You can read Part 1, here: The lead-up
Almost all the people I work with have either a person or a situation that really pushes their buttons. It might be a partner, a parent or a child; a colleague (or boss); the state of their bank account, their job in general, the traffic, or just life in general!
I had quite a lot that pushed my buttons… until I didn't.
This is about how that change happened, without fanfare, and under the most normal of everyday circumstances.
Looking in a new direction
Having decided, 6 months prior, to give up the Health IT work I'd been doing for 15 years and instead devote my energies towards helping individuals with career and life changes, I'd embarked on a Life Coaching qualification. (I'd had to google ‘life coaching’ because I had no idea what it was, but everyone I mentioned it to seemed to think I'd be good at it, so who was I to argue?!)
😂
I enjoyed it, but balked a little at the structured way I was supposed to tackle 1:1 sessions, and lead clients through a process. It seemed like there was a lot to remember; a lot of rules, and I didn't like that one bit.
You see, it didn't really resonate with the experiences of career and life change that I'd witnessed for myself (and which I'd been speaking about for over a decade), which seemed much more intuitively-guided; interspersed with serendipity and insight.
But I was committed to helping people, so I used the same strategy I'd always used when heading in a new, unknown direction: the statue-in-stone-method (i.e. find lots of examples of how other people are doing this same thing, and remove all the ways you don't want to do it, until you have your own way) 🙂
To that end, I'd taken to the podcast directory and plugged in a search:
This brought back plenty of examples, and I was happily working my way through them, writing most of them off as either too boring or too much like therapy.
Or too weird.
Jamie Smart's Thriving Coaches Podcast fell into that last category… initially. I'd listened to one episode, ostensibly about career change (thinking I'd hit the jackpot when I found it) but was disappointed to find that he didn't talk about careers, or values, or transferable skills or anything like that.
In fact he didn't really talk about much at all! But somehow the person who was being coached seemed to leave the 30 minute conversation a changed person.
Very weird.
Anyway, I'd promised myself I'd give each podcast a couple of goes, and when it came back round to Jamie's I dutifully listened to another episode, honestly hoping there'd be a bit more meat to it this time; something I could sink my teeth into, take away and apply.
But it was just the same. Some questions, yes, but nothing structured or recognisable, some silences, and then seemingly inconsequential chat about what I thought at the time was your bog standard mindfulness – presence, thought awareness, that sort of thing.
And again – the person being coached seemed to have a huge shift, in a relatively short period of time. I couldn't figure out how, or why.
Ever so slightly annoyed, completely bamboozled, and yet inexplicably drawn to this strange man and his strange little podcast that made no sense to me, I started listening to episode after episode.
And that's when the changes began.
Unbeknownst to me, in doing this, I was satisfying the three basic criteria that are necessary for change to occur:
1. Show up – I was listening to new materials on a daily basis
2. Be present – I was fully focused on this stuff and not distracted, because I found it fascinating
3. Stay open – This was the biggie. I had absolutely no idea what was going on in these podcasts, and on some level they seemed to challenge the way I expected this sort of conversation to go. By coming back, again and again, willing to be wrong about what coaching was, and how life change even worked, I was priming myself for insight.
It was all I had to do. And it's all you have to do, too.
Led by curiosity
There's an entry in my journal, from 3rd October 2018, that simply says:
“I've been listening to the Jamie Smart podcast… I'm drawn back to it, time and time again. I think it's because—even though it's not particularly life-coachy—he speaks the Truth. So I've got his audiobook. Let's see!”
That's when the clock started ticking.
From the very first moment I started listening to it, every word seemed to resonate. I had to keep stopping it and rewinding, because everything it said just made so much sense! It was one, “D'oh – of course! 🤦🏻♂️” moment after another.
I'd always maintained that every personal development book I'd ever read was saying pretty much the same thing (it was the only way I'd been able to distill it all into my own ‘10 Principles of Career Change’ conference talk) and here was a book that seemed to explain why.
It was all the ‘truth’—the basic principles of how the human experience works—without any of the esoteric, author-created, ‘you-must-do-this’ techniques stuff layered over the top, which was exactly what I'd been looking for. Proper foundations for building my own practice.
But here's the funny thing, and the bit of information that should hopefully put your mind at ease, if you've been batting away at this for a while: despite totally clicking with all the content, and not disagreeing with a single word of it (really ‘getting it intellectually’, you could say), nothing changed.
My life wasn't in any way different at all. The rest of my journal entries initially consist of all the same old same old, here's-what-I've-done-today crap, interspersed with the odd picture of a tree, as I continued to try and ‘do’ gratitude.
Insight strikes
Funnily enough, I can remember Jamie talking about the ‘outside-in misunderstanding’ a fair bit in the book, but not being all that impacted by it. Even though he said it lies at the root of all our problems, I still didn't really see how.
It all seemed a bit too obvious, and I had a sort of an “And…? So what?” reaction to that particular aspect of the book, I think probably because on some level I still thought this understanding had to be applied in some way.
(We've all been pretty comprehensively indoctrinated to try and ‘do’ happiness & wellbeing! 😬)
But he also kept saying that there was nothing to apply, and that change happened through insight, so I just kept listening and going about my normal, everyday life. Getting up. Going in to work. Eating. Sleeping. Childcare.
The first record of me having some sort of significant insight, is a selfie I've found in my journaling app, taken 7 days after starting the book, with no details beyond a title of: ‘Insight face’ 🤓😂
I'm sorry I can't tell you what stopped me in my tracks like this, but I do remember being literally stopped in my tracks. I was walking through Bailey Park on my way to the office, listening to either Jamie's book or another podcast episode of his and I felt my walking pace get slower and slower until I came to a complete standstill.
It was like the air had suddenly turned to treacle or something. I had to stop what I was listening to and just be for a bit, still and quiet, because what I'd been listening to (that I don't remember) had led to a realisation about my own life (that I can't recall) that cut very deep indeed.
Again, nothing materially changed, but the wheels were turning in the background and I guess I was starting to see life differently. (In a way that I still didn't understand and certainly couldn't explain.)
🫠
The lost ballet shoe
It was in an everyday interaction with my then-4½ year old daughter that the first chunk of misunderstanding fell away so comprehensively, I knew life would never be the same again.
It was the day after that photo above and first thing in the morning, my little chica was having a Code Red Emergency:
My daughter has always loved doing ballet, and at this age she practically lived in a tutu and her ballet shoes, dancing around the house, pretending to be the Prima Ballerina, so this was in fact a very big deal. For everyone.
My wife was running around getting stuff together to drive to London for the day so she helped me search for a while, but eventually had to go, apologetically leaving me on my own with one ballet shoe and one utterly distraught, caterwauling child.
I looked everywhere, and couldn't find it. In fact I looked for so long that my daughter eventually calmed down and found something else to do. I knew I had to locate it somehow, because later that day she had a ballet lesson, and all the caterwauling would recommence!
But I gave up. I'd turned the house upside down without success and figured that either it would ‘magically’ turn up (as sometimes happens) or I'd just have to buy some new ballet shoes from the teacher later if we didn't have the requisite two.
I sat at my desk and got on with some work, resolving to ‘cross that bridge when I came to it’ – because if there was one thing I had picked up from listening to Jamie's book, it was that worry like that was utterly pointless.
🤷🏻♂️
Who's the daddy?
Then, a little voice, from the room next door:
“Daddy! Come and look at this!”
Busy, engrossed, I swivelled in my chair to call out that I'd be there in a minute, and in doing so, from this new vantage point, I saw the missing shoe!!! 😲 It had somehow become lodged under the coffee table in my office and could only be seen from this angle.
My spirits soared. Oh man, was I about to score the biggest bunch of Daddy-points ever?! I'd solved the problem and found her ballet shoe! How awesome was that?! How awesome was I?!
I thought I'd give her a big surprise, so I hid the shoe behind my back and went through to the next room, where she was sitting on the floor, playing with her Lego Duplo blocks. Excited at what was about to happen, I crouched down to her level and envisaged the huge smile on her face, the exclamation of joy, maybe a big hug, probably her putting the shoe on immediately and doing a celebratory dance, there and then!
Wide eyed and grinning ear to ear, I slowly revealed what was behind my back, offering it to her on my upturned palm:
“Look what Daddy found!!”
She raised her head, half smiled and said,
“Oh. My ballet shoe,” before going back to playing with her Duplo.
😐
A menu of reactions
The rush of emotions that flooded my system from this apparent ‘snub’ was sudden, and quite strong. Disappointment, puzzlement, injustice, futility, anger even… it was all there in that moment.
How could she not be more excited? Why was she not more grateful? I'd just spent ages finding this damned ballet shoe for her (when I should have been working), and this is the thanks I get?!
😡
Now, we've all been in this sort of situation before—it can happen with anyone, not just kids—so there are a few different ways I could have reacted to that situation, and would have done in the past:
1. Sarcasm
“Oh, nice one. Yeah, great. ‘Thanks Dad!’ I've only spent the last hour finding it for you. Good grief, I won't bother next time.”
Don't pretend you haven't done that to someone at some point, because we all have. ‘The lowest form of wit’, quite hurtful, and would have gone completely over the head of a 4½ year old anyway. (She was a fair bit older before I heard her say to her mum once, “Mum, you know when Dad says ‘Brilliant,’ sometimes he doesn't mean it, does he?” 😳)
She'd probably have picked up on the tone though, and thought she was in trouble. A very poor response that I'd have instantly regretted: 2/10 at best.
2. Teaching
“Huni? Do you know what the word ‘gratitude’ means? No? Well, when someone does something nice for us, what we usually do is…”
…and so begins the parental programming, the guilt, the shame and the long, inevitable march to the therapist's office. (Might as well start saving up for her now.) I remember, when I was little, I really tried to keep my parents happy. I guess I got so used to pretending, after a while, I lost myself…
Again, she's little, it'd have mostly gone over her head anyway, but I've definitely used these sorts of situations in the past to teach ‘good behaviour’. Not as bad as sarcasm, but still poor. A reaction I'd probably regret, later: 4/10.
