I hope you had a lovely summer if you’re UK based … I can’t quite believe it’s already the beginning of October.

I’ve ended September on a very sad note for me and my family with the sudden death of my dear uncle, my Pa’s younger brother. So, to be honest, I haven’t felt much like writing newsletters, and have been in what can best be described as ‘hibernatory’ mode.

As I write that, there’s a small part of me thinking should I be sharing that information, might it be depressing for you to read? But then a much larger part that feels right to share openly about real life so to speak, without over censoring myself.

Living through difficult times

I decided to look up what I was writing to you about this time a year ago, and, spookily, it was a nudge about living through difficult times. I found it interesting to re-read what I wrote now through the filter of what’s currently going on.

As you’ll know from my nudges, I share a lot about a new understanding of the nature of thought and how we create our experience. How we are always living in the feeling of our thinking, not our circumstances. And how we all have access to an innate wisdom that’s always working away for us, even if it might not feel like it sometimes.

Living in the flow

I refer to this understanding as living more in the flow (of life) and less in our heads.

Well, I can safely say that living in the flow has been definitely tested in the past few weeks.

But, that said, what I also know is if I did not have this understanding of the nature of thought and how it works, I would be feeling a whole lot more anxious than I find myself now.

Yes, of course, as any of you will know who have experienced death, those waves of sadness are never far away. Yet I find it fascinating that life does just go on … almost like life continues to live me, regardless of the situation.

Thoughts continue to come and go, but the less I get caught up in their content, the quicker they pass through. That, and just seeing we all have access to an inner wisdom and resilience beyond all our personal thinking, has helped me to navigate this time so much better than I once might have.

So, I can report that last year’s nudge on living through difficult times still rings true. Living in the flow might not give us a ‘get out of jail free’ card, but it does enable us to handle life’s more difficult moments with more grace and less suffering. And my dear wish is that all of us can experience more of that.

The key to better meetings and discussions

I had a meeting on my Marina this week (see photo above!), and after it struck me how much better meetings or discussions can be when you go into them with a clear and open mind.

And, even more importantly, I’ve come to see that the energy we bring to any interaction can make the world of difference.

So, after the meeting I grabbed my phone and shot this short video as thought it would be a useful nudge to share. Excuse the background noise from the radio! Proof that instead of overthinking the recording, I was just living in the flow of the moment, inspired to take action, which always feels so much nicer!

I hope you enjoy it and it sparks your own insights.

Personal thoughts v innate wisdom

This pic was taken on a glorious walk in the sunshine by the River last week. I spied this string of boats, and it made me think of a string of personal thoughts, and how each boat might represent a different emotion … but how all of the boats were riding on the same neutral River, which has no judgement.

Remembering that we all have access to that same neutrality or wisdom of mind underneath all and any personal thinking can be so comforting and uplifting!

We all know that life has its ups and downs, and that the downs can feel so very real while they’re occurring. But whether we’re having good or bad days, the River is still flowing underneath. And that’s always the case no matter how much we can get caught up in the weeds of our thinking to continue the analogy!

It’s something I’ve come to see as a universal truth, rather than a personal belief or idea. And the more I look in the direction of us all having access to this innate wisdom and wellbeing, part of our true nature, the more lovely life feels.

Living in the flow

Hence my term you’ll hear me use a lot ‘living in the flow’. Or put another way, living in the flow of life and less in our thoughts. Because when we are, we’re living from that quieter space of no thought within us. Like when you find yourself just being in the moment, or immersed in whatever it is you’re doing unconscious of anything else. THAT moment when you look at the clock and can’t believe where the time went.

Thoughts are no more real on bad days than good

With this understanding, I’ve come to see that thoughts are no more real on bad days than on good. Of course, nicer thoughts create nicer feelings. But they are simply a way that we humans have to experience life. We have no control over any thought in the moment it occurs.Thoughts will come and go regardless of whatever might be going on in our lives. I’ve yet to meet anyone who can tell me what their next thought is likely to be!?

Seeing that all our experience is created through thought, and not our circumstances, and that it’s thought that creates feelings in us – good or bad – has meant I have an entirely different relationship with my thoughts these days.

