You can read Part 1, here: The lead-up
Part 2, here: Thought realisation
And Part 3, here: Implications
A common question, usually when being introduced to the 3 Principles for the first time, or after having had some insights around the omnipresence of Innate Health and wanting to share it with others, is:
“Where's the evidence?”
We've been brought up on a diet of science and research and randomised controlled trials, and if you go anywhere near organisations that want a return on their investment, ‘evidence’ is the lingua franca, so it's a fair enough question, really. It's one I would ask!
🤓
The good news is, there's plenty out there, if you know where to look. Admittedly, a lot of it is in smaller journals (measuring something that, to all intents and purposes, is invisible, is not entirely straightforward!) but there have been some fairly rigorous trials of the 3 Principles, with occasionally remarkable results.
(You can also read some of my own research I conducted when working with Social Care staff during the Covid pandemic. I used an Innate Health approach to support people who found themselves in the most challenging circumstances you could imagine, which led to chart-topping results: gilespcroft.com/resilience)
The reason I'm telling you all this, is because if you read some of the research papers—especially the many that have been penned by Professor Tom Kelley—you'll see the repeated mention of two fundamental insights it's possible to have, when exploring these principles behind our experience of life:
- Thought recognition
- Innate health
Those two aspects get pointed to over and over again in the research, because everything else—all the bazillion other insights we could have—is just a variation on the theme of those two.
And it makes sense in a way, because really that's all that's going on! That's the experience that every human being is having, boiled down to one of its most simple, straightforward descriptions. It’s the alchemy of the psychological and the spiritual that brings it all to life for us, in each moment that comes along.
It's why I created the ‘stick man’ diagram I so often share with you:
From reading the previous two Daily Reminders in this series, you may have noticed that pretty much the entire discussion, and the insights I had, were centred on the former – on thought realisation. That’s understandable, because it’s the most visible aspect of our experience.
The psychological, ‘human’ component of our day to day existence is the most obvious, it’s what gets talked about all the time, and it’s what gets researched (usually to the exclusion of all the spiritual, ‘being’ aspects of our experience).
But when the mind gets out of the way entirely—however briefly—one gets a glimpse of what lies underneath/before/outwith the separate psychological experience… and on Day 17 of this little adventure of mine, again, completely unbidden, that’s exactly what happened for me.
Back to the conference centre
Every year, once a year I got invited to speak at a weekend careers conference for medical staff. It was largely a place for medics to figure out what specialty they wanted to go into, or where in the country (or world) they'd like to work, with tons of stands promoting their location/specialty.
And there were talks, all aimed at succeeding or choosing or managing workload. I'd been delivering pretty much the same talk for 12 years. It was popular, and it was slick. I usually called it something like “What if it's not for me? 10 Principles of Career Change” or the like, and given how many people were looking to make some sort of change, it was always very well attended and got great feedback.
I absolutely loved doing it – I felt truly alive, up there on stage, sharing everything I'd learned and experienced and all the insights I'd had about the process of change (although I was far less confident talking 1:1 with people, about their individual career situations, something I've written about previously).
Anyway, this year was different, because this year I was ‘launching’ my coaching practice at the conference, too 🙌🏻
I'd had Life Coach training, racked up a fair few hours of unpaid 1:1 work, had invested in the creation of a website, had business cards printed and now I was ready to capitalise on all those people looking for 1:1 support around changing their careers. I'd cleared my diary for a full week after the conference, to make space for the inevitable conversations, and when I showed up in London, I was just about as happy as I could be.
This was a full week after the ballet-shoe-thought-realisation episode, and the insight that landed hot on its heels – that people didn't have to leave their jobs to be much happier in them. My newly-clear, really quite focused mind was practically fizzing with enthusiasm and opportunity and I was living my best life.
(In my head.)
The conference always ran over two days, so I got to deliver the exact same talk to two different audiences on both the Friday and the Saturday. And on Friday 19th October 2018, some time around 3.15pm, you'd have found a smiling, relaxed Giles, sitting in the speaker area, ready to go out there and change the world.
Little did I know what was about to happen.
Talk #1: An unmitigated disaster
Things started to go wrong when an AV technician burst into the room, saw me and ran over, saying, “You do know you're supposed to be on in two minutes, don't you?!”
😐😳😲🫣😱
I did not. I had been so relaxed and so sure of myself—so present! (I thought)—that I had somehow got the wrong start time in my head, believing I had another half an hour before I was due to speak.
Grabbing my stuff, I sprinted to the room and strode up to the front, apologising as I went, while the technician followed in my wake, attaching microphones and various technical paraphernalia about my person.
I had been super-chill and now I was super-freaked out. I felt like such an idiot.
As I started talking, the full force of all I'd realised in the previous couple of weeks was bursting to get out, but I was so rattled that none of it seemed to make any sense any more; certainly not in a way that I could easily articulate.
Or at all, for that matter.
What with websites and insights and business cards and travel and podcast-listening and company setup and the like, I'd not had the opportunity to sit down with my slick, well-worn 10 Principles of Career Change presentation and really consider how I might do it differently, in light of my fresh perspective.
