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

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.

Would you like directions or instructions for the SAT NAV because I, like many others who want to help, could do either. I could tell you all the things I have done. All the tools and techniques I tried. How I went on my journey from burn out to Queen of Calm. But there's a really good chance, that won't help because that's my way and my job as a coach is not to tell you what to do.

My job is to describe to you how life works. Because once you know that, navigating it just gets so much easier. You can use your GPS, connect to your intuition and access your wisdom. Then you can create your own unique, exciting new map because you don't want my dusty old one that I have scrawled all over.

It's impossible not to think! I tried it for a while. Meditation seemed to be the way to do that. But those thoughts just kept popping in.

Of course because we are supposed to think. You cannot stop that. The initial thought predictably turns up but there here are some things which can follow on from that first thought. Thinking about thinking, giving meaning to thoughts and feelings and the idea that you can have right and wrong thinking.

Too much thinking I think :-) But when you understand better the nature of thought, that extra thinking can fall away. It is helpful to know that thought is random, that doesn't mean anything about you and that you are the thinker not the thoughts. Knowing these things helps to stop the analysis of thought.

If you would like to stop analysing your thinking, please get in touch. 

I spent years misunderstanding my feelings. It went through 2 phases. The first phase looked like this. If I felt angry, I thought that was coming from the person who wronged me. If I felt happy, I thought that feeling was coming from a circumstance I had created. If I felt unmotivated, I thought that was coming from an uninspiring task.

The second phase looked like this. If I felt angry, I thought that was because I had an anger issue. If I felt happy, I thought I had overcome my issues (temporarily). If I felt unmotivated, I thought it was because of something from my past.

Both phases were complicated and tiring. Firstly as I tried to control the outside word then secondly as I tried to control my state of mind (mostly through therapy and looking into the past).

But then I learnt a simple truth about feelings. Feelings come from thought in the moment 100% of the time. It's a principle, a fact, a truth. So now when I have a feeling, it's so simple. I know categorically that I am feeling thought in the moment. That simplicity in itself takes a weight off your mind. Less thought = more calm & more clarity.

It's available to every one of us and coaching with me can ease you into seeing it.

Let me show you where calm isn't because then you will find it yourself. Because calm isn't in having some time to yourself, in the run you do every day or in the bar of chocolate or the glass of wine. It also isn't in the massage, the meditation or the walk. It isn't even in the yoga class! 

I know that's the time you feel it most but maybe you have touched it at other times. In a moment of crisis, perhaps. When you are truly present and just know what to do. You see, it is a trick of thought and consciousness which makes it look like calm is being brought to you from outside. Because in those moments above, you have less thought and just for a moment you connect to what is inside. 

And what is inside is calm which is always there and always waiting to be seen. That's what you are made of and just knowing it is always there is so reassuring. Now you can start to notice it. And if you would like to see it more, you know where I am.