Adrian Kirk - Being: Find your stillness

Copyright 2021 Adrian Kirk

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Illustrations by Joanna Culley (Medical Artist); except The Little Git, which is by Sarah Vickery.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

There is only one person this book could ever be dedicated to, and that is my dear, sweet mum, who passed away before it came to fruition.

Life certainly threw her challenges, but she rose above them with grace. How she was able to bring up three children by herself, keep us on track and decent people is beyond me; indeed, it is a testament to her strength of character and determination.

You are always with me, mum; always. xx

Contents

INTRODUCTION

You are magnificent! At birth you were gifted with the most valuable asset youll ever own in your life: the instrument that is your body and mind.

Admittedly, our bodies are flawed and regularly break down; but the fundamental design is so good it is the basis for every mammal. The essentials of the design give us a skeleton, respiration, circulation, digestion, reproduction and sensation. And, while, at times, the mind can act dubiously, what a piece of work it is; giving us the capacity to comprehend and process; and, what is believed to set us apart from other living things on the planet, our self-awareness and reasoning. We are truly amazing. Weve been on this planet for a very long time, and are, believed to be, the height of intelligence*. This instrument is truly amazing. However, many of us take it for granted, living disconnected from it day to day. I aim to re-connect you, and help you discover an innate state of stillness, from which all else comes.

I have arrived at the ideas detailed here through years of exploring the essence of us as humans, our physical, spiritual and psychological make up. What I offer here draws on many ideas and perspectives, from yoga (beyond the physical act), the Alexander Technique, philosophy, meditation and mindfulness, acting and theatre skills, the ancient Hindu language of Sanskrit, as well as years of self-awareness and personal development exploration. Eventually, all these focused me in one direction, what it means for us to be human beings.

I have worked in the field of personal development for most of my professional life and for many years Ive asked those I work with to remember that they are called human beings . And, as such, they are capable of being present, being engaging, being influential, being commanding; whatever it is theyre attending a training course to learn about. Increasingly the idea of Being became a core element of my approach; and, as often happens when we are doing something which truly resonates with us, the essence of Being kept cropping up in my life outside of work: as I volunteer at a horse sanctuary, during discussion in classes I attend, practising yoga, when talking with friends about the stresses and strains of modern living. Language, ideas and exercises Id been working with for years aligned to become a clear concept which benefits all. I felt drawn to pulling everything Id learned and discovered together, to make it easily accessible to others.

As the ideas for this book were formulating, I was curious to know why we refer to ourselves as human beings, and established that the term was popularised by church theologians in the 14 th century. It was thought that God and the angels were beings with the highest level of self-awareness, and Man, the pinnacle of Gods creation, being made in His image, was also made self-aware; so it was we were deemed to be human beings. Adapting this definition to a twenty first century perspective, we are essentially self-aware humans. It is this awareness aspect that Being focuses on; drawing on our thousands of years living on this planet, developing and refining in to such magnificent human beings.

Interestingly, the word being denotes the state or quality of having existence, or describes the essential nature of someone. The essential nature, now theres a lovely term. Our essential nature is to be in the body we have, being in the moment were in. Our essential nature is to use our magnificent gift in the best possible way; to use it in a way which allows it to perform efficiently. Yet most of us dont do this, and I include myself; because, like most, I often get distracted by the busy-ness of life, the stresses and strains of being me; allowing my ego* to dominate, allowing fear, stress, time to influence me, allowing my mind to play tricks on me. Then I remind myself that I only have one body and one life and that I can only really be in one moment. I allow myself to be in my body in the moment, which slows me down and helps me be more present. In that moment I become less stressed, I feel happier and, Ive come to realise, I become more efficient. Through the ideas and techniques in this book I aim to help you re-connect with this happier, less stressed, efficient version of you.

Intelligent beings

As the height of intelligence on the planet we are very clever, just look at what we have been able to create with our intelligence; the mix of our imagination and logic has enabled us to land on the moon and see far in to the universe, we move in vehicles which keep us warm and protected, computers facilitate almost every aspect of our day. Our achievements are staggering. We are not just intellectually clever, however; our bodies are also clever. Having lived on this planet for as long as we have, the body has evolved to be amazing. Yes, we see, hear, taste, smell, touch and feel, we have wonderful sentient capacity; yet the body has other innate abilities, which influence how we engage life. Two of these will appear frequently throughout these pages:

Muscle memory retention

Fight or flight

Muscle memory retention is the full name for the first of these Ill discuss, but it is commonly abbreviated to muscle memory. Muscle memory is the bodys way of replicating behaviour so we dont need to think about doing so much. If we repeat a behaviour enough times, the body remembers how to do it and, effectively, lets us step away from consciously involving ourselves in doing it; the muscles simply repeat the behaviour without us being involved. Imagine the benefits of that. We dont need to expend unnecessary energy and thought capacity in doing certain tasks and become free to focus on doing more interesting, important or rewarding things. But, muscle memory also enables us to get better at doing certain tasks, so practised in fact that we become excellent at them. In Malcolm Gladwells book Outliers, he sets out to understand what enables certain people to excel at what they do. Among other theories, he explains how, if we practise doing something for 10,000 hours, we become specialised at it, with the body building in skill through repetition. Some argue that we dont even need to do 10,000 hours, it could be as little as 300 to 500 repetitions that embeds muscle memory. Pavlov identified the essence of this in his experiment with dogs. Every time he fed a group of dogs he rang a bell before feeding them. After repetition of the sound stimulus being associated with food, Pavlov discovered that the mere ringing of the bell induced saliva in the dogs, even when no food was offered. Behaviour became established in the bodys memory through repetition and the behaviour was triggered upon a stimulus. This is muscle memory in action; the ability to learn through repetition and replicate the behaviour unconsciously, or consciously. There are those who use muscle memory consciously to great effect: sports people, musicians, skilled craft-workers, and more; however, many of us evoke muscle memory unconsciously. As you read this book I encourage you to become more conscious of this, to use practice and repetition to embed comfort with your bodys elegant design, and learn how to access and use your mind more calmly.