Last week, I attended the Ultimate Experience in India. The event was a gathering around ‘Being’, the way in which we choose to ‘be’ in our lives.
The idea is very simple. Our Being sets the foundation of how we show up in the world. We can choose to be loving and kind. We can choose to be the best mother, father, actor or production manager.
It sounds simple enough, to the point where it can sound like a deceptively shallow philosophy. I can declare out into the world that I am fulfilled, content and happy. But in of itself, this does not change anything.
The point here is that when we choose to be happy, we then live our life in a way that we are happy. It shifts our behaviour because we want to act in a way that we feel happy. The point of Being is not to manifest or declare something out into the world in the hope it will come towards us. It is the opposite – it is about where we are coming from as our base state.
The mistake we often make in life is that we think that when we accomplish a task, we become that thing. Often we think that we will be happy once we get that job, only to find that getting the job doesn’t actually change much. This is because it is actually the other way around. We can choose to be happy. From there, we’re actually far more likely to get the job anyway, because we are not bogged down with doubts caused by our unhappiness.
To take a practical example, I state that I am a writer. I choose this for myself. And what does a writer do? They write. So here I am, writing an article.
I chose to be an author, so I wrote my book. But if I told myself that I only am an author when I have written a book, I quickly get caught up in the idea that I am not worthy enough – so I never would have written it!
I previously attended the Ultimate Experience in London that took place last year. So this is not my first foray into Being. Yet back then, I found it powerful but confusing. I spent so much time trying to intellectualise the idea – I was mentally processing it all which left me exhausted. I got so much from that event, and yet the place I was coming from was one in which my mind had to understand it all. Unsurprisingly I felt overwhelmed and confused.
This time, the content flowed much deeper and seamlessly into me. I heard so many pieces of wisdom which were really useful. But most importantly, I had a transformative experience where I had profound insights on how I can live life more deeply.
Recently I have been working on tackling false humility that I carried around – it was holding me back to seeing my own greatness. I’ve learnt to both acknowledge and value the brilliance of my own mind. This has unlocked many doors where I am no longer doubting myself in the way I would previously.
And yet, this has also put all the attention to my intellectual processing power. Attending The Miracle in Mumbai demonstrated another side of me that is equally powerful and has been lying dormant within me.
The key speaker, Steve Hardison talked about the fact that when we come from love, all we can do is serve. This was a really powerful statement. Mixed in with conversations I had with other participants, it made me shift the whole paradigm in how I live.
Without realising it, I would often start doing things based upon the thinking of my mind. I would later then connect this to why it felt right. In other words, I would connect my doing to my heart almost as an after-thought.
But our wisdom starts from our heart. When we recognise that our deeper knowing comes from there, it changes things dramatically. Now, I start from a place of love. The heart gives the framework for the mind to operate in. Coming from love and being in service is a central principle of what I do, rather than an after-thought.
What I have realised is that I am a far more emotional and sensitive human than I ever really thought. Now when I look back on it, I was rather sensitive when I was younger, but somewhere along the way I had learnt to push that behaviour away. Perhaps because they were not particularly manly traits.
But reconnecting to that side of me has been a beautiful experience. I’ve found that when I start from a heart-centred space, it is much easier to create in a way that genuinely helps people. Let’s take the example of writing this article. It’s not dramatically different from the ones I’ve written before, and yet, by coming from a place of service, I am write it with a much clearer idea of how I can tailor my message to help people. When my mind dominates my Being, I will instead focus more around what I want to talk about because it pleases me.
Coming from the heart also negates so many of the pitfalls that we face. When we are always coming from the mind, we are overusing the powerful but limited tool of our brains.
We are asking it questions that it is not designed to answer – the meaning of existence, dealing with uncertainty, how to navigate moral issues and so on. When we over employ our mind, we fall into anxiety, overthink and stress. We can fall into unhappiness from being in a constant state of these feelings. Unfortunately, we see all these things in the people all around us, and you as the reader is probably experiencing this too.
The best bit is that coming from the heart doesn’t suddenly mean we have to abandon our work plans or ambitions. Instead, it gives them the moral compass they so desperately need. We benefit from the double-whammy of a clearer sense of direction and not being bogged down by our conflicting thoughts.
Since returning back from India, I have had one of the most intense few days of work I’ve ever had. I was jetlagged and still had a somewhat dodgy stomach. I returned to a few hundred emails and a lot of deadlines. I presented at a working group on Wednesday. On Thursday, I took a train from Brussels to Cambridge and presented to a group of start-up/SMEs. On Friday I held a 90 minute ways of working session and a bunch of other meetings plus more travel.
By coming from a heart centred space, I could glide through these activities in a way that meant I completed my tasks, but also did so in a loving and kind way. A past version of me would have been tired and stressed. I probably would have crashed either during or after, (and spent more time complaining about it too!). But I am seeing that the lightness I now employ lets me be incredibly efficient and effective in my life too.
If you are interested in learning more about how you can make a shift towards a more loving, heart-centred way of living, drop me a message.
Who are you Being in your life?