From Overwhelm to Joy: Transforming Fear with Rumi’s Wisdom

How you are in the world matters . Hello , hello , hello . Welcome to this week's episode . How are you doing ? This week I've been on a family history treasure hunt . Just got back Lots of insights to come , still processing . So it's not what this episode is about , but I thought I'd just tell you because it's fun . So who knew ?

Well , I kind of did know , but who knew that in those days and so I'm talking between 1700 and 1900 , people just called themselves after their parents and then they married people with the same name as their parents and it's really , really confusing if you want to map out a family tree . My goodness , crazy . Which kind of got me .

One insight I do have from that . Actually , it kind of got me thinking about the fact that in those days in rural England so my family's from a tiny , tiny village in Somerset in the southwest of England , very beautiful farmers , lots to share from that as the insights come .

I'm not just going to ramble about it because , well , I guess it could be interesting in a kind of sitting down to have a cup of coffee with Heidi after she's been on a strip way . But I want to give you a bigger gift than that this week . So a couple of insights from doing that . One is how small people in rural England's life was .

Eventually , several of them went off to Australia . We're still trying to work out why so many of them went at a time when people weren't going to Australia . And that's what's frustrating , right ?

You don't get the stories , so you're just looking at data which has been copied in or not correctly or not , into a database from gravestones and old documents , and all the dates are wrong and all the names are the same . So it's just a big mess . But it made me really think why were all the names the same ?

Well , if you never go anywhere , then why would you know of any other names ? Which made me think about our levels of consciousness . So you don't know what you don't know , you can't see what you can't see . So until you step outside of that , you don't have any other information . There isn't anything , right ?

So unless you make a name up which people didn't in those days . I think nowadays people are really happy making names up . In those days they were all actual Christian names . They were actually from the Bible .

So in my family that was many Johns , many Elizabeths , many Marys , many Roberts and a fair few Theophiluses , which is quite fun , interesting characters to try and track just because it's a different name , right . But yeah , that was it really . That was pretty much it . I think there was one Emma . What's that about ? I mean , it's infuriating .

It's infuriating when you're trying to trace people and work out who exactly was the parents of someone , but it's also fascinating , right . Why would they call them anything else if they didn't know any other names ? They wouldn't , and they also . It was very important to have a Christian name , somebody from the Bible . So yeah , that's one thing I thought about .

Another thing was I actually found over the two days , very intense two days of hunting for family . By the end of it we were kind of cheering them on , you know , like , yeah , you made it . Look at this house . You ended up in Beautiful house . Well done .

So at one point we owned a pub and we went into this pub and my cousin I went with said wouldn't it be amazing if we could see the deeds when they sold the pub ? And he went off looking around trying to find photographs or anything on the walls of the pub and I popped in a different room and there were the deeds , the sales , the sales

document , a couple of them , and that was really special . And then we met the owner and he was really pleased to see it and that was so , so lovely . So we owned a pub , we owned farms , but it wasn't because we had , we came from that . We worked .

It looks like the mark family worked really , really hard to get to that point , which is just , I was just like gunning from by the end go . Yes , look , you moved from here to here and you worked really hard and you did this . And it's so funny because I'm never going to meet these people and does it matter , does it ?

I mean , in my point of view , my past is nothing to do with my present , except what I choose to bring forward to enhance now . So I wasn't looking for answers , I was curious . I was mainly going for my cousin .

It was important to him for different reasons , but it was fascinating and there was something really lovely about walking the land that they farmed for hundreds of years and seeing their names on gravestones . I did feel a gratitude , a pride , a yay you for working so hard . And then , if some of them lived to be really old , I felt inspired by that .

And then , of course , all the babies that died very , very young , because it wasn't that long ago in England that at least half of your children would die before the age of four . It's not that long ago . We haven't been that prosperous for that long , and that , of course , is to do with the industrial revolution and getting more prosperous .

More prosperity , cleaner housing , better nutrition , money , money makes a difference . Right , we need to be prosperous in order to thrive . So , yeah , lots going on in my head at the moment , but my overall feeling is one of feeling really settled , which is an interesting feeling . So I don't know what that's about .

Anyway , I just thought I'd share my little story of the week for you , and no doubt little insights will pop up and and wield all their way through stories in the podcast in the coming months .

What I really want to talk to you about this week , though , is how to turn overwhelm into joy in a really not obvious way and it's something that I've been studying and practicing and being a method I felt really challenged with for a number of years .

Even though I know it works and I help my clients with it , it's still something I realised I was resisting and I've been really turning it on its head and , oh my goodness , so powerful , so much fun . So I think actually I was just taking myself too seriously or taking it too seriously , the method too seriously . So here goes .

I'm going to start by reading you a poem , because this poem just keeps knocking in my head like knocking on the door going Rumi's poem , rumi's poem , and it's happened regularly over the past 10 years .

