Sometimes the things we are in search of can be right in front of us and on our doorstep. We spend time, money and energy looking and searching everywhere for the thing that we feel is missing, but sometimes the very thing we need is right in front of us. Being still gives us time to understand what we need. Being still lets us see solutions. Sometimes we can see something and not really see it and yet in the stillness when we look again, we can see something very different… things take on a whole new meaning, even if we have seen them before. In the busy and rushing and trying to get somewhere we don’t see the wisdom that is right in front of us.

A recent visit to Shakespear’s Globes in London, a place right on my doorstep, I find the wisdom and resillency of our spirit. I find the solutions that had already taken place hundreds of years ago, in the history of time, in the stillness of loss, or change. 

Shakespear a man of creativity, brilliance, a man of stories, found himself in a place where he had created his foundations outside of himself. How had this happened?

In 1576 James Burbage, Shakespear’s friend built the ‘theatre’,  in London, Shoreditch, specifically in Curtain Road, a place he created, but he only owned the building not the land. The theatre was the very place that was considered the first proper playhouse where William Shakespeare staged his early works. The landlord grew tired of the rowdy theatre scene and refused to renew the lease, intending to take ownership of the building once the lease expired. When James Burbage died, his sons, found a contract that stated they owned the timber and materials regardless of the land.

Shakespear and his theatre troupes, the lord chamberlains men iiii were going to lose the ‘Theatre,’ to the landlord. The landlord was going to knock it down, so when the landlord was away for xmas, under the cover of darkness, in 1598  they removed the theatre piece by piece, and moved the timbers across the River Thames to the Bank side district in Southwark.
When the landlord returned, he sued them, but it was revealed in the contract that it stated that each man could take as much as he could carry upon leaving.

Sometimes in life we build things on other people’s land, and they assume it is there’s for the keeping. We create our foundations on somebody eles’s land where we have worked so hard to create our lives.   All our hard work and yet somebody else gets to keep it. Doesn’t seem fair, but sometimes in life the only way we can get started is by creating on somebody else’s foundations but there always comes a time when we have to create our own foundations.

 Our business can be created on somebody else’s knowledge or wisdom. Our relationships built on somebody else’s terms. Our friendships, built on the other persons interest or control, and there comes a time when they don’t want the same thing, and there comes a time when we have to grow and if we don’t grow together we have to separate,  but how do you separate? After having put in all that hard work and all that time?

Shakespear in this moment and in this stillness of nothing, no theatre to use, no creativity, they had the brilliant idea to move the theatre, timber by timber. They were not going to waste what they had created and instead repurposed it. He didn’t give up, he pivoted.

Sometimes in life we have to start a fresh, start new because our relationships have ended, a business has changed, or we just find ourselves going separate ways, which is ok until we realise what we have built is on someone else’s land and they want to claim it as their own. We have to rebuild and it can feel like we have been doing it all wrong. But we just started our foundation on somebody else’s land and staring a fresh can feel overwhelming. Creating something new for yourself takes courage and takes a new approach and a new way of seeing things. Finding your own foundations can sometimes feel like a struggle. Shakespear was able to keep going and didn’t give up instead he just pivoted, and hence the famous Globe was created. This Globe eventually burnt down June 29, 1613 and a new globe was opened in June 1614. In 1644 the globe was torn down and not rebuilt and finished until 1977. You can now find the globe at 21 Globe walk, near London Bridge.

In our early years our ‘self’ is enmeshed with our mother’s self, so at a young age we do not know that our mother is actually a human being, because we are sharing the same ‘self’, ( the same land) but eventually we have to separate and develop our own ‘self’, our own foundations, our own base.  But if our mothers do not have a safe base, or they are absent, emotionally or physically, then we cannot separate through fear, we fail to separate and create our own base, and we remain permanently enmeshed with our mother’s self/ego and we don’t ever create our own base, our own self, which we need for healthy relationships, and to make decisions for ourselves, knowing who we are, instead of being our mother’s self.

