Why Do Things Need to Be Complicated?
The mind has the ability to put things into words, to form labels, conditions, and patterns. Your body doesn't know all of that, it likes to keep things simple and it loves change. A post about both.
Putting things into words, it can be a challenge sometimes. Especially when things just come naturally, without too much thinking upfront. When it flows, it’s like time going backwards, first the full experience, then the explanation that follows afterward. Scary it can be, definitely, but at the same time having the feeling of being fully alive. Most importantly, the whole figuring out and thinking through process isn’t there. One step leads to the next, that’s as simple as it can be. The moment someone asks for words things become complicated. Describing things that words can’t describe, how does that work?
So, what is this all about then? Often I find myself in a situation where people ask me where I want to go next or where I came from. While at that time I’m living in the moment, with the past left behind me and the future as something to be curious about. I’ve had times where my mind was stuck in the past or wandering about the future. Even for years, without asking myself whether this is natural or not. Over the last years I’ve dealt with that, meeting myself where I was and taking back what I had lost along the way. All that’s left over now is the present moment, where everything is alive at the same time.
Question: “How do you feel right now?”
First response: [pause]
What’s happening in that moment: “I feel everything: where I am in time and space; my body posture and how it affects my joints, muscles, and fascia; the itchy feeling on my skin, my left ankle, and my left hip; my fingertips touching the surface; the wind blowing in my face; the energy of the people that I’m surrounded with; the power of the sun’s light rays; the effects of the colors of the buildings; the presence of the birds singing their songs; and a lot more.”
Response eventually: “I feel good”
How the mind looks for familiarity
Years ago this would put me in a position described as a HSP, or a Highly Sensitive Person. For a long time I went along with this explanation, it gave me a sense of security. The moment I read about this the first time it gave me a notion that it’s okay to have this high alertness. What I didn’t notice though, is that it inhibited my natural expression to come through. Being alert and aware of something or someone else is one thing, the mind trying to put this into words is something entirely else. Once it starts to form a story line, all kinds of mechanisms come into play. All of a sudden the idea to respond in a certain way creeps in, and it can be hard to get out of it.
Thinking about what someone else might think, not going somewhere because something might happen, keeping things for yourself because that feels more safe. Examples of coping with the intensity that the world outside can bring. Before you know it, a person you know or a place where you’ve been before gets labeled. It’s a tactic the mind uses for familiarity, to minimize the energy expenditure during each interaction and experience. Knowing upfront what could happen makes responding easier. At least, that’s the promise that the mind gives. A promise that it cannot keep and that brings false hope. It simply makes things complicated.
Let’s dive a bit deeper. It’s normal to see someone you know as familiar, right? The first time you meet everything is new, but after a while you know what to expect. You know what to talk about and what not, you know what to do together and what not, you know when and how to ask something and not, etc. The relationship grows, you get to know each other better and better over time, so far so good. Until the moment that the flow is interrupted and something unexpected happens. This can be anything, with a limitless amount of reasons. Getting sick, having a change of location, new interests, more time spend for career purposes, you name it.
Fully natural, yet for the mind completely foreign. All it wants is the familiarity that it had build up before. To be recognized, to be seen, to be comfortable, and not to change too much. The moment this is gone, the complications kick in. Questions arise, about why and how, what and when, often in a desperate way. The expectations are no longer answered, and the mind gets stuck. Like a little shock that moves through for every event that takes place. For the mind it’s equal to have a big confrontation or argument and to have someone looking at you in a specific way that seems unnatural. It simply doesn’t like surprises.The shortest answer most of the time brings the biggest shock: “No”. Instantly the urge to look for an answer and what might be wrong pops up.
Making changes by asking better questions
To return to building a relationship with someone else, in the background certain automatic responses form over time. Linked to what the other likes or not, how they behave, and what keeps the relationship going. The interpretation in the brain is connected to primitive impulses. Punishment and reward, attention or rejection, a lack or abundance of, ignorance or recognition, etc. It tries to fight the bad ones, and look for the good ones. That sounds nice, but the thing is that the emphasis is pointed at what costs the most energy to process: the bad ones. As a result negativity is fed with negativity, and something positive is second guessed. What if it gets worse? I don’t want that to happen!
Imagine having mechanisms like this at work with all your relationships, the places you go to, the experiences you look for, as well as everything that you avoid. The mind having a checklist ready to see if everything is still in place. It becomes way too complicated, before you’re aware that it even happened. In a split second all of this takes place, influencing the way that you make decisions. It’s something I had to face and learn myself. Realizing that my mind had numerous ways to fool me into making decisions, based on experiences from the past. One thing I know now that I wish I’d known before: it hates uncertainties. And it does anything in its power to prevent them, without success.
How this looked like for me before 2020: feeling mentally paralyzed and powerless; not being able to put up and maintain boundaries; avoiding confrontations at all cost; saying ‘yes’ to activities and relationships that weren’t good for me; postponing adventures that I’d love to explore; living in a toxic environment. All based on habit patterns, belief systems, and a conditioned mind formed by childhood upbringing, religious background, and generational trauma passed over to me.
What to do? That’s the question that was in the back of my mind for over 16 years. Somewhere along the line, I found ‘Asking Better Questions’ by Warren Berger. I love asking questions, and in 2020 a better question became “How does this work?”.
For example, in work environments I was eager to take on a lot of work. Having the ability to do double the work in half the time put me in a position of power, being able to manage my time with zero effort. A beautiful trait, until I noticed that this was working against me. Whenever one of my colleagues had a question, a story, or something dramatic to share, they came to me. Why? I was the only one who took the time and effort to actually listen to them and being non-judgmental. Without knowing back then that they used me for this. I realized that I had taken on the responsibilities of my teammates, while this wasn’t visible to anyone else. It had become ‘normal’. Asking myself “How can this be?” changed the whole situation.
