Understanding Our own Resiliency

Understanding the inside out nature of life has been so empowering in my life on the one hand, and then on the other, there have been many times when I have found myself extremely frustrated because I “should” know better now that I know how it works and be feeling happy, happy, happy!

Now that I know that what I am feeling are the thoughts that are passing through my mind sometimes it appears to me, and to many other people, as something that we should be able to control.

Afterall, there a thousands of self help books out there teaching us about how we can improve our quality of life if only we could control our thoughts, think positively, release limiting beliefs, change old thinking patterns, and so on.
There is so much emphasis placed on feeling good, being happy, feeling peaceful, and so on that it is easy to see why when we don’t feel these “good feelings”, we would beat ourselves up and start looking for the reasons why and try and put them right.

This is actually so unnecessary. We don’t need to know what it is that is “making” us feel bad. But that seems kind of strange doesn’t it? Illogical to the logical mind? We know it is our own thinking that we are feeling so therefore we would want to know what it is we are thinking so that we can change it or release it and let it go, or at least accept it and be OK with it.

The acceptance part is relevant for sure. But all that is required is the acceptance that we are thinking something that is not serving us well ... full stop. No need to go digging, and working out what it could be, what it might be, and even more commonly, look for the reason on the outside, blaming our circumstances.

It’s just like the weather. We can’t control it, so why even try?
It was only a couple of days ago, as we were driving back from our mini trip with the family and I was watching some absolutely stunning cloud formations that it dawned on me.

Even though I have heard the metaphor of the sun and clouds dozens of times, and have used it myself with clients to explain the inside out nature of life dozens of times too, where the sun represents our natural state of being - feeling of well being, peace and clarity, and the clouds represent our thoughts that sometimes block those good feelings, as I watched the clouds forming and dispersing and the sun poking through sometimes, and a few spots of rain landing on the windscreen, I realized how little control we really have over our thoughts.

Just like the clouds that were forming and dispersing, thoughts are moving from being neutral and impersonal to having meaning to us and showing up as feelings and dispersing again.

We are constantly making meaning of thoughts and if they are not in alignment with our highest good, they will show up as “bad feelings”, and block out the sunshine.

The really important thing to remember here is that even though we have no control over the weather, we know that the sun is always there, it’s just a question of time before we see it again. And it’s the same with our innate well being, happiness, peace of mind and so on. It’s always there for us once the busy thoughts disperse.

If you want to learn more about this with me in person, drop me an email at sheela@sheelamasand.com and we can set a time to discuss it.