Taking Action

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's episode is about taking action and I've had a really interesting journey with taking action.

I used to really think that I couldn't take action unless I felt a certain way.

So I spent a lot of time trying to make myself feel that way through doing all sorts of tools and techniques by meditating and doing affirmations and lots of journaling and things like that,

But also a lot of therapy to try and find out why I didn't take action in the world.

So that involved going into the past,

Trying to find out the root cause,

Because the story is of course that if you're not taking action to create the life that you want,

There's a sense that you don't deserve it or you don't think you're good enough to have it and you must have learned that sometime in the past.

And interestingly,

I think what our mind does when it's asked a question like why,

It finds an answer.

So I remember once I went into,

I did hypnotherapy,

Inner child work,

Went into the past,

Generally used to go back to something to do with me being three and my brother being born and me feeling pushed out,

That was the point at which I apparently learned that I wasn't good enough.

And in this particular memory,

My grandfather,

My mum's dad was playing with my brother and I was feeling ignored,

Little three-year-old me was feeling ignored.

When I discussed this with my mum,

She told me that that couldn't be true because my grandfather died before my brother was born.

So I think if we,

That's a whole other session,

I think,

But we go poking around in the past,

We're going to find an answer because our mind's just going to fill in the gaps like it does all day,

Every day as we are moving around the world because we have many blind spots as I learned yesterday from listening to Derren Brown's podcast,

Which I highly recommend,

It was great fun.

So I had gone through a lot of trying to make myself feel a certain way and that went on until fairly recently,

Fairly recently I still was being buffeted about by how I felt in terms of my productivity and my business in life in general,

Getting things done.

And I went there again this week because I have,

I'm in the process of working on a new program to support my clients,

Looking at the journey I want to take them on,

The kind of clients I want to work with.

I'm kind of working through a process with that at the moment.

And I had a partly,

I'd kind of got a really very broad outline and I wanted to kind of pare it down into a kind of week by week journey that I wanted to take people on.

And I just couldn't get going with it.

It was like I was waiting,

I don't know,

I think I thought I was supposed to have some idea come from on high and then I would proceed.

Now I'll be honest,

A lot of the time,

Like my ideas for what I'm going to say to you this morning,

Well they're happening right now,

But the title and the direction of what I might post with the words and that kind of thing.

That usually does just come from something that's happened or it comes from inspiration.

It doesn't,

I don't feel like there's any effort that goes into that.

It just sort of happens.

And so a lot of my life does feel like that now.

It has this ease to it,

This effortlessness.

But for this particular thing,

I wasn't getting really inspired.

So I tried a few things,

Try and make myself inspired.

And I'm laughing about it now because it's funny.

I think I worked for quite a lot of walks now and then I woke up on Sunday morning and I thought,

Oh,

This will be it.

Because often when I wake up early on a Sunday morning,

It's very quiet.

My other half is fast asleep snoring away.

And I just feel like there's a bit of space and time for me to,

And ideas often come then after and feel quite flowy and ideas come.

Anyway,

Didn't have them Sunday morning either.

So anyway,

What I became aware of was that I was still trying to get myself into a certain state of mind,

Like manipulate my feelings in order to make a start on this document.

And then I just thought,

You know what?

I'm just going to get up and do it.

So I opened the Word document and I just started,

Initially I just started reading it.

There's quite a lot of words on there already.

So I started reading it and then I just,

I kind of made a table to kind of look at a structure of each session and then it all just started to happen.

Suddenly I was doing it.

I was just doing it.

I was creating it.

It was almost like,

Because I'd made a move in that direction,

My inner wisdom,

Whatever,

Just came online and went,

Oh,

We're doing this then.

Right.

Well,

I've got ideas for this.

Let's proceed.

That's what it kind of felt like.

It didn't feel like a lot of effort.

There maybe was a bit of like,

Come on Claire,

Crack on with this now at the beginning.

