Understanding Separate Realities Creates Calm

Have you noticed how you feel when you rant about someone? Pretty rubbish I guess. It really looks like that feeling is coming from the person we are ranting about but that is a misunderstanding. The feeling is coming from our ranting thinking not the other person. When you see this, calm is only a breath away. Join me as I explore this topic from a new perspective.

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 I'm,

Well today it's Halloween,

The 31st of October 2022 and I'm having a really interesting experience of Halloween this year.

So to give you a bit of background to this session which is called Understanding Separate Realities Creates Calm.

It's a bit of a mouthful isn't it,

I couldn't find a different way to phrase it.

So I've never been a fan of Halloween,

I'll be honest with you.

I have some opinions about it which I will share with you.

They don't really matter but it's just to give you a bit of background really.

So I remember,

You know I'm 51 and a half apparently,

And I remember when I was a kid Halloween wasn't really much of a thing.

We didn't really do all the,

You know we didn't do trick or treating or anything.

I don't ever remember going trick or treating when I was a child.

I don't remember being,

I do remember seeing it on American television programmes and thinking this is a funny thing that they do in America,

How strange,

You know that kind of thing.

That it was such a big,

Such a big thing and I think even now it's a much bigger thing over there than it is over here.

But over the years what I've seen happen is that as with many things that are in America it's ended up being quite a big thing over here.

And you know my 11 little cul-de-sac,

Quite a few houses are quite decorated,

Ready for Halloween.

There's a lot of stuff in the shops.

There was not,

This,

I was walking down an aisle in a supermarket over the weekend and one side was Halloween and the other side was the word that I can't say until tomorrow,

The C word,

You know,

The festivities of December,

Which I can't do until tomorrow.

So it was,

That made me,

That was quite amusing really to see that.

So this is how I have done Halloween.

So my children are nearly 23 on Friday and 21 already and they've never been trick or treating.

I never took them.

And they haven't really dressed up for Halloween unless they've been going to something like a party where everybody else has been dressed up.

They've not,

They've not really,

We've never done Halloween.

I think they,

I think my daughter's now at university so she dresses up because everybody's dressing up for Halloween.

And we were chatting about it last night over dinner because she's at home at the moment with her boyfriend and we all relate to it in a similar way really.

Not really bothered for it.

I think it's a bit of a fuss about nothing.

And also for me,

There's a bit about the environment.

So I see a lot of plastic stuff being used to decorate houses,

Which I suspect,

Although that's my story,

Are going to go into the bin afterwards.

And it's interesting actually,

Because I,

Even a year ago probably,

I wouldn't have been able to kind of talk about that subject without getting quite het up about it,

Getting quite kind of wound up and ranty and upset about it.

You know,

I do tend to get a bit ranty about things to do with the environment.

But this year I'm noticing a subtle difference and I'm not there.

Like I'm never,

Whenever there are we,

There's no there to get to.

So why would we be?

But I'm noticing a subtle difference in my relationship with this thing called Halloween in that I don't care quite so much that everybody else is doing it.

Because I really did fundamentally think everybody was doing it,

Was an idiot.

No,

I didn't really think that.

But I did think,

What the heck are people doing following this American thing?

It's not even us.

And then kind of,

You know,

Doing all this excessive spending of money and,

You know,

Houses are lit up and all the plastic and stuff for the environment.

So I used to get quite upset about it.

But now I'm just like,

Oh,

That's separate realities,

Isn't it?

There are 7.

8 billion,

Approximately,

People on this planet and there are 7.

8 humans working in exactly the same way.

But because they all think differently,

They all produce a different life.

We all see things differently.

We all experience different things.

We experience,

We can be in exactly the same situation as each other and have a completely different experience to each other.

And that's just now,

For me,

Interesting rather than stressful.

Because you may or may not have noticed,

And it's worth noticing,

How you feel when you rant.

How knotted up you feel inside,

How stressed you feel,

How tight you feel in your body.

Well,

That's telling you something.

That's telling you that that ranting is having an impact on your body.

I'm not going to get caught up in whether that's a long-term impact or a short-term impact.

But if you're doing a lot of that on a day-to-day basis,

A lot of that ranting,

A lot of that err about things,

It will be having an impact on your body.

There's no two ways about it.

Because it starts the adrenaline,

Causes all pumping,

Gets your body into that kind of stress response,

And it's not so good for you.

