A short Calmcast episode by Clare Downham (the "Queen of Calm") about human potential. Downham argues that potential is inherent and unbreakable, and that what limits people are learned thinking patterns and conditioning which cover that innate capacity; she contrasts this view with deficit-based models (e.g., psychometrics or self-help that aim to "add" missing parts). The episode uses personal anecdotes (a client offered promotion, a baby in a meeting) and references to Michael Neill to invite listeners to notice and reclaim glimpses of their natural calm and capacity.
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Hello and welcome to the Calmcast, a time to feel calm and think clearly. I'm Claire Downham, the queen of calm, a transformational life coach. I was a burnt out head teacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same. The calm cast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state, which is calm and clarity. Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity. There's nothing else to do now. Let's relax into today's episode.
So today I'm talking about potential. And this came off the back of a client of mine, a previous client of mine, who sent me a lovely message to say how our work together had really helped her and that she'd been she's being considered or put forward to it for an amazing promotion. And it made me think about our potential. Like I know Michael Neal has a TED talk and it's called why Aren't we Awesomer? And I think this is, I listen to it for yonks actually I probably listen to it again sometime, but I feel like what I'm saying today is, is pointing in that same direction. And then this morning before I came to do this, I read a post that talks about psychometrics and the person posting that, talking about how a psychometric test, you know, personality test, that kind of thing can tell us who we really are. I thought, wow, the whole universe is, is providing me with the information or the, the sparks of the starting point of this piece today because not none of that like a personality test, a psychometric test doesn't tell us who we really are. Actually it pretty much lets us know what's stopping us being who we really are. Because quite often those tests will tell you, you know, where your strengths are, where your weaknesses are. And what a wonderful place to get curious about because what we're talking about there with the psychometric test is, is an assessment of rethinking. And that's all it is, that's all it can ever be because we can't fill in a survey like that from our potential because it's covered up by our thinking. I think the model in, in my community of, of how human beings are built psychologically is just very different to what's out there as, as a generally believed point of view. And I'm not saying mine's right and everybody else's is wrong, but what I am pointing to is that when you start to see the world in the way I'M pointing to your potential is more likely to be revealed than what is going on elsewhere. So the model I feel that we have at the moment, that is the most wildly widely held model is that people are, have missing potential, like it's missing from them. That maybe it was never there in the first place or maybe it's been taken away by life's experiences. Maybe chunks of our potential has been cut out by trauma or by upset when we were younger or whatever, whatever else is pointed to as a, as a potential remover, as it were. And that our job as a human being, if we want to do well in the world of form, if we want to be successful in the world of form, is to add that back in by. Well, by adding it back in by doing things to ourselves, by doing affirmations or doing meditation or going through reading lots of self development books or doing lots of tools and techniques and strategies or lots of therapy. And that eventually we might somehow patch it all back together again in a. I imagine in quite a messy way. But I don't see humans like that anymore. I definitely used to see humans like that. I see us in a very different way now. And I think that's what I spend my time doing, is pointing out to people the amazingness of what they already have inside. So the model I use is the same model as Michael Neal and other teachers in this community, which is we are the potential of everyone and everything. We are the power of the universe. We are, you know, we are what makes the sun rise or appear to rise. Clearly it's the earth going around the sun. All those things that just happen. The amazingness of nature as it moves through the seasons each year. Something amazing is powering that. When you, you look at a rose, you don't think, oh, it's not meeting its potential, this rose. I don't know, maybe some gardeners do think like that, but most of us look at a rose and just see the beauty of it and, or we look at a rose board and we see its potential to open that which runs all of that, that energy of life or the energy of nature, which is what I like to call it, runs through everything and it runs through you. And it's unbreakable, unshakable, undamageable. It's. It's who you really are, the potential of the universe, that. That's who you really are. And, and I see it like Michael Neal's, like a diamond, like something that is unbreakable. You can choose titanium if you'd prefer, but But I quite like a diamond because it's sh. And we're shiny inside too. So we have this amazing potential. And I was in a meeting yesterday morning and that happened. It was a ladies networking meeting, happened to be a baby there. And I said to the ladies there, that's, that's the human potential that little person there is, has in them everything that we're all looking for outside of us. And you can see it when you look at a baby and you see that there's just something about that, isn't there? So that's how we are born perfect, whole and well, and we still are. Now the trouble is, I don't know if it's trouble really. The thing to realize is that we have learned to think. That's it. We've been conditioned unconsciously. We've done some learning unconsciously. Nobody said, let's sit down and learn how to be limiting or how to limit ourselves or how to be less confident or how to not feel resilient or how to not feel calm or how to feel anxious or depressed. Nobody sat us down and said, come on, we'll teach you how to feel terrible as a human being. Off we go. Lesson number one, feeling rubbish 101. Course. There was no course. There was just the niggly things that happen that I think about, the things I've said to my children. I, I, you know, you can see in your own children often little bits of where they've learned to be, how they are. I see parts of me that remind me of my parents. And that's what's happened. And all that's happened, really, is that that beautiful diamond, your potential has just got covered up a bit with thinking. That's all. Just covered up. And when I sit down with somebody on Zoom mostly these days, I see that that's my job, is to point to them, point out to them where they're doing amazingly well, how they have overcome so many things, how all those qualities that they're looking for outside of them are already there. And to help them to see the stories and the wrongification, storification, wrongification and shouldification that they're doing that's taking them away from connecting to this wonderful power that we all have inside. Because our potential is always there. It's just getting covered up sometimes. But I promise you that whatever it is you think you can't do, whatever it is you think is outside your reach, whatever feeling you think can never be yours on a consistent basis without doing lots of things that's not true. I thought that was true about me just over two years ago and if I can come to this place where I do see more of my potential we can never see all that's too I think our heads would explode if we saw it all but to see more of it to see more glimpses of it on a day by day basis is is life changing is transformational so yeah just realizing it's there is the star and having a conversation like this with someone I'd love it if it was me of course can really really help so stay curious and maybe spend today noticing how amazing you are. I suspect that will create a really wonderful day for you.
Thank you so much for listening. There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working.
Out in your life.
Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm. This has been the calmcast with Claire Downham Queen of Calm. Take care and keep listening.