But here we go , I'm going to read it to you and then you can see what resonates with you and then I'm going to use it as the basis for what I want to talk about . So you may or may not know it , it's a beautiful , beautiful poem by Rumi . It's called the Guesthouse . This being human is a guesthouse .

Every morning , a new arrival , a joy , a depression , a meanness , some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor . Welcome and entertain them all , even if they're a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture still treat each guest honorably . He may be clearing you out for some new delight . The dark thought , the shame , the malice .

Meet them at the door , laughing , and invite them in . Be grateful for whoever comes , because each has been sent as a guide . Now , as personal growth is not actually a linear path , life is not a linear path , it's a spiral .

What I find really interesting for me about reading this poem for the umpteenth time is the recognition that for a long time , I've been battling with the actual idea that I can go to the door and laugh . I mean like , come on , you know , you wake up in the morning with that anxiety , that overwhelm that .

Oh , my goodness , how am I going to get through the day ? There's too much the fear , the shame , all of the stuff , and then trying to notice all the good and feel the safety , the security , the satisfaction , the love , the joy I already have . There's a battle there .

There's a battle which is really , really interesting , because if I go full on into , oh , there's an uncomfortable feeling . What's that about ?

It feels like a really bad way to start my day and it also , interestingly , feels like the opposite to the one minute morning which is my new practice , which is a major upgrade on the old practice of the morning promise is links . The morning promise was I commit to myself first , to living my life my way .

That now feels like a major first step on the gentle rebellion of just saying , yeah , actually I matter and it's time I started thinking about myself , because I'm giving everything away to everything and everyone else . But that in itself is a gently rebellious path .

Committing to yourself every morning is tough because it means first of all , you're going to have to know what you want , which means you have to face yourself , and part of that does involve facing fears .

Then the one minute morning practice from the One Minute Rebellious Journal , which I've been practicing last year and I've been practicing every morning this year , invites you to bring the feeling of your word of the year .

The word of the year is your quick way of connecting your conscious mind back to the deep , unconscious , subconscious feelings coming from the body and the heart of what you want to feel this year , which is a shortcut , the shortest way I could think of doing it , of connecting to all your heartfelt desires coming true this year , because everything we do is in

order to change how we feel . So if you connect to the end feeling and bring it forward to now , and you connect to it every day and you use that feeling whether it's satisfaction , safety , relief , whatever it is and you bring that into the beginning of every day and allow that to guide you on how you approach your day .

That helps you stay focused on what matters most to you , which dramatically cuts your overwhelm Because , as we know , not everything is equally important , but it feels like it is when we're overwhelmed . It feels like it is when we've said yes to too many things and we're trying to achieve and have a lot .

Now , if we want to have a lot , we need to stay focused on what matters most . So this is this and this works . I mean , I cannot believe that we're only in February . I know we're nearly in March , but you know less than two months and I feel like I've had a whole year or two already , honestly , being so focused and so happy in that focus .

So this works . So , where an earth does welcoming in fear and laughing at the door and inviting it in , where does that come in ? Because it would seem to contradict , right , but not if you neutrally notice first . So I think what I try and do in my head is skip it . I think . Well , I ought to be able to invite in the fear and laugh .

So what's wrong with me ? I get back into the what's wrong with me , and then the feelings of imposter syndrome . Who am I to be teaching about this if I'm not doing this properly ? However , let's just back it up a bit . So the suggestion is that being human is a guest house .

Starting from that , you can , instead of thinking , oh , I shouldn't be feeling all of this range of stuff fear , shame , anxiety , overwhelm , etc . I should always wake up every morning feeling really clear and confident and on it and joyful because look at my life , it's amazing . I should be so grateful . I shouldn't be feeling anything but that .

But if being human is a guest house , stuff's going to show up anyway . It's not a closed house , it's a guest house up anyway . It's not a closed house , it's a guest house . You know visitors are going to come and that is true , visitors do come . So then it just becomes okay , that's just how things are , it's just the way things are .

Stuff's going to rock up . Then it's not a failure , it just is . It's just a fact . It just is . And you know it's a fact , because it's true , because every morning , different feelings arise , different things pull our attention .

Now there is a purpose , I believe , in deliberately bringing to mind and flooding your body with the feeling of your word of the year , very powerful . However , there are some days that's easy and some days it feels really hard . So how can we make it easier ? By treating all of it as useful information .

So this is how we can link in , this is how I am linking in beautifully and expertly . Thank you very much . Neutral , noticing so when , instead of fighting the fear , anxiety , whatever's coming up , if instead we neutrally notice it , we get back to okay . So being human is a guest house . Just the way things are .

