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

I woke up feeling anxious! You know the feeling. Butterflies in the stomach, a general unease around the shoulders and a head which is a bit fuzzy. I started searching for why. Did I have a bad dream? What is going on today? What could be wrong with me? I noticed the feeling intensifying.

Then I remembered. "You are feeling thought, Clare." Then I let go. "You don't need to know what the thinking is, Clare", then there was more calm. "You are okay with that feeling as it is, Clare."

But, what I am sharing here is not a tool for you to use. That's what happens inside me when I remember that 100% of my feelings are created via thought in the moment. That's my little process but it might not be yours. But when you know with conviction that the only source of your feelings is thought in the moment, you will come up with something which makes sense to you in the moment. My way is not a prescription.

Information from the outside creates that overwhelmed feeling. Information from the news, social media and other people's ideas. But also information about the inside like seeking the reason for feelings, trying to control our thoughts and searching for calm. All this information and trying to understand fills our heads and if we have a decision to make, it can really get in the way. Did you know that what is right for you is unique and your right next step is just for you. It is available to you when there is space and calm inside but when you look elsewhere, into the noise, you are using someone else's past to create your future.

You have a light to shine and something to do in the world. Don't leave it buried under all that information.

Lies, damn lies and the things we think about ourselves ordered perfectly from bad to worse and here's why. You see the things you think about yourself have literally nothing to do with you. They have been innocently created over time by other people like parents, teachers and other children. We don't need to explore this further as it's just something to know. It helps to distance yourself.

You will sometimes have a thought about yourself like, 'I am not good enough.' and this as with all thoughts has some truths worth knowing. You did not create it, the origins of the thought are not you and the thought is not truth. Due to all the above, your thinking has literally no idea what you are capable of and that is why every single day, you do things your thinking said you couldn't.

You do not have to change your thoughts but what does bring some calm is changing how you view thought itself. That is what is truly transformational.

"I am not coping with this", said someone I was talking to a few days ago. I asked him a simple question, "How do you know you are not coping?" He paused and suddenly there was space. That question was asked in all innocence because I really did wonder how we know whether or not we are coping and what does coping even mean? It seems to me that your version of coping will be different to mine because it only exists on one place; inside our heads, in thought.

What if you knew you were coping? What if you knew that you could be feeling literally anything but that underneath it all, you were still okay? That there was something magical pulling you through life no matter what. Because, have you noticed that you have always come out the other side. Perhaps with hindsight you have seen how you coped in the past which probably means that you are coping right now. I hope this helps you to see that.

Control is an old friend of mine which is thankfully now hanging around a little less but we were close for a long time. Once upon a time, I tried to control E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! It happened in two phases. In the run up to burnout it was people, circumstances and the future. Then whilst on the self-development hamster wheel it was my thoughts, feelings and behaviour. It was exhausting, laden with judgement and like a 24/7 game of wack-a-mole! Perhaps you can relate.

If you are trying to control like I was it is feeding that feeling of overwhelm but it doesn't have to be that way. You can split up with control as soon as you are ready.

The past is so temptingly presented to us as the panacea of mental wellbeing. You are encouraged to work through your traumas, find the source of your behaviour and root out those unwanted feelings. I went down that path for many years but it just doesn't make sense any more. Because now I see the truth that human beings feel what they think in the moment. So, when we think about something bad in the past we feel it. It's a clever trick which makes it look like the past has harmed us but it really is all thought!

Imagine if you stopped thinking about the past. You would never feel the past again. I know this is not always easy but just knowing this is how it works can be helpful.

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.