The magic of AND

Today I’m sitting here watching the minutes tick by and panicking slightly – my inner voice goes: I have to write that blog post but I have to get the ferry at 1150.. but there’s so much packing and cleaning to do.

I could do it on the boat but there’s not enough time … 

I could do it when I stop for lunch but there’s always so many people in the services …

I could do it tomorrow but there might not be time before I have to leave …

I’m wasting so much energy and time on all these BUTs.

When’s there’s magic to be found when BUT becomes AND…

I could write that blog post and I have to get the ferry at 1150.. .and there’s so much packing and cleaning to do.

I could do it on the boat and there’s not enough time … 

I could do it when I stop for lunch and there’s so many people in the services …

I could do it tomorrow and there might not be time before I have to leave …

Suddenly I’m creating possibilities with AND -

I could write it now probably. After all, I usually get things done faster than I think. And if it’s not quite finished, that will be easy to do later.

And I can do some on the boat if I take my laptop up from the car deck with me. And it will be quiet at that time of day.

I could check it and upload the photos over lunch.

If all else fails, I can upload it tomorrow and there is some flexibility in timing. And hey presto! there’s the plan

St Ninian’s chapel, Isle of Bute, Scotland

When I’m writing nowadays, and BUT slips out, I change it to AND to see what happens. It changes the framing.

BUT comes from either/or thinking that excludes the possibilities that lie inside both ~ and.

It is not an exaggeration to say that becoming aware of my either/or thinking changed my life. Either/or reduces choice to a single option. Both ~ and opens up choices.

Replacing that slash / with the ~ (tilde) became so important to me that I’ll have to write another post about it.

We are this, and we are that. Original painting by Lynne Cameron. Acrylic on paper.

AND now I have to pack and clean to make sure I get that ferry!

Where in your life are you doing either/or thinking? What possibilities are brought into the picture when you change the framing, and replace BUT with AND?