International Staff Care
  • About
    • The longer version!
  • Work with Kate
    • Set for Success
    • The Game Changer
    • Client Background Summary
  • About Coaching
  • Events
  • Client Stories
  • Blog
  • Contact

From Mental Misery to a Moment of Grace, via Gratitude

7/4/2016

0 Comments

 
This week I've been getting myself into increasing knots of exhaustion and mental misery - you know the one: perspective on life closing in til it's there's just a little pinprick of light you're squinting out at the world through. 
 
Miles to empty? Running on fumes....!
 
Yesterday, I woke up and EVERYTHING looked like a problem.

Being in my mind was like being trapped in a burning building - and everywhere I looked for an escape route I saw things which just compounded my situation: a jerry can full of petrol one way, a barred window another.
 
So not a nice morning: grumpy with husband, kids and life; I couldn't see a way out of my misery.
 
And then two things happened to perk me up, to alert me that the world wasn't actually against, me, just my thinking about the world in that moment was.
 
First, the traffic - which is normally backed up way along the road I take the kids to school along - wasn't there - if you know Nairobi, you'll know that's nigh short of a miracle. 
 
I noticed the absence of traffic and noticed I felt grateful for it (a far nicer feeling than any of the ones I'd experienced so far that morning).
 
Second, at school, we were greeted by a teacher before we'd even got out of the car, which meant I delivered the children straight from the car into her arms and didn't need to get involved with a lengthy drop off - I was out of there in minutes.
 
The feeling of gratitude, of the-world-is-actually-an-okay-place-I'm-just-struggling-right-now, grew.
 
That feeling enabled me to see and feel a light at the end of the tunnel that was a tiny bit bigger than the pinprick I'd been operating through at the start of the morning.
 
That increased perspective on life, which the feeling of gratitude afforded me, slowed my mind down just a little bit. It eased my ego-chatter just enough for my little voice - the one I call my wisdom-voice - to speak to me; to tell me to forget the list of 'to-dos' and things I was determined to get done to 'make me feel better'; to forget rushing about town; to go home, to have a cup of tea, to breathe, and to take the day from there.
 
Reflecting on yesterday shows me two things:
 
1. Understanding that the hell I was living in was thought-created, not real, gave me some distance (even if only a millimetre) between Me (big me, all of me), and the ego-thought-created reality I was experiencing. 
 
That understanding didn't make me feel better in the moment - the feelings of what I was experiencing were all 'there' - but my understanding of the fact that I am not my thoughts; that my thoughts come through me and create my experience, but that is it: they are not fully Me - helped keep me floating a millimetre above my experience... (at the same time as feeling ALL of it).
 
That gap between my experience and my relationship to my experience was enough to keep a tiny chink of my heart open - just enough - for me to notice that somethings were going in my favour, that the world was not against me - just my thoughts in that moment were. And that despite my mental misery there were things to be grateful for. 
 
2. The experience of gratitude took me out of myself, it slowed my thinking down and eased my mind enough for fresh thought, for wiser thought to come through. It allowed me in that moment to be guided by something wiser and bigger than my ego-created thought-nightmare I'd been living in on and off for 3 days.
 
So gratitude is as powerful as people say.
 
That said, the way I see it today though is that genuine gratitude is only possible to feel when we are not 100% sold on the world working from the outside-in; when a part of us (however small) believes it's possible it actually works from the inside out.

Just that openness to life possibly working that way creates enough space for genuine heartfelt and transformative gratitude to flow in.
 
PS....Just so you know the truth of the matter: the day did improve, and then went down hill again - reached crisis point in the evening, in fact (ask my husband...). 
 
I sit here this morning feeling a whole lot better.
 
And grateful for what I learnt yesterday.
0 Comments

We are ALL wiser than we know

6/4/2016

2 Comments

 
Life doesn't have to be as hard as we make it.

We ALL have access to more wisdom than we know.
The thing is that the incessant, (often quite shouty, in my head...!), ego-voices more often than not drown our small, quiet, wisdom-voice out.

I had the most amazing experience of the power and potential of this small voice on my way back from a retreat in Essex with my friend and colleague, Ann Ross.

We'd arrived into Paddington Station earlier than we'd thought we might and we were in time to catch an earlier train back to Devon. The choice we are faced with was to rush a bit to get the earlier train, or to take our time, have some lunch at the station and wait for the train we'd planned to get on.

In that moment my ego-voices got going, trying to second guess what Ann might like to do; trying to do the 'right' thing by her, and me. And I got lost, I couldn't decide: I didn't know what to do. 

I told Ann as much: the usual: 'I don't mind... What do you want to do?'

Ann (in her wisdom) turned the question back at me and gave me the opportunity to see my own wisdom in action:

What does your wisdom tell you to do?', she said.

