Thought Created 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 I'm talking about the thought created stress because,

Well because you need to know,

You need to know that it's thought created because once you know that you just have a nicer experience of life.

It's really,

Really simple but it's not always easy to see and the reason it's not easy to see is because of the fact that we're in it all the time,

Thought.

It's not like it's something we come in and out of so sometimes we're thinking and sometimes we're not.

We're thinking all the time and that's what's creating every moment of our reality.

Now the reason I spoke about this morning,

I've just been listening to Amy Johnson's book and she shares this story which I've actually heard before many,

Many years ago and it's a story of there are two fish swimming along together,

Two young fish swimming along together and they bump into,

No bump into,

They'd meet an older fish in the water and the older fish says to them,

Hi boys,

How's the water?

And the two young fish swim off after saying hello to the older fish and it's only a little while later when one young fish says to the other fish,

What's water?

And of course because fish are swimming around,

I'm giving fish a little more intellect than they actually have but because fish are swimming around in water all the time,

All day,

Every day,

They've no idea and since the moment you were born,

You know,

The minute,

Maybe not the minute you were born but you've been swimming around in thought right from when you could think and because your introduction to thought was done very,

Very gradually,

Your things that you learn about yourself and the world and everything else from everybody around you was done so unconsciously,

You can't see it until you start to look.

And so when we experience stress,

It really does look like the outside world is creating that.

Now I have a lot of conversations with business owners all day,

Every day,

I do a lot of one-to-ones,

I do a lot of coaching and a lot of them will tell you,

I received a message this morning where somebody was telling me that they are launching something or doing something and that that is what's creating stress for them.

Stress doesn't come from the outside world.

I mean even if you look at that physiologically,

You can see it.

Stress is created,

The feeling of stress and the symptoms that come as a consequence of that like not being able to sleep and,

You know,

Overeating and drinking,

Whatever things people do to manage their stress.

The hormones,

The discomfort that you feel when you're feeling stress,

That sort of wound up feeling that then means you can't sleep and things is created not from the outside world because if it was the outside world then there would be somebody somewhere with a syringe of adrenaline putting that into your system.

The outside world doesn't have a direct impact on your body and your feelings in your body are coming from the inside and not coming from the outside.

And the way they're created is through thought.

Other animals have that same system working in them but because other animals don't think,

They don't create it unless there's something actually going on.

So if an animal is being pursued by a predator then absolutely those hormones are released into the body because then an awareness of a predator means the animal needs to run away.

But human beings aren't like that.

We are like that if we are actually being chased by a predator but in actual fact all that happens if you're really being chased by a predator is that you respond,

Your body moves,

Things happen,

You get out of the way.

There's not a lot of thinking involved.

But what we can do because we're clever and we've got lots of thinking availability is that we can wind ourselves up with our thinking to the point where it really feels like we are in danger but we're not.

Now this is just about being aware that there is a system at play and that system is at play inside you.

It isn't about doing anything really differently other than being aware.

And so maybe it's helpful to be aware of the kinds of thinking that are creating stress for you.

And I wrote something earlier today where I kind of pointed to the types of thinking that we do that create stress.

So one of those that I have no doubt most of us are involved particularly if we're in business and that's comparison.

We can create stress by comparing with our thinking,

Comparing ourselves with others and then it looks like we're not as good as we could be and should be and etc.

And of course that creates stress.

We can create stress by judging.

I can wind myself up really good and proper just by having a moan about other people and what they're doing and what they're up to and blah blah blah and then thinking they're wrong and I'm right.

Not as much as I used to but I still have a real capacity to do that.

We create stress by having thoughts that are about the future.

Even if that's a little way off like I can be in the shower in the morning and I can start thinking about all the things I've got to do today and I can start to feel stress.

That's why people don't sleep on a Sunday night with the thoughts of work.

They're not at work.

Work can't be creating stress because they're not there.

They're at home thinking about work.

If you didn't think about work on a Sunday night you would sleep beautifully and wake up refreshed on Monday and probably have a better day.

So your mind gets caught up in the future.

Your thinking goes to the future and it also loves to ruminate in the past.

Your mind loves to storify.

That's when something happens.

Somebody does something.

A circumstance happens.

Somebody in government makes a decision and then we wrap a story around that.

We do that a lot about ourselves.

Somebody says something to us or they have a certain tone of voice or they have a look in their eye or they send us an email or whatever and then we wrap a story around that.

We wrap a huge story around it about us and how we're not good enough and that person's thinking that about us.

I hope as I'm saying this you can just hear.

I hope you can hear humanness because that's it.

That's you being a human being.

That's you having a human experience.

That's what thought does.

It's just what it does.

It's not about you.

It's not personal.

You're not the only one doing this.

You're not the only one creating stress with their thinking.

Everybody's doing it.

Everybody all over the world,

Every adult human,

Well unfortunately not just adult humans,

It's starting younger and younger isn't it,

Is creating stress.

My fiance's got a little boy who's 10.

He's already thinking about high school and creating stress.

He's not at high school.

He's still at primary school.

But already he gets ahead of himself and creates stress.

The stressful thinking about high school.

There's not high school creating stress.

It won't even be creating that when he's there.

His thinking about it might.

Every single human being is doing this.

Now why am I telling all of this?

Because once you've got a bit of awareness that you're doing it,

You might choose not to.

And that's really all I ever do with people.

I help you to see where thought's giving you a really crappy experience of life.

And then I help you to see that there's a choice.

You don't have to carry on thinking like that if you don't want to.

Now there's a lot of things about changing thinking.

Now that's not what I'm pointing to.

The choice to not think that way.

Not to change your thinking for some better thinking or anything like that.

But just the choice in the moment to not do that comes when you realize that doing that is creating your discomfort.

It's like if I start poking myself in the eye and I say my eye really hurts,

Then I'm going to stop if I know I'm doing that.

Most of us don't know,

Just like the fish in the water,

That we are swimming around in our thought-created reality,

Causing a lot of stress for ourselves.

Innocently,

The fish are innocent and you're innocent and everybody else is innocent.

We're all innocent.

None of it's done deliberately.

But there's something amazing that happens when you start to see.

This kind of thinking causes me to feel crappy.

So maybe I won't engage in that kind of thinking so much.

And we've all got a thing.

And most of us have got the same thing.

Most of us are doing those things that I listed before.

Comparing,

Judging,

Future thinking,

Ruminating,

Making stories about what people are thinking about us,

Imposter syndrome,

If you like to call it that,

All those things.

We're all doing similar things.

So all this is guiding you towards is some awareness that you're doing it.

And once you have that awareness,

Amazing things can happen.

It just starts to appear that there's more choice.

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.