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

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.

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?