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My question is this: I make art. I can see that in part, this is driven by a desire to impress and make myself feel ok. I started doing this after a particularly bad break up and it has become a large part of my identity, proving to myself that I am worthwhile and have something to say. At times it feels like I'm torturing myself, trying too hard, and not being able to achieve the things I want to. At other times my art feels really free and joyful. At these times it seems to be coming from somewhere outside of me. For some reason I value the art I find difficult to master more highly than the stuff that comes very naturally to me. How can this learning help me to create more consistently from a place of freedom rather than striving and lack? Should we keep trying to do things that are so hard they make us feel awful?!

How to release the iron grip of old conditioning?

I've done a couple of online courses with you. Although they resonate with me, i still feel very stuck. I know that fixing isn't the solution. Because i've tried a lot of fixing. So i have (and really want) to take the healing road. Problem is that i don't understand this process. It feels like i have to do something to heal, but i don't know what. 

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Exploring how 'being right' is an addiction of separation that obscures the love, presence and potential for change that we really are.  

Exploring personality - introversion and extroversion For details of the September on-line course click here https://claredimond.com/current-live-program/

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i'd love you to make another podcast about it which would give me a more practical answer if possible ... For example how true acceptance works, will it calm down the mind or i will still have a scattered mind but i will be able to focus despite my scattered mind?! and i'd also love to hear if you had similar issues and how you managed to get things done?

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How come we don't do or have what we think we want to do or have ? 

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Can you please do a podcast on listening to others while our own dialogue is happening. Even though I am aware of it, it is so easy to get caught up in it.

Listener question: what slightly confuses me is this ...i see that our nervous system is the thing that tells us we are in or out of capacity right - and so if it is constantly in freeze then its tell me i'm out of capacity somehow - its not that the nervous system is flawed or needs re-programming because thats just the 'alarm' isnt it  or can it be 'broken' and not responding correctly or stuck 'beeping' like an actual firealarm does ? Sometimes it feels like these things, for example, working with all the 'internal parts and voices' or somatic experiencing programmes or Vagal reset programmes are caught up in trying to 'fixing the alarm' rather than ever dealing with the cause of the smoke or teaching us how to understand what the alarm means and is trying to tell us ... does that make sense ?... what's the point of keeping reseting the alarm if the smoke is still there ... it would be dangerous to reset the alarm. Or is the alarm telling us there IS NO SMOKE (trauma) or that the alarm itself IS the smokeI guess we HOPE that these programmes are about the fact the alarm got stuck 'on'/'off' or jammed at some point in the past when smoke was billowing out (or percieved smoke) and so now it isnt available as a system to give us accurate messages anymore about our reality or if there is smoke in the present moment.... BUT to just learn somatic experiencing tools to switch the alarm off because we dont like the sound when it's on then whats the point of that and isnt that missing the point of the purpose of the nervous system. I'm getting confused about how to Know if there is any value in it all that helps to get to the back room with all this... or if these 'practical somatic things' just confuse the system more... and are the mind trying to interfere in the process or outwit itself when it cant.

Listener question: I have a scattered mind. How do I calm it down to do boring tasks?

Listener question: So if the selfing patterns are established over years of habitual thinking (Neurons that fire together wire together) does it require a certain amount of willpower to not slip into these patterns? Or is willpower an activity of the self as well?You often speak of beliefs and behaviours falling away, does this happen through witnessing patterns and staying with uncomfortable feelings in the body alone?Is vigilance needed at this point to not slip into storymaking? 

Still have to look into it more. I feel a sense of where you are pointing at but my head is busy with it. It is like when I am teaching Dutch. I just do Dutch all the time. Now I have to explain Dutch I go deeper in that language and my head is busy with the rules and I get confused about the language I just do when I am not teaching/thinking about it.Love Ingrid

Listener question: I'm wondering if you could guide me in some way.  I have financial difficulties so I'm putting a lot of pressure on myself in the area of work.  I have insecurity issues which tie into this.  In particular I wanted to ask you about feeling insecure around certain clients.  I see that I feel less than them and then tend to have panic attacks with them.  I can see that it's thought and I try to dig into the, "why do I feel less than them?".  I can see what's happening here and yet I don't think I'm in the observing mode.  It all comes down to separation, but do we at some point see thru this clearer if we keep questioning it?  I've been doing that for years and logically I can see it, but I think the programme is very strong and so perhaps something else has to clue in.

