I have a quirk. I stick Post-it notes along the bottom edge of my monitor. They hold reminders, thoughts, and one-liners I want to remember and return to. Most come down after a few weeks, but this one has been there for eighteen months.
I've spent the last few years studying Hakomi, an experiential psychotherapy that uses mindfulness and somatic awareness to understand how we move through the world.
What's written on that Post-it is one of the first principles they taught us. The longer I've lived with it, the more I've found myself bringing it into coaching, parenting, marriage, and even entrepreneurship.
At first, the idea seemed too simple, yet impossible to embody. My instinct has always been to do something: fix the problem, figure it out, and push harder. For more than twenty years, that was my operating system because doing always felt safer than just being. I learned different expressions of this from my parents, counselors, teachers, and coaches.
This little note has become an invitation to loosen years of conditioning and relax into what the moment is handing me.
I find myself returning to it every day. Before a coaching session. In the middle of one, when a client is struggling and I feel the urge to rescue them. Before morning pages, when there's so much I want to express. In the throes of a creative block, when I'm tempted to muscle my way through instead of staying with what's here.
Most days it's exactly the reminder I need, and I can feel my body respond as soon as I take it in. My shoulders drop, my breath slows, and my jaw unclenches.
Nothing to do.
Nothing to fix.
Nothing to figure out.
Just be with what's unfolding.