Now that can be a super-annoying woo-woo question which well-meaning coaches throw at their clients in a slightly cliched, slightly makes-you-want-to-punch-them-square-in-the-face, kind of way. But there something about the way Ann asked the it, and the space that we'd been in for the last few days and hours, which made me listen to that question properly.

I stopped for a moment, got quiet inside, and let the small voice speak....And to my surprise, it did! Super clearly and succinctly...: 'Get the next train.'

I was gobsmacked. I remember thinking: 'I know what I want to do, clear as a bell!'. And most significantly for me, I remember witnessing that what I wanted to do felt so true, so powerfully true, that I had the courage to speak it (without all the usual ego-chatter/ second guessing what's going on for other people: what will people/ Ann think of my decision/ desire).

And that's what we did. We spent a very pleasant hour pottering in the station, taking our time, buying some coffees and eating our lunch, and then off we went to our appointed train.

I've played with my little voice ever since. It's AMAZING what I know!

If I notice my mind getting busy and chattery, I stop what I'm doing. I get quiet and listen. Sometimes I ask a question, sometimes I don't. (The more I practice acknowledging the presence of this voice, and allowing it to speak, the more just being aware of my busy-ness and ego-chatteriness does the work for me.)

For example, this morning I was caught in a thought-storm of egoistic thinking - it felt like the walls were closing in and there was no way out - every way I turned I saw more problems. The ego-voices got louder and louder until I was so confused and noisy in my head I couldn't think straight. I surrendered to the fact that I really didn't know what would be the best thing to do to support myself, and immediately the small voice spoke and told me to forget all the 'to dos', to go home, have a cup of tea, and take it from there. 

The answer which comes when I surrender to this small voice, is always something which looks after my best interests in that moment: take a break, eat something, go to the toilet!, sit back down and get on with the article in front of you, call a friend, go for a walk, GO HOME and take it from there.

There's an infinite number of responses available when we stop and listen, and I love seeing which one's going to show up. Whatever the response is: it's always got my back.

Ego-voices have become so LOUD in our society that we've forgotten about the small voice. Or, we're so noisy up there in our heads, we can't hear it. Next time you notice you're up in your head and you don't know what to do, or you're not enjoying life/ the thinking you're having, try having a listen.

That voice is always there, and we always know what to do for the best, even when we think we don't.
2 Comments

little people, sticky thinking and Love

30/7/2015

0 Comments

 
I've been struggling with our 3 year old's behaviour recently. On (my) good days it's fine. On my bad days, (surprise, surprise) I see all the bad things; we clash, I'm angry, I'm frustrated, I feel tired.

It's been getting me, and wearing me, down.

I run the usual record in my head, an endless storm-cloud of sticky thinking that gets me nowhere: Is this normal? If it is normal, I'm not coping very well. Should I read something? What should I read? Should we be trying harder/ a different approach? Is it us? Should we be better at this?

And on the thinking goes goes ad infinitum... Or ad a serious headache and need for a lie down/ adult time-out/ strong gin and tonic/ an escape shoot.....

....'til I suddenly had a longed for (deeply grateful for) flash of remembering:

Look for the Love.

The quiet voice in my head (and heart), the one that speaks when my shouty, whiney, busy, this is SO hard, head-voice shuts up for a minute, told me this:

'When there's brightness in his eyes, let it radiate out and into yours.

'When there's curiosity in his voice, enter into his questions, and his world.

'When there's creativity and energy in his actions, meet them with your own (if you do this open-heartedly, you will find that you have more than enough of both of these in the moment, never mind the night, the day, the week that's gone before).

'When he's angry sit with him.
When he's sad, sit with him.
When he's tantruming, sit with him, tell him it's okay and let it run it's course.

'ALL of the tricky stuff is just his sticking thinking. If you add yours to it, neither of you are ever going to 'win' this game called Life, particularly the game called Life with a three-year old and a tired mummy.'

I hear this little voice and it leaves me with this:

'Lean into the Love.

'When your thinking stops for a minute and you are clear-minded enough to notice even a glimmer of what's deeply True in that little person, dive into it, celebrate it, nurture it, enjoy it.

'Nurture what's True, and the rest will sort itself.

'Nurture what's True and you will know what to do and how to handle him, and you.

Nurture what's True and LEAVE the sticky thinking alone... his and yours.'
0 Comments

    Kate Barsby

    Picture
    Coach and mentor to professionals, business owners, and passionate people leading busy international lives.

    Archives

    June 2020
    February 2020
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013

    Categories

    All
    A Nicer Life
    Daily Habits
    Getting Things Done
    Gratitude
    Inside-out Understanding
    Networking
    Parenting
    Peace Of Mind
    Taking Control
    Three Principles
    Wisdom

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.