If we have not separated, then the relationships, careers, and decisions we make our based on our mothers ‘self,’ not on our own choices and decisions, and their comes a time in our life when we want to be our own ‘self’. Because when we don’t have our self, something always feels like it is missing, or you have a hole to fill, with all the external trappings of life. We eat too much, spend too much, reach for medication and substances, we try and find love in others, all to try and fill the void. We get jealous, and nothing is ever enough.

When we grow up in the sacred space and we have a safe space, our systems can then rest to allow us that space and time to find solutions to dismantle and rebuild.

Our mother’s have the land and at some point we have to find our own land, other wise we get stuck. we can do this at any age. Normally it happens at a much younger age around 24 months, but you can do it at any age. Which is why you may find yourself separating from a relationship because you did not have your self when you entered it, and instead you give all you power away.

So like Shakespear we have to find a loop hole, but solutions come in the stillness of the silence of the ashes. It is inevitable that one day we will have to separate from our mothers, hopefully this is completed early on, but if our environment is never safe, or accepting or emotions, then we stay stuck on an island and in a place that is not our own… We start our journey without our foundations. We work hard, we give everything, only to find ourselves in burnout because we have never dismantled and reassembled to discover who we truly our, so our whole life is constructed on someone else base.. and we are not at the centre of our lives.. so what ever we created will have to be dismantled some day and rebuilt again.

If Shakespear had waited to start and have his own theatre, he may never have started, so it is not failure to start and have our foundations enmeshed with someone else, but it is the awareness of how to let go and bring with you what you can and pivot and change course. But it does not mean losing everything you had, because every experience, every choice is another step forward and learning. Life doesn’t have to be perfect to start, but starting is the key, even in the overwhelm, the mess, the nothing, the not knowing. It is in the stillness where we find our strength to keep going.

Change and pivot means mess, it can mean dismantling, but in that mess and dismantling of nothing, can come your greatest gifts, your greatest strength, and your greatest power. Shakespear didn’t give up, he found a loop hole to something more amazing.  To a new creation that wasn’t built on somebody else’s foundation. Which meant somebody else’s land wasn’t in control of shapeakears destiny, he was. He took control of his own life and was not subjected to somebody else’s condition. It gave him freedom and creativity to be independent and have creative control .

Sometimes finding our SELF can mean losing ourselves, but it does not mean failure, it means growth… it means movement.. but before this moment we need stillness, quiet, and silence for the self to emerge, for the self to be part of the journey, helping us to move forward with the solutions…knowing we are heading in the right direction. 

Our ‘self’ our inner being can be heard in the stillness. In the theta brainwave that we create with stillness, comes the solutions.

But what if our brain is too busy to be still? What if our bodies our full up of adrenaline that was created early on in life, when we don’t have our ‘Self?’ Then we have to find a way to be still, but stillness can bring emotion, that we fear. We fear the emotions of coming home to ourself.

Shakespear I am sure had his head in his hands for a while, distraughts with the contemplation of losing his livelihood. I am sure he had to grieve what had been spent ages creating and I am sure there was a time of nothing, but he did not stay there. His used this process and time and emotion to find a loop hole, to pivot, dismantle and recreate.

Life, business, family, can all have these moments where we think it is all over and we find ourselves in that place of nothingness and having to start all over again. It can be beyond emotional, confusing and full of mess but we have a choice, we can be still, process the emotions, listen carefully in the silence, with the gift we have been given, and process the grief to find a new way to find new solutions, or we can stay stuck. The gift is the stillness and silence we find ourselves in. The invisibleness of grief and change is there to give us the space to forge a new way for growth. If we turn our backs on this gift and force life back to busy, then we don’t allow ourselves enough time to embrace our gifts, our growth, and our destiny.

We think we have control, but when we understand that we can let go of control and move with the river, it allows us the freedom to embrace the moments of silence, to pivot, twist and turn, listening to the whispers of your soul, so we never have to leave her behind. (your self, your child within) create your base.

Have you built your self on someone else’s land? Are you the driver in your life?

Love on the inside is a place to pivot.