Welcome to today's Thriving Insight with me,
Claire Downam,
Creator of The Thriving Woman Approach.
This short insight is your gentle reminder to reconnect with your inner calm,
Build greater awareness and take one simple step towards thriving in your life today.
And today's reminder is the truth about calm.
Let go of stress and anxiety.
And I'm here to remind you that calm is not something to chase.
There is nothing in the world out there that can really give you that sense of calm you are seeking.
No matter how many things you do out there,
No matter how many things you achieve,
No matter how many people you connect with,
No matter how many hours of meditation and other practices you may do,
You will never,
Ever,
Ever find calm out there.
Now,
This may sound like something difficult to take on board,
But wait until I tell you the rest of this story.
The reason you can't find the calm out there is because in essence,
Calm is who you truly are.
In actual fact,
That seeking of calm is what creates all our stress and anxiety.
That's all,
The seeking of calm.
That's so ironic,
Isn't it really,
When you think about it?
For me,
That chasing of calm ended in burnout.
It ended with me so exhausted and so overwhelmed by all the things that I thought I had to do and all the things I thought I had to control and think about,
That eventually my body became so tired that I could not go on.
My burnout became a year off sick.
In fact,
I'm grateful that it happened because now I get to make these beautiful audios for you and I get to guide people every day towards thriving and away from just surviving.
So this reflection today is just a reminder.
It's the kind of reminder that I give people all the time with the Thriving Woman approach.
It's that reminder to see who you truly are and that calm is always here.
All you need to do right now really is just take a breath and feel your feet on the floor.
No tool really,
No technique,
No endless practice of anything,
No chasing of anything in the outside world.
Just a settling into the present moment.
One of my favourite quotes around this is that of Jack Pransky,
Who said,
All we are is peace,
Love and wisdom and the ability to create the illusion that we are not.
And that's the invitation for you to see that right now.
Right now,
Can you connect to that calm that is already there inside you?
Can you see that that is your natural state?
And that really,
The only time you don't experience that is when you are caught up in the constant stories and interpretations and nonsense that comes from the mind.
Just watch how you float between the two all day every day.
This is an invitation to increased awareness and noticing.
There is nothing to do.
Your thoughts and emotions are not something you can control,
Much as that is an idea that may have been shared with us many,
Many times out there in the world that doesn't know about the inside out understanding.
You are calm,
You are peace,
You are wisdom,
You are love already.
You do not need to go and find that out there in the world.
So today,
As you go through your day,
I invite you to notice.
To notice what's going on when you feel anxious,
When you feel stressed,
And to notice what's going on when you don't.
Notice how you naturally fall into the present moment.
Notice how your thoughts and emotions naturally flow through you and see that at your essence you are that experience of calm.
I hope you found this little snippet helpful in moving you from surviving to thriving.
I'm Claire Downam,
The founder of The Thriving Woman Approach,
Taking people like you on a journey from surviving to thriving.
Take care and much love.
