This post is a continuation of part 3 of the series.

You are already whole. You don’t need any healing or fixing. You are enough.

“Nothing has to change, including you.”

Michael Neill

One of the most important realizations that I’d like to share with you is that you are already whole. There is nothing you need to change about you, fix or heal. You are not broken. You don’t need more personal development. (That’s what I’ve come to rediscover with various coaches I worked with). You are enough.

There might be some skills that you might want to learn if you want different results in your life or your business, but that comes from you, the wholeness of you, wanting something different. Not you needing to change to become enough/worthy/successful…

• Try to get to know yourself in the same way a journalist would: with curiosity and openness. A journalist is not here to fix you. They are here to try to experience you and understand you. Practice being that for yourself and others.

“Thought creates our world.”

David Bohm

“There is nowhere to get to. You are just here.”

Michael Neill

There are various elements which we can tap into when we operate from a “3 Principles” understanding of life and the world:

• The power of imagination
• The infinite intelligence of the universe which is accessible to all of us at any time (I know, pretty miraculous…)
• Inner wisdom, knowing and common sense

I liked this anecdote from Nathaniel Branden, who was once speaking to an audience of women who had suffered domestic abuse and violence. He told them about taking responsibility for their lives so they could rise from their circumstances, and said:

“No one is coming.”

The audience was puzzled for a while, until a woman told him:

“But Nathaniel, you came.”

Branden paused for a while, smiled and said:

“I just came to tell you that no one is coming.”

“I am vast, I contain multitudes.”

Walt Whitman

“We have our thoughts, but our thoughts don’t have us.”

Thought is a tool, a gift that we can use any way we want. It opens up the world of pure imagination.

To explore the three principles, you can have a taste in this article. To dive deeper, I would recommend reading Michael Neill’s Inside-Out Revolution.

Facing and accepting reality as it is

Often, all we need to do is face reality as it is, and notice the imaginary stories we make about it.

As Syd Banks simply said:

“What is, is. What isn’t isn’t.”

Once we notice the stories we make, we can choose to make meaning in ways that really hurt or that make sense and create positive feelings. Michael Neill reminded us that:

“There is no such thing as a ‘true story’.”

And that “we don’t need to take the appearant ugliness of the world so seriously, because it is temporary…”

• “Just listen to yourself.”

That means: not the voices in your head, not the scary voices, but more the quiet sense of knowing that comes from deep within yourself.

• “You are the expert on you.”

At one point, Michael said:

“Nobody can tell you if your shoes fit.”

It reminded me of the last pair of running shoes I bought. I felt so unconfident and uncertain that I asked for advice to one of the sales people. There was only one pair left, but the size seemed a little to big to me. He told me that it was a good size since my feet would swell once I start running, plus, if I wasn’t happy with the size, I could always exchange the shoes. I knew the sales people in this store are usually reliable since they are not paid on commission and are passionate about sports, so I trusted the advice.

The shoes were too big and I ended up changing them for a pair that felt good based on my own experience.

Yeap, we live in a world where we tend to outsource our knowing and trusting to external experts for a lot of the things in our lives, including things we know ourselves. (I could also recall the time when I got an unnecessary vaccine shot because it was prescribed by my general practitioner despite my initial doubts given my understanding of my lab result. It turns out I had had a correct interpretation and should have expressed my doubts to my GP. Isn’t he supposed to know better than I? We are both human. Lesson learned…)

Reminders on time and stress management

I have also been reminded of the importance of slowing down. As Michael Holder, a great basketball coach said:

“Be quick, but don’t hurry.”

I’ve heard different variations of this from my coaches and mentors:

“Slow down to speed up.”

Rich Litvin

“Slowly, I am in a hurry.”

Michel Vallier

For more on becoming a time master, read this.

When it comes to stress, a distinction was shared between overload vs. overwhelm.

Overload designates that one practically has too many tasks or responsibilities to handle in too little time. In that case you need to restructure the load (prioritizing, delegating, dropping, … – see the Eisenhower Matrix in the Time Master article cited above) to do less, or choose to do badly.

Overwhelm is related to the way we think about what we “have to do”, what we “have on our plate”. Some people might experience overwhelm when there is not that much to do. In French we have a saying:

“Se noyer dans un verre d’eau. » which literally means to « Drown in a glass of water. »

(Think about it next time you hear yourself or someone say they are “under water” or “swamped” …)

Michael astutely pointed that “it’s impossible to know if you are overloaded if you are overwhelmed.” Hence the need to clear up your mind first.

Using the 3 Principles can help, but writing down all you “have” to do can help too, so does meditation, dancing, exercising, or anything else that works for you.

Some concluding key takeways:

• It’s OK to be/do me/my way.
• It’s that simple.
• Going for what I really want is OK.

I’ll finish by quoting Michael Neill to sign off:

“Have fun, learn heaps, and happy exploring!”