There's no judgment , it just is and it obviously just is because the unwanted guests are here . Now why on earth would you make them into wanted guests ? Because Rumi understands the power of doing it . And I'm going to tell you , because it's easier , it's more joyful , it's actually gently rebellious when you turn it around and start to practice .

It's just a practice getting towards the idea that imagine if I could just laugh and welcome them in now . I've struggled with that for years . Sometimes I've been really good at not welcoming it . See , this is thing I don't think I've been good at actually welcoming .

I think I've been treating them as unwelcome guests and then thinking , okay , so I can turn it around . So , for example , there's a big thing , isn't Feel the fear and do it anyway ?

And this idea that you push through fear to get to what you want , well , that's not gently rebellious , because that's pushing against yourself and that's linked to the whole thing of everything you want is on the other side of your comfort zone . So you have to suffer to have what you want . I don't believe that's true .

I believe there's a choice in that , even though that's really hard , because most of us do suffer to have what we want . Well , what if what Rumi's saying is that we don't have to suffer ? We can instead welcome it in ? So if we treat everything that comes every morning as useful information ?

So the sinking feeling in your gut , the kind of feeling I used to get a lot of somebody's holding me back like pressing into my sternum , blocking my heart no , you shall not pass . So that I used to push through And't didn't work out the way I wanted it took .

It meant that I pushed away the useful information and instead my body got sick until I quit my job now that what if I'd listened earlier ? And I know full well when I look at my entire story , that I did know before I chose to go into teaching that I didn't want to do it .

In fact , I'd been saying for years I would never do it , but I panicked because there was a financial crisis and I knew I'd be good at it and I worked really hard to make it something I loved , and a lot of time . I loved it because I made sure that I did , because I have that attitude , but it wasn't my true , true desire .

My true desire was to be doing what I'm doing now , which is coaching , so I could have said yes to that earlier . I have no interest in changing the past . It's all a gift for me . However , I can see what happens when I make things harder . I can see what happens when I make things harder , so I chose a suffering path to get to here .

I could have chosen a different path . Obviously , a lot of my being wanted this path , otherwise I wouldn't have trodden it , so I take full responsibility for that . However , I choose not to push through overwhelm into exhaustion with a heavy heart ever again . I choose now to live more skillfully and it's working clearly , haha .

So let's examine what I'm doing differently , what you are doing differently or can do differently , because not just me , it's all of us doing this together . Should you choose to be part of the Gentle Rebellion , which I know many of you are and I'm really grateful for you being here now , listening to this feeling uplifted by it it matters .

You matter being part of this . You matter so much . I'm so I treasure you , I'm so grateful for you . So let's look at it . So , if we decide that it's all useful information , that means that when unwanted feelings appear , we are more willing to engage with them . But it's still painful because it still feels difficult .

So a lot of the time , we're not really engaging with them . At least that's my experience of working with clients and of working with myself . My new up level for this is this line about laughter what if it could get like that ? What if it could be even better ?

So in the past few days , I've been doing a lot on this yes , in parallel with my family history treasure hunt , because life goes on . Everything's running in parallel , isn't it ? You're holding down an amazing job or whatever you're up to at the same time as all of this deeper work going on and outside events , it's all going on at once .

We don't get to pause , switch life off while we sort ourselves out . So what if it genuinely doesn't have to be difficult ? So , looking at all of these things of what you resist , persist is a very old saying , but also , for me , mixed in is the yeah , but where attention goes , energy flows . So this is what I can see . I've been battling .

If I choose to focus on the unwanted feelings and thoughts , doesn't that then mean my energy is going there when I could decide to focus on all the good stuff ? However , there's a difference , I believe . Believe between unwanted feelings or unpleasant feelings and thoughts . Thoughts are just like stormy stuff .

They're not as important as the feelings and I'm talking about this deep when we go deeply within and connect with what's going on with us . So , say , you wake up in the morning , you're like I should be really excited because I , because I've got time today to do all of this stuff and I've been really looking forward to it .

This is probably my most common pattern at the moment . So I'm on it , I'm loving my life , and then I wake up in the morning with this self-doubt Actually it doesn't feel like self-doubt I wake up in the morning with this oh , I've got to do all of that . That feels really hard . It's too hard for me . Who am I to be doing this ?

And then the imposter syndrome kicks in . All the normal unwanted guess . But if I go further I find that it's self-doubt .

And once I get to that , I get into the the oh , and then very quickly it turns into oh , that's okay , I'm okay , I can carry a little bit of of imposter syndrome self-doubt , because that's just me having high standards isn't so nothing then is actually wrong . And then things start to dissolve .

So there's a difference , I believe , in ignoring it and trying to override it with positivity and engaging not with the thoughts . The thoughts can lead you to the feelings , but the deep I have found , the deeper you go to getting out of my head . So if my mind's crowding me with unhelpful thought patterns , what's the deep fear beneath that ?

