Dropping your ‘shoulds’

I’ve called this nudge ‘A nudge about dropping your shoulds’ because I’ve been ‘shoulding’ all over myself in the last couple of months for not writing a nudge sooner. Since I’m pretty sure I’m not on my own with this habit of shoulding, I wanted to share some things I’ve found about how unhelpful it is.

First, I hope you’re having a great summer if you’re UK based. Notice I say having rather than had as I’ve yet to go on my summer holls so am hoping for an Indian summer. It will be my first trip away in my sister and her husband’s camper van with these two above and I’m looking forward to it…what can possibly go wrong!?

Less shoulding = nicer feeling

This idea of dropping your shoulds actually builds on my last nudge about how well we work, and especially so when we’re living more in a calmer, less noisy headspace. Continually telling ourselves we should be doing things, or beating ourselves up when we’re not…not to mention all the ways in which we can feel we (or others…) should be acting or behaving in certain or better ways or whatever, just doesn’t feel good. And it’s easy to know when this is happening because our feeling level will quickly alert us.

Freeing up headspace

Aside from living in a nicer feeling, the other huge benefit of dropping your shoulds is how much headspace this frees up. It is fascinating to me that the more I leave my should thinking alone, the quicker I find myself naturally getting more done. As with this nudge, as soon as I stopped pressurising myself, it left space for inspiration to strike.

And likewise when it comes to judging myself or others’ behaviour about what I/they should or should not be doing. Boy can that eat up a whole heap of bandwidth and time, and quickly put you up in your thoughts vs living in the present moment.

Living more in the moment

As I often share in my nudges, we’re made to live in the moment, not to live in our thinking. When we drop out of our noisier thinking there’s a space that opens up for what I’ve come to see as a quieter, common sense of knowing to show up that invariably brings us what we need. We do really well in real time, and just noticing, and trusting, that is so much nicer than shoulding ourselves.

As always, I hope this is helpful, and would love to hear what resonates with you.

Wishing you a lovely weekend when it comes.

All the very best for now

Tamsin

If you want to ‘live more in your life and less in your thoughts’ then I share more in my Living in the Flow series of insights. Just click on the link and you’ll receive a short nudge over the next 7 days. See it as a quiet moment of reflection to start off your day, and help minimise any overthinking.

At last the sunshine has come out in the UK, and, for those of you living here, I hope you’ve been able to make the most of it. This is the view just down from my mother’s home in Berkshire where I had a lovely walk recently!

How well we work

In my last nudge, I shared how much nicer it can feel to navigate life by insights than the usual overthinking or problem solving that can quickly put us up in our heads and further away from solutions. Searching our memory bank for answers has its place, but when it starts to feel stressful or pressurised that’s the signal to, as best you can, leave your thinking alone.

I often say in my work if the answer was to be found in the database of what we already know, then we’d know what to do or say, or already be doing it. So, when the answer isn’t coming easily doubling down on more thinking with the resulting ratcheting up of stress levels can be extremely counter productive!

Yes, but how do I stop overthinking?

That’s so often what comes up in conversations I have, and as a recovering overthinker I get it!

I now know, and I mean experientially really know, that less is more when it comes to thinking, and how well we work from a clearer, calmer headspace. When we have less on our minds, fresh Thought and answers do invariably, naturally come, and with a different feeling of clarity and knowing that feels instinctively right.

Just noticing how that is already working in your own life can be so helpful. Checking in on your current state of mind, and how you’re feeling in the moment. I’m sure you know the difference between feeling up tight and in a lower mood or state of mind, and that calmer, more expansive feeling that feels more settled and peaceful.

Seeing that the latter is always more accessible and available from a quieter mind, and how that impacts the quality of your thinking, can be all that’s needed to slow thought down and for answers to come.