😑
It pains me now, to write what I'm about to write, because the Giles Ego Construct 📦 does so like to be seen as knowing what it's doing. But between you and me, I can see now that rather naively I thought that all I had to do was ‘be present’ and that meant I would be able to wing it, and it would turn out brilliantly.
🤦🏻♂️
Properly flustered and trying desperately to somehow interweave all of my new insights into the pre-existing structure of a decade-old talk (that had a tendency to over-run even when I performed it flawlessly) I proceeded to deliver the most confused, stumbling, incoherent mess of a talk I think I have ever delivered in my life.
At one point I looked down at the front row and saw a couple of people idly scrolling on their phones and remember wishing the ground would open up and swallow me. It was terrible. I wanted to die.
At the end, when I used to encourage people to sign up to my mailing list on my iPad (Hi, if you're still here! 👋🏻) and take individual questions while I packed up, instead of the usual long queue, I could have counted the number of interested folk on one hand.
So on Friday 19th October 2018, some time around 6.15pm, you'd have found a frowning, utterly dejected Giles, travelling across London back to his digs, wondering how it could all have gone so wrong.
😔
Second bite at the cherry
I got a fairly early night that night. Initially, I'd started to re-write my entire presentation but was so physically and emotionally drained I gave up quickly and only really managed to edit the first, introductory slide, that displayed a list of what the talk was, and was not about, before abandoning it, for bed.
Setting in stone the insight that I'd had a week previously, I had added a single bullet point line to the What this talk is not about column:
- How to leave medicine.
That was pretty much it! 😂 I'd had a bit of back and forth, messaging Jamie on Twitter for advice and support, and felt eternally grateful that I was going to get a second bite at the cherry, the next day.
I mean, whatever would happen, it couldn't be much worse.
Keen to do anything to avoid repeating the previous day's fiasco, I turned up to the room where I was due to present, a full hour in advance.
😇
There were two doctors sat there in the big empty room and it occurred to me that since I had the label of ‘coach’ now (not just ‘speaker’), and was supposed to be launching my coaching practice this weekend, that I should go and talk to them.
Being polite and asking where they were based and what had brought them the length of the country to the conference, they laughed in unison and replied,
“You!”
They'd heard great things about my talk (from past years, obviously; not the previous day's car crash) and were both interested in doing something outside of medicine, but didn't know where to start. I said if they were up for it, since there was plenty of time, I could give each of them a little laser coaching session, there and then.
They very much were, and after asking the first to let me know what was going on for her, I started to listen.
Listening, as a catalyst
I talk about listening a fair bit—all 3 Principles teachers talk about listening a lot!—because it's so important. The soft flute of wisdom & intuition speaks so quietly, and is so easily drowned out by the horns & percussion section of chattery thought, that listening with nothing on your mind feels a bit unusual at first, and is a bit of an art form.
But boy, does it deliver.
So as I was listening to this doctor telling me about her career situation and dreams, I said very little (the odd “Go on” or “What else?” to keep things moving) and was very aware of not listening to what was inevitably popping up in my head:
- 📦🗣️: Ooh, that happened to me too
- 📦🗣️: Oh, I know what book I should recommend for that
- 📦🗣️: You should let her know about so-and-so; they'd be a really useful contact for her
- 📦🗣️: She should probably do this, that or the other, to resolve that
- 📦🗣️: Hold that thought—or better still, say it now—otherwise you'll forget…
…and dozens of other keen, ‘helpful’ bits of mind-chatter that were vying for my attention. But I let each one slide on through, without latching on to any of them, as I continued to listen deeply, fully present to this other human.
It's amazing what happens when you give someone the gift of presence, ‘allowing them the space’ to speak freely, and reflect. She was realising new things—fresh perspectives on her situation—just from being listened to, it was quite extraordinary. I hadn't said anything of substance!
And when it was obviously my turn to respond, given everything I'd just experienced in that wonderful space of connection (Rumi's field!), what I heard coming out of my mouth was a total surprise to me, and also exactly what she needed to hear.
Wisdom speaks, when we allow it the space to emerge.
I was a bit flabbergasted, to be honest with you, as this was the first time I'd really put this to the test in a real-world situation with someone genuinely seeking careers-help. And what I'd said, or reflected, or drawn out of her was so much more powerful than anything I could have planned, with my intellect.
I checked that we were done for now, and asked the second doctor what was going on with her… and blow me, if the same thing didn't happen again!
From pure presence—just letting all preconceptions, judgements and ideas for ‘advice’ slide on through—came beautifully contextual wisdom. Two lives had changed, in front of my very eyes.
It was bloody amazing!
😲
A light tap on the shoulder from an AV technician alerted me to the fact that the room had pretty much filled up behind us (I hadn't noticed – I'd been swimming in the Now with these two doctors), and looking at my watch I saw that I had just a few minutes before I was due to start.
But what came next couldn't have been more different from the Day 1 talk.
Talk #2: Record scratch moment
Feeling profoundly affected by the experience I'd just had, relaxed and loose, I introduced myself and put up my first slide, smiling as I noticed the new bullet point: ‘This talk is not about how to leave medicine.’