Left alone, personal thoughts will just naturally pass through, even the bad feeling ones, leaving room for fresh thought to come in. Seeing that transitory nature of thought, and knowing that nothing can ever touch the River of innate wellbeing and wisdom underneath all thoughts, frees me up from having to do very much about them, and makes for a much nicer way to experience life.

Have a lovely weekend, and enjoy the sunshine if you’re in the UK!

Tamsin

PS Often when I’m sharing about this understanding, people can get hung up on the words I’m using, or try to analyse what I’m saying. Of course, this just creates more noise in their headspace! Rather, my hope as you read this nudge is for you to see what occurs from your own wisdom in the moment … for you to get your own insights, which can feel more like a ring of truth rather than intellectual thought. I’m currently planning a webinar, working title ‘Living More of the Time in a Good Feeling‘ so we can share our insights and you can ask any questions you might have. We’ll be able to enjoy a conversation from the comfort of our own homes, so if you’d like to join me then do hit reply and I’ll keep you posted.

If you’d like to experience a different relationship with your thoughts then I share more in my Living in the Flow 7 day mini series of ‘nudges’. Just click on the link to receive the first one. This understanding has made the world of difference when it comes to replacing worry, anxiety and stress with a much greater peace and freedom of mind. But don’t take my word for it, check them out and see what rings true for you.

Seeing our sameness not the differences

Years ago, I lived in Hong Kong so it holds a special place in my heart. Watching the scenes on the UK news of ordinary people demonstrating there, I was so moved by the image of a single woman walking towards the bank of police firing rubber bullets and tear gas, and saying “You’re one of us, we are all Hong Kongers.”

What struck a chord, apart from the woman’s obvious courage, is that, for me, her words hold a truth and answer to not only the world’s troubles, but our own disagreements that can arise in individual relationships.

The more I’ve come to see how alike we all are at the level of how we work, the easier it is to see the sameness in people not the differences. As a result, I find myself getting less caught up in my personal thinking, or making snap judgements about how people or things should or shouldn’t be, as quickly as I once might have!

Put simply, seeing we all tick the same at our core, means we’re probably less likely to want to fight each other. Or at the very least, gives us a moment to pause before we react.

State of mind – more projector than camera

So, these days, I spend much more of my work time having conversations with people about the very nature of how our experience gets created, and the power of Thought (with a capital T), than I do suggesting different techniques or strategies for managing their thinking.

I often use the analogy of the mind working more like a projector than a camera. I could be in the same situation as another person, and yet we’ll both be experiencing it very differently depending on our own personal thoughts. Hence our mind projects what we’re thinking onto our circumstances (often with a whole bunch of special effects …) rather than capturing one, or the same, picture of reality.

When people start to see this, and how we’re only every living in the feeling of our thoughts, not our circumstances, and how that impacts our moment to moment state of mind, they often see whatever is occurring for them with fresh eyes. And just seeing that is enough to change everything.

Because instead of believing that x person is causing you to feel like you do, or x thing is the reason why something isn’t working in your life, and that’s why you’re in a lower state of mind, you start to see that it’s just thought in the moment. That nothing out there needs to change at all for you to start to feel better. Rather, your state of mind will naturally improve as your thoughts settle down, new thinking occurs and you see things with fresh eyes.

Watching wisdom in action

There’s a common sense, or wisdom, in all of us, which is also constantly playing out underneath all our noisy, personal thinking. I immediately felt it watching the woman calmly approaching the police barricades. I thought there’s no way she can be in her thoughts in this moment or she’d have been likely paralysed by fear.

No, rather I saw it was her innate wisdom coming through propelling her forward. That wisdom that comes from a deeper part in us that feels like a ‘knowing’ that goes beyond the intellect; that feeling when thought gets suspended and you just know what to do.

Looking in the direction of our sameness, and that we all have access to that innate wisdom or natural intelligence, has the potential to change so much. For not only is it comforting to know we can rely on that in difficult or uncertain times, but it gets easier to see when someone is caught up in their moment to moment thoughts, and thus take their behaviour less personally. Knowing that as their thinking changes, their behaviour will naturally change too, can save an awful lot of stress and time from getting caught up in the whys and wherefores.

So, your nudge for today is see what rings true for you as you’ve been reading, and how might this understanding of how we create our experience help you start to see a situation or person with fresh eyes.

