I often get to a point with my 1:1 clients, where something seemingly outrageous just slips out of my mouth.
For a brief, delightfully tense moment, I don’t know how it’s going to land.
The other day, my client had just been sharing a recent, enjoyable experience of getting together with old friends for a couple of days.
As I reflected on this, what I heard coming out of my gob was:
“D’you know why it was such a great weekend with those friends?
It’s because you weren’t there!!”
😳🙊😬
Thankfully, after the briefest of pauses, we both rolled around laughing at how easy it would be to take that personally.
But because this is a client I’ve been working with for a little while now and this week we were looking at the nature of self-identity, they knew exactly what absence I was pointing to.
‘Self’ identity. How we innocently inhabit these roles that the mind creates, and how all of our behaviour ultimately stems from this mostly invisible sense of who we are being—or trying to be—in any given moment.
My client had had a great weekend away, because ‘self’ wasn't necessary for much of it. They were happy, relaxed and present.
‘They’ (i.e. the Client Ego Construct 📦) weren't there for extended periods, and it's only ever the mind that creates problems to fret about in the first place.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ego identity is completely normal, very practical and really not a problem until we fail to see it as a work of fiction.
Until we start taking it really seriously and find that very same ‘self’ going out of its way to protect its existence, or getting really upset when it feels challenged.
Seeing what’s going on—seeing through this primordial trick of the mind—is key. Indeed, as a mentor of mine puts it, it is ‘the ultimate trap’.
As the laughter died down and we both basked in the silence that followed, almost in unison we said,
“Bonkers.”
“Bonkers” doesn’t even come close!!
💟
Giles
p.s. It’s bonkers and it’s completely life-changing. So if you find your self taking things personally a lot of the time and you’d like to put a stop to that once and for all, then maybe it's time for some Innate Health coaching with me? When you're ready →
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Giles P Croft