What's the deep fear beneath that ? And that's usually in my gut or my , my stern and my heart . It's the center of me will tend to have that feeling . And if I sit there and ask , gently but rebelliously , what's going on here and then , if I up it to okay , this is useful information . What have you got to show me ? Come on , guys , let's do this .

You are welcome . Then things change . As soon as I shift to I'm welcoming in the fear , everything

shifted . So that's what I've been up to over the past few weeks , but particularly this week I noticed I was really working with it in that way . And then when I've read you the poem about meet them at the door laughing , invite them in , I can see this is where we need to go .

And then I'm thinking what if we could create a one minute practice , because you know how much I like one minute practices . So what if there's a one minute fear practice ?

You wake up in the morning , you commit to yourself first and you bring the feeling of your word of the year and you let it flood your body , or not , because this morning it's really , really hard . All of this stuff is in the way between you and that feeling of your word of the year . What's wrong with you ?

So you catch the mind going what's wrong with me ? Why am I not excited about my day ? Theoretically I should be . I have so much to be grateful for Blah , blah , blah , blah , blah , blah . Drop out of the blah , blah , blah , blah , blah into the body , feel what's really going on here .

And instead of taking ourselves too seriously with the I must sit down and messy journal out masses and masses of fear and self-doubt . What if , instead , we just went into the body , into the heart , into the gut , and asked come on in , come on in , tell me what you want to tell me .

Because in the poem it says be grateful for whoever comes , because each has been sent as a guide from beyond . Now , whether you see that as beyond in a religious sense , a spiritual sense or your subconscious , what if there's a gift ? What if these are actually welcome visitors turning up with a gift ? But they just are in disguise because I don't know .

Just because they are , because being human is a gift house . We don't a gift house , a guest house , oh , a gift house . Oh , interesting slip of the tongue there . This being human is a gift house . Okay , I can go with that . So it's all gifts , they've all got a gift , they're all showing up .

That doesn't mean every morning , if you don't get a depression or a meanness , if you get a joy instead , everything's gone wrong . That would be tipping it too far . I do not believe we need to sit in this constant personal growth of , oh I need to process more stuff so I'll be free , no Notice .

When you're already free from it , enjoy that , Live it , love it . But I do believe we could be even more skilled at gaining freedom from fear by sitting with the fear and allowing it to completely flood the body for one minute , asking what it wants , receiving the gift , receiving the gift , then getting on with our day .

And I guess a way to judge how far you've processed it and received the gift would be how much of a glimpse of my word of the year can I get ?

Because as we process fear and receive the gift , we should naturally be moving from that overwhelmed nervous system into more joy , into freedom , into self-belief , into self-trust , because that's the gift , that's what we want .

So if what we want is satisfaction , joy , self-belief , self-trust , all of the good stuff , then the gifts must be to help us have that , because it's your life , it's your guest house , it's your gift house and you get what you focus on . So , assuming there's a gift , can you , can you welcome it in ?

I don't think I'm quite at the laughing stage , but that's what I'm going for . I'm going for the , the dark thought , the shame , the malice . Meet them at the door laughing , and invite them in . That's's where I want to be . Want to join me ? Yeah , come on , let's make this into an even higher level , gently , rebellious adventure . Let's go all in .

Let's neutrally notice all of it , even the stuff that we really want to hide . And do you know what the beautiful thing is ? Even the stuff you don't want to tell anyone , you don't have to tell anyone . It doesn't matter , because when you process it in the body , it dissipates . You receive the gift . So you can talk it out if you want to .

You can message , journal it out if you want to . You have to do what works for you . But what if there's a more effective way ? And what if this poem is hinting at it ? And what if we get to decide ? This is true for us , this poem is hinting at it . And what if we get to decide ?

This is true for us because I have been practicing not quite the laughing but definitely the curious , welcoming in thing , and it's powerful and I'm enjoying it a lot more than the idea of having to make time to sit down with it and go deep within for ages and create like a mini retreat in the middle of the day .

That works , but I want to do it in a more gently rebellious way . I want to do it in a lighter way , an easier way . So this is what I'm up to . I'd love to know your thoughts . Drop me a line if you want to let me know what this means to you . I'd love to know . See you next week .

Thank you so much for listening and for being part of the Overwhelmers Optional podcast . If you want to continue the conversation , please do connect with me on LinkedIn , instagram or YouTube . Let me know your thoughts . I love hearing from you and if you found this helpful , taking a moment to share , subscribe and leave a review would be much appreciated .

It helps other people find the podcast . If you're ready to turn overwhelm into joy , you'll find my books , resources and ways to work with me on my website , heidimarkcouk , and on Amazon . All the links are in the show notes . Until next time , keep gently rebelling and making overwhelm optional for you .