Have a lovely weekend, and all the best for now.

Tamsin

PS My thoughts are with the people of Hong Kong at the minute, as well as friends still living there. If you, or anyone you know, is currently going through difficult or stressful times, or feel stuck in a pattern of thinking about a situation or person, please do pass this nudge along to them, and/or get in touch and let’s share a different conversation

What if it’s okay to not feel okay?

That phrase popped into my head this week. And, as it did, it immediately made me feel relaxed.

This past month has been Mental Health Awareness month in the UK, and there is so much out there that focuses on having to do something when you feel out of sorts. From strategies to think positively to meditation and mindfulness practices. And, if you saw the series on TV here of celebrities sharing their stories about depression and anxiety (including Nadiya, winner of The Great British Bake Off), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – or CBT as it’s known – seems to be the go to therapy.

What if there is another way?

A different perspective on thought itself

What if we took a step back and looked at the very nature of thought, and how that creates our experience before we started prescribing techniques or strategies to deal with the content of whatever it is we’re thinking and thus feeling.

Living on the River I often refer to thought as just part of the ebb and flow of life, which is a good analogy for it. The definition for ebb and flow is “two phases of the tide or any similar movement of water.The ebb is the outgoing phase, when the tide drains away from the shore; and the flow is the incoming phase when water rises again”.

Living in the flow

It’s the same with thought. If left alone, all thought by its very nature will just come and go in the same way hence me referring to this new understanding as ‘Living in the Flow’. When we just let thoughts come and go and get on with living and being in the moment, rather than attaching all kinds of meanings and stories to them.

Of course, that doesn’t mean to say that thoughts can’t feel very real and uncomfortable at times, but when you see them for what they are, it opens up a space to let go of your thinking and for new thought to flow.

Feelings are our wake up call

Instead of doing anything next time you’re feeling uncomfortable, anxious or insecure, see it as a wake up call. Not to overthink or go into over analysis mode, but rather just a nudge that your thinking has gone off track. Nothing to do or worry about. And nothing to do with what’s happening externally in your situation or circumstances. Just a wake up call to leave your thinking alone.

Life goes on regardless of how we feel

And what’s wonderful about this new understanding is that life continues to live us regardless of how we’re feeling. It’s so often only our overthinking about anything and everything that causes our anxiety or stress. Where if we just see thought as neutral, let thoughts settle down, our natural state of mind will reset without doing anything at all.

When you see that’s just how the system works, you start to have a totally different relationship with your thoughts, and a greater sense of natural wellbeing that can’t be touched!

If you’d like to experience a different relationship with your thoughts then I share more insights in my Living in the Flow series of ‘nudges’. Just click on the link to receive the first one. This understanding has made the world of difference when it comes to replacing anxiety, stress and worry with a much greater peace and freedom of mind. But don’t take my word for it, check them out and see what rings true for you.

I’ve recently returned from a fantastic trip to Cape Town – my second home. This pic was taken from the airplane above the clouds, and it got me thinking about how different life can look from this perspective!

Thoughts are like clouds

I often use clouds as a metaphor to describe the nature of thought in my work.

Thoughts can seem so real at times, especially when people are feeling stressed, or stirred up in their thinking. But much like the weather and clouds, all thought is constantly changing, and will pass through if left alone. When people start to see just how transient and fluid thought really is, and that new, fresh thought is always available to them, they more quickly fall out of their thinking and into a calmer state of mind.

Bigger world beyond our personal thinking

I’ve also come to see that there’s a much bigger world beyond our own personal thinking. On the ground, it’s so easy to get caught up in the day to day minutiae of life. But when I’m on a flight, looking out at the vastness of the sky, nothing to do and nowhere to get to, I get a greater feeling of space and freedom of mind. It’s like the sky represents the infinite nature and potential of life. And from that perspective, it makes no more sense to get attached to or caught up in a particular thought, than it does to rail at a particular cloud passing by!

If you’d like to experience more freedom of mind and less overthinking, then I share more insights in my Living in the Flow series of ‘nudges’. Nothing to do, you’ll just receive a daily insight over the next 7 days. Just click the link to receive the first one.

That’s it for today. I’m spending Easter with my family, and looking forward to the warmer weather here in the UK. Whatever you’re doing, I hope you have a lovely long weekend too.

