Imagine you have two coats, red and blue. Life is good for you when you’re wearing the red coat – the sun shines brighter, good things happen and everyone is kind to you. The blue coat leaves you cold – you have darker moods when you’re wearing the blue coat, things keep going wrong and people drag you down.

Now imagine nobody told you the coats have this effect.

And imagine your eyes have become foggy, so now both coats look the same to you.

This is my experience of how we create all the suffering in our lives. We have two gears: love and fear. We also have thousands of thoughts every hour, more sensory data coming in than even the fastest computer could process and a memory bank with billions of ideas to compare with each other. We do our best. And when we’re wrapped in love, life is good. When we’re wrapped in fear, it’s not.

Depending what gear we’re in, we experience our thoughts differently – and those thoughts have a different influence on our feelings, behaviour and new thoughts.

What if you’re sitting with some friends and the conversation goes quiet? In love, it’s beautiful to sit peacefully and not need to say anything. In fear, the same thought – “nobody’s speaking” – leads to a different feeling, and that feeling shapes our next thought. We can go “nobody’s speaking”, “this is lovely”, “I so enjoy being with people who don’t expect anything from me”. Or we can go “nobody’s speaking”, “this won’t work if we can’t even talk to each other”, “why can’t I think of anything to say?”, “I’ve got to get out of here”. The difference is nothing on the outside and nothing to do with thinking positive. It’s simply about which gear you’re in: love or fear.

Let’s say the conversation continues and my friend says I’m naive. When I’m loving, I know it makes sense for him to think that way because of how he thinks about the world and how my ideas integrate with those thoughts. I appreciate his honesty in sharing what he thinks. I respect his world and don’t take his thoughts personally. I continue to love him. But when I’m fearful, I feel under attack. I’m so busy doubting myself and defending myself that I don’t even see my friend any more. Would a friend be so rude to me? He’s just an idiot … blah, blah, blah.

The same applies in business too. I remember negotiating a six-figure contract for my IT company in the 90s and then, right at the last minute, the client said he wasn’t sure. Wrapped in love, it’s beautiful to explore what somebody really wants. I wouldn’t want us to do anything he wasn’t happy with and there’s always the possibility of finding something more wonderful. But wrapped in fear, as I was then, I didn’t want to lose what I didn’t even have yet. I was paranoid about saying the wrong thing and blowing the whole deal. I took it personally and thought he was messing me about. I felt sick in my stomach, lashed out and the deal was never done.

At it’s most simple, each moment is a choice: love or fear.

The confusion comes because of the fog in front of our eyes. Even if we understand the all-powerful nature of our coloured coats, how can we choose between two coats that look the same to us? With the fog in front of our eyes, we don’t see the choices clearly: red or blue, love or fear. We mostly see fog. And in that confusion we might think we’re being loving when really we’re trying to prove we’re a loving person because we’re so afraid we’re not. There are many examples like that and that’s why I think clarity is so transformative. Clarity changes your relationship with everything – every person, every concept (like money, society, health) and every thought you have. Clarity means you’ll always know what to do when you aren’t happy with something – without judgement, you can simply shift gears. Because in love, you’ll be happy with anything. And that’s a wonderful place to start exploring and creating what you really want.

Can I be useful? Coaching conversations are a wonderful way to explore your own ideas and get in touch with your natural clarity. Please visit this page for details of what I offer.