I was working with a client who was exhibiting all sorts of very human tendencies:
- They were super-busy
- They were juggling many commitments
- Prioritising everything had become a full time job
- Everything seemed on the edge of getting overlooked
Of course it resonates, because this is pretty much 21st Century life. There are no flying cars, the robots aren't making life any easier and we're bombarded with senseless crap and bad news from every quarter.
What to do?
My honest answer to my client: I dunno.
🤷🏻♂️
Slightly less rubbish answer
But then, it certainly helps to see what's going on, and where our sense of injustice, or panic, or overwhelm is coming from – not from the situation, but from the mind's response to the situation.
A response, incidentally, that tends to distract you from the reality of Now, and consequently drowns out your common sense and wisdom, with its white noise.
Yes Giles, talking of white noise, you keep bleating on about this, but what actual difference does it make? (you're saying in my head, now.)
It makes every difference. (When we spot it.)
I've got Richard Carlson's amazing book You Can Be Happy No Matter What on my desk right now, and as I flip it open to one of its many turned-down-corner pages, straight away I read:
“When your attention is primarily in the present moment, the bulk of your experience comes from a place of wisdom, rather than reactivity. Although you will feel content … you won't repress or deny anything that's truly relevant.”
See? We agree.
The trouble is, the mind hates that. It has no job to do in the present moment, and the mind is like the ultimate jobsworth! It's got rules. It needs ‘you’ (itself) to play by them, or else … and yet all this disappears in the present moment. By definition, ‘the present moment’ is the absence of the conceptual mind.
So it will do whatever it can to retain its job. And it's very good at it.
This is what we're up against.
How that experience changes
If it helps, here's what I emailed my client, after our session, as a bit of follow up:
It's so easy (like, really easy!!) to get sucked into the mind's insistent stories about what needs to happen ‘in order for...’ things to be ok, but the experience you're looking for—however busy the schedule is!—is right here, right now, and has nothing to do with the mind.
You don't need to let the mind place conditions on when you get to feel that sense of presence. That'll keep you stuck!
But there's more. You see, paradoxically, it's having this on your radar—even the possibility of presence—at the times when you least expect it (oxymoron alert!), that is likely to lead to the sort of realisation that really makes a difference.
Here's what I wrote next:
In fact, the biggest insights people generally have, tend to come when they notice that sense of peace when it ‘shouldn't’ be happening, e.g.
- Noticing the stillness beneath an angry outburst
- Noticing a deep, inner okayness when physically unwell
- Noticing a sense of peace, underlying the nerves of a presentation
- Noticing a firm, inner knowing that everything will be ok, in the midst of tragic circumstances
- Noticing profound feelings of love and gratitude in the midst of loss or grief
Some of these I've experienced myself, others I've seen in clients or heard tell of (the list goes on).
It pulls the rug out from underneath the habitual stories that the mind is telling—the stories that keep us stuck in old patterns of reaction, emotion and behaviour—and returns us immediately to what is always there, always true, never changing: the spiritual essence of our TRUE NATURE.
Pure presence, however briefly. It's incredibly nourishing to know it's there!
I don't know what to do about other people's overwhelm (I don't know what to do about my own, half the time!) but I do know that feelings of stress and overwhelm are transient and thought-based, and that underneath all that, lie the still waters of who-I-really-am.
I'll let Richard close this one out:
“The only way to experience genuine and lasting contentment, satisfaction and happiness is to learn to live your life in the present moment. Regardless of your past experiences, the specifics of your current circumstances, how much you analyse your past or speculate about your future, you will never be happy until you learn to live in the present moment.”
💝
Giles
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Giles P Croft
Just in case your mind goes there. “But what about…” is a common reaction!