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WHY I’M SO CALM AND CENTRED ALL THE TIME
IMMENSE PRIVILEGE. (I don’t live in a war zone. I don’t experience a whole load of unsafe places on a regular basis. I don’t find my existence or way of life questioned on a regular basis. In short, I don’t feel under general threat, on a regular basis.)
BY DESIGN. (Major lifestyle choice: I don’t have kids. There’s nothing morally superior, or inferior, about this choice — but it does make it easier for me to make more decisions purely for myself.)
PARTLY, I’M WIRED THIS WAY. (May as well acknowledge it, I was a calm and quiet kid. Always have been.)
LOTS OF PRACTICE.
People often comment about calm and centred and present I am. Here’s why. Immense privilege; life choice not to have children; I’m wired fairly calm; and I practice. A lot.
Clearly I cannot help much with points 1-3. (Though, having said that, wiring is neuroplasticity, which means we can change the wiring. So, in practice, your practice changes the wiring.)
But sometimes people ask me for ‘quick tips’ and tricks on how to be more calm and more present.
So here’s one way we can do that.
(Notice I said ‘one,’ because there are plenty. E.g. Nature! Breathing! More sleep! Movement! Etc. etc.)
Basically, you feel your guts.
That’s it. In a nutshell.
You feel your guts. You feel into the sensations of what’s going on inside your body.
A fancier term for this is: interoception.
When your stomach is tight, and you notice it, that’s interoception. When you notice you’ve got flutters in your legs, jangling in your body, a light sensation in your chest… that’s interoception.
Sensations in your body are just that — sensations. They are not emotions; because we haven’t applied meaning to them yet. Once we apply meaning (‘that fluttering means I’m excited, or I’m nervous,’) we have a tendency to go off and make more meaning; and then turn everything into a reason why we’re scared or uptight, or why we can’t get our shit together or how we’re a terrible human being.
However — the sensations are not inherently bad or good. They’re just sometimes more pleasurable or less pleasurable. They can also be more intense, or less intense.
Why does any of this matter?
Because the more in-tune you can be with the sensations going on in your body, the more you may — in my experience, at least — feel in control, and connected to yourself.
I want to be clear: THIS IS MY VERY UNCERTIFIED, UNREGULATED OPINION.
I mean, there are papers. There’s research. Interoception is very much an established phenomenon. I just don’t have the scientific rigour to say exactly what practising interoceptive awareness will do for you.
What I can say is that feeling into the sensations going on in my body — both pleasurable and unpleasurable — has been one of the best things I have done for myself in the last few years.
It has made me feel like I understand myself more. It has made me less scared of my own emotions.
It has made me feel like I can trust myself more. 100% more.
It feels like a reliable way to be in my own flow, rather than someone else’s.
And it keeps me connected. To the writing I’m doing right now; to the work that I want to do; to the people I come into contact with. (Obviously not all the time. But it helps me re-connect so much faster than if I just relied on my magnificent brain to think my way out of the problem. Which would tend to have me instead spiralling out on a wave of thoughts, washing further and further out to sea…)
Anyway, it’s a tool I use. All the time. Like literally, all the time. When I’m coaching; when I’m breathing; when I’m trying to work out if I’m actually hungry or just bored.
I don’t wanna say it’s 'the thing' that will change your life… But it’s one of the things that has changed mine.
So yeah, there’s my secret. Practising feeling my guts.
It’s a way to feel sexy, sublime, calm, aligned… All the things you want to feel, are there and waiting for you in your guts.
Happy practising.
PS.
This is just a way. A way that I happen to know works for me and some other people. But if it doesn’t work for you, right now, it doesn’t mean anything’s gone wrong; it just means we’re different, with different experiences. (Nature is full of difference and diversity. If we were all the same we’d all be wiped out by some disease or other catastrophe, taking us down in one fell swoop...)
And just because it doesn’t work for you now, doesn’t it mean it won’t work for you forever.
This is the case for so many things, I genuinely feel it’s a fact worth repeating — even if it feels self-evident: What doesn’t work for you today, doesn’t mean it won’t work for you tomorrow.
What doesn’t come easily for you right now, may become one of your most prized skills later on in life. (And you’re allowed to ask for help with it!)
We don’t always know. So stay open. To the process. And to yourself.
Love,
Kathryn
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Last call for Not my Birthday coaching!
Not my birthday coaching sessions are free coaching sessions that last up to 90-mins; and I’m offering them because October is a rubbish month for me, and I like to cheer myself up with some excellent coaching conversations.
If you’d like to be part of that, and get some excellent coaching (which will make you feel more calm, more centred, more clearly aligned with ‘your grand vision’, whatever it may be…) Get yourself on a coaching call.
“I feel more relaxed than after getting a massage.”
— Feedback from someone who did a call, and realised they could do the thing that they’d told themselves they weren’t allowed to do.
If you want that for you too, fill out this form here.