Awaken Awareness for Greater Potential

Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,

A time to feel calm and think clearly.

I'm Claire Downham,

The Queen of Calm,

A Transformational Life Coach.

I was a burnt out head teacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying,

And I want to prevent you from having to do the same.

The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,

Which is calm and clarity.

Just listen like you would listen to music,

With an open mind and curiosity.

There's nothing else to do.

Now let's relax into today's episode.

So hello there.

Today we're exploring the role of awareness,

Awakening the observer within for greater potential.

And I often say that awareness is our superpower.

I think it's the most important thing to develop,

More important than anything else really,

Anything else that we might be pointed to in terms of feeling better,

Doing better,

Being better.

I said better then with a really great Yorkshire accent.

There's so many things we could be doing,

Aren't there,

To apparently improve ourselves,

But I think awareness is the ultimate thing.

And in my journey to support people as a human potential catalyst,

I find awareness to be the most important thing.

So why?

You might be wondering.

It's a certain kind of awareness.

So that's the first thing to talk about really,

Is that yes,

Most self-development points us to self-awareness.

Says,

You know,

You need to be aware of how you are,

Kind of so you can be better.

I think that's generally the caveat,

Isn't it?

And I feel that often that means that that awareness comes with judgment.

It comes with a pointing to us needing to do something to be better.

This is wrong about us.

Now we must fix it.

That feels to me to be pretty much the mainstay,

I would say,

Of a lot of self-development.

But what I think comes out of that judgmental awareness is an increase in insecurity,

An increase in us not feeling good about ourselves,

An increase in being quite pernickety about how we're doing,

An increase in us not feeling good about ourselves at all.

That is what comes from that judgmental awareness.

So what I'm pointing to is not that at all.

It's simply awareness.

So here's something that's coming through for me at the moment is that I've taken on quite a bit of stuff at the moment,

Quite a bit of training,

A proper qualification in something,

Some training around PR.

I've got quite a lot of new clients,

Which is wonderful.

And I'm very active,

As you know,

On Insight Timer.

And I'm noticing every so often that I'm going towards overwhelm a little bit.

So I can see myself,

I can be aware of myself starting to go,

Oh,

You've got loads to do.

Look,

You've got this and this and this.

And the list starting to kind of kaching in my head.

And then I'm noticing myself doing that.

I'm aware that I'm going into a story about having to do it all now.

That's usually my stories,

Like how fast can I get it all done?

Especially on the launch session of my new training thing on Friday morning.

And I really noticed my thinking going off into this story of how much there was to do.

It's months long,

It's this training.

It doesn't all have to be done now.

But really kind of getting stirred up.

And with awareness,

I found myself just kind of realizing that I was in this story of how much I had to do and what I had to achieve,

Or just being in the story,

Noticing the story.

And as a result of noticing the story,

Finding that I didn't desire to stay there really,

Because it was making me feel quite tight chested and a little bit unpleasant.

Didn't need to stay there.

And realizing as well that I'm not going to be the best person to plan or schedule out how I'm going to get everything done while I'm in this state of mind.

And when I'm aware of that and I fall back into calm again,

Actually,

First of all,

It never seems quite so enormous as it does when I'm stirred up.

But second of all,

The next step emerges quite naturally from that place of calm.

There's very little to do.

And so being able to awaken this observer,

This inner observer,

I quite like that better than the observer within,

The inner observer,

Really is the key to revealing our potential.

Because if you've just listened,

If I just break down that journey that I went on,

That can be applied to anything really.

So there's awareness that we are stirred up and wound up and not in a good place as that.

And then there's just that noticing,

That gentle awareness that,

Oh,

Hang on,

Here I go.

I've gone off into a story.

And then there's whatever makes sense in the moment,

What we know to help us come back to calm.

And for me,

It's generally just doing something else for a while or just taking a breath and feeling my feet on the floor.

And then there's a settling down.

And then when we think about potential,

My potential to achieve all these things,

To do all these things,

To have,

To tick off all the things on my list,

Is always there.

It's always there.

But I see it better when I'm not in this stirred up state.

When we're caught up in our thinking,

We're just not so clever.

It's probably the best word.

