Navigating Life with Ease – What Nothing Means from a 3 Principles Perspective

Welcome. This podcast is a series of candid conversations exploring the human experience from a completely new perspective. In it, we will be diving deeply into the meaning of commonly used words and pointing you away from that old stressful way of looking at life and towards a new paradigm. This will help you find a sense of calm, cultivate meaningful relationships, and create harmony in every aspect of your life. Here is Navigating Life with Ease with Makayla Ellis and Clare Downham. Hello.

Hello there. That's right. It's, yes, it's my word. It's like, are we frozen?

That's so funny. We have a little, yeah. Listeners haven't noticed that we have a little routine now. Whoever's, because we used to, we used to have that pregnant pause, didn't we? And then who's saying hello first? And then we decide the person's word it is. But I don't know about your brain, Michaela, but mine's actually full of chocolate and no longer functions right now.

It's coming to the end of the holiday season, and I get that, so my apologies. That's so funny. I thought we froze because we did have a take 2 in the beginning part when we started off, so I thought, oh, glitching.

No, you can only do that from here on in, I would say.

Well, I do have an interesting word, and, um, yeah, let's talk about nothing.

Fabulous. Does that mean I can have a nap?

Whatever comes out of that.

I'm gonna have a nap now because Nothing. Nothing. Is there ever nothing? There isn't ever nothing, is there, really? There's always something going on. There's always some noise inside or outside. That's a funny word, is nothing, isn't it? I'm trying to think of context where I use that word. Oh, I know when I use it. I always say, there's nothing in the fridge. There's obviously loads of food. Like, we use it when it's in— like, I think we use that word so much that it actually doesn't have any meaning anymore because it was that we in the West, obviously, first world privilege and everything. We never open our fridge, most of us, and say there's nothing in the fridge because there really isn't ever nothing in the fridge. But I remember when I first met Bruce, he's an ex-chef, and I would, I would say, um, I'd open the fridge, he could come around before he lived here and was involved in the shopping. I'd say, I'd open the fridge, go, there's nothing to eat, there's nothing to eat. And he would then create something from the nothing that was in our fridge. Which clearly was something, um, even though I would have gone shopping because I wouldn't have necessarily seen what he saw in the fridge. So we say it, don't we? And it's— is it ever actually true that there's nothing? There's probably always some, like, even if that, like, I've got this little bottle of peach tea, peach iced tea, little squirty thing you put in your water, tastes really nice actually. Even when that's empty, I can't say there's nothing in it because it's not a vacuum. It's actually going to have dregs of the bottle, it's going to have the, the air that's in there that's replaced it, replace the liquid. It's not going to be nothing. Sometimes we talk about feeling nothing, don't we? In a not very nice way. You know, they did that and I felt nothing, or somebody said that and I felt nothing. So maybe that's been used in a very negative way, but maybe feeling nothing is actually feeling at peace, like feeling empty of noise. So maybe something— maybe nothing could be seen in a positive way in that regard. Like, and this is really hard, this is actually quite a hard word to discuss. I don't have anything, so I'm going to hand it back to you because I can't, can't find, I can't find a thing to say about that word really. That's—

yeah, right. And, you know, I like how you started it about looking for context because context really gives a different perspective on different things. But so I love it because it's like nothing. It's like no thing, nothing. You know, how do you talk about nothing?

A lot of it, I think.

