Simple thoughts that can create greater sense of understanding

I WAS so excited last week as I was able to do something I hadn’t done in such a long time. Go to the hairdresser. I’ve known my hairdresser for nearly 20 years and have watched her as her career has blossomed and her business has grown.

However, this experience was a little different than before, embracing all of the safety standards – the salon had been refurbished, deep cleaned, my temperature was checked, I wore a mask, as did the staff, while surfaces were cleaned and re-cleaned. The salon was at less than 50 per cent capacity to provide social distancing, and they had gone to tremendous lengths to keep me and their other clients safe.

As I sat there with tin foil in my hair, I was simply filled with compassion for them. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard these last few months had been for them. To watch your life’s work teeter on the edge for so long unsure of its survival along with so many small businesses, then be elated to be open, but having to invest in so much change, and be so restricted in numbers. I was, however, disheartened to hear how some clients had not been so understanding, that some had become aggressive about the requirements, and even refused to comply. In my mind this was such a beautiful example of how we all create our experience with the thoughts that we have in the moment we are in, innocently believing that our feelings are being caused by the situation we’re faced with, not noticing that on any other day we may feel or react differently to the same situation.

It was so curious to me that I had fallen into a space of understanding, and was then using my thoughts for a different purpose, my imagination, to create what I had considered to be a ‘how it must have been for them’ scenario. So often we forget that it is thought that creates whatever it is that we are experiencing, but there I was, in the same hairdresser, with those around me all having different experiences, having different feelings and emotions, all caused by the way they were thinking in that moment. Whilst all the time, the salon and the staff in it hadn’t changed.

I have found this one insight so helpful over the years. At times I forget that I am the creator of how I am feeling, and I fall into believing the cause of that feeling is something other than me, and I start to react. However, so often I will get a little internal nudge that interrupts my train of reactive thought, creating space for a little more understanding to occur. Noticing that this is part of our system too, rather than ignoring it, has been so useful to me, a natural righting mechanism steering us back to a more balanced place, a place where we can experience the situation with more clarity, a fresher perspective.

It’s a system that is so simple and so subtle, but when the world is not as we are used to, understanding and seeing our system at play can be so transformative to how we experience the world around us often bringing the peace of mind that we crave and enabling us to be supportive of those who need it.