As I sat near the top of Mount Batur at around 6am, in Bali (the rest of my yoga teacher training group continuing right to the very top) I watched the sensational sunrise in absolute awe!
In this moment, I had many thoughts. The ones I remember, though, were these: one, that I was witnessing one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen in my entire life – with the peachy oranges fading through to pearlescent pinks; two, that a monkey had just stolen my banana and I’d worked blooming hard to get to the top of the mountain; three, that I was a real wuss for not continuing to the top of the summit; and four, that I was alone. Then, I had thoughts about thoughts! Take ‘I’m alone,’ for example. I was sitting with this beautiful sunrise, attaching meaning to it all: I’m alone and isn’t it wonderful that I managed to get myself half the way across the world with the debilitating illness Chronic Fatigue Syndrome; I’m alone and – oh, gosh – how very tragic this is to be here on-my-own with such a beautiful view to share; I’m alone and – oh, no – why am I alone? – I’m always alone, this is the story of my life as an only child whose Dad ‘abandoned’ her! It went on.
Moment to moment, these thoughts would change – and the feelings I had as a result would accompany them, too. I felt my chest tighten as I resonated with the story I would hear my thoughts convincing my Self of, and it eased off as I thought about the beauty in front of me and how grateful I was to have made it to the top to see it (I won’t tell you how I felt about the monkey!).
Coming Home
I didn’t even realise this at the time, of course. I was just sitting at the top of this mountain, feeling my feelings – up and down like a yoyo! It wasn’t until I came across a profound understanding about how life as a human really works – via thought-created reality, moment to moment – that I really understood what had been going on in that space!
I even felt pretty peaceful – almost meditative – in Bali. I had a blissful yoga training with the most beautiful people, the setting was gorgeous, there were healthy foods, the culture was stunning: everything external was perfect. And, of course, that means that most of the time, my thoughts were settled, because I thought that I was in my happy place!
When I returned home from my travels, though, it was different. Back in the UK, I returned to my story like the bad habit I thought I couldn’t kick. Oh, I clung to it – because I thought that at home I wasn’t happy. I was – at times – anxious and panicky; not quite as much as I had been before I went, but it was still there. I was teaching yoga and meditation and wondering if I was a failure. Why couldn’t I return to the inner peace I had cultivated in Bali?
Profound Insights into Our Inside-Out, Thought-Driven Reality
In that question, there was part of the answer: I had cultivated my inner peace. I realised; if I can ‘cultivate’ peace, it isn’t created by the external. Whilst that’s right, there was an even deeper layer of understanding to be revealed, though. Here’s the thing: what I later came to see was that it isn’t even about cultivating it! Inner peace is always within – it is our innate nature – it just happens to be underneath all our layers of thinking (as in our aforementioned ‘thought-created reality’!).
I understood this when I met a very wise lady who introduced me to the profound work of Sydney Banks – and in that instant, my life changed. The basic premise is that we, as energetic beings having a human experience of life, are operating in a thought-created reality. We are always living in the feeling of our thinking moment to moment. Just like on the mountain, these thoughts can change in just one second. In one moment, I felt alone, because I was experiencing ‘alone’ thinking based on my early experience with feeling abandoned – I was under the illusion that disconnection was a real possibility. But in other moments, I was blissfully happy in my connection to the universe’s beauty. Underneath it all was the truth that we are always connected.
This explanation of ‘though-created’ reality often conjures up the idea that we can just control our life through thinking – but this isn’t the idea. We aren’t in control of our thoughts, even though our reality is thought-created. We are beautiful observers of the marvellous creativity of our thinking! Just as my thinking fluctuated in front of that sunrise – moving, moment to moment, through my mind; dancing like the sun in the sky. Just as we cannot control the sun, but we marvel at its beauty, life through thought is a beautiful thing to just be aware of.
Getting Clarity: I Am Not My Story
The moment you become aware of how life really works like this, something drops away. That is the real ‘coming home.’ In this awareness of allowing thought to pass, as it does innately, you realise that you are only ever one thought away from fresh new thinking and feelings! As you stay in this conversation about how life really works, more and more drops away, and you reconnect to your authenticity. You see (without even doing anything but make sense of life) that you are so not your ‘story.’ You are what is underneath your story. Seeing life as constructions of thinking allows you to let go of analysing your thinking and you find yourself somehow just dropping out of your head and into your heart. And once you’re back there, you can’t help but just see the clarity of the truth. And the truth is as beautiful as the sunrise – and often hiding behind the thought clouds. The truth is, you are innately, beautifully, perfectly whole –and there is nothing to do but enjoy the experience. There is nothing to analyse. There is no story. There is only moment-to-moment thought, and it means nothing, until you think it does.
You are not defined by your thinking. You are who you are before you thought you were who you were. That is the truth.
I just wished I’d known about this before I had to descend the mountain – I had walked up in the dark, but getting down was a much clearer view, and I’m scared of heights! Or – should I say – I thought I was! In truth, I got myself up a 1700m mountain! How was I anything other than innately capable?
Words by Nicole Barton
Nicole is a passionate Wellbeing Ambassador. Holistically healing herself from Chronic Fatigue, she travelled the globe learning a variety of worldly wellbeing techniques – including Homeopathy, Yoga, Meditation and Aromatherapy – and awakened to the profoundly truthful understanding of what it is to be a human experiencing life through thought! Via Wellbeing Mentoring, she helps people make sense of life, from the inside-out, sharing insights on her blog – www.wellbeingwriter.co.uk. Join her in conversation if you’re curious to understand more:
