I woke up with this insightful question this morning. I’ve spent the past week (or you could argue three years) feeling every-so-slightly-restless, wanting something external to change, expecting life to be ever-so-slightly different and, perhaps – whilst I didn’t always think I was – putting the responsibility for my happiness onto others.
Three years ago I experienced a trauma that felt like it turned my life upside-down; I lost family who told me I was no longer ‘part of them,’ and that they didn’t like me. I found myself feeling disconnected, lonely, anxious and depressed. Ever since all of that, I seemed to be on a journey to try and ‘re-find’ myself. I remember once really resonating with the phrase “you don’t know this new me; I put my pieces back together differently,” as I found myself booking the next flight to Bali alone, exploring the globe looking for answers as to why I wasn’t enough, and why I felt so broken.
At the time, it really felt that my wellbeing was wholly dependent on all of these other people. And yet, what I didn’t realise was that the answers – the truths – were actually always innately within. One day, along my path, I heard something profoundly different in a conversation about life with a wellbeing mentor, and it completely turned it all round for me. What I heard was what I now call Transformational Truth: we are only who we ‘think’ we are, and all of our feelings are entirely constructed by our own thinking, which we live in the feeling of, moment to moment. Furthermore, clarity about the ‘truth’ is underneath all of this thought!
Realising that I wasn’t who others thought
In this, I heard something a little deeper; that if we are who we think we are, we aren’t who others think we are. Because, ultimately, we are never actually in relationships with others, we are only ever in relationships with our ‘thinking’ about others. This totally made sense to me (when it sunk in on a deeper level) as it explained why, actually, none of what others thought about me even mattered, because it wasn’t truth.
It’s all within you
Not only that but what you see in others, is actually what is in you. I realised that I began to attribute the beauty I saw in others to them, but it was actually also in me. For example, my love of depth and exploration was all mine; yet I saw that as being something others had, that I wanted. As I began to see that it was just thought that it was in others, I began to step out into the world as who I was underneath all the thinking about who I wasn’t: a deep explorer!
Our true nature is wellbeing
Whenever I was in a low feeling mood, I would sit and think about how to fix it. I would sit and think ‘I want this’ and I would often feel powerless to achieve it. But, suddenly, as I learned more about the nature of what it is to be a human experiencing ‘thought’, all of this began to drop away. When we see that our true nature is wellbeing and happiness, and that we are just experiencing our thinking all of the time, it all begins to make more sense. Underneath all of our thought storms, we are who we were born as: whole and perfect.
We are always where we need to be: being universally guided
The other thing I heard was that we are all guided by a universal energy, which we are all part of. Underneath all of our thinking about everything, there is a guiding force that we can trust enough to just let everything go. Not only does this mean that we can never be ‘disconnected’ as we are all part of ‘one’ greater force, but we are always exactly where we need to be in each moment, even when it doesn’t always make sense to us. Whenever we hit a challenge, like I did, it facilitates growth and deeper understanding about the world which helps life make much more sense.
Making sense of life: the wisdom underneath the illusion of form
What I realised, as my thoughts dropped away, was that my wellbeing was never dependent on someone else. After years of searching, I came into my own wisdom as soon as I simply understood more about how life really works. Now I’m lucky because I get to share this wisdom with others.
Recently, as I felt restless, I knew to do something different. Instead of looking to change the external as I might have done three years ago, I took a moment to inquire into my own thinking. Rather than looking at the illusion of ‘form’ – the external human experience that felt like it could impact me – I dived inwards. Seeing my thoughts as little bubbles of energy, floating around, I questioned why I was restless. Insight dropped into my head that I was expecting for something to be different to how it was. In that expectation, it really felt like my wellbeing was impacted. It felt like I needed something to change. I cried a little, I ran around the lake, I journaled (a lot!), and then I sat in non-action and let it all happen. At one time, I would have reached out and tried to force the thing I wanted changing; I’d have tried to fix the external. I would have got caught up in trying to figure out what was ‘wrong’ with me, analysing why nothing was ‘right,’ and spent all of my energy trying to force the unforceable.
This time, I just simply noticed all of these thoughts, and I sat in the discomfort of the feelings that they crafted. I waited for it to pass, knowing that it would, because thoughts are always transient, and none of them are true. And then, I remembered my innate wellbeing and resilience. I noticed; instead of responding to life from a place of being dependent on the external, I knew that my wellbeing was already constant. Underneath all of my thinking about who I was in relation to everything and everyone out there, I knew that my wellbeing was all within me. And in that moment, I thought “how would you respond if you knew your wellbeing wasn’t dependent on others?” – and I wrote this, from the beautifully creative space that was opened up which was no longer filled with ‘what if?’ I’m not saying it always feels comfortable when you see it is just the nature of your thoughts, but what does happen is you spend less time worrying about them, and free up creative space for something beautiful. When we can respond from a place of knowing we are always ok, no matter what, we see the truth that the whole universe is always working in our perfectly whole favour.
In that knowing, you respond differently to life!
Namaste,
Nicole x
Originally published at www.wellbeingwriter.co.uk