Internal guide

I also now know that feelings exist to guide me in a better direction…that they are not telling me anything useful about my situation or circumstances, but rather the quality of my thinking moment to moment. So, as such, uncomfortable feelings no longer worry or concern me like they used to. On the contrary, I trust that they are letting me know when I’m getting too caught up in unhelpful thoughts, and to quieten down.

I share more in other blog posts here, including, in this week of Mental Health, a video I recorded offering a fresh look on our mental  wellbeing a few years back when we were coming out of the pandemic. Listening to it again today, the message of the value of a quieter state of mind resonates even more…but please don’t take my word for it, see what fresh insights it sparks for you.

Wishing you a lovely weekend.

All the very best for now

Tamsin

If you want to ‘live more in your life and less in your thoughts’ then I share more in my Living in the Flow series of insights. Just click on the link and you’ll receive a short nudge over the next 7 days. See it as a quiet moment of reflection to start off your day, and help minimise any overthinking.

I had a lovely weekend away in Brussels last month, and took this photo of the canal in Bruges. Living on water as I do, I love seeing different waterways and rivers, and had a thoroughly nice time living in the flow!

Living in the flow and the power of insights

I share a lot in my work about living in the flow of life as it shows up vs living in the endless streams of thoughts in our heads. When we have less on our minds it leaves so much more space for powerful insights to show up. And there’s such a different feeling and energy between that and our intellect.

In my experience, an insight is something that comes to you not from your personal thinking or knowledge, or problem solving, but from a deeper, quieter space of inner, or innate, wisdom. It comes with a different feeling of clarity, a knowing, and more like a fresh thought that bypasses old thinking, opinions or beliefs, and feels instinctively right.

Navigating life by insights = much less pressure

The wonderful thing about insights is that they don’t involve any feeling of pressure. They come from thoughts that feel inspired rather than those uncomfortable ones with lots of thinking attached to them. Those ‘should’ thoughts, I should be doing x, y or z ones, or those ‘what if’ thoughts, followed by diving head long into future worst case scenarios.

And because I see that insights come to us, not from any of that noisier thinking, but more in the form of quieter, inner nudges, out of the blue new ideas, it’s been so liberating to see it’s not all on us to make something happen or force action. The very opposite of all that conditioning that tells us if something is going to change or needs doing it’s all on us, or takes hard work, or is inherently pressurised. Gosh what a stressful way that is to live.

Instead of all that I’ve come to see that we work in a much kinder way than that. It’s not not up to us, but trusting in a quieter state of mind to bring us what we need through that quieter knowing, fresh insights, is without doubt a far nicer way to experience life.

Invitation – Tuesday 16 April 6.00-7.00pm UK

I’ve had my own fresh insight today to open up this conversation further. It’s one thing to read about something, and quite another to see how it might play out for us personally. To get an experiential understanding that moves the dial in our day to day lives.

So, before the voice of my should (thinking) gets noisier than my knowing (inspiration), here’s an invitation for you….

It links to my last two nudges on habitual thinking and changing your mind, both of which seem key when wanting to trust in, and follow, our inner knowing more. And we all know that quieter voice of knowing vs the often much louder noise of habitual thinking!

Let’s get together on a Zoom webinar and chat about ‘Turning down the noise on habitual thinking and upping the volume on inner knowing and insights’… with the major side benefit (I’m often told by clients) of freeing up a heap of our time!!

If you have some habitual thinking that is regularly taking up too much of your headspace, and would like to experience less of that and some fresh insights, then I think you’ll enjoy this conversation. If that sounds good, and you’re feeling that quieter nudge to join, then I’d love to see you on Tuesday 16 April 6.00-7.00pm UK. Just send a quick RSVP back and I’ll send you the Zoom link. And if you have any questions, do ask away. Otherwise I look forward to seeing you then.

Have a great rest of your week.

All the very best for now

Tamsin

If you want to ‘live more in your life and less in your thoughts’ this year then I share more in my Living in the Flow mini series. Just click on the link and you’ll receive a short nudge over the next 7 days. See it as your quiet moment of reflection to start off your day, help keep you on track, and minimise any habitual thinking.