And but when you start to see,

Oh,

Like,

It's almost,

I don't know if you've come across those little,

Keeps coming up on it,

I don't know why Instagram thinks I want to play little games like that.

But there's a game where you have to pour liquids into little,

It's like a row of jars or different,

Because you've got to try and get all the same colored liquids into the jar by tipping little bits of liquid between jars.

Anyway,

It's almost like there are 7.

8 billion of these little test tubes.

And we've all got different,

Slightly different shade of liquid inside us.

So or maybe we've all got slightly different,

Just slightly different colored glasses.

So you know,

I might be seeing a pink world.

And you might be seeing a purple one.

We've all literally seeing the world in our own unique way,

Because we've all had different combinations of colors of liquid dripped into us over time through our experiences that we've had and the conditioning that we've undergone.

And that's happening all the time.

My daughter was on the train the other day,

And she said she was watching this one mother,

Vanessa,

Who was speaking very seriously severely to one of her children,

Not the other one,

And encouraging grandma and the other little child to be on this little girl.

And we were all saying how sad that was,

Because the little girl will be learning things about herself in that experience,

Five or six years old,

That she'll carry with her.

Now that's not blaming the mother.

Goodness knows what state of mind she was in,

Again,

The separate realities.

But what it does is it helps you to feel a lot more compassionate,

A lot more understanding for the people.

And I don't know whether you've noticed or not,

But when you're in a place of compassion,

Well,

You just feel a heck of a lot nicer.

In your body,

You feel better.

You feel weller.

I don't care,

You know,

You feel,

You just feel,

I guess,

More connected to your well-being.

You feel calmer.

And that's what it does when we understand separate realities.

We are just calm all the time.

Now that is not saying that I,

As the Queen of God,

As you'll know,

I am.

I'm in that place all the time because I'm not.

I'm sometimes in it and I'm sometimes not in it.

It really does vary.

I sometimes go into that place.

But what I've noticed really is this,

You know,

As time goes on,

I stay in that place just a little bit shorter time.

I don't,

I don't,

I don't rant for as long.

I still will sometimes have a moment of,

Oh,

My God,

Why is that person doing that?

But then there's these two aspects.

There's the one aspect is I then realize,

Oh,

Because they're thinking that way.

They can't choose different thinking.

It's like we think people can.

We think,

Why did that person do that awful thing?

They should have done better.

Well,

They couldn't have done better in the moment.

And it's,

You know,

There's that.

And then there's the other bit,

Which is it just feels nicer to be in a place of compassion.

It feels calm.

It feels more pleasant.

You'll be a nicer person.

You'll feel better.

It's really quite self,

It's self care really.

And the other thing that's just come to mind that's worth mentioning is that your separate reality is being created itself.

So what you thought yesterday was okay to do today,

You might think differently or you might do something now.

And in five minutes time,

Think,

Oh,

Probably shouldn't have done that.

Well,

That's because you are now in a different separate reality to the one you were in 10 minutes ago.

Because as you're thinking changes,

Which it does,

I think it's changing all the time.

We're learning new things.

We're having insights.

We're seeing things differently.

And that might be just because we say something mean to somebody and they then get upset.

And then we think,

Oh,

I said something mean to somebody.

And then the realization can make us feel really bad.

But it's seen that in the moment when you did it,

You had one set of thinking and now you've got a different set of thinking.

So now what you did before was really awful.

But again,

There's a separate reality there.

And even between you and the you of 10 minutes ago have separate realities.

And when you when you see this,

It's like,

Wow,

We.

Everybody's doing the best they can,

And it doesn't mean that we have to take other people's behavior,

Not if it's if it's in our lives and it's something we don't like.

We can still say no.

We can still say,

I don't want that person to be part of my life because,

You know,

I get compassionately that they are doing their best,

But it's not for me.

And it still means that society can lock people up who are a danger to other people or doing things that society says,

No,

That's not really OK.

But we don't have to suffer.

For that to be done.

And for us to say no more,

Actually,

I don't like this,

I'm saying it from a calm place,

But I don't want you in my life anymore because you behave in a particular way.

But just understanding that the separate realities are there is is a space to look to to experience a lot more calm because people and their behavior is a massive part of our life,

Isn't it?

So it's just something to really,

Really look towards understanding because it can have such a good impact.

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 Calmcast with Clare Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.