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 how underlying fear creates stress and I am going to start with a little story of something that happened to me last week.
So I've been on a course with Michael Neill.
I'm in week two of it now and it's called The Secrets to Effortless Success and I couldn't make the call on Thursday because I was doing some volunteer coaching that I do so I had to listen to the recording.
I listened to the recording on Friday night and I don't even know what was said but something,
The first week was about effortless being so there's maybe something in that somewhere along the line but I realised that there was something I'd been avoiding for a long time actually and I don't know why there's a lot of emotion around this still.
I can feel it welling up now it's really strange but I go for a walk most days.
I walk three or four miles every day just around my local area.
We've got some nice woods and places to walk around here and I always did have,
Past tense now,
A podcast or an audiobook playing when I was walking so that was fine you know that it was a good use of my time I think I thought.
There's something there about the old busyness of Claire that has existed for a long time that there is some worth in me being busy which is maybe why it feels a bit emotional because being busy of course led me to burn out and I still think I have a bit of a busy busyness thinking going on so that's maybe why it's a bit emotional but you know emotion has to come out and here it goes live and being recorded.
So on Friday morning after I'd listened to this piece of this recording of Michael Neill's call I thought to myself there's been a little voice inside me for ages saying go for the walk in silence and then almost habitually I've just kept putting my headphones in and going for my walk and talking myself into it almost definitely with kind of well you know you've got things to listen to and you've bought some audiobooks and you need to listen to them and blah you're paying £8.
99 now a month audible you know and you're not paying £8.
99 to not listen to books and blah blah blah when else are you gonna find the time to listen to this content etc etc.
So on Friday morning I thought there's something here there's something underlying this there's some fear of being with my own thoughts I don't even know that that's maybe not the fear I don't know what the fear is the fear of not being busy the fear of I don't know anyway it doesn't really matter because my body was telling me because well my behaviour was telling me first of all that there was a fear there because there was a voice in me saying go for a walk in silence and it was a very persistent voice it kept going Claire go over and over and over again and I just kept ignoring it and carrying on wearing my headphones and going for a walk with noise in my ears.
So on Friday morning when I decided to really like I was like you know how when you've got a little kid you give them a comforter or some description so it was a bit like that I kind of went with a comforter so I had my headphones with me but they were in my rucksack where I also had my remarkable because I did think I might stop off at a cafe on the way back and do a bit of writing I sometimes do.
My headphones went in my bum bags and my bum bag had my phone in because I usually track my walk in some way shape or form.
So and I but I felt as I set off on the walk as I was getting ready to go on the walk with without my headphones in my ears I felt fear.
That was the only time it felt so visceral it felt in my body I felt afraid of going for a walk without my headphones on.
Now it sounds when I say it out loud I felt afraid of going for a walk without my headphones on it sounds ridiculous and I can laugh at it because but it's seeing that we've all got a little thing.
Your little thing might be not picking up your phone and doing a live video that you keep promising yourself would help your business will grow or any kind of video maybe which is where I would have been like three years ago a little little less than three years ago I would have not come on a live video and done this in a million years you would have had to drag me kicking and screaming.
Now those things are a bit more obvious I think but maybe they're not but I did a little video earlier today and which I post on social media and I said if there's something that a little voice inside you like here keeps saying do that thing and you're not doing it then there is some fear that's what's going on there is some fear there there is some thought that you have learnt along the way that says don't do that it doesn't mean a it doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it and b it doesn't mean you can't do it excuse me it doesn't mean either of those things it just means that somewhere along the line you learnt some thinking that says don't do that and and that can feel like fear it might not feel super scary like when you're watching a horror movie or something it won't have that level to it but it will be it will just feel like you know like you you know like when a dog is on a retractable lead and you watch them sometimes they run off and then they reach the end of the lead and they kind of go like that it's a bit like that you you'll feel like you can go so far in life but then this you're being stopped where you're stopping is like the line of your thinking now what happened to me on friday once i set off and discovered this well i can't think my system settled very quickly because clearly i'm not going to die and probably less likely to die if i'm not having my headphones in so you hear the traffic and stuff and it when my system realized i was fine and i settled into walking in the peace and quiet it was wonderful and and all sorts of things that you know will be excitingly revealed in the next few weeks just just slotted into place my head was like a little fast game of tetris where all these little pieces of things that i've been putting off or haven't quite been able to get clear on all fell into place and that was what the little voice of intuition was saying to me that little voice was saying you need this space to allow your head to kind of sort some things out for that wisdom that intuition to come through the thing to see about this is that your thinking which produces the fearful feeling doesn't know what you are capable of and there's a good chance that some of that is creating stress in your life because if you are not doing things that might help you or move you forward or whatever that can feel stressful can't you if you get to the end of the day and you're a bit like oh i've not done the thing again i've not progressed i've not moved for it feels horrible doesn't it nobody wants to feel that way now that's still your thinking about that situation but it's it's it's nicer to have done the thing isn't it and what i've seen around this kind of underlying fear is that it really can as you know if you're a business owner if you've got a side hustle or whatever it is it really can hold you back from from creating something that you would really love to do so what what's to do about this well what's to do is to do really it's a ridiculous sentence it it's to do the thing in whatever small way you can step forward because like i went for a walk in silence on friday and saturday and yesterday on sunday i walked with other people so it wasn't particularly in silence i wouldn't put my headphones in when i'm walking with other people anyway um but that's three days three times i've been for a walk without my headphones in and loads of things have kind of become clear it it there's you know bless our system bless our thinking it really is there to keep us safe it thinks but it's not it's holding us back and it does create stress when we keep holding ourselves back and we feel that frustration with ourselves so but what happens when we do the thing is that very quickly we feel okay about it i was looking at something this morning about um leaders who are introverts introverted leaders and how they may have some thinking which they've learned not naturally introverted they've learned some things about themselves about putting themselves out there and actually they just have to do it but but the the ease of doing it comes when you realize that that feeling is not about the thing you're about to do the fearful feeling is letting you know you've got fearful old tatty habitual conditioned thinking that's got nothing to do with what's right in front of you now because just telling somebody to do the thing who is terrified and feeling that fear is not going to work i'm not telling you just to force yourself but when you see when you see through having a lovely conversation with me of course that the feeling is just letting you know what's turning over in here then the doing becomes easier and easier you just have to see it we don't we can't always see our sneaky little bits of fear but as i said at the beginning if you are not doing something that there is a space inside your heart is saying do it that's the clue that's letting you know there's some sticky thinking there that's holding you back so do something today do something today and feel feel that feeling and know that feeling is just letting you know i've got some i wish you're thinking about this it's not real lots of love enjoy playing 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 calm take care and keep listening
