Hello my friend. It’s good to speak to you again.

Life has been a little hectic as ever of late but the blue skies are returning and the warmth of the sun is definitely something I crave to warm my back. For now though, it’s more mentally stimulating through the window as when outside it is rather bracing. I’m certainly not suggesting that we stay inside, I love a fresh, bracing walk but I do love to wander aimlessly in the golden rays in sandals or barefoot around the garden. Of course, if you know me, you will also know that I do seldom, if ever, wear long trousers. I guess it’s a transition I never did really make but more on that another time…

An emotion I have been working with for many years is how situations effect me. I guess this is an Outside In mentality, being preoccupied with what I felt others thought of me. I am fundamentally a people pleaser and that’s a difficult trait, I find, to manage. On one hand I like to make others happy, comfortable, settled and this gives me in turn great pleasure. It is however very easy to find oneself at time feeling somewhat taken advantage of. Or should I say, previously I could feel that way. This, along with many outside influences, would effect my mood, my inner peace if you like. I would become aware of this feeling but I learned not to fret or worry unduly as I was still making the world around me a happier place, I felt. I then found a school of thought that taught you that you are able to feel empowered by adversity. ‘Diamonds are formed under pressure’ and ‘Strength from Adversity’. I absolutely jumped on board. This was what I had been looking for and it found me! I relished every outside pressure, every uncomfortable situation. I knew this was galvanising my resolve and I was becoming a true ‘diamond’. 

Many years passed while I was perfecting my empowered place. Life gave me lemons and I god damn made that lemonade. I was winning…… Or so I thought!

A book then ‘found me’.The Untethered Soul by a chap called Michael Singer. This was probably the first book that really ‘spoke’ to me. It cleared so much fog and allowed me to give myself permission to start following ideas and thoughts that I had been pondering on for too long. 

I was immediately struck by the suggestion that we are not what we think. Meaning, if someone or something makes me feel bad about something it does not mean ‘I’ am bad. If something makes me sad, it does not mean ‘I’ am sad. I am merely witnessing these emotions, I am not the emotion. It’s a rock that I am choosing to pick up and carry! This led me into a chapter of huge self development. I found great interest in meditation or mindfulness which is a name I was far more comfortable with. Meditation is something that cross legged, frail old men do wearing nothing but a bed sheet right? Happily now, I accept and am proud to be a fully embracing meditator (is that a real word…?) But I have refrained the urge to wear the bed sheet ;-)

I also incorporate my beautiful essential oils to ground, calm and all things in between and much more, as a daily practice.

During my meditation practice I was taught again that we are not our thoughts and it was likened to standing on the side of a busy road, watching all the cars go by. The cars passing are our thoughts. Some are slow, some are erratic and fast, but the aim is to ‘witness these passing cars and just let them come and then go’. If a red car with a horn blaring went screeching past would I choose to grab hold of the bumper and get dragged along by it? Of course not, so why was I choosing to hold onto triggering thoughts? Back to the book, this was showing me that I needed to find my seat of higher consciousness so I could accept that I am witnessing these thoughts and let them pass through and not become the thought. Don’t ignore the thoughts, acknowledge them, thank them for showing you something and let them go. If you watch rain fall on a window are you the rainfall? Of course not, you have simply wondered on a natural occurrence. 

So now I had graduated to my next chapter of learning and acceptance. I no longer wanted to allow pressure to turn the lump of coal that I am into a diamond. This previous empowered belief was quite frankly exhausting. You can win this ball of life but who wants a battle, right? What happens outside me is not turning me into a victim of this experience and I don’t wish to ‘buy the next book’ or ‘take the next course’. There is a huge industry out there which is geared at keeping you battling and subscribing to parting with money to have a chance of living in peace, with earplugs in, while the battle rages all around….lol

Michael Neill calls the style of ‘I am not what is all around me’ the Enlighten Outside In Misunderstanding. It’s not what you do nor what what happens around you, but it’s how you think about it. Change your thinking, change your life. 

If I know that life’s happenings are part of a higher plan or higher good, then I don’t feel so bad about it. I am witnessing the happening and that’s ok. I’m not actively trying to change what I DO about something, I want to change how I FEEL by changing what I think about what happened to cause me to feel that way. The point is that we are not trying to ignore that something bad has happened because once you have felt the sadness it has already happened and you are now reacting to your thought that is already a tragedy. We are living in an outside in life this way. The inside out understanding points to the realisation that we are living in a feeling of thought, and not circumstances. We don’t all create events in the same way. Once we say it was a tragedy we have already created the story. We don’t have to create the story in the first place. Once you start to see this and see that we can do something about it we see that we are 100% of the time we are living 100% of our thinking. We see that this is a misunderstanding. We are not our thoughts. 

Nothing ‘creates’ what you feel, we think the way we feel. Change the thought and free yourself. 

We know babies don’t see colour of skin, they just see friends. They also don’t feel triggered by words, even nasty ones. They just see life. 

I am going to create an area in the Finding Sky site that I will start posting info and links to the things that I have experienced as part of my journey of course I will never miss the chance to show how I also use my essential oils at the centre of my world. You may find some of them useful as we travel this road together. 

Till next time my friends. 

Keep smiling, keep loving life.

Sean