Crises

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 today I'm talking about crises because it may seem that recently in the last couple of years there's been a crisis going on.

But one of the things that's absolutely amazed me is the way people have handled their moment by moment experience in the business world where I hang out,

The way people have pivoted,

Created new things,

Helped people,

Helped other people,

Sorted it all out really to an amazing level.

And that is not at all to discount people's difficult experience during this time.

I've not had many real life emergencies but I can remember a couple.

Before I went off to university in Bradford I was a nanny for a little while and after I'd gone to university I was living in a student house in Bradford and the three children who I used to look after came to visit with me.

And the door that used to lead,

There was like a front door and then there was a little tiny hallway space about a metre square and then there was a door that went into the house and that door was made of quite,

Back in the day we didn't have quite so much health and safety so the door was made of quite breakable glass basically and on this particular day the door had one of those catches in it,

It didn't have a handle that you press down,

It had like a little roller catch and I pushed the door open in the glass and I now have a very,

Probably,

You know,

I have an interesting scar on my wrist which bled quite a bit as you can imagine.

Now I remember even now and that must have been probably about 30 years ago,

I remember how utterly calm I was as the blood was like gushing out of my arm.

I was utter,

I've never been so calm,

You know,

I got the older girl to go and get something from the kitchen to put onto it,

I calmly phoned the ambulance,

I suspect from a landline because of course I don't think we had mobiles back then,

No we didn't have mobiles back then,

I certainly didn't have one anyway.

So that all unfolded,

I think I remember once I sat in the ambulance that,

You know,

I could feel my heart beating and a bit of adrenaline was probably pumping there but I wasn't aware of that while I was actually dealing with it,

It was only when I stopped that I noticed but it just got sorted,

It was almost like I wasn't doing it,

It was just happening.

What happened to keep my body safe just happened with me being almost unconscious,

A bit like,

You know,

When you're driving,

You know,

If you're a driver you will have experienced this where you,

You know,

Somebody pulls out in front of you and you stop and avoid an accident and you really couldn't tell anybody how that happened,

You couldn't describe the process,

I mean that's why they say don't they,

Once you've learned to drive you really learn to drive because once you're out on your own you have to have your wits about you but a lot of that process is done unconsciously,

The avoiding of accidents,

The stopping because a child runs out in front of you,

Most of that happens without even being aware.

My other story is around,

Yeah,

I was in a field once walking and there was a lot of cows and they're young,

It was August a few years ago and a bull in the same field and as I walked down the field the cows got a little bit tetchy,

Shall we say,

And started to walk quite determinedly,

They weren't running but they were walking very fast towards me mooing and very kind of unhappy with me and as I perceived it anyway,

I'm not sure how an unhappy cow sounds against a happy one but anyway I remember just realising it was happening but then I remember finding myself sort of on the other side of the wall with the field of sheep which was preferable at that moment and not really being conscious of how I got there,

It just sort of happened.

I think there's something that works inside us to keep our physical body safe,

Like there's something that wants to protect this physical body,

You know,

The same way that that driver runs in nature,

Doesn't it,

You know,

The urge to reproduce or the urge to keep your species safe or the way that,

You know,

Animals hide their young when they're vulnerable or protects,

You know,

The way swans in particular are very protective of their young,

There's something driving that that does not involve our intellect and thinking because I'm not sure how much intellect and thinking a swan has but possibly not as much as us.

So what I'm encouraging first of all is for you to recognise that when a real crisis occurs,

When there is a real life emergency,

Something in you will sort it out because that is innate,

That is part of who we are,

That is our,

It's just who we are,

It's just how it works because we're part of that nature out there that does the same.

So that's the first thing.

Now the crises that are not particularly helpful are the ones that don't really exist.

So that that I've just described to you is our real time responsive intelligence and that is not my phrase,

I've stolen it from Michael Neil but I always recognise that I have,

I don't even know when he said it but I love it,

I think I can't,

I've tried to make up my own version and haven't managed so I just use that one because it's so beautiful but we have real time responsive intelligence and that,

You know,

Me dealing with my split wrist and me climbing over the wall to get in front of the cast,

That's that in action,

That's it happening.

The problem is that most of the crises that we perceive exist in the world are in our heads.

I remember really early on in the lockdown in the UK talking to a lady who was extremely young,

She was extremely stressed out about her business and had about five scenarios of what might happen,

How long it's going to last,

What she'd do when she came out,

What does she need to do in the meantime,

She had all these different scenarios and so with the made up crises that were coming up in the end,

Do I need to go and get a job,

What do I need to do,

How will I feed my kids,

You know,

With all the made up crises in the future,

She was in the present moment trying to either stop certain things happening or create the,

You know,

Create the things she did want to happen but that meant that her head was absolutely chock full of noise and I guess what was the next thing to do in reality was evading her because there was too much noise for her to be rock solid in the present moment with,

Right,

What's actually really in front of me right now,

What is the next step I can take,

What's the next thing I can do,

That was missing because we can't hear that real time responsive intelligence quite so well when our heads are so,

So noisy.

The thing to know about the future is there's just nothing to know about it,

There we go,

But it's made up,

We're made up in the future,

Even the perception of ourselves and what we're going to be like is made up in the future,

All of it's made up and there really only ever is this moment and your real time responsive intelligence,

What is there to do next,

What makes sense to do next,

That's all and when we realise that there's a lot more ease that happens so there's just a noticing here,

Are you in the present moment where your real time responsive intelligence can't handle anything or are you in the story of the future where your real time responsive intelligence just doesn't exist or operate,

Just noticing that can be really,

Really helpful.

Thank you so much for listening,

There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life,

Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of time.

This has been The Calm Cast with Clare Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.