From Surviving to Thriving: A No Tools, No Techniques Shift from Stress and Overwhelm to Fulfilment

A crystal ball is place in which to gaze to see the future with the wise old woman sitting on the other side. You know the scene. If you haven't seen it in real life, you have seen it in films. We might be intrigued by the contents of the crystal ball but I think we would mostly take it with a pinch of salt. In that situation, we know the future cannot really be told. But we don't always see that truth, do we? When we engage with the contents of our internal crystal ball, it can look so real. We forget that the future is unknown - a real mystery. But here's a beautiful clue, your body will provide. It's that uncomfortable feeling - telling you that your thinking is off. Off feeling = off thinking. And all you need to do is spot it. And then the crystal ball inside your head simply rolls away.

Out of the blue is where all the best ideas come from. Not from racking your brains and puzzling things out. Have you noticed that? For me it's during a walk, in the shower or when I first wake up in the morning. When do you get your best ideas? I heard a survey of entrepreneurs once. They included the golf course and times when they were on holiday in their list of times when they had their best ideas. There is something true about all these situations. They are not times when we are thinking about our problems. 

It sounds counterintuitive when we have been brought up to solve problems and 'think about it'. But the thing about 'thinking about it' is that it can only ever be a process of going through old habitual thinking. This is not very helpful when you are looking for something to solve a problem which has probably been created by that old habitual thinking. The thing about all those situations is that they are spacious; they provide space in our heads and that is when intuition can burst through with answers and solutions we had never considered. If you would like to create more space inside your head so you can connect more deeply to intuition it would be lovely to talk.

Do you like a good vent? Go on, fess up! Once upon a time, venting would have been my Olympic sport of choice. I used to get so riled up about other people's behaviour. I would vent at my nearest and dearest, my colleagues and anyone who would listen (I clearly didn't see their eyes rolling😂). It gave me a horrible feeling but I misunderstood where that was coming from. It felt like it was coming from the people or situations I was venting about but now I know that is wrong. Now I know the truth.

Every single feeling I ever have is coming from thought in the moment. Thoughts and feelings are two sides of the same coin. When I vent, I am feeling my venting thinking, not the circumstances or person so suddenly it makes less sense to vent. It's tiring and feels bad and I don't want to do that to myself. If you are tired and feel bad more of the time than you want to, I can help.

Human nature is defined as follows: the general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioural traits of humankind, regarded as shared by all humans. So what are those things which are shared by us all? Things which cannot be denied which are truths about humans. They may be tricky to see, but there are three things. As you hear them, I hope you will see that they are undeniably true.

The first one is that we are alive or filled with aliveness. It's an energy like that which runs through all living things. The second is that we are conscious. We are aware of the world around us and inside us. The third is that we think. Thought in the moment is what creates our feelings. These are the principles via which all our psychological experience is created. But underneath that, there is something more; peace, love and wisdom. Confidence, resilience and wellbeing. Thought means that we don't always experience these things about ourselves, but they are always there.

It was only a nightmare is what we say when we wake up from a bad dream. We might be sweaty, our hearts might be beating fast and our thoughts might be racing. But knowing it is a nightmare makes that all fall away. It happens really fast and there is relief and a return to peace of mind. But isn't it strange that we don't treat our daymares in the same way? We don't wake up quite so easily. There is a difference in how our daytime thinking is perceived. So when we feel sweaty, shaky and our hearts race during the day we look for the source of that anywhere else but in thought. 

At night we know it's thought (a nightmare) but during the day, we don't know it is thought (a daymare). That really is the only difference, what we think our experience means. But nightmares and daymares are made of the same thing. Thought in the moment perceived by us as an uncomfortable feeling. Image waking up and realising that. Imagine the peace that would be possible. It's available to everyone.

It could be was something I heard many times during my time in therapy. It could be this thing which happened in your childhood or that thing which happened when you were small or maybe this other thing you experienced a long time ago. I see now that it led to confusion. Literally poking around in the past in the hope that we would find something which sorted it all out. It was the 'could bes' which were creating the confusion. I knew there must be something simpler and there is! Principles of psychology!

Something which works the same all the time for all humans. How much more simple does that make things? Well the truth is, for me it did, exponentially! Years of thinking I needed to meditate every day gone replaced by living in a state of meditation. Years of daily journaling gone replaced by an unshakeable feeling of gratitude. Years of thinking I was broken replaced by a deep connection to innate wellbeing. All because I know that the source of all my experience is 3 simple principles. And now I have seen them, I just have to share them.

Discernment is defined as the ability to judge well. I had an insight about this during a coaching conversation recently. You see, all day every day, we are in the process of discerning; working out the quality of what passes through our heads and sussing out which thoughts to follow and which to ignore. But there is often something in the way and that is the meaning we give our feelings. If we think that our feelings are telling us about the outside world then it looks like the thoughts that we need to change the outside world are true. If we think our feelings are telling us about something which is wrong with us, it looks like we have to engage in tools and techniques to fix ourselves. But when we realise that feelings are only ever telling us about the quality of our thoughts in the moment, we can use that information to discern better.

Off feeling = off thinking. Quieter mind, better feeling = better thinking. I know you have seen this because you have not sent that angry text or left that cross email in drafts until you were in a better feeling (i.e. better thinking).  It's because there has always been a part of you which understands how the system works. And the more deeply we understand that system, the more discerning we can become.

My sleep is interesting right now. In fact it probably has been for a while. This morning I woke up at 3am which seems to be when the ideas emerge. I have no idea why and I care less and less. You see, I have realised something about sleep. Just like everything else in life, it is not sleep (or lack of it) which creates my experience, it is always my thinking about sleep. So when I wake up there is less of a story about how I will not cope with the day, feel grotty and that my sleep means there is something wrong. I am just awake, resting in bed and nothing else.

When I become aware of the stories, they make less sense than they used to and they seem less pressing. And then there is just me, doing life, moment to moment.

Resolutions will be on our minds in just 1 month's time. Have you started to consider yours or have you stopped making them because you have realised that they don't work? Have you ever wondered why? Behaviour change can be hard even with all that willpower and steely determination. But that's because they both run out very quickly. Willpower is a finite resource so it's a bit unreliable as a tool for behaviour change. 

The way we behave is based on one simple thing and that is thinking which looks real to us in the moment. For example, if we think the world works outside in, we will be doing things in that world to make ourselves feel better. Things to protect the self, make the self feel better or create pleasure for the self. But when we start to see that the world works inside out, behaviour change happens automatically. The most effective behaviour change comes from insight (seeing) not willpower (doing).

Containers come in all shapes and sizes and they are often made to for certain objects. Packaging is a great example. Pringles fit perfectly into their cylindrical container but if you tried to get square Jacob's cream crackers in there there will be broken crackers everywhere.

This is a beautiful metaphor for life because much of life is outside our control. If you didn't get this before March 2020, I suspect you get it now. We can moan, get upset and be furious but it will not change anything, E-V-E-R! Life will continue and you cannot control it but it turns out you don't need to. Because rallying against life comes from a place of innocent confusion that your feelings come from anywhere but thought in the moment. The mistaken idea that it is ever the outside world which is creating your feelings. It's just a misunderstanding but once you understand where your feelings are coming from, you really can be free.