All the best for now

Tamsin

Happy 2019 … and some New Year reflections

I hope you had a wonderful break and New Year!

I’ve kicked off 2019 a little differently, starting with posting this pic of a New Year River walk on my Instagram feed and Facebook page, with the caption ‘Happy meandering New Year’!

The word ‘meandering’ had come to mind so I looked up the definition … ‘moving slowly in no particular direction‘ … no big new year’s resolutions, just a wonderful word that encaptures living more in the flow, and a simpler intention that feels so much nicer!

Hold up, a coach that’s advocating meandering, rather than setting fixed goals or making plans??

Well, yes and no! I’ve never been keen on resolutions as they don’t tend to work! I’m more for allowing a little time for reflection, creating some space for a clearer mind, room for new thought and ideas to naturally flow, and then following your quieter nudges that excite or inspire you … so happy meandering New Year!

Inspired action beats overthinking or planning hands down

I’ve come to see that there’s a natural momentum that starts to build with inspired action … we’re far more likely to follow through than when we’re forcing ourselves to act from a place of having to do something. That can so quickly result in getting busy, making ‘to do’ lists, and then beating ourselves up when we don’t stick to our plans or things don’t go our way.

A good example is thinking I should get my ‘nudge’ out. Instead of sweating it, I just trusted the inspiration would strike and here it is getting written.

‘If I’m making a cake and it fails it becomes a pudding …‘

In the spirit of meandering this morning, inspiration came in the form of a YouTube video I was drawn to where three 100+ year olds shared their experiences of life.

I just LOVE the quote above from one of them describing making a cake. It’s such a good example of doing something he enjoys, but with no attachment to how it works out. Rather than any overthinking or pressure, he just immediately sees things in a lighthearted way. And THAT’s exactly what I’m wanting us to experience more of this year.

There are some other lovely stories and wisdom in this short video, which inspired me this morning, and I hope they inspire you too!

Last year, back in the summer, I ran ‘100 Days to Create Something Miraculous‘ – a chance to choose something you’d love to create in your life that would feel miraculous for you if it happened.

The whole idea was less about focusing on outcomes, and way more about learning new ways to approach things, opening up to new possibilities and seeing new things about yourself, from a completely different energy. Not another thing for your ‘to do list’! No over planning, pushing, stressing or striving, but the opportunity to play with an idea, see what occurs, feels fun, enjoyable and exciting with nothing on it. Moving past all the “but what ifs….to why not?”

The feedback I got was wonderful and has convinced me more than ever of the benefits to be gained from Living more in the Flow.

Like Billie who was keen to create more time in her life …

“The one thing I have experienced that has helped me so very much is the need to live in the moment. I tend to always delay things that I don’t want to do and then overthink them and worry about them. If you just get on and do the task, it is never as bad as the overthinking makes it out to be. It also saves you so much time to enjoy moments without to do lists and tasks hanging over your head. Already I have stopped letting thoughts control me and am doing things as and when they come, and also switching off and living the important moments.“

And Andrea who no longer feels the need to over plan …

“I have learned that there is no need to overthink and over plan a project or idea. By going with the flow I have experienced that new thoughts and avenues miraculously open up themselves. I have gained the insight not to look too far into the future and rather live more in the here and now and enjoy the journey rather than look to the outcome. Things seem to have a way of working themselves out, sometimes in a way you could not have foreseen anyway.“

I’d love you to consider joining us this year. To kick off, I’ve created a series of ‘nudges’ to whet your appetite. Nothing to do, you’ll just receive a daily insight over the next 7 days sharing some ideas about what Living in the Flow means in practice. Just click the link to receive the first one in your inbox!

That’s it for today – consider yourself nudged until the next time!

It’s been a while again since my last nudge… you know that way that sometimes life just takes over, chucks a few curve balls, and all the best laid plans of mice and men go straight out the window? Well that’s pretty much how it’s been in the past couple of months…

In the past, this would have quickly sent me into overwhelm, over analysis and stressing big time about all the things I should be doing…only thank goodness these days I’ve learnt that’s not only really unhelpful, it’s actually counter productive.