Happy New Year

This was sunrise this morning at my mother’s home in Berkshire, and I raced upstairs to capture it out of the window. Having been pondering a New Year nudge, it immediately made me think of a fresh, new day in this brand New Year, and spurred me on to write. I hope you’ve had a good first week of 2024.

Thought is great…thinking is overrated

This thought has been playing around my edges this week as I’ve wondered what might be helpful to share.

As you’ll know from previous nudges (if you’ve been around for a while) I see Thought as a wonderful tool that helps us all to navigate life. Its very nature is neutral, ever changing and transitory, and will come and go unless our personal thinking breathes life into it…or gives one thought a particular meaning over another. Thus it can be used for or against ourselves, and when it’s the latter it can be less than helpful.

And I’m talking about when our thinking takes us off down rabbit holes of overthinking situations, or endless back and forths of problem solving, or making decisions, which can so often end up with increasing worry, anxiety and stress levels. And once we’re on those stirred up trains of thought we can quickly find ourselves going in the wrong direction.

Give the train to stirred up thoughts a miss

So how to stop all that this year. My message is simple (albeit not so simple to always put into practice…) give the train to stirred up thoughts a miss. Just like we can choose a train to a place where we’d like to go – the destination – and where we might get off en route. The train will pass through many thought stations, some we might want to jump off at and spend some time and others we don’t fancy, but it’s up to us to decide to jump off or not. And even if we do get off and find out we don’t like it, we can always take a different connection, or get on a new thought train.

Feeling vs thinking your way this year

Journeys used to feel so much easier when I knew where I was going, and I used to be a past master at needing to know! But these days, it’s so much nicer to simply head in the direction of what I feel like and then see what shows up. Take a step and then see what next step is revealed as I go. Trusting how I feel, rather than think, to guide me.

As I’ve shared in previous nudges, I’ve learnt we all have a natural, inbuilt guidance system that’s constantly on. That feeling of knowing, clarity, innate wisdom coming in real time, when our next step is just obvious. Living from that feeling rather than noisy, stressful thinking is way more preferable – not to mention reliable even if we can’t exactly control when we’ll know!

And you’ll know the difference between knowing and thinking you know by the way it feels. The latter tends to feel tight and constricted where the former feels spacious, enlivening and just right!

I hope you’ll tune more into your ‘knowing’ signal, inner GPS, this year, while enjoying the gift of Thought for what it is.

Until the next time, wishing you (and the world…) a more peaceful, gentle and joyful New Year.

All the very best for now

Tamsin

If you want to ‘live more in your life and less in your thoughts’ this year then I share more in my Living in the Flow mini series. Just click on the link and you’ll receive a short nudge over the next 7 days. See it as your quiet moment of reflection to start off your day, help keep you on track, and off the train to stirred up thoughts!

It’s been a while again since my last nudge, and I hope you’re keeping well. I don’t know about you, but, in these current times, I have found myself craving quieter moments, and am ever conscious and grateful for the freedoms available to me, which sadly, so many others in our world do not experience.

This nudge has been percolating for a while now as I notice more and more how hard it seems for people to listen to one another.

Habitual vs quieter listening

We all have habitual ways of listening, me too, and it was a revelation for me to learn I was not as good a listener as I thought! The following are some of those habitual ways:

listening to evaluate

I used to think it was an important part of my work to listen to evaluate…to analyse what a person said and then advise on strategies or techniques, or ‘how tos’ that would help the person to take action on whatever they wanted to change or was keeping them stuck.