We mishear things,

We misinterpret things,

We get so far into a story that we add other dangers into the story that don't even exist.

We do all of that really,

Really quickly,

Imperceivably,

Sometimes.

But that's where the awareness is powerful,

Is to start to notice when we're doing it.

Now,

The clever thing,

Actually,

Is that your body is almost,

And I've never said it like this before,

Actually,

But your body is almost letting you know that you need to go into a place of awareness.

It's saying,

If like for me,

When I start to feel overwhelmed,

I feel,

You know,

My chest feels a bit tight,

My shoulders feel a bit tense.

I feel this kind of urgent feeling,

This rushed up feeling.

And that's the nudge that you need to go into a place of awareness.

That's the nudge that your system gives you.

Your system goes,

Hey,

Just need to let you know you're stirred up right now.

And then from that place of noticing the feeling,

When we realize the feeling isn't a danger,

It isn't anything wrong,

There's nothing to do about it,

And we bring that awareness in,

We can start to just let go of what might be,

Well,

What is creating the uncomfortable feeling.

So the feeling,

The feelings that much of the world right now is pointing us towards controlling and saying they're wrong and pathologizing them and all of this stuff where it's like,

Oh,

I've got a feeling I need to get rid of it,

Or it's something wrong,

Or I need to escape the feeling,

Is going against a system that is set up to help you reach your potential.

Because it's set,

It's all,

You know,

As a human being,

You're going to go up into these riled up states of mind and back down and up and down.

And that's your system.

It's just a self-writing system.

It's just like the seasons,

You know,

The leaves fall off the trees,

And then there's a cold,

Dark period,

And then it all comes back to life.

And it's,

You know,

I'm recording this when it's beautifully alive,

It's summer,

And it's,

Everything's green.

It's absolutely beautiful.

But within that cycle,

There are other plants that are going through their own little mini cycles.

It's all happening cyclically.

And as a human being,

You're supposed to have a cycle of,

You're stirred up,

You become aware,

You're stirred up,

You know,

There's nothing wrong with that.

The feeling is okay,

It's safe,

It's not a problem.

And then a coming back down into calm again,

A settling back down to your innate wisdom,

To your innate intelligence,

To your connection,

To intuition,

To all of those things.

Because that's what I'm saying really,

Is that that's where your potential is.

And when I say potential,

I don't mean passing tests and,

You know,

Getting a promotion and all that.

I mean,

Your inner potential,

Your wisdom,

Your intuition,

That which can guide you at any moment,

But finds it more difficult to guide you when you are caught up in stirred up thinking that feels terrible.

So,

So that's it really.

I feel like I've kind of come to a grinding halt,

Which isn't like me,

Because you know,

I can keep talking.

But so the awareness is the power to reach our potential really.

And excitingly,

That's actually all we need.

I used to think you needed the awareness and the judgment,

And then all the stuff,

All the tools,

All the techniques,

All the learning,

All the continual poking around the past and all of that stuff.

I used to think you needed all of that.

And now I know you don't need any of that.

You don't need any of that at all.

The awareness is the thing.

And what I've noticed with that awareness is that lots of things have just fallen away by themselves.

And I feel like,

You know,

I'm closer to my potential.

I don't think we ever actually completely get there,

But it's a journey.

It's a beautiful journey.

As things fall away,

We get closer to it.

So I hope you found that helpful.

Just a reminder that if you want to explore this a little bit more and you've just come across my teachings,

Or perhaps you've been following me for a while,

That on Insight Timer now,

I have two courses,

Calm,

Balance and Clarity with ease and Revealing Your Potential with the Three Principles,

Both of which are really easy to access.

They're just short audio courses,

10 sessions each,

Just about 15 minutes each session.

So they're quite quick.

You can listen to them one episode a day,

Or I know some people have kind of binge listened to them,

Which is great too.

So I point you in the direction of those and to do follow me on Insight Timer,

Because that is where I'm sharing so much stuff.

I do a few lives each week.

I think I've got four this week and I've got lots of other tracks available on there too,

To help you to move towards your potential.

So lots of love,

Have an absolutely beautiful day.

And I'll see you soon.

Take care and keep listening.