If You Focus on What Is Not Working

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EPISODE 93 – PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Hi there, welcome back to Kelly Martin Speaks. I’m your host Kelly Martin and this is episode 93.

I used to be what I call a negative Nancy. I think that for most of my life I was taught to focus on what is going wrong in my life, in my world. I was brought up to see what is not working. I was shown how to focus on drama, how to believe that life is crap and how other people have it better than me.

I practised this story for 35 years.

I think probably in my early years I focused on the beauty and joy in the world, as most children do, but I was knocked back early on by teachers and others, so that my self-confidence was crushed.

In many ways I believed strongly that it was safer to struggle than to see the best in the world or the possibilities that were available.

I constantly based my life on what I perceived had not been working in my past and I expected my future to be no different. It has not been an easy experience, but that unease, that discomfort, that depression, that fear was actually safer to me, because I have not known anything else for most of my life. And it takes a lot of focus to switch from my old story. I am slowly doing this, because deep programming takes time to release and shift, but I am focusing on my new story.

So I understand why now in the world when things are really challenging, some are focusing more on what isn’t working and thinking that those who are thinking positively, or focusing on what is working, are Pollyanna types. One person on Twitter believed I was gaslighting because I was looking at the facts about what is happening in this current pandemic.

I get why people would think that. By focusing on what is working, it may look as if I was saying that those things that are not working are not happening. Yes of course there are things not working, but I am realising more and more, that if I keep focused on that, my life and the world around me will always appear to be one of suffering.

Becoming Positive

And I used to think people who were ‘super positive’ were talking hogwash, because I just thought to myself ‘They just don’t know how hard it is, they have had it lucky’ and while yes some people are born with more encouraging affirming parents, most of us had normal parents who were still learning and had issues too. So there are some people who go too far by ignoring anything that is challenging in preference to what is not, but this has its risk too.

Now when we start to shift our perspective, this does not mean we ignore reality. We can still change how we view the world by acknowledging the not great stuff happening in it, doing something about it when we can and then posing questions daily, ‘What is beautiful in the world?’ We look for what is working, and we try not to focus on the future or the past, but base our present on possibility and presence.

We can often be slaves to our own conditioning, unless we at some point in our lives start questioning ‘Is this true?’ It may have been true in the past, but is it really true right now?

True freedom comes from discovering our own individuality, instead of following the crowd, which made us uncomfortable in our own skin. Now we maybe share unpopular truths, or we remove the masks we have worn to make others feel comfortable.

How do we shift from what is not working to what is working?

Well… right now during this Coronavirus Pandemic, I could fall deeply on the lack of human connection, I could drown in financial challenges, I could feel a lack of purpose, I could focus on the rubbish in the city littering the pavements… I could do all of this, but my life would continue down the same path.

Instead, I acknowledge that my connection lies within me. I can connect to myself, to those online, to nature on my walks or in my garden. I can look at food in my fridge and see that I have enough. I could focus on the birds, the trees, the blossoms, the new growth instead of the rubbish on the same path I walk. I could see how everything changes and nothing stays the same forever.

I could see my life as lonely or I could see my life as filled with sacred aloneness. I could use this time to transform my mind, my spirit, my perceptions and my story. I could clean my house, I could create, I could garden, I could exercise, I could read books, I could do those things I have been putting off during busier socially connective times.

So, the story changes by simply being here right now, not in the fearful future or the sad past. I could believe that every moment is a new chapter in my story that can burn the old story. I can accept that it happened, but I can believe that my past does not make my future, if I allow the new to unfold and awaken within me now.

What if you lost your job and were made redundant? What if your business is on hold and you don’t know how you are going to go forward?

Well, if it were me, I would not jump into job hunting straight away. I would give myself a rest period, a moment of pause to discover if this ending was meant to happen so that I could choose another path, another idea, a new beginning. It could be a completely different job field, it could be becoming a student again to learn new skills, it could be a creative idea for a business.

I wouldn’t try to fill the gap that the lack of job has filled; I would let myself take this action only when I have given myself space to understand what I am learning here.

If my business was on hold or my business was losing a lot of money because of this pandemic, I would see if there is anything I can scale down. I would look to see how I could prepare for uncertainty in the future, because uncertainty is always there. I would look to see if I can get help from the Government or other grant schemes. I would acknowledge that I probably have enough food and that I could ask those I am due to pay bills to, to give me a break temporarily, because they may be in the same space also. I would see if I could change my perception on this loss or lack and no matter how small, look at what I do have right now.

To allow the new story, I would not see the redundancy or the business ending as a failure, because I would have in the past viewed this as a failure, but as someone said to me recently, having a go, taking the leap, showing great courage to do something is a success in itself. It is our perceptions of ‘wrong’ and ‘right’ that can cause most of us to feel bad about who we are and what we are doing or not doing in life.

And I would stop comparing my world with another’s world.

I would allow life to surprise me.

This is my new story unfolding too. I think it’s such an epic opportunity when life throws huge challenges our way.

Not Straight Away

We may not be able to focus on what works straight away and this is perfectly natural.

We instead give ourselves time to grieve the loss, grieve the change. We give pause to the ‘doing mind’ and we give our humanity a chance to be human.

You will get through this. The question is what are you focusing on right now and is it benefiting you at this time?

Thanks for listening to this episode of Kelly Martin Speaks

If you have a question or topic you are struggling with and would like me to answer on an upcoming podcast episode, please get in touch. Your name will be confidential. EMAIL me at kellymartinspeaks@gmail.com or message me on Facebook via my page Kelly Martin Speaks.

And don’t forget, if you feel that others are passing you by and ‘The Not Good Enough’ voice is screaming loudly, pop by kellymartin.uk to find out all about my books, including Book 1 ‘When Everyone Shines but You’

You can also support my channel via my podcast page on my website kellymartinspeaks.co.uk via Paypal or buy me a coffee via ko-fi.

Until next time…bye for now

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