No, instead I’ve just taken my hands off the wheel for a bit, my foot off the pedal, and surprisingly, the world has not come to an end (gosh all the silly things we tell ourselves in the name of having to be seen to keep going, present a particular front, or give ourselves a false sense of control… just exhausting…)

So, I wanted to share some insights I’ve seen around the okay-ness of letting go, and how that’s not only been helpful, but, I’ve come to see, essential for living through difficult times.

Acceptance versus resistance

Accepting things as they are can be hard, but so often it’s our own resistance to accepting something we might not want or like, which causes us upset rather than the event itself.

Put another way, ‘what you resist, persists’. The quicker you can drop the resistance, and take the view it is what it is – whilst not seeing it worse than it is – the quicker some semblance of equilibrium returns … and from there, even if only in tiny steps, things incrementally start to feel more manageable.

Being in the moment

Yeah yeah, I know we’ve all heard this before and, for sure, it’s one thing to know it and quite another to put it into practice. For me, this isn’t something that can be forced (or endlessly meditated over…). It’s simply a case of noticing when I am … Noticing that whatever’s happening, life continues to live us … we find ourselves getting out of bed, brushing our teeth, doing the same old chores, cooking our meals, following our routines, more unconsciously than consciously.

Like life’s moving us in the moment rather than us consciously having to make things happen. And the more I’ve experienced that, the more I’ve also seen it’s not all down to me. I’m just doing the next thing that comes to mind, things are still getting done, and the more I stay out of past or future thinking, and just be in the moment, the better things feel.

We can’t control thought

Overthinking in difficult times can be so draining.

We can all have a tendency to get stuck in a particular pattern of ‘either/or’ or ‘right or wrong’ thinking. The mind will then seek out all the evidence to support your point of view – part of a survival mechanism that’s wired into us.

Seeing that’s just the way thought works and we can’t control it means I relate so differently to any thoughts these days. I engage way less with what I’m thinking now that I’ve seen a crappy thought = a crappy feeling. This has helped me to catch myself more quickly when negative thoughts are looping round my head. I’ve seen that, if left alone, thoughts naturally come and go by themselves, there’s nothing to do, they eventually pass through. I’ve seen that when I’m in a quieter state of mind, this happens much more quickly. When it does, new, better thinking always comes in, regardless of what I’m grappling with.

Trust the system

The more I trust that it’s just the way we work, that we’re all only ever doing the best we can with the momentary thinking we have that can look so real to us – until it doesn’t – the easier it gets to trust the system in difficult times. It’s a constant learning curve, but now I see that we have no control over the myriad thoughts that are coming and going all day long, I’ve learnt to be a lot kinder to myself – and by default others…

If you’re living through a difficult time right now, I hope these insights are helpful. As I shared in my last nudge, 7 Life Lessons from my Nan, she had an innate understanding about this. She knew that the best thing to do when you’re feeling stirred up was to let go of your thoughts, give yourself some quiet space and let your mind reset … I got more responses to that nudge than any other I’d written before, so I’m guessing we can all see the wisdom and truth in this.

Until the next time, consider yourself nudged for now.

All the best

Tamsin

PS I’m just about to launch my new Facebook nudgeme page so I can share different conversations and insights in a more dynamic way … both my own nudges and other helpful tips and ideas for living an easier life – I’d love it if you’d follow me there, thanks!

7 life lessons in celebration of my Nan

August is always a special month for me with important family birthdays. Not least it was my Nan’s birthday this week and, as I was thinking about her, I started to recall some of the life lessons I learnt from her, so I felt ‘nudged’ to share them. She died 10 years ago at 96, and her wisdom is holding true for me more and more these days.

Interestingly, I found words popping into my mind all beginning with the letter ‘L’ that seemed to follow a natural flow!

1 Live

When I say live, I mean in the sense that Nan never seemed to get too caught up in her thoughts. She was always too busy living in life rather than in her head.

2 Let go

Whenever I was feeling a bit low, or there was some kind of drama going on in my life (that of course usually felt like the end of the world to me when I was younger..!?), I’d inevitably end up at Nan’s. The first thing she’d do is make me a cup of tea and a cheese sandwich, and rather than getting into any conversation, she’d often suggest I take a nap. Invariably in that letting go of my thinking for a moment, I’d wake up in a much better headspace! I have friends all over now who often say “I’ve got a need for a cuppa and a cheese sandwich” feeling, and I can immediately connect!