Someone said to me 'I feel like I can't trust anyone'. Let's look at that...

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Listener question: I think resentment comes about as I have to suppress rage all the time. It’s a very disempowering place to be in as a woman. Aren’t we colluding with thousands of years of suppression of female power/rage when we say it’s all our own creation, therefore all our own fault? 

Somehow, you made the jump from the three principles to this non dual approach. I suspect insight was part of your early and later experiences. Yet, I would love to know more about your evolution.  Reading “Real” and listening to this course and the “Real” Course did not give me the clue as to your initial moments and how you jumped over the gap between traditional 3 P to non - dual inside out.  

I struggle many days with trying to fill a void that in reality doesn't exist. Searching from the outside to make me feel whole on the inside. Depending on others to bring me happiness that never comes. I need more help to become happy within myself.  Any ideas to share with me?

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Could you podcast on whether there’s a connection between seemingly separate pieces of learning.  Can learning/conditioning be compartmentalised or is it like the skeleton; ‘the hip bone’s connected to the thigh bone’ etc.  And if they are connected, might attention on one ‘area’ of conditioning shine light on other areas, gradually or suddenly revealing the whole structure of the made-up self even as it’s dissolving?

Listener question: what is separation and the mirror? 

Can i just ask for a heads up ... i have done your Change and Stress courses .... i am observing things in the way you suggest ... i notice i am suddenly freaking out big time because i have a tiny kitten arriving ... this feels like a huge thing for me as i already live in a hoarders chaos and find it so hard to manage things in the material form  i am really worried that this is just me ADDING to my pattern of chaos and disorder . So that not only do i have a chaotic hoarders house thats full of boxes, piles, building materials and hardly managable .. but now i'm adding in a kitten to make it all WORSE and more extremely out of control chaos. Sometimes i stand in my home surrounded by this insurmoutable chaos and feel like i'm in a mensa test that is way above my IQ level - i literally dont know where to begin with it all and attempts to move forwards just seem to have me adding more chaos ... what if this kitten arriving isnt a positive change and is me just 'staying the same' and adding in more extremes  ! - does that make sense. How do we know if somehting is a good change or just more of the same to ensure staying the same and not changing. It really feels like this is 'stirring' something up and testing me on some level ... as if all my futile attempts to keep on top of anything and stay in control will just 'go out the window' and push me over an edge. How can we know if somehting is us moving forward or backwards ! ... at this point i really dont want more of the same! and so long for sanity and an ordered living space! 

Listener question: Thank you for the stress course, unfortunately, I have taken a break from this one.  It amazes me I have never found this before but STRESS has really hit home, which I know is not a bad thing but has put me in a much more cautious ​mood and I have stalled at day 16.  I do hope to go back to the course and am confident that I will continue.  I can only offer this as evidence that you have created a brilliant course as it has found its way to the route of my stress/anxiety.  My hesitancy, from my fear of really facing my fears and asking the Why question, is seen and felt and noticed. I mentioned this to my buddy which resulted in a smack in the face realisation of a link between a childhood stressor and today's issues and was awash with tears, although when I try to recall it now I find I can't.  The next day was one of the highest stress/anxious days I have had for such a long time.  I have made a link between these events which I think has stopped me wanting to carry on and to be honest even stopped me wanting to speak to my buddy anymore. (this withdrawal is a pattern that has created so many of my limitations) I see this all but do feel an overwhelm like a wave going over my head, but I will pop up the other side.  Are you able to speak about this 2 steps forward, 1 step back that I have experienced throughout my time on your courses?  I feel understanding is most definitely there and the wall of fear I had has many breaks in it now, I still have worries there will always be part of a wall there, its so beyond belief that freedom is available for me.