Without going through a conscious thinking process, I started to turn things around. Whenever a colleague had a question that I couldn’t answer right away, I asked him who’s the one responsible. And straight after that, what the answer of the one responsible was when he called him. The reaction was always the same: “I haven’t called him yet”. Whenever I closed a deal during a random phone call (outside of my scope of work), I’d let everybody know. Whenever someone came with a drama story, I put up a boundary or just went out for a walk. Simply put: answering to all the signs what wasn’t mine to handle, and send it straight back to the sender.
Challenging? Maybe (part of the process).
Complicated? No.
Scary? Sometimes.
Worth it? Hell yes!
Learning to speak the language of the body
With my curiosity in the lead, I had taken charge of this part of my life. I wasn’t aware of my own automatic responses, now I was. That something needed to change was obvious to me. The only obstacle to face was my own mind. Without really processing and analyzing what had happened, a chain reaction followed. In other areas of my life, I interrupted the automatic responses and asked myself “How does this work?”. Time seemed to slow down, while progress accelerated exponentially. In no-time I changed my whole life around, with closing the whole book back in December 2022. Leaving behind everything that was no longer of value to me, including family, friends, home, and country. Building a new life from a healthy foundation, based on my own values.
Back to putting into words what comes natural. What comes natural, is being in a state of full presence, in creating mode all the time. Lately, during a online workshop, someone commented losing a sense of time and our bodies, like it doesn’t exist in the moment. For me the timelessness is the same, while simultaneously feeling the vibrations of my body to the fullest. Even when I’m writing this, at the end of the day. What also comes natural, is making changes, no matter how big or small. When something that needs to change is clear to me, the goal is reached already. It’s the highest level of uncertainty and at the same time being aware of what it is to let the experience of life move through me. That includes the moments that I feel like shit, experiencing what that’s like shifts the situation in no-time.
What both creating and changing have in common, is surrendering to the journey. Before I thought about this like giving up everything, and things like ‘just accept it’ would come through. Now I know that there’s only one thing to surrender: my own false ego mind, with all it’s beautiful and tempting suggestions. It’s a journey where mistakes happen, that’s for sure. Looking at every person and every place like I’m seeing this for the first time sets my mind free. No matter how many times I’ve interacted with someone, or visit places that I’ve been before, I always go with a new pair of eyes and zero expectations. Seeing the other person or the place as being reborn, curious about what the moment brings out of them. You never know what amazing developments they’ve been through, right? Let’s find out!
The biggest change I’ve been able to make so far, is putting my body in the lead. Learning to speak the language of my body sometimes is still a challenge. With every change I’m able to make, this becomes a lot easier. The experience comes first, the story follows afterward, including making sense of it. Using tools like breathing, movement, and self-observation nowadays switching from thinking mode into creation or changing mode often takes 30 seconds. Coming into resonance with myself first, and the rest aligns with that. It’s coming into this world from a completely different angle.
Boring work? Difficult? Hard? Labels my mind linked to certain experiences before. Nowadays that’s gone. When someone asks what my most boring moments of the day are, it’s a challenge to come up with something. What I have instead, is that I feel the lymph nodes in between my ribs when I’m walking down the hill to the beach. Or the areas around the back of my neck and my ears firing when someone or something is draining my energy. It’s my gut talking to me, loud and clear. Living in the moment, being present is all that it takes. Listening to my body and following its lead. And it brings a lot of joy, inner peace, and life enriching experiences. A life worth living for.
Do I have words for it? Not always, and I’m fine with that. I’d rather have no words for being fully alive than living in my head all the time.
What you can explore for yourself:
Where do you experience the mind trying to figure everything out for you? Put your mind on a pause, by doing some physical activity, focus on breathing, noticing the sensations and movements of your body, something creative, or simply by writing the thoughts on paper. Take a break, you deserve it.
When do you have these moments that the mind is in the backseat? Tap into these situations a bit deeper, through self-observation. Notice what experience moves through you, no matter what the circumstances are. The moment you’re able to slow yourself down, flow comes in return. Whether it’s something very heavy or very joyful, experiencing this to the fullest makes a big difference.
With whom or what does the mind hand out pre-conditions or automatic responses? Have a look at your behavior and the behavior of others when you interact with each other or go to places you visit often. Is this really you expressing yourself, or is it based on old habits, patterns, and beliefs you’re carrying with you. The moment you become aware, the resistance is broken already.
What judgments tries the mind to throw at you and in what situations? To keep everything familiar, being able to judge something or someone is a tool for the mind. Before you know it, the mind links a whole range of conditions and attributes to a person or a place. With the purpose to either move away from this or toward it. Observing from a place of non-judgmental awareness breaks everything down to its essence. Your body already gives the clear signs if something or someone is right for you or not. The more walls you’re able to break down, the more your body awareness is awakened.
What does the language of your body sound, feel, look, and sense like? You want to be able to experience life fully. Following the signs your body gives surpasses the mind, it goes in the background. While there are still challenging circumstances, they no longer affect you. You’re simply able to make changes in no-time, in ways you wouldn’t think possible, with only a fraction of the effort.
How does your body tell you what’s a good decision and what’s not? We’re being taught that decision making comes after a rational thinking process. The brain can only process 15 to 20 bits of information per second. While your body processes millions of impressions per second. Decision making for me comes in the moment, my gut feeling tells me where to go. Being present in the moment brings me the clarity that I need. Notice for yourself when clarity is there, and the process you’ve been through before that.
Thanks for sharing all these amazing insights you have discovered!