If we weren’t taught so early on to ‘go-get’ and be an ‘achiever’ and that life had to look a certain way, we would have so much more expansion available to us.
Focus becomes narrow and linear. No time to appreciate what you have. Decisions made out of alignment to your core values. In fact, no clue what your core values are as you’ve never slowed down long enough.
Before you know it you are chasing more and more, relationships are disconnected if you were brave enough to admit it, and you’re trapped in some form, and yes that’s true, even if you’re making millions – I speak to those people often.
There is an epidemic of addiction to stress and ‘more’. Kids are being neglected or taught the same patterns. Broken families are becoming the norm. Health is plummeting. Conflict is rife – whether that is between countries, companies, people. In the main driven by fear.
All because we are constantly looking for something external to us to make us ‘feel’ a certain way. A person, a house, a bank account, kids, material shit, the environment.
THAT’S IMPOSSIBLE.
That feeling doesn’t come from the ‘thing’ – the job, the house, the kids, the material stuff, ‘enlightenment’ – whatever it is that you are going for.
The reason I am writing this right now is because this morning I managed to get myself into a completely stressed state for an hour about something. I’m sitting here, in a beautiful villa in Bali, with nature all around me, my husband in the room next door, my kids at one of the most extraordinary schools on earth, we all have our health, loving families, amazing friends, food at our fingertips AND YET. I was having a meltdown.
The point is….it doesn’t matter what you have ‘got’. It doesn’t matter how ‘sorted’ you seem to others.
There is a MASSIVE (PARTICULARLY WESTERN) MISUNDERSTANDING as to where those feelings are coming from.
Why did I have those feelings? BECAUSE I AM A HUMAN BEING!
We think. We feel our thinking. We make shit up in our heads and then feel it. And then decide it’s real. And then stress.
Meanwhile my Balinese neighbour who lives with next to nothing can be heard cackling with laughter whilst feeding the rooster.
At some point today, who knows, she may have a tough hour. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be laughing at some point today.
The way we feel moment to moment is simply determined by what’s floating into our minds, moment to moment.
And what floats into our minds is TRANSITORY. It comes and it goes. Just like the way we feel comes and goes on a moment to moment.
If more people understood this there would be infinitely more relaxed, kind, present people walking around.
Rather than what is happening is a world of stressed people and a world of stressed people trying to ‘fix’ their stress by external means or 10 steps to god knows what.
It’s like trying to drive a car with no flipping idea how to drive it. Richard Gere – Pretty Woman? Driving the Porsche? No understanding of how it works? It made for an erratic, bumpy ride and he would have damaged the engine.
Understand the car, be in tune with it, know when it needs servicing = smoother ride. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be bumps in the road. You’ll just be better equipped to navigate it.
No different to being a human being. Pointless buying the flashiest car or spending all your money on alloy wheels or ‘fixing’ bits if you haven’t got a clue about how to drive the damn thing.
Or impossible trying to control all the traffic and other things coming at you on the road. You can’t. Just like you can’t control your thoughts. They are going to come. Whatever people will tell you otherwise.
Acceptance, understanding and navigation = more relaxed way of being, space, inspired action.
Right, feel better for spewing that out. I’ll be sharing and exploring so much more in the small group I’m bringing together for 6 months.
This deeper understanding is the most subtle, life changing work I have seen – but only if you are prepared to pause long enough to see it.