I heard that too. Did you hear? Yeah, I did. Yeah, it was nothing. And I heard something else that you said was when Bruce looked in the fridge, you know, you saw nothing to eat, but there was a number of things present, and he created something out of seemingly nothing. And yeah, we, we play with this word, we use this word, and in the this, you know, in, um, the three principles, there is this formlessness that we speak about, which is kind of nothing, where when we have that quiet mind, and maybe it's It's like creating some space, and we will sometimes say that it came from nowhere, you know. So is there an— is there a place? Is there a thing? But the thing is, thoughts come up, ideas, energy comes up, and it forms into something, and something is created out of it. Or not. Sometimes it's just let go or bypassed. So we can kind of take this, you know, anywhere and just leave it as this big open thing from the perspective of creation, creating. We are often creating from something. We might say, well, yeah, I'm creating. It's an idea. But yeah, where— but was— when did the idea become something? Where did it come from? You know, and we can look at it and say, well, it, it just came up, it came out of the blue, came— we might say it came from within, it came from within our own inner wisdom. But what's, you know, what's there? Because it's truly just energy. And, you know, we look around at anything and it was, it was nothing at one point, and then it became something out of a collection of nothings, or maybe just one. Yeah, yeah. I think as a human on this material plane, we can't really see nothing. When we talk about nothing, it's because we've— we're looking at— we're looking at something from a place of it not being there. You know, you might say, um, you know, I have no energy or no food or no money or no something, but it's looking— we often will look at the absence of what we truly want and see that there's nothing there. It's not there. I don't have it. And yes, as Michael O'Neill will say, it's like pointing at fire with ice, where the closer you get to speaking about something like nothing, it like discombobulates you. But what I, what I notice is that when I think about nothing, or things like how we speak about it, it takes me into a space where so much comes up. And usually it's like curious or inspiring, or there's a feeling to it that I kind of like— I don't mind that feeling. And when I'm looking at some things, things that I'm deeming what they are, depending on my perspective, it could be a good feeling something or a not so good feeling something. But in the, in the end, it's kind kind of really all nothing until we apply our filters to it to make sense of it in a way that makes sense in the moment. And it may— that nothing may look different tomorrow or later today. Yeah. What, anything more come up for you?

Yeah, only the, the formless. I wouldn't see that as nothing. I would see that as energy. Yes, and that is definitely something. I couldn't, I couldn't see it as nothing. I don't know if we're— whether there's some negative connotations around the word nothing for me, like I don't think the formless space or the universal intelligence is lacking. And maybe nothing has that association for me, the word nothing, whereas the formless, I see that like a, a mass of swirling energy. You know, that bubbles up through us every so often. That's an aliveness to it that doesn't feel very nothingy at all. It feels like something already before it becomes form, you know. The, the translation from the formless to the form is a movement of energy for me. Between the two.

Agreed.

And that, that's always there. Like, there's something about, you know, I'm still learning to trust that and to listen to it. And to— I had a lovely, a lovely, um, experience of a connection to that just on a really simple experience that happened, um, on Boxing Day. I went for a— Bruce went to pick his son up and I went for a walk because I knew I was going to be inside the rest of the day eating mostly and drinking. So I thought I'd best get out and get some fresh air. So I went for a walk on my own. I came to a little junction in the park where turning right would take me back home, my like normal route that I did to get the steps in. And I just felt this, just this nudge to go straight ahead and to make the walk, therefore make the walk a longer walk by sort of walking around the back of the supermarket. And when I got to the back of the supermarket, I realized— I remembered that we'd forgotten something we needed for Boxing Day food-wise. We'd forgotten to put on the list. I don't know how it had got missed, but it got missed. And I realized— I just— it just popped into my head. And then I got around to the supermarket. I arrived just as the doors opened, literally on the door. Um, picked up the— went straight to the shelf, picked up the thing we wanted, then noticed another little thing that I'd also forgotten about. Got that as well. Got to the till and it cost £2.22. So I got the— it was almost like the universe going, well done, you followed the nudges. And that's not nothing. I mean, that— the power of that to move me in a direction before I knew I needed to go in that direction, that was the— like, that was the buzz of it, was it sent me that direction. And I didn't know beforehand that I needed to go in that direction. Then the reason for going in that direction became apparent. There's something really powerful about that, really, that it can move a human being in a direction, in a way, you know, direction of walking or a direction of creating or direction of making something. That's, that's so powerful. Yeah, energetically very powerful. We have to be ready to listen to it though, which I'm still learning to do. I'm still learning to really trust that. I noticed, I noticed, I concluded today that it doesn't come with explanations. Or reasons. And I think where I go, oh, hang on a minute, of course our intellect has many reasons and explanations of why we should do the opposite thing, like go home to Clare Downhamham because you need to start prepping the food on Boxing Day. You know, the noise was very loud. No, you shouldn't go on a longer walk because you've got things to do at home and there's people coming for dinner and you need to go home and empty the dishwasher and cook some food and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. It went on and on and on and on. Like the— but the intuitive nudge said, go this way. That's it. Nothing else. No explanations, no reason, no nothing. Yeah, no nothing. Yes. Yeah, there's nothing wrapped around it. It doesn't need anything wrapped around it. It's just so simple, like a spark. But it feels very energetic to me anyway. But like you said, I've heard Michael Neal say that as well. We are pointing at fire with ice. Yeah, that's why we tell stories and share metaphors and things like that, because it's the only way to demonstrate it really, or show it in some way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, agreed. There— that's all there is, is energy. And when we look at it from— like, I heard the word nothing coming up a few times even in the sharing. Like, we do, we use the word a lot because it— because we're looking for something tangible, material, and it's like, it's not that. That which, um, we can rely on that's there all the time. If we're looking at it from a material plane, yeah, there's nothing there. It seems like we're trusting nothing. We want to see the path or see the way or know that it's going to work, or, you know, whatever we want to see. But it's just like, I have nothing to rely on. It's like But in fact, the nothing is what we can rely on. The energy, the thing that we can't see, but there's absolutely a feeling to it, and we all know it. We've all experienced it, that feeling of just knowing. And out of that, something— when we are following that, something happens, something is created. Maybe it's a quiet mind, maybe it's arriving like perfect timing in arriving at the store, the 222, the universal play, you know, playing with numbers. And yeah, something comes out of that following that seemingly nothingness, which is all there is.

