A thought appears, then what? Well ideally it passes right on through a bit like a cloud passing across the sky. Some of our thoughts do that don't they? They pass straight across our heads with ease. But you might have noticed that doesn't seem to happen with some thoughts. Those habitual ones; fearful ones about the future, the ones about what other people think of you and the  guilty ones about the regretful past.

There's just one reason why. It's because of the attention they get because, the amount of consciousness given to a thought is what gives it life. And that's what fuels those awful feelings like overwhelm, stress anxiety. There's nothing to DO but once you KNOW this is how things work it helps. Because it helps you to see that you have a choice. You are the thinker not the thoughts and you are only ever one awareness away from remembering that.

Life is happening in the meantime. It is happening while you are making up a scary future, feeling guilty about the past or trying to work out why someone else did something. The present moment is always happening. You are breathing in the present, your body is in it and your senses are taking it in. But where are your thoughts?

Just asking that question can help because the answer can help you to naturally fall into the present with ease! No need for techniques or tools. Just a question which brings awareness. Maybe just try it next time you feel off and let me know how that goes.

Do you know that you are selectively editing all the time? The thing is that humans have a limited capacity to experience the world. Of the 11 million bits of information out there each second, we can only be conscious of about 50! So we have to filter or selectively edit and the filter with which we do that is thought. Our beliefs (which are just habitual thoughts) filter every single part of our experience all day every day. They create our experience of other people, circumstances and even ourselves. 

There is not much we can actually do about this but knowing we are doing it can be really helpful.

If you think it's about you sound the alarm bell because thinking it's about you is a warning that your thinking has gone into story mode. The lack of response to a message, the look on someone's face. or the behaviour of our nearest and dearest. None of this has anything to do with you. Everything emanating from another person is only to do with them. Their thinking, feelings and actions.

But when we take it personally it can feel overwhelming. It's the combination of the apparent slight and feeling out of control but there is great power in just learning to listen to those warning signs. Something to become aware of, to notice and to take more lightly. Imagine the freedom of a life where you never took anything personally.

From first impressions to that overwhelmed feeling can happen in a flash can't it! Often we don't even know we have done it because we don't notice that we have created a story. Stories like that look someone had on their face means they are thinking badly of us, that unanswered message means they don't like us anymore or that un-emptied bin means they are lazy and don't care.

But it helps to know the truth that we are making it all up. Beyond the first thing we see, it's all a story. Just knowing can help, slow things down and prevent that overwhelmed feeling. Because, in the moment of realisation, it all just falls away. In the noticing there is freedom.

"You make a molehill out of a mountain", is what was said to me at the end of a conversation yesterday. And I just love it because I think it really sums up what I do. It tells you how I help people. Where there is stress and overwhelm I help there to be more calm, clarity and simplicity. 

The opposite 'making a mountain out of a molehill' is what we, as humans are doing all day every day. We take a circumstance, a simple occurrence and we add THOUGHT! We make up stories, add in our past and manufacture the future and most of the time we have no idea we are doing it. But once you start to see you are doing that it magically stops.

Living in denial of facts creates that overwhelmed feeling because there are some facts about being human. They are truths - like those in science - like gravity. Imagine for a moment if you lived whilst denying gravity; stepping through broken things all day long. That would create that overwhelmed feeling whilst you tried to keep up with the cleaning and avoid cutting your feet on the shards of glass and crockery. Perhaps you can relate to that metaphor in terms of how you feel right now. Like you are continually trying to fix and tidy up your emotional state.

But when you know these truths that can all stop. Imagine that!

Presence or positivity? Which one do you think is more important? Positivity might look like the winner because it gets a really good press. But presence brings so much more. When we think positively about the future, we are just swapping one lie for another. Any thoughts about the future are lies. Presence is the closest to truth you will ever get. It's the place where your wisdom kicks in and from which you can take the next step forward. It's real!

If you would like to feel more calm and think more clearly, presence is the key.

Are you trying to be 100% in how you are feeling or in your business or in your parenting? I think I tried to be 100% for a long time. That didn't turn out too well. Burn out was the result. It turns out that being 100% isn't really human and anyway how do we even decide when we are? That has to be created via thought doesn't it? A decided inside thing. Your 100% won't look like mine and my 100% won't look like the next person's. So our judgement of 100% must be made up.

What if you saw that where you are now is 100% because you are doing your best, are perfect as you are and you are 100% of what is. You don't have to try and create something more.

Do you remember Dory from Finding Nemo? She is his little friend who helps him on his journey. The most significant thing about Dory is that she suffers from short-term memory loss but that is one of my favourite things about Dory. She turns up in every moment fresh and new with nothing on her mind. She has no preconceived ideas about herself or anyone else and I suspect it's no coincidence that she is very happy as a result.

Dory doesn't have any thinking about the past and therefore doesn't feel anything from the past. No trauma, fear or guilt. As humans that's a little tricky because we do have thoughts about the past. But what if we didn't take them so seriously? What if we let them pass? Almost as if they hadn't happened like they don't for Dory. Doing that gets easy when you understand the nature of thought; random, transient and impersonal.

Turns out being more like Dory can help you feel calm and think clearly.