What if we have it wrong? Post 1

What if we have got it wrong?
 
As you go though life, you begin to see what you couldn’t see before. How many of us find ourselves saying ‘why didn’t I know or see this before’. The point is you may have thought you ‘knew’ those things (in your head), however until you see and feel something deeply enough (in a space beyond your thinking) it has not dropped into your reality. 
 
I’m choosing to write these posts (as part of a book) after arriving here and now, with a deeper understanding of how easy it was in the past to delude myself that ‘I knew’, however as I began to explore more, I realised that my knowing was quite limited. 
 
So I’ve been through many iterations of ‘knowing’, and what I would say after my life’s journey to this point, is that there is no absolute knowing.
 
What you think you know today, is actually impermanent. Everything evolves and shifts, so how you saw things yesterday, can change in a blink, because of new experiences and situations that arrive in your life. 
 
In 2006 the first blink happened in my life. Before this time, I had been involved in fitness, wellbeing and coaching and counselling, so when I was diagnosed with bowel cancer aged 44, everything I thought I knew, changed. That diagnosis had me seeing things very differently, and I wanted to understand more about why I had become ill and what I needed to heal and recover. 
 
My path led me to explore more about myself. Slowly I began to peel away the rules, beliefs, expectations, habits and patterns I had come to associate as me. Yes and along the way, once again, I thought ‘I knew’. I now realise I used the term ‘I know’ to describe the illusion of an arrival. I now realise, what it actually did was close the door, closed my mind to seeing anything else. I realised there is no final destination.
 
Rewrite our way of life
 
So for me to find my way to healing and peace, it was about looking at myself through my current expressions, habits and ways of doing, and rather than run from them, to face them front on. I looked out, I looked in.
 
I began to see the nature of how I had come live life. I noticed how often I fooled myself by following ‘rules’ that ‘told me’ what was best. There were rules in every aspect life; family, school, work, community, organisations, businesses, environments. I learnt the rules and then conformed.  
 
I found that instead of it feeling natural and free, it felt dutiful and full of expectations and was driven by an anxiety that was difficult to define. I could see how challenging it was to bring my true feelings or move against the ‘tide’.  
 
It wasn’t only me, as I could see others too caught up with following the systems that governments and societies brought with an expectation of how to engage.  
 
On the surface things looked to be fair and healthy, however when I searched a little deeper, it wasn’t the whole story. 
 
I came to see how our way of living and caring for ourselves, is based on receiving something in return. Like we are all doing silent contracts with ourselves where we tell ourselves if I do this…this should happen. It suggests receiving something in return.
 
Listening to politicians I could hear the words that state we are doing this for the community, when in fact this is not the whole story. There is often a financial or personal gain or another agenda driving them that is not told, leaving many others who are in need or struggling, to situations where they are sleeping rough and unable to pay the bills, or afford essentials and health care. 
 
And around the world we are seeing the impact of these ‘other agendas’ that have become ongoing cycles leading to more harm, unrest, injustices, crimes, wars, human and environmental disasters.  
 
How did it get this way? What is happening?
 
Despite governments providing more and more funds on services that address many of these societal issues, it do not seem to be improving the lives of people. 
 
The physical, mental, social, environmental and psychological health is in decline, with more people facing suicide, addictions, poverty, domestic violence, sexual abuse, bullying, threats and conflicts.  
 
So if money and our current ‘fix’ approaches are not improving things, what will? 
 
We are given clues to discover something else
 
The clues to this question can be found in the words captured in the regrets of the dying as written by… 
 
Not surprising, their regrets provide insights at the most deepest level. They were not about material things (that have been the determinants of success we have been striving for), rather that they wished they had cared less about what others said, they did more of the things they loved, and had taken better care of themselves.  
 
When you look at this, it is potentially within reach for all of us, no matter who we are, where we live, and what our circumstances. We can live this way, when we know how and we know what has been stopping us. 
 
With our lives and the world at a crisis point, there is no better time than now, to become part of the shift in trajectory towards a better world, towards our human survival. 
 
When we uncover this for ourselves, we can begin to take small steps in this unchartered territory.   
 
Unchartered territory and against the norm approaches such as Finland’s education system, where they focused their curriculum on skills that brought out the best of human qualities. The focused on teaching empathy and compassion from the beginning of school. They chose many counterintuitive approaches such as not using standardised tests until age 18, setting minimal homework, emphasising creativity and play, and putting trust in teachers to freely design their own methods and materials, rather than rigid control. 
 
Finland is ranked as the happiest country in the world, leading the way with work life balance.    
 
You must now seriously consider the notion that our current approach to education and many of our life systems, are no longer what’s best for us as humans. 
 
If you too are thinking that something is not right with how things are unfolding in the world at this time, you may also be looking at how this trajectory can change?
 
This is the journey we will be taking you on, to highlight how this approach brings power to you and your role in the path ahead.  
 
Get started
 
No matter what has happened to you in the past, it is possible to make choices that move you with more clarity and kindness to yourself, others and the world, towards a happier and healthy future. 
 
Often however to make the most of our opportunities and gain something we want for our lives, for example you may want a better relationship, a job that brings more flexibility, healthier work and living environments, a more peaceful world, to be better understood, to have a cleaner planet – we are unable to see the steps to guide us there. 
 
The point is you don’t need to. 
 
In 2019 Nigel and I started working together. We both asked the question, why don’t we know we know our next steps? What can’t we see? What is getting in the way, leading to inner anxiety and fear?
It became a time for each of us to dig deep within our own lives, experiences and professions, to get closer to the answer. 
The closer we got, the more questions arrived. 
We kept going. 
In time some key commons emerged, which have shaped the nature of the content being introduced to you. 
These Real Time Heart Based commons (which could be described as principles) while aligning with many ancient philosophies and cultures, are brought to you through things we found in our life, and are also there to discover in your own way and life. 
We know that it can only be through ourselves, that we can make a difference to our lives. 
In what is happening in the world today, this will become the greatest project you will ever work on…
And the most significant part is that you can get started from this point. It is available to you. It is available to everyone.
 
We hope that by sharing these themes in these blogs (which will later become the book), the path you are seeking becomes illuminated.  
 
 So get your journal ready, to go on a journey. We know as you discover and integrate what is relevant, the real shifts begin. 
 
So… take the time for the questions and actions. Pause and notice what arrives for you. This is your path…