Feel good now, not feel good when.

Last night, very impromptu, I went to see Derren Brown’s Only Human.

I saw the billboard as I drove past te theatre - the last night of the run in Edinburgh (why I am unexpectedly in Edinburgh is another story!). 'Bound to be sold out' I told myself and nearly left it there. But curiosity got the better of me so I checked out the website.  There was a single ticket left.  I didn't need any more encouragement from the universe. Four hours later I was in the audience, having my mind bent and blown by an incredible showman. I am in a season of saying yes to the things that excite me before my sensible brain gets involved with an inventory of reasons why I should say no. And I'm loving it.

There was one idea from the show that made me smile and nod with approval and resonance: Our future is how we live our today.

Think about that for a moment.

So many of us spend years waiting for our life to feel different. We tell ourselves we’ll live our best lives when...

When things calm down.

When the children are older.

When work is less demanding.

When we’ve lost the weight.

When we’ve got more money.

When we feel more confident.

When nobody needs quite so much from us.

When we’ve finally earned the right to choose ourselves.

I'm sorry to say this but that is a costly lie we tell ourselves. If we keep putting things off, the things that make us feel alive, then that IS our life - today and tomorrow, and tomorrow.....

Somewhere along the way, we learned to talk ourselves out of our own aliveness, saying no when we mean yes and yes when we mean no. We convince ourselves that the thing we want is too much trouble, too expensive, too risky, too selfish, too late, too silly, too inconvenient. And before we know it, the woman who used to want things has been systematically buried under responsibility, practicality and other people’s expectations.

This week, someone sent me Donna Ashworth’s poem Remember Her, and it stopped me in my tracks because it carries the exact message I bring to the women I work with. She writes about the “little firecracker” inside us. The part of us that wanted to take the risk and say yes to the adventure, experiencing more of this strange and precious thing called life. 

I think most of us have heard her and ignored her. I know I certainly did, having spent far too long in situations, jobs, relationships, health patterns and ways of thinking that kept me playing small - a bit part in the movie of my own life rather than the leading lady.

And it's rarely deliberate or intentional. Life just happens, right? Responsibilities take over. People need us. We become useful, reliable, sensible and needed. There is nothing wrong with any of those things. But if we are not careful, we start mistaking them for being fully alive. We start accepting a version of ourselves that functions well, but doesn’t feel much joy.

We tell ourselves stories.

I can’t.

I’ve left it too late.

What if I make a fool of myself?

What if people judge me?

What if it doesn’t work?

What if I’m too old for that now?

What if I’ve changed too much?

What if I haven’t changed enough?

These are the hidden thought patterns most of us fall foul of that keep us from living our life fully and 'in the now'.

The stories we tell ourselves sound perfectly reasonable. That’s what makes them so powerful. But underneath, they are often old patterns running the show. Old beliefs that propbably weren't even ours to begin with. Fears and old identities we forgot to question.

They are tricky though because they hide in plain sight. We don't (or won't) see them ourselves, much less ask others to point them out to us! But until we uncover those patterns, we will keep trying to build a new life from the same old script and wonder why nothing we try seems to create lasting change.

That’s why “feel good now, not feel good when” matters. I'm not advocating abandoning your responsibilities, selling everything you own and moving to Bali because someone on Instagram told you Mercury was in retrograde and the firehorse energy means now or never! 

I'm afraid its much less sexy than that. It is about noticing where you have made your own joy conditional. It is about asking:

What am I waiting for permission to do?

Where have I made myself smaller than I really am?

What have I been saying no to, even though something in me lights up when I think about it?

Because your future is not created in some distant moment when everything is finally sorted. It is created in the choices you make today. That little firecracker inside you needs you to stop pretending she isn’t there before another decade goes by where you look back and wish you'd acted sooner.

Making It Intentional

This week, say yes to one thing you genuinely want to do but have been talking yourself out of.

It doesn’t have to be huge.

Book the ticket.

Start the conversation.

Go to the class.

Write the plan.

Take the first step.

Notice the excuse that appears first, because that’s useful information. Then choose do do it anyway. And if you do, I’d love you to email me and tell me what happened.

Your Next Step

If it’s time to find your firecracker again — the part of you that still wants more from this singular, extraordinary life — this is exactly the kind of work we do inside The Breakthrough Sessions.

We uncover the hidden beliefs, old patterns and quiet stories that have been keeping you stuck, so you can begin to move forward with more clarity, courage and self-trust.

Click on the link to find out more about The Breakthrough Sessions 

You might just make her smile.