Our Thinking About Things Creates Stress

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 headteacher 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 the title is our thinking about things create stress which is pretty blunt isn't it really.

Today I am not going to mince my words on this subject and people do find this and you may be one of them extremely difficult to take on board at the start.

It really does look doesn't it like horrible bosses,

Difficult partners,

Financial situations etc are creating this awful stressful feeling that we experience and I encourage you not to take my word for it.

Here I am telling you some stuff but I really don't want you to believe me.

I don't want you to just take my word for it I want you to get curious that's what I say in these broadcasts.

I want you to start to look in this direction with an you have to be open-minded though if you're already absolutely damn sure that it is the outside world that is stressing you out whoever or whatever it is stressing you out then that's going to be a difficult place to get curious from.

But let me just point a few things out that you may have already kind of noticed and gone oh that's interesting I wonder why that's like that.

So I'm going to start with my something that really came to mind strongly for me over the weekend and that was my relationship with the autumn.

I know it doesn't sound like a massive thing that would stress you out but it did used to create a sense of dread I think is probably the best word for it in that as we headed towards this season as the days got shorter and it got darker both ends of the day and we are now in this country in the UK and I think in the US too heading towards the time when we change the clocks thus making the day.

The day doesn't get any shorter clearly there's still the same amount of light hours of light but a lot darker in the evening.

I would be filled with dread now listen to that that is a feeling of discomfort I guess I probably felt stressed about it I felt down about it I can honestly say I used to say I hated it hated this time of year and my mood would sink way down particularly after the clocks changed after the clocks changed I used to just say out loud once the clocks have changed I'm gonna have a terrible time till spring literally and my body fell in line and I had a terrible time I didn't do very well in the winter.

Now I suspect as many of you might point out that you know there were some nutritional issues there I didn't have enough vitamin DMR system that is you know that's key there were some things we need to do for our physical bodies but the way I thought about it the way I talked about it dragged my dragged myself down in mood over the well about this time of year so this time of year being mid-october I would from mid-october onwards Claire would go down in a heap not good really and over the over this weekend I was reflecting with Bruce my fiance as we went for two walks on Saturday was about six months and who will walk ten miles I reflected the difference I feel excuse me about what about this time of year and what's really interesting is and what I'm really noticing is that we've had a glorious summer here in the UK and I keep saying oh it's the summer that keeps on giving there have been many bright days but I'm pretty sure there's been some rain as well because I keep walking in the mud thinking where's all this mud come from well clearly it's rained a significant amount in order for there to be mud but I haven't really noticed it much and and all I've really liked on the walks yet over the weekend I spent a lot of time just noticing the beautiful colors the you know the the the chain the leaves falling off the trees everything nature changing squirrels kind of running around gathering their stuff you know I really was in this place of just awe really seeing the moon in the sky in a very very blue sky yesterday but I had to be wrapped up warm and put lots of clothes on you know what they say there's no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing you know so the clothing's change you know there's no strappy vest tops and shorts anymore on our walks it's it's you have to be you have to be in your layers but just noticing how I just felt so good I mean that's it really I was enjoying being out in the autumn I was enjoying the walk I was enjoying the time of year the colors there's so much to to enjoy when we are not in a place of hating something before it's even happened and that was that was the the awful relationship I had with with this time of year and and hopefully by me sharing that chain I mean the the weather hasn't changed that much the season has not changed it is me it is my perception and I and once we start to go oh this is okay well we see more of the things that are okay about it I've spoken before about this confirmation bias see you know once we believe something if once we believe autumn's awful well I will just see awful things about autumn we won't we won't see anything good about it it's just not just we just don't work that way so it's it's interesting to see how it's just how it's changing and actually it seems like the world out there is changing but really it's just my perceptions changing because I'm looking from a I'm looking through a different belief system I've realized that if I have a rubbishy thinking about awesome I'm going to have a rubbishy autumn and would I draw the have a nice autumn or a rubbishy one well I'd rather have a nice one if I'm honest with you I think most of us would just rather have a nice experience of most things but if we think it's that thing that's creating our experience then of course we're not even in a possibility place we're not even in the place of oh it's possible to have a I I would have said a few years ago it is not possible to have a nice experience of autumn because autumn itself is just awful it's just dark and cold and there don't like it now because I've opened up my way of looking at things I can see that this possibility there's a possibility to have a nice experience of autumn because well because there just is if I if I allow that if I start to look for something different if I start to open up my mind so the places where you might get curious about this are are many but here's a few of them you know first of all to notice that something doesn't need to change for you to feel okay so a great place to see this is with the people who we live with all the people around us all the people at work you know people do have it appears some irritating habits don't they things we don't like them to do and we but have you noticed how some days when you're in a light mood and you're you know you're feeling okay that person can be doing that thing and you you're not that bothered and then other days you literally want to string them up for it because you just can't be doing with it and you feel dreadful because they're doing the thing the thing that you don't like um so just noticing that noticing that as your mood rises and falls your relationship with that person and their niggly behavior rises and falls also it changes it's not it's not like there's not a direct correlation between their behavior and how you feel it changes now if you start to open your up yourself up to see that you'll notice that person doesn't have to irritate you at all when they do the thing they can do the thing and you can be perfectly fine there's other examples of this like you know on a sunday night when you feel dreadful about work and you feel stressed about work and you feel oh god it's monday have you noticed you're not at work so how could it be work that's doing it it's your thinking about work that's doing that not work itself it isn't working that way and you know there's all these places where we can see that the circumstance is it is and yet our experience of it is fluctuating or the experience the thing itself changes and yet we still feel terrible about it well you know i know people who appear to be feeling very stressed about their mother-in-law's behavior and the mother-in-law is in a different country by now because she's gone home oh she's in a different county she's not there anymore the mother-in-law still appears to be crazy that's weird i definitely would have said that about my mother-in-law my ex-mother-in-law and father-in-law and i you know but i you know it wasn't them it was my thinking about them they weren't even there and i could be ranting about them and feeling awful and thinking they were creating my horrible experience they weren't even there so this as usual you know it's a blunt statement our thinking about things create stress well it does but it's really an invitation to just get curious about it and and see what you can see because there is the potential to see a lot and if you just keep looking this direction and so yeah have a curious day and lots of love 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 calm this has been the calm cast with claire downer queen of carl take care and keep listening