Listener question: There's appreciation for this opening up and suddenly a sadness that there are many statements that seem like clarity that, if shared, may spark confrontation for the listener. I imagine that you aren't coaching all people all the time in your life and that you maybe have close loved ones who are very much in the world of free will exists and a self is the doer - do you mostly stay silent with people who are not in this conversation and simply use whatever shows up as new information as your own ego confrontation?

Looking at Dr Gabor Maté's quote: “A therapist once said to me, “If you face the choice between feeling guilt and resentment, choose the guilt every time.” It is wisdom I have passed on to many others since. If a refusal saddles you with guilt, while consent leaves resentment in its wake, opt for the guilt. Resentment is soul suicide. Negative thinking allows us to gaze unflinchingly on our own behalf at what does not work. 

Listener question: what can I do about my children's mental health? 

Listener question: I work for the NHS. So we are basically asked, on a continual basis, to ‘ fit a quart into a pint pot’ . So that is a ‘form’ problem, with a solution- another pint pot. But that is not on offer, and it is not an option to say it’s not possible and walk away, because the patients will suffer. So not sure how I can help colleagues , it looks intrinsically stressful, not just ‘ our thinking’ . As one Dr tweeted recently, it shouldn’t be the case that it feels like a luxury to be able to have a wee on a 12 hour shift. We have a range of health and well-being initiatives, but to me it feels a bit insulting when basic needs are not met, so would be grateful for any insights. I can see that not everyone finds it equally stressful, for some it’s just ‘ working in the nhs’ , but ……

Listener question: Just wasn’t clear how the cleaning up happens.  Is it the seeing, or transparency, that does the cleaning up?  I guess that’s what’s implied in your podcast, but thought I’d check if that’s what you mean.For me, every action can be seen/interpreted as self playing out, but perhaps this cleaning up subtly changes actions over time.

Listener question: I am worried about my mental health

Listener question: I listened to your podcast this morning. This concept of freeing ourselves from the illusion of the self to 'be what we really are' is something I find difficult to understand. Is it even possible to know 'what we really are' without some underpinning of what we mean by 'we'? If my concept of my 'self' - complete with all its baggage and cultural conditioning and prejudices etc - is an illusion of some kind, behind which lurks a more real, authentic entity, do we not risk falling into some kind of Cartesian duality whereby the 'who I really am' has somehow been occluded, or forgotten by the 'persona' of my conditioning? The conclusion seems to be that 'who I really am' is not my 'self' in the way that I ordinarily understand that term but something else, the proverbial 'ghost in the machine', a concept which I thought had been abandoned long ago. Can you help to clarify this a bit more?

"If there is no 'self' then what is really going on in the often critical sounding expression 'to be self-obsessed'. Is this really just a term used to point out that the mind if caught in believing there is a 'self' and is 'obsessed' with trying to examine itself. A pointless loop and hence the appearance of obsession that arises as the mind desperatly tries to find the escape route from its percieved self. When caught in apparent 'self obsession' is this something we are in control of or want to aim to avoid or is it leading us to 'gifts' ?

Listener question:what is freedom? 

Hi Clare. Now on your stress day 7 you ask to go back to our childhood. And that situation is indeed at the origin of what I still live today. As a very young child I was honest and dared to say 'No' to my grandmother who was raising me, my sister and brother while my parents worked day and night.  I was often punished and hit by my grandmother because I was not a 'nice girl'. She convinced my mother to take me to a doctor because I was not normal in her eyes. I was too lively myself and spoke freely. My mother was very afraid herself of her own mother and could not stand against her to protect me.  So I adapted myself to others - made  me small and said 'yes', just ot be 'good enough'.. I depended on the grown-up ones to  survive; to be loved  and to be worthy of getting love and attention . Later as an adult myself, I was not able to have a healthy relationship with a partner. I had 3 broken relationships with 3 men I loved. In the beginning, I adapted to them all to be loved - afterwards I revolted and felt guilty at the same time. After too much fights I was always the first to leave , because I could not stand to be left alone or to lose my loved ones . At that time my sister past away , then my brother, my father and mother. They all died and I felt completely left alone in this world. I never, ever wanted to feel this feeling again! So I chose my present partner out of security reasons. I'm not attracted to him and his behouviour irritates me terribly. But he is safe, will never hit me and never leave me. So I forced myself to stay with him - eventhough I missed really loving someone very very much. I judged myself to be weak., and tried to believe my own lies. You will learn to love him. I'm living this inner daily fight for more then 10 years now and has cost me a lot of stress and physical pain we talked about last time. I asked myself now the same question, my grandmother did years ago: what is wrong about me? Why can't I be in love with a nice man? A was for many years mad at my grandmother and worked with therapists on this. I'm not mad at her anymore. But my inner lens through which I see life hasn't changed. Clare, I'm  sorry I didn't tell you all this details the last time I wrote. I was too ashamed to tell. Can you help me to see and honour my lens? 

