Looking again

Sometimes I sit down to write my weekly blog convinced that I have nothing, or very little to say.

This week brought no dramatic wildlife encounters, no significant milestones, or profound revelations.

It was just an ordinary week of family visits, soaring temperatures, frustrating technology, and watching life unfold from the shaded side of the garden.

Yet perhaps ordinary weeks have the most to teach us - if we're paying attention.

Last weekend we spent time with family, enjoying the simple pleasure of sitting outside together talking, and listening to the wind rustling the leaves of the golf course trees.

One particularly confident pigeon provided endless entertainment. After my stepdaughter absent-mindedly waved to it, it decided that it had received a personal invitation into their house. It repeatedly hopped up the garden steps towards the open door, completely convinced that it belonged inside.

It made us all smile, but it also made me wonder how often we do exactly the same thing.

• We all create stories from incomplete information.

• We assume that we know what someone meant.

• We assume that we know what they're thinking.

• We assume that we know how something will turn out.

Sometimes those assumptions help us make sense of the world. At other times, they quietly shape our decisions long before we've questioned whether they're actually true.

That theme appeared again during a coaching session this week. My client had some important realisations about some assumptions they had been making and the impact those assumptions were having on the choices that were available to them.

Nothing in their circumstances changed during our conversation, but their perspective did. Once they began to separate fact from assumption, entirely new possibilities started to emerge.

It struck me afterwards just how often this happens. The stories that we tell ourselves can become so familiar that we stop recognising them as stories at all.

Back at home, the heat meant most of my nature watching happened from the garden or from inside the house, where the air conditioning was doing its best to compete with the summer temperatures. Birds and their fledglings flocked to the water tray to bathe and cool themselves, then lay with their wings splayed in the sun.

A hedgehog visited each night to drink and wander around the garden before going under the fence to our neighbour’s feeding station. A confident cat lay in the corner of the garden under the shade of the trees, then sauntered across the garden staring at us as though we were the intruders as it walked slowly by.

Along the river, bees flocked to the newly flowering teasel, herons stood patiently waiting for prey, and lapwings circled above the shrinking pond, their distinctive kazoo like call signalling to their young that they were still within range.

Nature doesn't seem to spend much time making assumptions.

• The bees simply respond to the flowers as they appear.

• The herons wait rather than rush.

• The lapwings adapt to changing conditions.

They respond to what is, rather than worrying about what might be.

There were other moments this week that made me pause too.

My granddaughter won a surprise gold medal in her first rounders match to add to her growing collection of sports medals. My grandson had his first school sports day and was apparently less concerned about the races than delighted that his older sister was there to cheer him on.

My brother shared my nephews' school reports, offering lovely glimpses into two young people with very different personalities, supported by parents who are immensely proud of them both.

Those moments reminded me that encouragement matters. Being seen matters. Often it isn't the certificates or achievements that we remember most, but the people who quietly show up for us.

There were frustrations too.

I spent four days trying to resolve computer problems that ultimately left me wondering whether it's time to invest in a new computer - something that feels difficult when my coaching business is still finding its feet and I currently have no regular income. The same issues managed to lock me out of my university email account, making what should have been a productive week feel anything but.

As I sat thinking I'd achieved very little, I realised I was making an assumption there too. Because when I looked again, perhaps more had happened than I'd first recognised.

I'd spent precious time with family.

I'd enjoyed my first Chinese takeaway in over eight years - a real treat after living with coeliac disease.

We enjoyed a game of darts in the garden one evening once the temperature had become more manageable.

I'd witnessed a client discovering a new way of thinking.

I'd been developing ideas about connecting with local health and carers' organisations to introduce my coaching more widely, and started planning a local walking or netwalking group to bring people together and build connections within the community.

None of those things make dramatic headlines.

Some of them aren't even visible yet.

But not all progress announces itself or is outwardly obvious.

Sometimes, progress is simply a conversation that changes our thinking.

It could be a relationship that's growing stronger, an idea that's quietly taking shape, or a small step that will only make sense when we look back several months from now.

Perhaps that's the invitation this week.

To notice the assumptions that you've been carrying, and to ask yourself:

Is this something I know, or simply something that I've come to believe?

• Sometimes the stories we tell ourselves are true.

• Sometimes they're not.

• And sometimes, all it takes is a moment of curiosity to see things differently.

Life often invites us to pause, reflect, and look again.

What assumptions might be shaping your decisions today?

Progress doesn't always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it whispers.

What might you notice if you paused for long enough to listen?

Just don't ask the pigeon.

As far as it's concerned, it was definitely invited in!