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 posing a question.
Are you trying to transcend to manage stress?
And this question has come to me because of a conversation I had with a client yesterday.
And we were talking about,
As we often do,
Our feelings and I guess the encouragement from me is always in the direction of acceptance that as humans,
We're supposed to feel all the different feels and that is part of the human experience.
And that often it is in the resistance of those feelings that we feel worse and things tend to last longer.
And the man I was talking to said,
Oh,
It really looks like I'm trying to transcend my feelings.
I couldn't resist looking it up,
What that word actually meant because I've heard of transcendence.
I've heard before of transcendental meditation,
Which I feel very proud of the fact I've actually got that out without dripping over my teeth.
But I really didn't have a sense of what that meant.
I know it's something that people seek to do.
Now I know that people seek to do it within the practice of meditation or some kind of spiritual movement,
But I suspect that day in,
Day out,
Human beings are trying to do that.
Because I've tried it myself,
Hands up and I've talked to lots of people who are also trying to do that.
So we looked it up on Google and it said transcendence to go beyond or above the range of normal or physical human experience.
And we then began to unpick that.
It sort of split it into the two phrases and unpick that a little bit.
And I'm going to share that where that kind of led to or what's coming through me in regards to that right now.
So the first thing to consider is this idea of a range of normal or physical human experience.
That there are some things that belong within that range,
That that's a set space.
That there's a range of human experiences that are kind of normal,
That they fit into a box like we as humans should fit into a box somehow.
And I just don't hold with that because even somebody who is in the midst of a transcendental state shall we say and perhaps induced by meditation.
Well they are still the human having that experience.
So how are they they're still having a human experience.
But it seems like it's something extraordinary because they've created a range with which they think is normal.
And that's one of the things I think that trips us up all the time.
That there is something called a normal human experience and that anything outside of that is abnormal or perhaps a sign of mental illness.
What if we saw every one of our experiences as normal.
And I feel the emotion of that because I really don't think a lot of us do right now.
It fits beautifully with my favorite Sydney Banks quote which is if the only thing that people learned was not to be afraid of their experience that alone would change the world.
I guess that's what I hope to do.
Because what if every one of your experiences you welcomed in as being normal and OK and part of the range of normal.
Imagine what that would be like to have that day in and day out.
And that's bringing me to a really emotional state because I imagine a world where that is so.
And I imagine the joy and the calm and the clarity that people would live in.
So it really does feel quite emotional.
Because it is in the judgment.
It is in the judgment that we create the resistance and then we create the discomfort.
That space of acceptance that everything belongs in the range of normal human experience.
That's transformational.
And then the first part of the phrase it made sense to look at the second part.
So the phrase again is to go beyond or above the range of normal or physical human experience.
Transcendence or to transcend.
And then there's this idea of beyond or above.
That to me brings to mind deeply comparative language.
The idea that there are levels of human experience some are of higher quality than others that they have a difference.
That is measurable and judgeable.
And that means that whenever you're not in one of those states that you think is OK you're seeking to be somewhere else.
With the idea that that somewhere else will be better.
That you'll feel better when you're there.
Again who decides I mean where where does the line lie when you know you're above or beyond the range of normal physical or human experience how do you even measure that.
I guess internally there has to be some kind of grading system.
I feel the exhaustion when I think about the idea of grading my experience as I go through life.
It feels tiring to be using that as a way to manage stress.
And I see this self-consciousness in lots of the people I have conversations with.
This noticing of how they are of relative to yesterday or relative to the wonderful space of transcending it all.
And this is not meant as a criticism of any of those practices because they are all done with love and with compassion I feel.
If you've meditated and you've experienced a beautiful feeling during that meditation.
But then you're comparing the rest of life to that.
It almost creates more of a problem.
I can relate to that.
I remember that idea.
I knew when I meditated I could be in this wonderful calm space.
But the rest of my life didn't quite feel like that to say the least.
This again and this is something I'm speaking to so much at the moment and seeing so much as this is about acceptance.
Not judging any part of your human experience as wrong or right.
But knowing that it's all part of the range of normal.
That takes a great big heap of stuff off your plate because there's nothing to do.
And if the experience right now is not your favorite one then all it takes is a new thought for that to change.
It's a lot less work than 20 minutes twice a day Transcendental Meditation.
Although if you want to do that go for it.
So again you know just consider how much of your life you are spending trying to transcend trying to escape from what is and be in a different space.
And as always it's just an invitation to get curious around that.
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 Calmcast with Claire Downer,
Queen of Calm.
Take care and keep listening.
