Our state of mind affects how we turn up to everyday life, including to our relationships with family, friends, colleagues and strangers. Equally our state of mind affects our performance at work, study, sport and so on. This is because
‘We see and respond to life as we are – not as it is’.
We experience ease when we allow ourselves to turn up to what is; to be present and respond to life from this grounded place. This space is often described as ‘being in the flow’.
I did my coach training with Michael Neill and he often talked about premature practicality – I’d both laugh nervously and cringe inside, as I realised I spent a lot of time being prematurely practical. What if? How can I avoid? Arrange? Get them to see? Make xyz happen? It was endless.
I see how I can talk myself out of acting on ideas…and those conversations I catch myself having in my head can be pretty convincing. Of course I know all my vulnerable areas, so in the guise of trying to protect myself…boom! I’ve stymied another idea, without giving it the chance.
Innocently.
I truly don’t mean to keep taking myself out of the game, but it’s not until I stand back, and wake up to my thought processes that I see I’ve simply made up a bunch of scenarios that make actioning my idea seem crazy! And yet if I were to follow the idea through it might be brilliant…or crazy…but when I’m prematurely practical I don’t let myself be curious enough to find out.
Everytime, without fail, premature practicality takes us away from the present moment.
The implication being that I don’t back myself to be able to handle things ‘on the fly’. Yet the truth is that whenever life deals me the unpredictable card, I ALWAYS turn up and respond in the moment. It’s how we are all designed. All the ‘just in case’ preparation is unnecessary, irrelevant and time consuming!
‘Trying to figure it all out’ beforehand puts us so ‘in our heads’ that we often end up missing out on life in ‘real time’. It doesn’t feel like that though as being prematurely practical is a big job, and keeps us very busy, we just don’t have time to see the wood for the trees!! It’s anxiety provoking and can be sleep depriving… We can all do this at times, but for some it’s more like a full time job!
I still occasionally catch myself being prematurely practical, and when I do, I just stop. It just doesn’t make sense for me to behave this way any more.
Life is unpredictable
We are all perfectly designed to navigate this unpredictability
My preoccupation was a learned state of mind that originated from a belief system I had innocently adopted. Chances are you may have too! It looked like it was THE way to be. Being preoccupied can also be a reaction to past memories or experiences and we innocently believe that if we think about them enough we will avoid a repeat performance. Yet paradoxically we often end up creating the very scenarios we’re trying to avoid.
‘A Memory is just a thought that
we have carried through time’
Sydney Banks made this statement, and the truth of this is mind boggling. Just sit with it for a moment…
‘A Memory is just a thought that
we have carried through time’
Being preoccupied with a lot on our mind, tends to achieve the opposite of what we are busily trying to do. It can result in us thinking that everyday life events, e.g going to the supermarket, meeting new people etc have become overwhelming. Yet when we are on the ‘overthinking track’ it strangely seems to make sense to respond to overwhelm by thinking even harder! Go figure! No wonder so many people are challenged by anxiety!
So what I’m saying is that it’s not the events themselves that overwhelm and lead to feelings of stress. It’s that our minds are ‘over-full’ endlessly trying to protect, defend, try our hardest, be good, be liked, avoid calamity etc.
The overwhelm gets diagnosed as anxiety or depression or some other ‘mental illness’, and now it looks like there’s another THING to navigate. And IT can look like a seemingly insurmountable hurdle to climb. However, good news! Anxiety, depression etc are not things!
In truth it’s not that complicated. It’s only our thinking that is preoccupying us. If we feed into it, the thoughts keep running around in our minds, winding us up, putting us into ‘fight and flight’ and so the vicious cycle continues. A bit like a fire, if you want it to die down, then stop putting wood onto it.
Consider, for example all the thinking we can have around our work. The importance we place on our work, our results, how we identify with it, how we pin our happiness on it, how we strive, we seek recognition, we make it matter, we make it our reason for getting up – or not! We struggle with it, we feel bound by it, bogged down, appreciated or under appreciated, valued or not, tied down, anchored, limited, caught up in, we blame it for our misery, our lack of time, we judge ourselves and others as successes or failures… We can have a lot on it!
Yet what is work? Work is the way we bring our gifts to the world, in our unique way. Our presence, our talents, our learned skills and our passion. We exchange these gifts, generally for money, in order that we can buy the things we need to survive, e.g food, shelter etc.
Our purpose, as best I can see is:
- To be lovingly present to who we are.
- To recognise and accept our gifts… and they don’t need to be fancy, or even recognised by others.
- To know that we are where we are meant to be.
- To be curious and playful with this precious life, applying ourselves to endeavours that make sense to us, and just seeing where this takes us. Destination unknown.
- To allow ourselves and others to experience joy. Seriousness and being ‘full of care’ can be very weighty…and loaded with premature practicality!
We have freedom of choice, and this starts with the thoughts we choose to engage with.
We are not broken – no-one is. There is nothing to fix. Just life to experience.
How lucky are we!!