Similarly, in my personal life often listening resulted in my own internal conversation going on at the same time: whether I agreed/disagreed with them, making assumptions and judgements on what they were saying, having critical thoughts or sharing ‘I know just how you feel’ similar stories!

listening for information

Intently listening for information, to take notes, to research and memorise what is being said. Absolutely fine as part of a learning process, but less useful when wanting to connect with people at a deeper level.

listening when distracted

Boy do I see this everywhere! What I call half listening when people are seemingly listening to you, but busy doing something else at the same time! Or they are preoccupied with what’s going on in their own heads…easily spotted as they tend to interrupt more, try to finish your sentences, or are in a hurry for you to finish or change the subject.

listening to diagnose

As a coach, I do not diagnose, but in the field of mental health listening to diagnose is common place. For me, I’ve come to see there’s a huge difference between listening to diagnose, based on a premise that people need fixing in some way, and listening for mental health…seeing that all people have an innate wellbeing and wisdom inside them, and pointing them in that direction, which allows the space for their own fresh thinking and insights to occur.

listening through our own filters

This is a biggie! And so often sub consciously happening whether we know it or not. Similar to listening to evaluate, conditioned patterns of thinking and habitual beliefs and values can hinder us from seeing another person as they really are. Rather, we see them through our own ideas of who we ‘think’ they are, sometimes long held and unquestioned. It is fascinating to scrub all that and meet someone afresh…believe me, I’ve seen miraculous things happen as a result!

Listening with nothing on our minds

I’ve come to see there is a different way to listen. It involves getting quiet enough to drop out of our own, often busy, thinking, and listen with nothing on our minds…to listen with ‘both ears’ as I heard it put recently.

In my own experience, I cannot over estimate the benefits of this kind of listening. It leads to a greater understanding and appreciation of the other person’s world. We get to connect at a much deeper level…heart to heart as the phrase goes…and we all know how it feels to be heard and understood in this way.

And ultimately it can help lead to a shift in consciousness that goodness the world needs to see more of at the moment…..

Being present as the route to better listening

As I’m often sharing, we’re either living in our life, present to what shows up in any moment, or we’re living in our thoughts. The more present I am when listening to someone, the greater the feeling of connection and understanding. From that space, of feeling truly heard and understood, the other person naturally gets their own new perspectives and fresh insights, which is an incredibly helpful and hopeful way to live.

Listening to yourself

A wonderful by product of noticing how you tend to listen, and choosing to listen differently, is that you can also start listening to yourself the way you’d like others to listen to you.

So, what do you think your habitual way of listening is, what rings true for you, and how might you choose now to listen differently? As always, I’d love to hear what you notice!

And, as one of my older mentors says, ‘everyone could do with a damn good listening to‘, and if that appeals to you, then do get in touch.

Until the next time, all the very best for now.

Tamsin

PS If other people spring to mind as you read through these different ways of listening, then do feel free to pass this nudge along to them! 😉

I received some really insightful thoughts and comments on my last nudge ‘What Makes a Problem a Problem‘. So interesting that we all come from our own unique perspective when considering this question, which, for me, only serves to underline how much we live in our own separate, thought created realities.

No one reality

I remember well the day I truly saw that there is no one reality out there that we’re all responding to during one of my coach trainings many moons ago. Up until then I just assumed if certain situations or circumstances arose that we all experienced them in a similar way. Of course with our own unique flavour, but very much from a belief, or ‘given’, that certain things were definitely a problem…such as being short of money, or having a relationship breakdown, or a health issue.

As one of my readers commented:

“One person’s problem can be another person’s non-issue. There is sometimes an action to take to nudge it along, but it’s amazing how much naturally sorts itself even if it’s not to everyone’s original design.“

And that’s been very much my experience too.

Where do you spend your time?

This got me thinking about another question I often ask in my work: where do you spend your time?

I’m not talking about where you physically spend your day to day life, but where you tend to spend most of your time mentally.

As the strapline says on my nudgeme website, we’re either living in our life or living in our thoughts, and the extent to which we spend time in either dictates the quality of our lives.

Missing from the moment

Put simply I’ve come to see that the more we find ourselves caught up in our thinking – and I should say innocently so, it’s not something we can control – the more we wind up ‘missing from the moment’.

