The Day I Cancelled Half My Plans

This week was full on. On the hottest day of the year, I had five things in my calendar.

A one-to-one coffee in the city at 10am. A networking event at midday. Online meetings at 2.30pm, another at 5pm, then back into the city at 6pm to go to the theatre with my daughter. It was a good day on paper. It was also tightly packed, with very little room to breathe.

At around 10.30am, I realised I was having such a good conversation over coffee that I did not want to leave. I did not want to start checking the time or rushing away from something valuable and enjoyable because I had overbooked myself. So I decided to ditch the networking event and that one decision changed the texture of the whole day. I could relax into the conversation and be completely present without having to watch the clock. When I left, I did not have to charge through the city with my mind already on the next thing. I wandered instead, truly appreciating my beautiful city in the summer sunshine. I had time to visit my favourite spiritual shop, browse without hurrying, buy a couple of books and some divination cards.

I remembered that the day was mine and I could call all the shots. So later, I decided to skip the theatre too. The temperature was heading towards 30 degrees, and sitting inside a hot theatre suddenly felt less like a treat and more like an endurance test. Later, as the sun began to drop, my daughters and I took a picnic to the grounds of the beautiful Buddhist centre near where I live. Instead of sitting inside a sweltering theatre, we ate in a field beneath the evening sky, listening to the sounds of nature and watching the sun set.

It was not the day I had planned.

It was better.

The day reminded me that we are human 'beings', not human 'doings': we can get so caught up, give ourselvers so much to 'do' that we forget to just 'be'.

Since then, I have returned more intentionally to my meditation practice which had also taken a bit of a back seat. The messages that have kept surfacing for me have been about water, creativity and flow.

So I acted on them.

I bought a small indoor fountain. I booked myself onto a wild swim at the lake. I started paying attention to what was making me feel more alive, rather than treating those things as optional extras to be squeezed in after everything important was done.

And something shifted. My energy felt different. I felt more open, less constricted and less preoccupied with controlling how the day should unfold. Interestingly, several business opportunities also appeared that day. Now, I am not suggesting that buying a water fountain caused work to fall from the sky. That would be convenient, but a slightly questionable business strategy.

What I do believe is that when we stop living in a state of 'by me' - pressure, obligation and perpetual postponement, where everything has to be done now and it has to be done 'by me' - we become more available; to conversations, ideas, intuition, and opportunities we might miss when our attention is consumed by the next appointment, the next task, or the next thing we think we should be doing.

We often imagine that life will feel better when the diary is clearer, the work is finished, the money arrives, the children are settled, the business is successful, or the difficult season has passed. But how we live today is how we are living our life. Not later. Not when everything is sorted. Now.

Living in what I call 'through me', the level of consciousness that is closely aligned with being in a 'flow' state, does not mean abandoning responsibility or cancelling everything whenever we fancy a wander around the shops. It means noticing when our plans are serving us and when we are slaves to the plans.

It means allowing ourselves to ask: What would make this day feel more spacious, more meaningful or more alive?

Sometimes the answer will be to follow through, show up and stick to your plans. Sometimes it will be to change them. The important part is learning to recognise the difference. And allowing yourself to choose to change them without guilt or regret.

I am grateful for my decision to ditch and the theatre this week because from that simple act came the reminder I had been needing: slow down, return to spaciousness and let the universe weave its magic.

Making It Intentional

This week, notice one place where you are rushing, forcing or enduring something simply because it was the original plan.

Pause and ask whether it still deserves your time. If you need to rest or reset or simply develop the muscle of saying no, then allow yourself to change the plan: you do not have to earn the right to feel good by making yourself complete everything.

Your Next Step

If you have reached the point where coping or masking is no longer enough, if you are ready to stop asking, “Why do these things always happen to me?” and start asking, “Who am I now, and what do I want next?” And if you are willing to look honestly at what no longer serves you and let go of it, the Breakthrough Sessions will help you rewrite the script and change your trajectory.

The women I work with say time and again that the first noticeable feeling they experience is a profound sense of relief from what had been quietly dragging them down. They begin to fall in love with themselves again - the version who was always purposeful, confident and excited about what comes next who just got lost along the way. With the Breakthrough Sessions, a new future is always available.