I Only Meant to Open My Laptop...

What if changing your life begins with the choices you barely notice you're making?

I was up early the other morning with a cup of tea and had something I wanted to do before I forgot what it was, so I got my laptop out.

I thought I'd better get dressed first, though.

On the way, I noticed a cup and plate that needed taking into the kitchen. Then I spotted some gift bags that needed putting away, which reminded me there were more gift bags in the summerhouse.

So off I went to the summerhouse.

After a couple of weeks of heatwave weather, there were a few cobwebs that needed clearing. Then I noticed the top of the cupboard needed dusting — too much incense dust. And the crystals. And some photographs. Obviously, they all needed doing too. 😂

Somewhere in the middle of all this, I pulled a Tarot card and got The High Priestess, which was a bit ironic. She's very much about inner knowing, intuition and listening to yourself — and I'd literally just spent the last few weeks writing about learning to listen to yourself again.

You'd think I might have taken the hint.

Instead, I noticed the tealights needed replacing. 😂

Eventually I made it back into the house to get dressed, decided I should have a shower first, remembered there was washing in the tumble dryer, emptied it, folded everything, put it away and somehow ended up with the ironing board out.

And it was still only 8am.

Meanwhile, my brain had been doing exactly the same thing. In the shower, one thought about an email led to a thought about using my Sleep Sanctuary rituals differently.

Then I started thinking about people I was fascinated by years ago — healers like Harry Edwards and Betty Shine, and mediums like Doris Stokes — back when healing was still often called faith healing and Reiki was hardly heard of in the UK.

That got me thinking about how much my own understanding of healing has changed over the years, and suddenly I had the beginnings of another Piece in my head.

All perfectly interesting things that I genuinely might come back to.

But the laptop was still sitting there.

I started thinking about how often my brain works like this. One thing creates another thought, which reminds me of something else, which sends me somewhere else entirely. Every step makes perfect sense from the one before it.

Laptop to clothes to cup to gift bags to summerhouse to cobwebs to crystals to Tarot to tealights to washing to ironing.

No wonder I sometimes reach the end of the day wondering what happened to the thing I actually meant to do. 😂

The thing is, I don't particularly want to change that part of myself. My brain makes connections. I get curious. One idea creates another. It's part of how I write, how I work and how I notice things.

I just don't have to follow every branch the moment it appears.

And that was the bit that interested me, because none of the choices I made that morning was wrong. The cup needed moving, the cobwebs needed clearing and the washing certainly wasn't going to fold itself.

They just weren't the thing I'd chosen to do.

We tend to think about making different choices as the big things: changing jobs, leaving relationships, moving house, starting again.

But I wonder how much of our lives is shaped by much smaller choices that have become so automatic we barely notice we're making them.

Saying yes before we've thought about whether we want to. Doing what somebody else needs before what we'd planned for ourselves. Keeping quiet because it's easier. Putting something off until next week. Filling our time with perfectly useful things while avoiding the one thing we actually meant to do.

None of those things necessarily feels like a choice at the time. It's simply what we do because it's what we've always done.

And perhaps making a different choice doesn't have to mean doing the complete opposite or turning your life upside down. It might happen in a tiny moment when you notice yourself heading down the familiar route and decide, just this once, not to.

I've been trying two ridiculously simple things since that morning.

The first is FIRST THING FIRST. Start the thing I consciously decided to do before following the next interesting thought.

And when another good idea inevitably arrives: NOT NOW — GOOD IDEA. I can write it down, rather than disappearing off to investigate it immediately.

I'm not trying to stop the branches. I quite like the branches. They're part of me.

I'm just trying to choose which one I follow.

Ask yourself this...

Is there somewhere in your life where you're making the same choice without really noticing you're still choosing it?

Maybe it's saying yes, staying quiet, putting yourself last, putting something off or simply doing what you've always done because that's the direction you automatically go in.

You don't need to make an enormous change. Just see if you can catch one of those little moments this week and ask yourself:

What might happen if, just this once, I chose slightly differently?

I'm not trying to become a different person. I'm just noticing the little places where I can choose differently while still being completely myself.

Although opening the laptop would be a start. 😂

with love

Rosy x