's something I could speak about in these sessions and it was basically,

You know,

Around the one of the characters using the same old moves every time they got into a particularly sticky situation.

I think it was drinking in that particular case but we've all got them,

Haven't we?

We've all got our same old moves that we resort to when life isn't panning out quite how we'd like it to or we're just in some kind of emotional state of mind or upset about something.

We've got our same old moves.

Yours might be that glass of wine when you get home from work or when you finish work for the day.

When I was a teacher,

I knew a head teacher who used to call it wine o'clock which was pretty much the minute she got through the door from her.

Obviously quite stressful job as a head teacher.

Mine used to be chocolate.

I'd love to know what yours are because we've all got them,

Haven't we?

We've all got those same old moves that we kind of have just got into a habit of doing.

And you know,

It might be losing your temper,

It might be eating chocolate,

It might be drinking wine,

It might be all sorts of other things that we do to manage our feelings when we don't feel good.

Now the things that I've listed so far you might view as unhealthy in inverted commas,

Unhealthy habits.

But there's a whole heap of other stuff that we do habitually sometimes to manage our feelings that are viewed not as unhealthy,

That are viewed as being good for us.

And that might be,

Well,

Anything that comes from a place of management of the self,

Development of the self,

Improvement of the self,

Like,

You know,

Examples like meditation or affirmations or visualisation or all those kind of,

Any other kind of practice that we do to feel better.

And there's a list as long as you're on.

Some of them are kind of daily practices that people might do.

Some of them are things that we might go and do intermittently when we feel like it's all really getting too much alike.

For example,

You know,

I've got one friend who regularly goes on a retreat,

Seems to come back feeling amazing.

And then fortunately life comes along again and then she's to go back and do another retreat.

And all of that is based in the same misunderstanding,

The misunderstanding that our feelings are coming from anywhere other than thought in the moment.

I think in the moment when we're feeling a certain way that it feels there's a permanence to it perhaps.

And I'm just seeing this myself for the first time right now that is that part of it that when we're feeling a feeling,

We panic that that feeling isn't going to naturally go away.

And so then there is a focus on that feeling,

Which generally makes the feeling worse.

Even if the focus is trying to get rid of it,

It does make it worse,

Doesn't it?

Because you're just giving it loads of attention and awareness and consciousness is what gives our thoughts their power or apparent power because they don't really have any,

Of course.

And so it's maybe that that's why we think we've got to do something.

And alongside that is a long term message that we should be sorting ourselves out.

You know,

That came from before we were aware of self-development,

Even as young children,

You know,

Stop crying,

Don't you shouldn't get angry,

Learn how to not get angry,

Control yourself.

We're taught from being very young that this is something for us to do.

And so we've developed all these different moves,

The same old moves,

The habitual moves,

We've developed them from that place,

From that place of believing that there is that is a thing to do to control our thinking,

To control our feelings,

To control our self.

But there's an irony there.

And the irony is that it's the same self that's trying to control the self that we apparently don't approve of in the moment,

Which is comedy,

Isn't it?

It's like trying to do your own brain surgery,

Which is ill-advised,

By the way.

So what else is there when we're not feeling okay?

I think knowledge is power here.

Knowledge is much more important than what we actually do.

If you spend time with me,

When my clients spend time with me,

I will not be telling you how to live your life.

I will not actually tell you to do anything.

I will teach you how life works and how life works is not outside in as all those habitual moves,

The old moves would have us,

Well,

Not would have us believe,

But that's why we do them.

That's why we do the same old moves because we believe that our feelings are coming from the outside,

That they are created from anything other than thought in the moment.

So when we start to look in the direction of truth,

The truth being that as a human being your feelings are created via thought in the moment,

We start to see something different because the first thing to know about thought in the moment is that it is momentary,

That if left alone,

It will pass.

It's not supposed to hang around.

It tends to hang around and feel worse because we are doing all those things to try and manage it,

Putting therefore more awareness,

More attention,

More consciousness onto those thoughts and feelings and souping them up really,

Giving them more va va voom,

Which is the last thing we want,

Isn't it?

In the moment when we experience a feeling,

When we know where that's coming from,

Like really deeply know,

Like in a deep embodied way,

In the same way that we understand all the facts about life and how they work,

Like gravity,

Something makes sense for us to do,

Which might be to feel better or might be just in the moment it makes sense to just do nothing.

Your uncomfortable feeling is telling you that your thinking is off and then from that thinking,

The off thinking,

We make a decision about what to do to make ourselves feel better and if you listen to that,

You can hear how it's not helpful.

It's like,

I don't know,

It is like trying to do your own brain surgery,

Which I've already mentioned is ill-advised by the way.

Don't don't do that at home is the joke,

Isn't it?

Your feelings are coming to you via thought in the moment,

Nowhere else.

And when you stop looking,

All those old moves begin to fall away.

They begin to make less sense.

They begin to seem like a whole lot of doing that I don't know,

I just can't be bothered with anymore because I know they're not going to really change how I feel because I'm confused in that moment,

If I'm doing something outside of me of where my feelings are coming from.

So the invitation here is to just bring some awareness in a really gentle way.

This is all held really lightly.

Just bring some awareness to your old moves.

What is it that you do time and time again to try and resolve your feelings?

And to know that very kindly,

I'm going to tell you that that's coming from a misunderstanding about where your feelings are coming from.

And it's a misunderstanding that pervades society.

So don't think that you're on your own here because you're not.

So just be open to explore what your same old moves are and just bring some awareness to that and see what occurs 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.

Reviews

There’s nothing to do is where i committed to this talk! Lol I’m tired of having to do the “same old moves” and it not work! Thank you for this talk.

One of my favorite quotes is “that which you manifest is before you”
You spoke to that point here. Thank you

Very helpful. Thank you!

Brilliant thanks