A year ago, I sent out an email with the subject line “My top 3 insights from 2023”.
One of those insights was this:
(taken straight from the email)
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I see now that my experience of life isn’t down to what’s happening in the world.
It’s down to me.
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Later in that email, I wrote this:
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I’m sure I’ll look back on this email a year from now and think “you didn’t know the half of it Tom”. Or even “you didn't know 99% of it Tom!”
And you know what? I hope I do.
***
Well, guess what…
I was right!
Take the insight above.
This still looks true but I see it a bit differently a year later.
Nowadays it looks like all my struggles and strains stem from my beliefs that whatever is happening shouldn’t be happening.
In the moments I have no skin in the game – where I have no judgments about what’s right or wrong, what’s appropriate or not appropriate, what should or should not be taking place – life flows with a lightness and ease.
But when I catch myself saying “this shouldn’t be happening” or
“I don’t like this”, it doesn’t.
Yesterday was a good example.
My hectic, prosecco-soaked December finally caught up with me.
I woke up feeling rotten.
I had a scratchy throat, a sore back and a patchy night’s sleep. My body felt tired & achy and I felt tense & irritable.
As the day went on, I caught myself saying things like “this is really crap”, “what a waste of a day” and “goddamn it – why do I have to feel this way!”.
This morning, I can look back on yesterday more clearly.
There’s no doubt I was run down, achy and lacking energy.
But what I've noticed today is this:
It wasn’t feeling unwell which was making me tense and irritable.
It was the fact I wasn’t okay with feeling unwell.
I've seen this same phenomenon pop up in various ways over the course of 2024.
How would I sum it up?
In her book Loving What Is, the enlightened author, speaker and teacher Byron Katie says “we suffer when we believe a thought that argues with reality – when we want reality to be different than it is”.
I don’t think I could say it better myself.
If any of this resonates and you'd like to explore how to move from resistance to ease, I can help. This sort of shift is at the heart of my 1 on 1 work with clients.
Here's the link to find out more:
https://waitinglist.followingfulfilment.com