3 Lighthearted

Nan’s view on life was a lot less complicated than can so often be the case these days. She somehow saw life in a simpler way and was always very clear on what was important to her – number one being her family! She’d lived through the war, and had her fair share of life’s challenges, and as a result she didn’t really ‘sweat the small stuff’, which gave her a much more ‘lighthearted’ energy that drew people to her.

4 Listen

Nan was a great listener. Rather than asking lots of questions or advising on what I should or shouldn’t do, she’d just stay pretty quiet and wait while I rambled on! These days, be it in my work or personal life, I’ve come to see how important this is, especially when people are experiencing difficult times. It’s so easy to want to fill in the gaps in conversation, or rush to help or fix things for people, and yet just quietly being there, and really listening to someone can make the world of difference.

5 Learn

Learning from listening better is such an intrinsic part of my work these days, and I’m convinced that’s what made Nan so understanding of other people. She was brilliant with younger people in this way…and I’m thinking now of a time when a group of young lads (as she called them) used to hang around the local shop where she used to go. I asked her once if it made her nervous and she just said “Oh no…I always say hello and am polite to them, so they’re always very polite back to me!”

6 Love

Nan had a big heart and she taught me so much about the importance of unconditional love. There’s a long standing joke in my family that whatever I did, or how badly I might have behaved at times, Nan never failed to take my side or back me up! It didn’t matter what was occurring, she was always there for me.

7 Laugh

There are many times I can remember a lot of laughter with Nan, just as long as it wasn’t any jokes about her family! I can picture her now when my sister and I took her home to Ireland for her 90th birthday, and we had a picnic on the beach. Amazingly, when it came to leave we had to climb up a cliff, and half way up, she started laughing about something. So much so that we only just made it to the top before we collapsed in a fit of giggles!

So there we have it, Nan’s 7 life lessons in celebration of her life. I’ve enjoyed writing about them and hope they spark some of your own wisdom too!

Feeling stuck is just part of being human

To illustrate what I mean, when I started nudgeme years ago, I came up with the name having heard a story about Pooh sticks from one of my favourite coaches, Michael Neill. I’m sure you’ll know, but briefly, playing Pooh sticks is when two people throw a stick in the River and see whose wins as the stick floats upstream to a given point. If one of the sticks gets stuck, it doesn’t need therapy just a nudge and it’s on its way again. Well that’s what I’m pointing to now.

There is no inherent meaning to any thought

This was HUGE to me when I got it! I now realise that the only thing that keeps me stuck, or out of the natural flow of living life with a sense of ease, is believing, or attaching meanings, to the myriad thoughts I have all day long! Now I see thought as just a transient energy taking form in the moment, it seems almost ridiculous now to take it seriously!! Which of course isn’t to say that I don’t get caught up and forget that at times!

The antidote is in the nature of the River

Feeling stuck is simply a part of the human condition – like those sticks sometimes they’ll float into the weeds and other times they’ll float on upstream, but either way it’s just the nature of the River and what can occur, and says nothing about the sticks themselves. Or, as I’m referring to, says nothing about the person who gets stuck!

The River is always flowing underneath, it’s not judging the stick, or saying “I don’t like this one, so I’ll push it into the weeds”. Sticks eventually get dislodged and go on their way. For me, the River is such a good metaphor for our innate wellbeing, wisdom, that’s always available to us. And just seeing the impersonal nature of how the River works is enough to nudge me from getting too caught up in the weeds of my thinking, and back into living more in the flow.

So my nudge for today is to just stop for 5 minutes and see where you might be getting caught up in the weeds of your thinking, and where might it help to let the River take over…nothing to sweat or overthink, just what comes to mind?

Have a great rest of your week, and, if you’re in the UK, enjoy this glorious weather we’ve been having…as the pic shows, it’s a stunning day on the River!

All the best for now

Tamsin

PS I shared this nudge earlier with the people taking part in my 100 Days to Create Something Miraculous project. I’m so enjoying our time together…all kinds of miraculous things are occurring, and I’m loving all the new insights people are experiencing. So much so, I’m considering running it again later in the year so if it speaks to you let me know!