We Are All Insane

Something I have realized during my life so far, whether it is working with clients, my own friendships and relationships or just talking with people in general, is that we all have our own little battles going on; internally and externally. Some more or less than others, but very few of us are completely free of frustrations at one level or another.

I definitely go through long periods where I feel like everything is going well, and in flow. And then something happens. Often it is something that is happening externally to me; a project doesn’t proceed as planned, a family member is in distress or displeased, a traffic jam makes me late. Other times it is something that happens inside me, regardless of what is going on externally; I start feeling overly tired, I start giving myself a hard time on my progress, or I start craving sugary foods.

I definitely go through long periods where I feel like everything is going well, and in flow. And then something happens. Often it is something that is happening externally to me; a project doesn’t proceed as planned, a family member is in distress or displeased, a traffic jam makes me late. Other times it is something that happens inside me, regardless of what is going on externally; I start feeling overly tired, I start giving myself a hard time on my progress, or I start craving sugary foods.

Whether the thing that is bothering us, is external or internal, the one thing we generally have is CHOICE.

If somebody is in distress or displeased, I don’t HAVE to take it in or on board. I have a CHOICE. If a traffic jam makes me late, I don’t have to get frustrated. I have CHOICE. If I start to feel over tired, I have CHOICE on whether I get to bed at a decent hour, and eat healthier.

What I notice in myself and others, is that we forget we have CHOICE. By not recognizing this, we make ourselves insane!

Any suffering in our mind about ourselves or others “why aren’t you behaving?’; “ What is wrong with me?” is not a punishment. It is communication.  It is feedback from our body, that we are not in the flow, that we are not looking after ourselves. It is often a sign that we are letting others or circumstance run our lives for us. It is often a sign that we are attached to the outcome; “If I do this…..then I will have that”

A quiet mind, is not attached to outcomes, is not attached to having ‘stuff’, and it is not attached to ego. Life begins with the awareness of wholeness. Unhappiness begins through splitting things up.

I had the pleasure of meeting Angela Baumi Nicolas (Osteopath & Physiotherapist). She quotesd Dr. James Jealous, the Father of Biodynamic Osteopathy:

"An embryo functions as a whole; its integrity (soma, viscera, psyche) is universal within itself.
This display of unity and undivided function remains at the core of each of us. Our " cultural" senses are not aware of it but we are completely conscious of our whole, pregenetic, pregender role recognizing the Breath of Life as the most dominant feature of our sensory landscape. We are tracking our own divinity as we begin to sense Health."

Angela says that when she works with an adult, she is reminded of a pot of soup. There is the hard pot around the liquid soup and lots of hard pieces of carrot, and other veg in the soup. All this hardness is like the protection, the boundary, the wall.

Whereas a baby is just the liquid soup;  no pot, no pieces of veg, no walls, no ego, no block.

Angela says we would be better served to consider ourselves just like an embryo; perfect, untouched perfection, connected, perfect shape, perfect resting state, synchronicity, where everything just is and can just be.

How can we cultivate stillness to move away from the overwhelm and bombardment we do to ourselves?  

There are many ways, and you will know your own way.

Most of us now know, through centuries of eastern practice and through countless pieces of research on the brain and body’s response, and regarding the health benefits, that meditation is one way to cultivate stillness and connection.

If you are not there yet, just being more mindful can help so much. Slow down, stop, take a breath and recognize you have CHOICE.

Colin Hudon (Tea-Master mentioned in previous blog), put it well, when he said that “meditation is a good way of realizing how insane we all are. We generally have 6 types of thoughts on repeat, and meditation helps us to realize this, and that we in fact, have no original thought.“