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!