For instance, have you ever taken a walk to clear your head, but found that by the time you got home you haven’t really been in the moment, in the present, aware of your surroundings? Then at another time, you’ve been more relaxed, in a better state of mind and spotted all kinds of things you didn’t notice previously. Nothing has changed about the walk, it’s just with a clearer head, less on your mind you’ve had a completely different experience.

Life is kinder than our imagination

As the comment above suggests ‘it’s amazing how much naturally sorts itself’ when we leave our thinking alone. I’ve come to see that if an answer to something is needed it’s more likely to come when your mind settles down vs going back and forth with imagined future scenarios. And it’s from that quieter state of mind that the thoughts can feel very different. Those out of the blue ones that just feel fresh and new and just right for the situation at hand.

I’m not saying that using our intellect can’t be helpful, but you’ll always know when it’s less so by the way it feels. When you start to feel stressed, or anxious or finding it hard to sleep or however this manifests for you, that’s the signal to leave your thinking alone as best you can. Trust that something will come to you from a calmer state of mind.

Kindness in our design

As I always say, please don’t take my word for it, test it out for yourself.

I now see that there’s kindness in our design, and that uncomfortable feelings are a useful guide, letting us know when we’re getting too caught up in our thinking. And nothing needs to change on the outside for that to happen, which makes for a much easier and nicer way to live.

So where do you spend your time? If it tends to be more in your thoughts, and you’re currently grappling with something, or feeling stressed, I hope you find this nudge helpful. And, as always, I’d love to hear from you.

Until the next time, have a good rest of your day, and all the very best for now.

Tamsin

I was thinking this morning how it’s been a while since I sent a nudge, and I thought what might be helpful to share in the current times.

I was looking though some previous nudges, and came across the following one on ‘what makes a problem a problem?’ I shared it back in 2018, and yet it feels more pertinent than ever today.

If I had a postscript it would be that I’ve put what I share below to the test again, and again and again, and, for me, it just rings even more true.

But please don’t take my word for it, test it out for yourself and see what occurs to you!

Problem solving can make things worse

For someone who has spent a lifetime believing that it helps to problem solve, that was a huge realisation when I realised that it often just caused me to get way more caught up in my thinking and further away from coming up with solutions.

I used to see it as an important part of my work, helping people to consider the issues and problems they were having, and then come up with a plan or strategy to help get them unstuck.

And sometimes it worked – or at least worked for a while, until another problem would present itself and the conversation to problem solve would start again!

Living less in your thoughts = less stress

Since coming across the understanding of how we create our experience, I now see problems very differently. I see that there’s the event, circumstance or situation that occurs, and then there’s all my thinking and speculating about them.

The more I’ve learned to live less in my thoughts, the easier it’s been to drop all that thinking. And in doing so, find that the answers inevitably present themselves. Often something I couldn’t possibly have imagined, or problem solved, occurs, and whatever seemed like a major problem at the time worked out in hindsight. It makes for a much less stressful way to live.

Newsflash…

So, my sister just happened to call while I was writing this, and we chatted through the idea that problems are illusory. In her inimitable way, she paused and said “Tam, that’s all well and good and I kind of get it, but I’ve been learning about this understanding about thought for a good while now, and even I don’t see that one…of course a problem is a problem!!” She went on to give this example. “If I’ve got to find money by the end of the week that I don’t have, that’s a fact it’s not something I made up. Any one of us will have experienced all kinds of problems today, and reading that they are illusory would quite frankly p*** me off so it could be the people who read this might feel the same way!” Needless to say, we chatted some more, the essence of which I hope I’ve now captured below.

Just seeing the transitory nature of thought is enough

For me, the fact that I’ve come to understand the transitory nature of thought, and that how much of a problem I make something is down to my own thinking, has completely changed how I approach all ‘problems’. Just seeing that it is my own thoughts that first create what is and isn’t a problem, and then all the next level of thinking about how I’m going to respond to that – which is also only more thought – is usually enough to give me a buffer before the ifs, buts and maybes take me in an unhelpful direction! These days, that gives me just the nudge I need to more easily catch myself before generating more perceived problems about the illusory problem!

