Well, this is probably the first—and last—time I use a football metaphor, so enjoy it while you've got it!
(I don't know one end of a football from the other; I'm more of a muppet than a man, I guess 🤷🏻♂️😆)
But one of my clients came up with it and it's so good, you've GOT to hear it.
A bit of background (shared with permission). A high-flying professional. Successful. Top of his game. Beautiful family. All the trappings. World at his feet. Wonderful.
But busy. Unfulfilled. Disillusioned. Burnt out. Unhappy.
Also, anxious. Stuck. Desperate. Crippled with self-doubt and—crucially—crippled by actual physical pain. Lots of pain. Unexplained pain. Endlessly investigated pain. Heavily medicated pain. Pain in the starring role.
In the bravest move of his life to date, he contacted me, out of the blue. He'd read enough here and watched enough of my little videos to know it was time.
In other words, he'd clocked that there was another way. He'd got a sniff of change being possible. He became curious. And that's really all that's ever required. (It's what I call the FOUNDATIONS.)
“Giles. I don't fully understand all that stuff you talk about, but I've got this feeling you might be able to help me. What d'you reckon?”
We started work together, making our way gently through the MECHANICS of how our minds work—his, mine, yours, everyone's—and with love and understanding and many questions, and quite a few long silences he started to see things differently.
A few sessions in, between appointments, I got The Text:
“Oh my word! It's clicked! I can't explain it right now, but… oh gosh, I feel FREE!”
And the next time we met, he could explain it—we all can, in our own special way—and it was all about football.
“You know those players who everyone idolises? The ones who just make space?”
(I confessed to not having a clue what he was talking about, but very much encouraged him to go on. I think I heard him say “Hoddle” at one point, if that makes sense to you footie fans.)
“Well… when they've got possession, no matter how many players they've got hassling them, they just act like they haven't got a care in the world. They make space. It really doesn't matter who's trying to get it off them, or how… you can see it in their play: they just know they have ‘time on the ball’. It's like their experience is completely unaffected by what's going on around them and time doesn't even seem to exist for them in those moments. It's beautiful to watch.”
(By this time, even in my crashing ignorance of the game, I had a grin on my face so large, it felt like my face might fall off.)
“Go on…” I suggested.
“Well, ever since the other night, when it just occurred to me that I was ok, even with all this pain, I've felt just like one of those players – like I have ‘time on the ball’. There's a spaciousness I've not experienced, a lightness of being and I can actually SEE, for the first time, that no matter what's going on, I'm ok, aren't I?”
That's it—I couldn't put the essence of TRUE NATURE better myself—and it's why I show up to work every day. Because that ‘time on the ball’ is there for each and every one of us, and there's literally nothing we need to do, in order to experience it, only something to see.
So take heart, you wounded… you injured… you overlooked. You can be off the subs bench, back on the pitch and enjoying ‘time on the ball’—for its very own sake—whenever you're ready.
💟
Giles
p.s. I pushed the metaphor too far there, at the end, didn't I? Told you I know nothing 😉