You're right, it's how it sometimes can be hard to trust it because it doesn't come with the backup of stuff, does it? It comes with nothing. It comes with no baggage. And I think we're all used to navigating life with baggage, aren't we? And reasons and explanations and, you know, this and that. I've got a similar thing. A similar thing happened in the last few days where Bruce is going to work in London on Sunday evening. He's setting off on Sunday evening and I was going to go with him. We were going to go in the car. We're both going to go to London. And just in the last couple of days, my diary's got quite full next week. So there's no real— it's not as fun as last time I went to London when I saw loads of people and I made it very sociable because it was just before Christmas. I feel like I want to get my head down into my business next week and just suddenly felt like I didn't want to go, you know. And so I'm not going. I said to Bruce, would you mind if I didn't come? And I'll miss him, you know, be away for a week, for the week. But I, I just suddenly knew. I didn't make any— there was no, there was no explanation. There was no, you know, sense of this is the right thing to do, or all those reasons. There was no reasons. There was no— it was just I knew. Not to go, and he's, he's gonna go down the train now. So yeah, yeah, there's a simplicity to it, I think, that you don't get when, when it's the intellect. The intellect is never simple. It's always got so much noise around everything. Yeah, like maybe the space around those intuitive nudges is just the space of nothing. That doesn't need to be anything else to go with it. It doesn't need extra layers of thinking. It's just, this is the right way. I think it takes time to learn to trust that because we're so used to the opposite. Yes.

Agreed. Yeah, it isn't, um, over the holiday season telling Ra about the feeling of, you know, being present or not present, or in or out of my guidance. And there is a feeling where before I kind of had to like almost move out of the— like lean back. And I still do at times if there's a topic or subject or whatever that I'm really up in my head about. It's like, you know, like step away. And it's becoming easier to just have it just like, oh, it's just gone. It doesn't feel— it becomes easier. I guess what I want to say is that there was a time where I felt it was hard, and it's like, oh no, only when I think it's hard is it hard. There's always a way. And in, in the beginning, there might be like, I need to go for a walk, or I need to do that. And there are times when I'm embroiled where, yes, it really helps to step completely away. We say that, right? Working on something, trying to figure something's not working. You know, I have some friends that, um, they're very crafty, you know, and doing, uh, trying to get these stitches right in their stitchery stuff, and, and then just putting it away, walking away, and coming back, and then it's, it's all there. Like, it doesn't matter what it is, but coming back to it with sort of a cleared slate, then there's room for something to come from that, that nothing on the slate to show the way. And it does. It becomes easier. It seems to happen quicker. It always happens. It happens for all of us. But yeah, the more you really lean into that or like trust it, it's like, I don't know, it's like it— I can— you can see more because when you start to see that, yeah, I can trust that, you start to look for that. You start to like look for, and it's not even looking for, it's more just being open to— I know it's going to come. I know I'll know what to do when I need to know what to do, when I— when it's time. Yeah.

Anyway, that was an interesting one.

Yeah, thank you for that, uh, exploration. It's fun.

Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, time, time. Yes, have a great week.

Bye, you too.

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