3. Self-criticism
Seeing myself as a somewhat Ego Construct 📦 ‘evolved’ kind of dad, I'm guessing that in a different frame of mind, I would have just bitten my tongue and not said anything. Tried to be understanding of her (lack of) response, and turned the savage gaze of my analytical mind inwardly, instead:
“Why did I expect so much out of that situation? I'm such an idiot. She doesn't owe me anything, she's just a kid. But why did I react so strongly? Oh god, I'm always doing that, aren't I? It's not particularly good behaviour to model for her though, is it? How can I improve? What do I need to do differently here? What books do I have that I could read? I bet I could do much better than that. What kind of a dad am I? Dammit, why is parenting so hard…?!”
And so on. It would have been a very busy morning, inside Giles’ head! Doing housework… thinking about it, all the while. Distracted and procrastinating on work, scanning personal development books and the mind's filing system for solutions. Going over the situation again and again, trying to figure out how to change things. A sad little 5/10 and feeling very sorry about that.
What mood, or frame of mind we are in determines the reality that is created, there and then, and we will react accordingly.
🔑 Key Message: We are ALWAYS doing what makes sense to us.
All of us will have expressed some variation of all of these reactions at some point: it's normal and it's human, so go easy on your self.
But this day, none of the usual rules seemed to apply, and something completely different happened.
A big dose of Truth
Rewind, and I go through to her room—she's there on the floor, with the Duplo—I excitedly offer the recovered ballet shoe, I get short shrift and I experience the strong disappointment, puzzlement, injustice, futility, anger and resentment emotions, it's all exactly the same…
Except, before I can react in any of the ways outlined above, WHAM!! 💥 I'm struck dumb, as if silence has been punched into the side of my head and I suddenly realise, I suddenly see it for myself, because it's happening, right here, right now:
None of those feelings are coming from my daughter, it's all coming from inside me.
🤯
All the hurt abruptly disappeared and I probably looked quite a lot like I did in that photo above: slack-jawed and glassy-eyed. System reboot. My mind went silent—a level of silence I didn't even know was possible—and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.
Time ceased to be a thing and to this day I have no idea how long I stood there, gawping, silently, with a feeling of total emptiness and expansiveness—as if I were transparent—looking down at my daughter picking up bits of Duplo and continuing to build her tower.
Then a thought—the first one; it was so obvious, there in the silent cavern of my mind—popped up:
“This is weird. What's happening?”
LOL, minds. But that was it, and the usual background hum of analysis (that I hadn't even noticed had become the main feature of my life) didn't return for a little while. I stayed empty; wide open; experiencing ‘just daughter’.
Instead, into that space came the strongest feeling of love for my daughter I'd experienced since the day I first held her in my arms. I felt so connected, so at one with her, and in a flash—without effort—I instantly saw the entire scenario from her perspective:
“Ohhhhh, she gets it!!” I thought. “She's a living-in-the-moment machine!!!”
- I could see that she had no reason to hold on to the pain of losing the ballet shoe, so her thinking about it—and all the associated suffering—settled. (Way quicker than mine; a resilience masterclass!)
- I could see that she'd expressed gratitude with her half-smile, and politely acknowledged that I'd found her ballet shoe – what more did I want?
- Because I could also see that the whole reason she'd called me through, was to look at the awesome Duplo tower she'd just built and yet I'd completely ignored it! All this talk of ballet shoes was irrelevant in that moment, What on earth is Daddy banging on about?!
All that in what was probably a matter of a second or so (don't know), and yet was experienced without any boundaries, and arrived completely unbidden, ‘out of the blue’.
I kissed her on the head, told her I loved her and went about my day, without a care in the world.
I need to be really clear that while the nature of this experience was very unique to me (and why I took the time to spell out some of the antecedents to it happening, from the prior 46 years) the underlying principles, and the three 🔑 Key Messages I shared are the same for all of us.
I've heard many a weird and wonderful tale of normal life being interrupted by insight in all sorts of ways, and have also spoken to people who've known that something has changed, but they can't put it into words.
On occasion, clients have reported being told by other people that they're behaving differently, because they hadn't noticed, themselves!
So I mean it when I say that there are no rules.
Change shows up in a way that's just right for you.
What follows
What followed back then, again, was pretty much normal life.
None of that story above came fully formed at the time, and the mind has since constructed the narrative around it, making sense, as it does; using words to try and describe the ineffable.
As for the rest of this 4-part journey together, let's come back to the start of this piece for a moment, and picture that one person or situation that's guaranteed to push your buttons. And let me ask you, in light of what you've just read:
🤔 What if those feelings aren't coming from them at all?
Having an embodied experience of the inside-out nature of life like this was a genuinely life-changing moment for me, because I knew that even when I lost sight of it, this psychological system of ours only worked one way. It always had, and it always would.
There were principles as reliable as gravity at play here, and that was really good to know.
But after the dust had settled, and 9 days into this 17-day-and-46-year journey I'm sharing with you, I was still left with an unanswered question:
What practical difference is this really going to make to my life?
And that's another story for another day.
💟
Giles