All that said, of course I’m only human so does this always work? No, far from it! But just seeing that both the problem and my thoughts about it can only ever come from my own thinking, gives me a chance to pause. And it’s in that space between the busy thoughts that more creative thinking naturally flows in if I let it. Seeing that’s how we work is what has caused me to have more confidence, and trust that something will come to mind, that fresh thought will come in and provide answers I can’t yet see!

I’d love to know what this brings up for you. And if you have any examples of where you’ve seen that life has a habit of working out in retrospect, would be great to hear them.

That’s your nudge for today! Have a great rest of your day/evening.

All the best

Tamsin

PS This is the type of conversation I’m having with people in my work now. Moving away from helping people to problem solve to pointing them in a different direction of how our experience is created in the first place. It makes for some wonderful conversations and insights that no amount of problem solving ever did! So if you’re experiencing ‘problems’ in life at the minute, I nudge you to consider having a different conversation, and just see what new perspectives might occur for you as a result.

I do hope you had a relaxing festive break, and that 2023 has got off to a good start.

When I sent out my last nudge about worry these two in the photo were only small pups, and I was predicting that life would never be the same again.

Well, I can happily report I was absolutely right, and we are loving having them as part of the family – there is no end to the joy they give us on a daily basis!

Living in a state of worry

My musings about worry certainly resonated, and it was good to read all your comments and thoughts on the subject. I don’t think you need to be a mind reader to see that many are still living in a state of worry this year. And very often for one of those key reasons I spoke of, which is our innocent habit of wanting to predict the future. In the case of the puppies it’s great to be proved right, but less so when we get caught up in negative thinking about imagined futures or worst case scenarios.

Knowing vs predicting

There is a huge difference between making up predictions about anything, and that sense of just knowing what you want to do, see happen or take place. Not least the difference in feeling and energy. For me, the former can come with streams of unhelpful thinking, which can feel stressful, tense, uncomfortable and immobilising. Where the latter just feels right and comes with a feeling of clarity, calm, and common sense, innate knowing of what best to do, or the next steps to take.

As the saying goes, when you know you know and there is such an ease that accompanies that.

Less thinking not more

We are so conditioned to get busy thinking when we have a difficult situation, issue or problem, but I’ve found that to be so counter productive. Not only is it a sure fire way to ratchet up the worry levels, but, more importantly, it takes us in the opposite direction of our quieter knowing. Left alone, any stirred up thinking will settle down, and when it does it leaves room for those quieter nudges of fresh thought, out of the blue ideas and common sense wisdom to flow.

Listening for, and then following, those knowing nudges has become such a way of life now, and I encourage you to notice the difference for yourself. Next time you start to have worrying thoughts, just see what happens when you leave that thinking alone. And I don’t mean getting busy with trying to manage or reframe your thoughts, or doing anything at all with them…that just continues the cycle. Rather, just as best you can, leave them alone and you’ll see how much more quickly they pass through.

As the thought dissipates, the uncomfortable feelings will naturally dissipate too. Then, from that calmer state of mind, you’ll leave space for your knowing to come through. Nothing on the outside might have changed, but everything on the inside feels different.

I hope this is helpful. As always, please don’t take my word for it, but see for yourself, and I’d love to hear what you notice.

All the best for now

Tam

Less Worry Challenge

An idea has been percolating to share more about why I, and the people I work with, no longer find ourselves worrying so much these days, and how that has given us so much more time, energy and peace of mind. So, in the spirit of following my knowing, I’d love to hear from you if you tend to worry, overthink, or just feel you’re currently living with a low hum of stress and would love to experience life without that this year. Just email me and I’ll be in touch.