I was having a coaching call with someone and, in that way that I love and am very grateful for, yet again I saw something for myself in a different light.
✨
In the past I’ve said that the whole process of being less in our heads and more in our lives—awakening, if you like—is pretty boring. I think I’ve said this to counteract the narrative that minds can easily get sucked into, when hearing me talk about my own experiences.
I had some pretty big insights. They happened over the course of 17 days (at the end of 46 years, I should add)!
Everything changed completely.
You'll hear me say that on a podcast or something (Giles is a good story-teller) and the mind replies,
📦🗣️: “Ah, that's all well and good for him! I’m not like that, though…”
… and nothing changes.
Or you consume 12 billion books and video clips looking for ‘how’ to do that, getting increasingly hacked off when nothing happens.
So I’ve taken to describing it as boring, because in one way, it is.
All the excitement and expectation and emotion is very mind-based: highs and lows. It’s what being human is all about.
Whereas presence just kind of ‘is’. It’s so normal that most often, we fail to notice it.
📦🗣️: “Boring!” (Says a mind)
And then for a mind, it’s a mere hop, skip and a jump (and oh how it loves to hop, skip and jump!!) to then conclude:
📦🗣️: “Well, if I start going down this path, the end result will just be boredom. I’ll be numb. Where’s the fun in that?”
… and nothing changes.
But the end result is not boring at all.
When I was on the call with the client, I caught myself about to say that it was boring, when I had a fresh new thought (just a little, ‘boring’ one 😉).
I realised that these days, the emotional highs and lows in my life are more keenly felt and life seems so much bigger and fun. A proper adventure!
Why?
I know that feeling is thought - they’re one and the same thing; two sides of the same coin.
And I know that thought comes and goes and is endlessly inventive and everything I experience shifts and changes constantly (because it’s all made of thought; it’s all going on in that Thought System 📦) and it’s all ok.
Every thought welcome. Every feeling welcome. It’s essentially harmless.
An appreciation of which allows you to feel the rollercoaster of human emotion—‘good’ and ‘bad’—as strongly as you like… hands in the air, screamin’ like you just don’t care!
🎢 🙌🏻
Giles
p.s. the mind likes to predict what that ‘awakening’ process will be like, and what you’ll have to do, and how you’ll feel, but since it’s not involved (in fact, that’s kinda the point), you can never know!
But if you don’t feel safe from your own psychological experience right now, then I’m here to help. Because things really do look completely different when you realise, for yourself, that you’re ok. Wherever you’re at right now, and however much your mind protests that somehow it’s different for you (it isn’t).
When you're ready for that change:
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Giles P Croft
More on this topic, for the curious.