The Morning That Changed the Way I Move Through Life

For as long as I can remember, I've been someone who rushes.

Rushing from one task to the next. Always running a little late. Thinking three steps ahead. Living with the feeling that if I could just get everything done, then I'd finally be able to relax.

It's a way of moving through life that had become so familiar, I barely noticed it.

My daughter, Lyra, couldn't be more different.

She'll be rushed by nobody.

She notices everything.

She stops to look at flowers on the walk to school, asks thoughtful questions that make me see the world differently, and takes her time making even the smallest decisions. She remembers details I've long forgotten and plans everything with remarkable care.

I love these qualities about her. They are part of who she is.

But there was a time when our different ways of moving through the world often clashed.

One morning, I was trying to get us out of the door for school.

You know the kind of morning.

Running late.

Thinking about everything I still had to do once I'd dropped her off.

Mentally ticking through the rest of the day before it had even begun.

Meanwhile, Lyra was carefully deciding which teddy should come with her to school that day.

I asked her to put her shoes on.

She carried on thinking about the teddy.

I asked again, and again...

Eventually, my frustration got the better of me.

"Why can you never just do what I've asked you to do?"

She looked at me, her little face suddenly sad, and quietly said,

"Mummy... sometimes I think that I'm annoying."

My heart broke.

In that instant, I realised something that hadn't occurred to me before.

She hadn't experienced my rushing as my rushing.

She had experienced it as herself being the problem, because in my franticly hurried state, I had communicated it in that way.

Of course I apologised. I held her, reassured her and explained that she wasn't annoying at all. My frustration had nothing to do with who she was. It was the result of how I was feeling and how I had been moving through my own life.

But that moment stayed with me, it became one of those moments that quietly changes you. Not overnight, but enough that you begin to ask different questions.

I started to notice how often I was rushing.

Not because I actually needed to, but because rushing had become my default setting.

I wasn't just hurrying through tasks.

I was hurrying through conversations.

Through meals.

Through walks.

Through moments that deserved my attention.

The irony was that the qualities I loved most in Lyra—her curiosity, her thoughtfulness, her ability to notice the world around her—were the very qualities my rushing made it difficult for me to appreciate in the moment.

That experience taught me something I return to often.

Creating space isn't about slowing down for the sake of it.

It's about being present enough to experience the life that's happening in front of us.

Sometimes life genuinely is busy.

The goal isn't to eliminate those moments.

It's to notice when rushing has become our default, even when it no longer serves us.

For me, that morning became the beginning of asking a different question.

Not, "How can I get through this day?"

But, "How do I want to move through it?"

That morning didn't teach me never to rush again.

Life is still busy, there are still mornings when we're running late and days when everything feels like it's happening at once.

What changed was my awareness.

I began to notice when I was rushing because life genuinely required it, and when I was rushing simply because I'd become used to living that way.

If you've ever wondered what you might be missing in the momentum of everyday life, I've created a free guide to help you begin noticing the small patterns that often go unseen.

Find your free 'Learning To Notice' guide here: Resources