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

There's no way to stop feelings coming in even though it can look like there is. It looks like you can use tools and techniques, resolve the past or   transcend the human experience. But that's not true and the impact of all that trying is actually to stop us seeing the truth. Because the truth is that every bit of calm and clarity you are seeking is already there inside you! It's the noise of all...

Sometimes it looks like we have to do it all now and that creates an overwhelmed feeling. But here's how thought is the true source of that overwhelmed feeling. This week I have been creating a course but I have not created a course. No-one ever does actually. Let me explain. I have recorded some videos and uploaded them. I have created a landing page and done some other tasks. Even they can be br...

I was plagued by perfectionism (I still am a bit really.). There's a sense of things I do needing to be perfect which can slow things down. I can stop me putting things out into the world. Maybe you can relate. But there's a much bigger elephant in the room. The places where I think other people are doing it wrong; where other people are not perfect. I'll be honest, when I am in the thick of this...

There's a middle man involved sitting between what's out there and our experience of it. It really can look like our experience is pure. Something happens out there and we feel it inside us. That is the outside in paradigm and  living in this place makes us victims. It makes us want to control and it can be the slippery slope to burnout.  Just remembering there is a middle man which is thought in...

Have you noticed that you get over things every time. When you are in the thick of it you can forget really easily. It might be overwhelm, stress or that anxious feeling. When it's happening, forgetting that you get over it can make it worse. Because every single time, you reconnect to your inner wellbeing. That happens without fail. Your natural system is always taking you in that direction. You...

You are not broken, neither am I and neither is anyone else. I truly believe this now but I didn't used. I used to think, 'There are so many broken people. How can I help them?' So when a client sat in front of me I saw that they were broken and hen I spoke to them, I heard that they really thought that too. But then I saw the truth which is encapsulated in these words, 'You are not broken, you ju...

The power of simplicity is something I have seen more and more over the last 2 years. Of course, life got simpler in the outside world because there was less to do, places to visit and less stuff to buy. I really enjoyed this. But my seeing of the power of simplicity goes so much deeper than this. You see, I spent a long time searching for source of my feelings because I was looking to change them...

Fear of the unknown seems to be a current issue which innocently creating suffering. I hear it expressed often particularly about the future. People say, "I am afraid of the unknown", but when we think about that word, unknown, what does it really mean? If something is unknown their is a space. But it is a space we innocently fill with what we think we already know. We fill it from our intellect,...

Commitment is a word which is used a lot in relationships, in business and in learning to name but a few. But here is different question about commitment. How committed are you to what you make up? I mean the things you make up about the future, the thoughts you imagine in other people's heads and even the beliefs you have about yourself. Have you noticed that they come with a feeling (it's not ni...

I woke up feeling anxious! You know the feeling. Butterflies in the stomach, a general unease around the shoulders and a head which is a bit fuzzy. I started searching for why. Did I have a bad dream? What is going on today? What could be wrong with me? I noticed the feeling intensifying. Then I remembered. "You are feeling thought, Clare." Then I let go. "You don't need to know what the thinking...

Information from the outside creates that overwhelmed feeling. Information from the news, social media and other people's ideas. But also information about the inside like seeking the reason for feelings, trying to control our thoughts and searching for calm. All this information and trying to understand fills our heads and if we have a decision to make, it can really get in the way. Did you know...

Lies, damn lies and the things we think about ourselves ordered perfectly from bad to worse and here's why. You see the things you think about yourself have literally nothing to do with you. They have been innocently created over time by other people like parents, teachers and other children. We don't need to explore this further as it's just something to know. It helps to distance yourself. You w...

"I am not coping with this", said someone I was talking to a few days ago. I asked him a simple question, "How do you know you are not coping?" He paused and suddenly there was space. That question was asked in all innocence because I really did wonder how we know whether or not we are coping and what does coping even mean? It seems to me that your version of coping will be different to mine becau...

Control is an old friend of mine which is thankfully now hanging around a little less but we were close for a long time. Once upon a time, I tried to control E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! It happened in two phases. In the run up to burnout it was people, circumstances and the future. Then whilst on the self-development hamster wheel it was my thoughts, feelings and behaviour. It was exhausting, laden with...

The past is so temptingly presented to us as the panacea of mental wellbeing. You are encouraged to work through your traumas, find the source of your behaviour and root out those unwanted feelings. I went down that path for many years but it just doesn't make sense any more. Because now I see the truth that human beings feel what they think in the moment. So, when we think about something bad in...

A thought appears, then what? Well ideally it passes right on through a bit like a cloud passing across the sky. Some of our thoughts do that don't they? They pass straight across our heads with ease. But you might have noticed that doesn't seem to happen with some thoughts. Those habitual ones; fearful ones about the future, the ones about what other people think of you and the  guilty ones about...

Life is happening in the meantime. It is happening while you are making up a scary future, feeling guilty about the past or trying to work out why someone else did something. The present moment is always happening. You are breathing in the present, your body is in it and your senses are taking it in. But where are your thoughts? Just asking that question can help because the answer can help you to...

Do you know that you are selectively editing all the time? The thing is that humans have a limited capacity to experience the world. Of the 11 million bits of information out there each second, we can only be conscious of about 50! So we have to filter or selectively edit and the filter with which we do that is thought. Our beliefs (which are just habitual thoughts) filter every single part of our...

If you think it's about you sound the alarm bell because thinking it's about you is a warning that your thinking has gone into story mode. The lack of response to a message, the look on someone's face. or the behaviour of our nearest and dearest. None of this has anything to do with you. Everything emanating from another person is only to do with them. Their thinking, feelings and actions. But whe...

From first impressions to that overwhelmed feeling can happen in a flash can't it! Often we don't even know we have done it because we don't notice that we have created a story. Stories like that look someone had on their face means they are thinking badly of us, that unanswered message means they don't like us anymore or that un-emptied bin means they are lazy and don't care. But it helps to know...

"You make a molehill out of a mountain", is what was said to me at the end of a conversation yesterday. And I just love it because I think it really sums up what I do. It tells you how I help people. Where there is stress and overwhelm I help there to be more calm, clarity and simplicity.  The opposite 'making a mountain out of a molehill' is what we, as humans are doing all day every day. We take...

Living in denial of facts creates that overwhelmed feeling because there are some facts about being human. They are truths - like those in science - like gravity. Imagine for a moment if you lived whilst denying gravity; stepping through broken things all day long. That would create that overwhelmed feeling whilst you tried to keep up with the cleaning and avoid cutting your feet on the shards of...

Presence or positivity? Which one do you think is more important? Positivity might look like the winner because it gets a really good press. But presence brings so much more. When we think positively about the future, we are just swapping one lie for another. Any thoughts about the future are lies. Presence is the closest to truth you will ever get. It's the place where your wisdom kicks in and fr...

Are you trying to be 100% in how you are feeling or in your business or in your parenting? I think I tried to be 100% for a long time. That didn't turn out too well. Burn out was the result. It turns out that being 100% isn't really human and anyway how do we even decide when we are? That has to be created via thought doesn't it? A decided inside thing. Your 100% won't look like mine and my 100% w...

Do you remember Dory from Finding Nemo? She is his little friend who helps him on his journey. The most significant thing about Dory is that she suffers from short-term memory loss but that is one of my favourite things about Dory. She turns up in every moment fresh and new with nothing on her mind. She has no preconceived ideas about herself or anyone else and I suspect it's no coincidence that s...