But I think that the really wonderful thing about that is that when we take action into a space where we're a bit,

Not sure about that,

Don't think I can do that right now,

Or I don't think I can do that at all even,

That the rest of our system kind of just comes online.

It joins it.

It goes,

Oh,

Hello.

Yeah,

We're doing that.

Right.

I'm here then.

I'm up for that.

Let's crack on kind of thing.

Whereas the other way round is waiting until we feel a certain way and then doing the thing.

Now,

Unfortunately,

What that can mean is that without taking the action,

Our lives can get smaller.

So,

You know,

For example,

If there's something that seems to be creating anxiety for you,

And you're therefore not doing that thing,

That's not going to make the anxiety go away.

Because that anxiety is there to keep you safe.

It thinks there's some danger in the situation.

So a great example I often give,

Because it's really simple and really easy for most people to understand because most people don't like public speaking,

Is that when we,

You know,

If when we're small,

We stand up in class,

We read out our poem,

The whole class laughs,

We feel stupid,

We sit down and something in us goes,

Right,

I'm not doing that again.

That's dangerous.

It's dangerous.

We don't want to laugh that.

We don't feel stupid.

Let's not bother.

And so that becomes,

You know,

A safety mechanism that's within us.

Some thinking that we learn,

Some conditioning,

Some something that becomes habitual.

Because the next time we go,

You know,

Say,

Might be a while before we next go,

And the next time there's a strong feeling of fear.

There's a strong feeling that we can't do whatever it is that there's some danger in there.

Now that bit of thinking just thinks he's got a job to do to keep you safe.

But every single time you do the thing,

You expand.

Or maybe you just lose some layers.

Maybe you maybe isn't about expansion.

I don't know.

I never quite think of the logistics of it.

But if there's a diamond inside you that is capable of doing anything,

Your little tiny self that you were born as,

Had no fear of standing up in front of people.

All children are born capable of,

You know,

They all like,

Everybody sit down,

I'm going to sing you a song,

You know,

And I don't really care what anybody thinks about them.

It's learned behavior.

And the unlearning happens when we do the thing.

Now for me,

A lot of that isn't isn't around public speaking.

If you know me,

That's not an issue for me.

But it was it was all around feeling motivated enough to do things,

Whatever the feeling of motivation is,

I don't know what that is anymore.

I don't really look for it anymore,

Apart from maybe earlier this week.

Where it looked like,

I think I thought that I had to be in a certain feeling state,

All the ducks needed to be in a row.

And then this beam of like or motivation would come down,

Touch me on the head,

And then I would get up and do things.

And I remember listening to a Mirkaar Coedis book,

What the F are the principles,

And he just said,

Why do you think you need need to feel a certain way to do things?

And I went,

Oh,

You don't then?

I thought you did.

And I think what happens every time we take action is a little bit of that gulf that was holding us back a bit of that thinking just dissolves.

I mean,

It's as it's as solid as clouds.

And just so that you know,

You know,

When you look at the clouds out of the plain window,

And they look like you could just get on them and just have a lie down,

You can't,

Please don't do that.

Thoughts are the same.

When you poke at them a little bit,

They just go pshh.

And poking at them,

I'm seeing this new and saying this new today,

Poking at them involves taking action sometimes.

And I love a lot of what Claire Diamond says,

She just says,

Do the thing,

Do the thing that looks like it's going to kill you.

Looks like you're going to die if you do it because you're not,

You're not well,

I mean,

Clearly there are some things that you could die if you do them,

But don't do those things.

But,

You know,

Day in day out,

We are not doing we could just take a little bit of action and see how that how we're okay.

So yeah,

I mean,

Maybe just today,

Do something that feels like it's difficult,

Awkward,

Uncomfortable,

Not for you.

And see what happens.

There is you are infinite.

You are way beyond your thinking,

And I would love you to see that.

And by the way,

If you're interested in finding out a little bit more about my new programme,

Then book a call.

There'll be a means to do that somewhere around wherever you're listening to or watching this.

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 Calmcast with Clare Downham,

Queen of Calm.

Take care and keep listening.