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I Cancelled the Alarm and Fell Back to Sleep
How are you? I hope you’re well. This morning we woke up at 8.30, not 7.30 like the plan. Charlie had school gates closing at 8.40. We’d watched the football final the night before – I’m not even that into football, but “It’s the world final, it only happens every four years, Mum!” so I gave in.
Ten minutes. That’s what we had, from bed to school gate.
There was a time I’d have panicked and snapped. A sharp voice before I’d even said good morning. Rushing round the kitchen narrating the disaster out loud – “we’re going to be late, oh my god, come on, come on” – as if saying it faster would somehow get us there faster. The day starting on the back foot for both of us, and staying there.
This morning didn’t go that way. We laughed about sleeping in – I’d cancelled the alarm without realising and fallen straight back to sleep. We got dressed at speed, walked fast instead of panicking, and got there on time. Nothing about the situation was different. I was.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand: power isn’t the loud version of yourself. It was never the version who could out-shout the chaos or control every variable so nothing ever went wrong. That’s not power, that’s running on empty and calling it coping. Real power is quieter and much less dramatic than that. It’s the half-second gap between realising something’s gone wrong and what you do next. It’s choosing the joke over the snap. Not because you don’t feel the stress – I felt it, standing in that kitchen – but because you’ve decided the stress doesn’t get to drive.
Nobody hands you that gap. You build it, morning by ordinary morning, mostly in situations too small for anyone else to notice. Nobody’s writing about the school run or the missed alarm. But that’s exactly where it gets practised. Not in the big dramatic moments – in the ten minutes you didn’t have.
I still don’t always get it right. Some mornings the old version shows up first, and I catch her halfway through a sentence. That’s not failure. That’s just the gap being a little smaller than the panic, some days. What’s changed isn’t that I’ve become a calm person. It’s that I now know calm is a decision I make in real time, not a personality I either have or don’t.
This week, notice one moment where something goes sideways – small, ordinary, nothing dramatic. The kettle that won’t work. The message that lands wrong. The plan that changes without asking you.
In that moment, before you react on autopilot, ask yourself one question: what response do I actually want to have here?
Then choose it. Not perfectly. Just once, on purpose.
Write down what happened afterwards, in one sentence. Not “I’m working on my reactions” – something real: “The oven timer went off at the worst moment and I didn’t snap. I just moved the pan.”
Then build on it, one decision at a time.
With love and best wishes always,
Susy
P.S. What’s one small moment this week where you chose your reaction instead of it choosing you? And if you’d like to talk properly about what’s underneath these moments, that’s exactly what a Connection Call is for – a real, free conversation, no pressure.