And What Else?
Welcome to 'And What Else?', your source for thoughtful and meaningful conversations about personal and professional growth. Host Wendy O'Beirne is an internationally recognised coach and consultant with a passion for exploring the layers of topics surrounding self-development. Together, we'll dig beneath the surface of subjects, stories, and possible solutions to uncover new perspectives we may not have seen before. With curiosity and open minds, let's embark on an adventure of self-discovery and uncover the possibilities of 'and what else'. Stay Curious!
And What Else?
Breaking Free from Past Shadows and Future Fears = LIVING
We often take our existence for granted, getting caught up in fears about the past and future instead of enjoying the present moment. Learning to be truly present means recognizing that very few things drag us away from the now except our own thoughts.
• Presence isn't just being physically in a room but mentally being in the now
• Overthinking is trying to read the future while dwelling drags the past with us
• We can learn from the past through trust, not by shielding or forcing
• Ask yourself: if tomorrow was your last day, would you say you truly lived?
• Living differently is what healing is about - making changes rather than repeating patterns
• Approximately 90% of our problems are just our thoughts about how serious something is
• Nothing is as serious as we make it out to be - even the serious stuff
If you think this episode would be helpful, forward it to someone who might need to hear it today. You can DM me at thecompletioncoach or email wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk
If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and subscribe! And if you want to learn more from me, come and say hello on Instagram @thecompletioncoach or via email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or find out more about working with me on my website, thecompletioncoach.co.uk.
Welcome to, and what Else, the podcast with me, wendy O'Byrne, also known as the Completion Coach, and today's episode is about living, and I think it's just a word that we take for granted, and I think our existence is something that we often take for granted, and what I mean by that is sometimes we get so caught up in our fears am I doing this right? Is this the right decision today? That's going to be the right decision in five years. Is this person my person? Will they be my person? Will I feel this way in x amount of time?
Speaker 1:All of the things that go on in our minds that stop us from enjoying anything? When it's here, it takes us into the past of old relationships, of what we've been through before, of what decisions we made in the past, or it's lobbing us into the future, of how will this look when? Very few things, very few things when you look at your life today get dragged anywhere by anyone other than you? Very few things. Are we truly present in now? Coming back to that idea of presence and presence isn't? You know, I can turn my phone over and gaze at you and I can be in the room. Presence is I am in the now. I'm not stuck in the past, I'm not projecting into the future. I'm able to be right here in the now without either of those two things massively influencing my enjoyment of now. And it's important to just consider and take on board how much of your life has that in it? How much of it are you enjoying rather than worrying that the past is going to repeat itself, or whittling I'm going to use that word whittling about whether or not it's going to be the right decision in the future. Overthinking and dwelling. Overthinking is this idea of being able to read the future, and dwelling is the idea of just completely and utterly dragging with you the past. When we can be here now, in the present, we can recognize right here, right now, that those things don't truly matter.
Speaker 1:We can take lessons from the past. Without doubt. There are things we learn from, but we can't learn from them by holding them against ourselves. We can't learn from them by shielding ourselves from the repetition of them. We have to learn by trusting ourselves that we will act differently, be different or the situation will be different. We have to learn by trust, not by shielding, not by force, and not by leaping into the future or continuously grabbing hold of the past, and I asked myself this recently on something that was really an enjoyable moment. It should have been a day that I was holding pure joy in and a lot of my mind kept going to the future of. You know, don't get used to this. The future of? Will this happen again? The future of cl. Know, don't get used to this. The future of? Will this happen again? The future of clinging to something instead of just really enjoying it?
Speaker 1:And so I'm going to ask you how much of your current, present life are you creating emotions, feelings and thoughts about? Creating emotions, feelings and thoughts about by refusing to enjoy it, to be here and enjoying this moment and the place and space where you have got yourself to? Can you do that? How much of this moment can you enjoy without overanalyzing it or sucking the joy out of it? And can you ask this question like if, if this was it, if somehow you knew that tomorrow was going to be the last day of your life, and I asked you have you truly lived? Would you be able to say yes? And I ask myself this question all of the time, and as yet, my answer is still no as yet, my answer is still no. As yet, my answer is still no.
Speaker 1:There are loads of things I am doing to make sure I live. All of the things that I say I'm going to go and do be, enjoy. I'm pulling wheels in motion for big changes at the moment. But, hand on heart, if somebody said this is it stroke of midnight, you're out and the question was did you truly live? The answer is no. I've been on the cusp of it, I've swam around it, but I haven't gone full in on the adventure that I said I wanted in this lifetime. I am rectifying that as we speak, but I want you to dwell and think about that, and think about the fear of even death having an impact on your living, the idea of how much time you spend in anything that doesn't require you to spend as much time there as you are.
Speaker 1:You can make of that as you will, but there are things we know we spend too much time in, too much time attached to, too much time. Not moving forwards from that stop us from enjoying where we are right now and living, which is what we are here for. Living is the purpose and living with that adventure, with the idea that you came here and truly lived, not dwelling in the past, not projecting into the future, not dragging the past into the present and trying to rearrange the future, but by really considering how much you trust yourself and how much you can truly say, hand on heart, you are living Because they really do matter In our pursuit of anything, including wellness, healing, whatever label that you're attaching to it. You know I prefer the term living. I think any healing we do is just that we are living differently and if we are living differently, we are doing good. You know, we're getting there, we're moving forwards, we're making it worthwhile. If you are doing exactly the same thing, having the same conversations, reliving the same anything, then there is no healing because there's no living differently. Living differently is what all of this is for any self-reflection, any growth, any development, any healing, any whatever we want to label and call it with the intention of living differently, for change, for more of what you do want, for more trust in yourself to handle the things that you want to handle, more trust in the whole pursuit of your life, your living and if you can bring yourself into focus on that.
Speaker 1:I had a beautiful conversation with a taxi driver the other day who was a lot younger and I just said to him in reality, what the mind does is it creates a lot of problems and none of them are anywhere near as serious as we make them. A lot of them are nowhere near anywhere near as serious as we make them. A lot of them are nowhere near anywhere near as serious as we make them, and I said so on that basis. I guarantee you from that, 100% of problems that you think you have on your plate, 10% of them are your genuine problems. The other 90% are your thoughts about the seriousness of something, and so many things that we whittle and worry and stress and overthink are only as heavy as they are because of the stories we are telling ourselves, because of the meaning we are making and because of how serious we are making it seem.
Speaker 1:What I can say hand on heart at this point in my life, as I'm on what the 47th spin around the sun, is that none of it has been as serious as I've made it. Even the serious stuff didn't need to be as serious as I made it for as long as I made it. But if we take out the really serious stuff and just look at the rest, it was nowhere near as serious as I made it, and so, if I can impart anything to anybody today is what are you making too serious, and where is that stopping you from truly enjoying your life right now, from making decisions that enable you to enjoy your life right now, to have the adventures, the living, the very things that light you up and make you feel alive, be something you enjoy more of? I'll leave it with you, as always. You can DM me at thecompletioncoach or drop me an email, wendy, at thecompletioncoachcouk, and, if you think this episode would be helpful, forward it to someone that might need to hear it today. Thank you.