“Oh, look at that!” I heard myself saying. “Ha! That bullet point only appeared in my presentation late last night, and it's because of something I saw really deeply for myself, just the other day. You see, strange as it may sound, and whatever you may believe, you do not have to leave your job, or even change it for that matter, to have a completely different experience of the workplace…”
I trailed off, and stood in silence. It was like a door to a new life had opened in front of me, and I was considering it.
🚪
I saw that a few minutes had already passed, and I'd not even started my 10 Principles of Career Change presentation – the one that people had come from afar, to see!
I instinctively knew that to carry on with that old talk—a repeat of yesterday—was suicide, even though that's what I was here to do. And then almost simultaneously I remembered that I had some really great recordings of it, from past years. Aha, problem solved!
I had permission. I stepped through the door, and in doing so, heard myself saying,
“I'm really sorry. I'm not going to deliver the talk you've all come here to see today. I have a great recording of it that you're welcome to have, so you won't miss out. I can share it with you, if you come see me afterwards and leave me your email. But I have something far more important to tell you today, so I'm going to do that, instead…”
I put down my presentation notes, and stood quietly, looking out into a sea of expectant faces.
“Just give me a moment, I don't know what I'm going to say, yet.”
😳
Death, and rebirth
Now, it's hard to convey just what a big deal this was. Because the Giles that showed up to those conferences—hell, to life itself!—was a very well-prepared kind of guy. He liked to be in control.
I'd delivered this talk so many times, that I knew when to expect laughs, when to slow down, which bits I could skim across if I was running out of time and which bits were likely to have the room fall into a stunned silence.
The slides had been meticulously crafted and were beautifully animated. Their content was inspiring and yet minimal enough to allow me flexibility in telling stories around them. I'd even got my notes down to a fine art, and knew the exact moment to move each slide forward, for maximum impact.
Ever since learning how to present patient histories on ward rounds, I had never in my life given a talk without a ton of preparation.
And here, in front of 100 people waiting to hear me speak, I'd just torn up the script and cast myself into the unknown. (If you'd told me in advance that I was going to do that, I'd have been on a plane to a different continent!!)
Standing there, my physiology was going absolutely haywire. I could barely hear anything for the slamming of my heart in my ears. I could feel sweat trickling down my back; could taste adrenaline… and yet, at the exact same time my mind was silent and I had never felt more calm, more centred or more safe in my entire life.
The profound, powerful experience I'd had listening to the two doctors, just minutes before, had simply moved to the front of the stage, where I listened for what needed to be said. It all seemed so obvious. So natural. So right.
I began to speak.
I have no idea what I said during that 45 minutes. I always used to record myself when I spoke (for training & quality purposes 😉) but I discovered later that the dictaphone in my jacket pocket had magically switched itself off. Honestly, I'm glad.
➤ What I do know was that in spite of not having prepared one single sentence, I felt carried through that talk, as if life held me in its loving embrace, and I was just its mouthpiece for that moment.
➤ I know that the atmosphere in that room was electric. (I had people coming up to me for the rest of the day, telling me that they had never witnessed anything like it before.)
➤ I know that what was delivered was perfectly contextual to what people had come for: it was still about What to do if you think it might not be for you, and it was still about career change, it just wasn't any of the old material.
➤ I know that insecure thought reared its head every now and again during the talk, but that it was so obviously not-me—just a conditioned mind talking—that it was easy to let it slide on through, while I carried on being present to the audience.
➤ And I know that by the end of that experience, I knew—with absolute certainty—that whatever happened in my life, for the rest of my days as a living breathing human, I would be ok. I knew that who I actually was—the spiritual essence of being, that preceded thought—could not be harmed.
➤ And I knew this:
The old Giles died up on that stage and life has not looked the same, since.
In a bizarre twist, it also happened to be my birthday.
Or my re-birthday, as I now think of it.
Series Conclusion
This has been just 1 out of more than 8 billion possible ways of brushing up against our True Nature – everybody's different, and at the same time, we're all exactly the same. I think that's what I wanted to show you: how normal it all really is.
Looking back to the beginning of this series of Daily Reminders, I also wanted to let you know:
“just how accessible change is. How available. How anything can happen, even when we're not expecting it to (in fact, precisely when we're not expecting it)!”
And I hope you can see that across all of these strange and wondrous happenings, I didn't really do anything but show up, be present, and be willing to be wrong about stuff; remaining open to things being different.
None of it was planned, and nothing was forced, but you can see that action was taken, following the insights. That ‘door’ I stepped through, up on stage… it doesn't feel like I really had a choice, but at the same time, there was hesitation; there was a flicker of fear. I'd just had enough of living life that way, and it made sense to step through, to something new.
And that's available to each and every one of us – you too.
So if there's any ‘advice’ I'd give you, then it would be the same thing I've been saying for years: don't take my word for it, but get your own evidence.
Insight without action just leads to the dreaded ‘intellectual understanding’, so today, given whatever it is you've seen around the 3 Principles—whatever it is you know to be true—tell me, what action are you open to taking?
With so much love
💖
Giles
p.s. Remember: Listen ♥︎
Related
All four of the articles from this mini-series
Giles P Croft
Your. Next. Step.