Once we bring awareness to our patterns, we get to free ourselves from them.

When I was a little girl, we used to play a game with a flocks of birds. If a flock flew past, you would chant, “A flock of birds before my eyes, when will be my next surprise?” and you had to keep your eyes on the birds until someone else answered with a day and a time. If you looked away or the birds disappeared before the answer came, then no “surprise” was to be yours.

At the time, it felt innocent enough, but looking back on my healing journey, I discovered how much anxiety this little game wove into my system. It planted a subtle belief that unless I completed something within a certain time frame, I would lose out or fail.

As an adult, this played out in so many subconscious ways. For example:
If I put the kettle on, I would give myself the task of making toast with toppings before the kettle clicked off. If I succeeded, I’d subconsciously tell myself my day would be good. But if I didn’t, either something would go wrong or my day was spoiled.
Locking my gate became a race to reach the car before a made-up “deadline.”
Sometimes even unpacking groceries had to be done before the oven timer beeped.
Or replying to an email before the little notification sound stopped ringing in my ears.

None of these “rules” were conscious choices, but they created constant background pressure, a sense of racing against invisible clocks. And that invisible pressure became anxiety.

The beauty is, once we bring awareness to these hidden patterns, we get to free ourselves from them. We can re-teach our nervous system that life is not a race, that presence is enough, and that surprises come not from how quickly we move but from how deeply we live.

Have you ever noticed little subconscious “rules” from your childhood that still sneak into your adult life?

~ Angy-Lee ~
Our Heart Centre 💚🌱