From Surviving to Thriving: A No Tools, No Techniques Shift from Stress and Overwhelm to Fulfilment

Anticipation is a source of stress. It is defined as, 'the action of anticipating something; expectation or prediction.' Here's what I see happening. We anticipate the future, predict something terrible and then expect that we won't be able to cope. It feels awful and that's the clue. The awful feeling is your system letting you know your thinking is off. Simple to avoid once you know that the sou...

Realising innate wellbeing relieves stress because something magic happens when you see how you work. That the feelings you are feeling are not you. They are something which is passing through you. Underneath that you are a diamond. The true you is unbreakable. Thought is powerful but it is not true and it is not you! If you want to see this more, drop me a message. Get full access to From Survivi...

Perhaps you have noticed how your feelings of stress fluctuate despite the circumstances staying the same. You might have also had a moment when you have felt stressed about something which isn't happening right now. Maybe you have noticed that other people do not get stressed about the same things as you.  That's because there's a missing piece of the jigsaw. The real reason we feel stressed is o...

When we are connected to wisdom, we experience less stress. We are guided and can navigate through life more easily. Sometimes people call it intuition and say it comes from a quiet place but it is so much more than that. Every moment of every day we are being guided. This guidance comes from our feelings. Uncomfortable feeling = uncomfortable thinking = time to pause Calm feeling = calm thinking...

I am noticing there is more and more laughter. It seems to me that it can break a spell. When we are feeling stressed and realise we are creating that, it signals that we have noticed it. I see it more and more in my work with clients. Those laughing realisations and in myself - noticing the craziness of life and laughing at it! Perhaps as I share today, you might notice you would like to laugh at...

On Monday I spotted a source of stress in my life. It was something I had not realised before. Some thinking I am involved in. It's probably been around a long time and it was definitely pivotal in the burnout. I realised yesterday that I do a lot of judging, monitoring and supervising. My children, my fiancé and anyone who is doing it wrong really. 🤣 It creates a current of underlying stress. Th...

Worry ... It feels awful; anxious, scary and fearful. There's a clue in that feeling. It's let us know the truth. Not about what we are worrying about but about our state of mind. The feeling is letting us know that we are believing something which isn't true. It's so much simpler than you think. When you realise the feeling is coming from worrying thinking, it suddenly makes whole lot less sense...

Stress can result when we don't listen to our bodily wisdom. We have learnt to ignore it. We are much more likely to listen to that voice in our heads. But the voice in our heads is just the echo of the past. It's old habitual thinking. Our bodies are wise and guiding us all the time. Maybe just listen for today. Get full access to From Surviving to Thriving at claredownham.substack.com/subscribe

Not seeing our potential creates stress. It has us believing that we cannot do things, solve things and that we don't have the answers. But our potential is so much more than we can see. That's mainly because our thinking gets in the way; the beliefs we have about ourselves. But I see your potential and my favourite thing is to help you see it. Not just see it but access it in every moment. Then s...

Shouldification often plays a part in the creation of stressful feelings. I know it is a made up word but I am sure you know exactly what it means. It is when we say something or someone should be different. In that moment it looks like we will feel better if the change happens. But we are misunderstanding where the feeling is coming from. The feeling is coming from the shouldification not the per...

We are all looking to find relief from our feelings. It seems to be a human mission. It makes sense when we see feelings as a problem but when we see feelings as information, that all changes. It's the ultimate relief. Not having to manage feelings any more. Imagine that! Get full access to From Surviving to Thriving at claredownham.substack.com/subscribe

Flow is the antidote to stress and anxiety. A space where we are connected to the present moment. Where we only consider the next step. One step at a time. There is no consideration of the future. Non of the past. Just the present moment and the day unfolding. I recently found myself in that place and share my experience of it during this session. Get full access to From Surviving to Thriving at c...

My transformation was from stressed out Headteacher to Queen of Calm but there were really two stages to it. The first was the fix myself stage; tools, techniques and self-development; I tried them all. The second stage was a falling away of all that. A change in the way I saw the world and my own psychology in it. It felt like I finally had the manual for how my experience was created. Transforma...

Rejection can often seem like a source of stress. Especially in business but in other walks of life too. I was asked to create this episode on 'the stress that one feels after working hard on a proposal for a potential client who then turns you down after you have presented to them'. I suspect we have all experienced this at some point but have you ever wondered what makes rejection stressful? Rej...

Hindsight is a wonderful thing ... apparently! Google defines hindsight as the ability to understand and realise something about an event after it has happened, although you did not understand or realise it at the time. But have you noticed how easy it is to use hindsight to beat ourselves up! We do something, later we see things differently then we feel guilty about what we did.  But all I want y...

'How do we work through unhelpful intrusive thoughts!' was a question I was asked recently. Perhaps it's best to consider what an intrusive thought is first of all. I checked it out on Google which said, 'Intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts that can pop into our heads without warning, at any time.' I think perhaps the most important word in that sentence is 'unwanted'. Imagine if we didn't ca...

Balance can be seen as a pillar of having a calm life and avoiding stress. Surely once we have created balance between our work and personal life, we will have cracked it and life will be perfect.  But perhaps in the seeking of balance which actually miss the point; that balance is available to us in every moment with presence. When we are trying to create balance perhaps that is the last thing we...

Self-identity is linked to stress and burn out because our self-identity creates every outcome. Who we think we are is at play all the time. It forms the world we live in. This means there are nearly 8 billion realities each being formed by the separation created by the self-identity. The self-identity is thought and is what we learnt from others as we grew up. IT IS NOT TRUTH! As we begin to see...

Storification is a made up word. But this time it isn't me who has made it up. This word was made up by the lovely Wynn Morgan. I heard him say it in his podcast with Kate Roberts recently so I dropped him a message and asked if I could talk about it with you. So here I am ... We humans are storifying all day every day; that is wrapping a story around something which has happened. Making meaning w...

Recently I have become more aware of urgency! You know that feeling that something needs to be done yesterday!  Urgency feels very real in the moment and it feels like the only way to get rid of that feeling is to do the thing! But the feeling isn't coming from the thing. The feeling of urgency is coming from our thinking about the thing. Urgent feeling = urgent thinking. And when you think about...

'Comparison is the thief of joy' - Theodore Roosevelt. From what I have seen this is certainly true. It comes up often in my coaching sessions but today it has come up as a request from a friend who asked me to talk about 'avoiding the curse of comparison and it’s debilitating affect on mindset and mood.' It looks like Roosevelt, this friend and I are all on the same page. Comparison really does a...

Futurism is defined as the concern with events and trends of the future, or which anticipate the future. I suspect this can be fun when we are curious and holding it lightly but that's not often what we do is it? We tend to believe our concerns and that tends to create anxious feelings. So how can we consider the future without creating anxiety? Get full access to From Surviving to Thriving at cla...

What is a personality? Of course I looked it up on Google. Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving. Nothing to do with who we really are then because we are not thinking, feelings or behaviour. We are so much more than that. And the more we see that, the more the so called, 'personality' melts away and then there is a space for us t...

How do things escalate? A small disagreement which becomes a massive argument. It's always fuelled by a misunderstanding. It's the same misunderstanding I always talk about. The misunderstanding about there our feelings comes from. It starts with a reaction ... and then another ... and then another! It goes back and forth. More and more fuel poured on the fire. An explosion is inevitable!  But at...

Difficult conversations is the topic today. It's a request from Dr. Johannes Metzler (Please drop me a message if you have a request) This is what he said, "I just noticed how some clients are afraid of difficult conversations because they have created the conversation as difficult in their mind because they imagine the future and then take it for real. And how we are most available to the moment...