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 who doesn't want to listen to an episode that just starts with you're amazing?
That's it.
That's all I really want you to know.
So that's me done for today.
Not really.
But that is it.
That is the pointing that I will be doing in every single conversation I have with somebody.
That is where I'm pointing.
And it's coming up a lot at the moment.
I don't know if it's the type of people who are coming to talk to me,
But I am being asked over and over again,
Can you help me?
So many people in the world right now are seeing themselves as absolutely broken.
And it's really easy when you see it from how I see it,
In the way I see it,
It's really easy to see why.
And it starts when we're very small.
And I loved,
I saw a post this morning by a lovely lady called Dr.
Lizzie,
Who I follow.
And she talked about it being like paper cuts.
You just pick up these little bits of things.
And I'm doing that.
I can't see my hands,
But you know,
You pick up these little bits of stuff about yourself,
Stuff that's not true,
Stuff that's not who you really are.
But people say things to you,
People tell you you're stupid,
They tell you that you're fat and ugly,
Or they tell you that you're not good enough,
Or they tell you,
They tell you things about you,
Or they shout at you.
And this is not about A,
It's not about blaming those people.
And B,
It's not about saying that what they did was deliberate or mean or anything else.
It's just nothing,
Nothing at all to do with that.
It's not that.
But it's seeing that there was some unconscious teaching going on and some unconscious learning.
And you were so small when that started that when you started to not at all become aware,
When there started to be a voice in your head saying things about you,
Why would you not believe it?
It's in your own head.
It's fundamentally,
I speak to when I work with clients,
I quite often have them suddenly say,
Oh my God,
I now suddenly,
I just suddenly became aware that there's this voice in my head,
And that that voice in my head isn't me.
And that,
But before that,
There is this voice,
You've noticed,
You just take a moment,
Even if you sit in silence for a few minutes,
Especially for me,
If I sit down for a few minutes,
The voice starts going,
What are you doing sitting down,
You should be moving,
Doing something,
Why are you not working on your business,
Whatever,
You know,
It does that less and less,
But it still does.
And I am a person who seems to need to be busy and moving and doing things.
So it's,
It's like seeing before that,
Though,
That voice looks real.
And the voice is saying bad things.
And the voice is saying a bit rubbish in the voice is saying this feeling isn't okay.
And that behavior is not okay.
And you shouldn't be thinking like that.
And why are you doing that?
And then it's on and on and on and on children away.
And we don't see,
Because of that voice dictating towards our beliefs about the world and how the world how our world and the world around us should be and is.
We we don't see our amazingness,
We don't see how amazing we are.
Because that voice is really loud.
And it also directs our attention.
So that's,
You know,
It directs what we're conscious of.
Because there's so much information that has the potential to come into our awareness at any moment,
I think it's millions of bits,
I keep forgetting how many millions,
But it doesn't really matter,
Even if it was 1 million,
We can manage about 50.
So all the time,
That belief system is cutting out,
Cutting out,
Cutting out.
So often when I talk to people,
And they're telling me about terrible things,
And how they are and how this is not okay,
And I'm listening for the bits of,
Or the shining of the diamond.
I'm just listening for where they're actually missing their amazingness.
So they might say something like,
Oh,
But then I managed to stop myself doing that.
But then they'll go straight on to how they're not okay.
I'll be off again,
And it's really fast.
But I'm listening all the time.
Listening for the place where I can say,
You're amazing.
So I was chatting to a young man earlier last week,
And he was kind of talking about how he'd got caught up in his thinking about something.
But as he was telling me the stories,
Laughing about it,
And I said to him,
You know,
It's not so long since that you wouldn't have been able to laugh about that.
You would have taken it so much more seriously.
And now you're kind of,
In the moment,
You're perhaps missing it a bit,
But you're not carrying on with it for quite so long,
And you're laughing at it.
You're laughing at it.
You're seeing how silly it was,
Rather than going,
Oh,
It's awful.
It's something that's wrong with me.
And it's just that.
It's just pointing out again and again.
So when people ask me,
Which they often do,
Can you help me,
Or am I too broken?
Am I too far gone?
The answer is always yes.
The answer is always yes.
Because if you just start to see a glimmer of who you really are,
You just start to see a little bit,
That changes everything.
It really,
Really does.
You only have to start to see a glimmer.
Because it's almost like,
Inside our head,
There's all this thinking that causes us to look in a certain direction,
To look in a certain way.
And then we just start to look a little bit in the other direction to what is whole about us,
To what is well about us,
To what is amazing about us.
And that starts to change things.
And then that grows the more we focus on it.
And that's what I encourage people to do.
I encourage people to notice the places where they're doing well.
And I think that's different from what a lot of people's experience has been of getting help before that.
I hear so many sad stories.
And this is not a reflection on people who are helping people in this way.
It's just that's the level of understanding people are at.
People have been told things like,
You'll be like this forever.
This is who you are.
This is how you are.
You will have to learn to manage this condition forever.
So people,
For example,
Who are struggling with issues they have coming out of whatever kind of trauma they're being told.
Well,
The trauma's damaged you in some way,
Like that you,
In the,
In the,
In tech,
Integrally,
That word wouldn't come out.
You're broken inside and you psychologically broken and you'll have to just find some tools and techniques to manage that for the rest of your life.
That's not true because that's just something you've learned and it can be let go of.
It's seeing that that's just thought.
Yeah,
Things,
Bad things happen.
And then when we think about them more,
When we get caught up in them,
We experience horrible feelings of,
As a result,
But that's not a sign that there's something wrong with us or that we're broken.
It's just not.
So imagine if you just started to look in that direction for a little while in the direction of how amazing you are,
You started to notice how well you handle things,
How resilient you are.
You started to notice the moments when you just naturally fall into calm,
Nothing much to do,
Just sort of happens.
And it's seeing that that's who you really are,
Not the other bit.
It's starting to become aware to notice that voice in your head.
I was talking to my stepson yesterday about this and we were talking about,
He was talking about,
Bruce and I must have been talking about the three principles and Bruce said the three principles and Ethan said,
What's the three principles?
And we're trying to explain it to a 10 year old child,
But he's understood the bit about thought.
He started to get more discerning and that's the thing,
It's discernment.
He stopped listening so much to that voice,
The voice that tells him to be doing naughty things at school or not listening to the teacher or the distracting voice.
He's becoming more discerning and that's what I help people to do,
Help them to become more discerning of what passes through their heads.
It's really,
Really that simple.
So that feels like it's not fizzling out,
It's just coming to a natural end.
I'm fizzling out,
Over and fizzling out.
So yeah,
Today just remember,
Even if you just remember it a bit,
That underneath all your thoughts and your feelings and your behaviors,
There's just something that's rock solid and whole in you and just notice it and smile to yourself when you do.
I don't want you to ever forget how amazing you are.
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 Clare Downham,
Queen of Calm.
Take care and keep listening.