I wanted to reach out to you about some changes I have noticed for me lately. I am really feeling confused at the moment with feeling of stress.   1. That said I don't know if the course is a cause of stress to me or that the way my mind is flip-flopping around.  I just can't seem to focus I seem to have gone away with the fairies, The only think that is clear is that I don't feel I know who I am anymore, sometimes its like when I hear my own voice it doesn't sound like me.  The one really interesting thing that came up this week was something my epilepsy nurse said at annual appointment.  "On reflection Karen, you were experiencing such stress 5 years ago when this started......"  I would have said to you at the time I was very busy or had a lot on, I never thought I was stressed, yet from my accounts to her it seems that's exactly what was happening.  2. What can be done to help people who don't recognise that they are stressed - this has just made me think of my mum and how she always says we have to "just get things done" never did I find this harsh but it could really have fed in to that thinking. (sorry that just came to me). Have you got anything you can put on a podcast that can help me understand points 1 and 2?

This podcast is a response to a question on facebook about this comment: 'Any revelation will come in what that doing was meant to achieve for the self if anything…'

Listener question: I'm listening to the 1:1 conversations from the Change course. In one of them, you say the following:"The stuckness of mind is reflected in the stuckness of health or body, or the stuckness of surroundings or the stuckness of relationships, it's dynamic."I have not yet noticed a lot of shifting in the area where there's been a lot of stuckness around finances/work. There's motion but it almost seems like it's happening outside of me...unintegrated somehow. The mind is very sticky still. I don't really understand what's happening there. Where I have noticed a lot of shifting is with the body. I've started swimming twice a week in addition to nearly daily walks, I've managed to drink at least 2.5 L of water a day on top of tea and coffee and a smoothie. There's also been shifting in relationships where time with friends has involved more personal sharing than usual. And the movement of the body is happening despite the mind saying "I don't want to go swim" or feeling queasy or having fears "did I say something wrong" after time with a friend. Is this what you mean when you say that motion in one area ends up leading to motion in another? So there's freedom showing up in the body and in relationships and some of that stuckness of mind is moving too?

Listener question: I can't see my head except when I look in the mirror. So when I see someone else's face, I don't think, that's me. Is that because we learned this? We are all one  means:  we are all one in the way the systems works? Not in form. So to realise that is were forgiveness starts? You are not doing this to me, you are just doing (in form). Or there is just doing and here it is seen as done by another person.Like someone says: you are stupid, you shouldn't have done that. That is just what there is and without making it personal, both sides, a fluid reaction will come? And if not I can see that I made it personal. And the more I see that, the more it will fade away?

What if the mind uses this understanding for sabotaging its own glimpses of understanding?There were glimpses and openings to a more peaceful, joyful way of being in the past. And since the change course there is an observation of of relentless negative activity of the mind, attempting to destroy this loving, joyful bodymind in myriads of ways. It feels like once the mind is in its old conditioned neuropathways it’s impossible to get out of there. Especially when I’m doing things that are there to be judged by everyone.The pure observation of these patterns didn’t dissolve them , it’s just very painful to witness.What is not seen here that keeps these unhealthy patterns so firmly in place?