When You Almost Miss the Thing That Would Have Saved You

Blog 11: The grip of should

The Negotiation

I almost missed it again.

Hunched over my laptop, listing vintage items on Marketplace - one after another, I could feel a subtle war happening inside my body. My heart rate quickened. My shoulders pulled tight. My jaw clenched hard - the physical signs of a pattern I knew by heart. Outside, spring was unfolding without me, while inside, I was caught in the trance of productivity. The cursor blinked, hypnotic and demanding. Just one more listing. Then another. The afternoon light was shifting, shadows lengthening across my desk, as I silently negotiated with myself about the walk I'd promised to take.

Too late now, whispered the voice of efficiency in my head. Too cold. Too cloudy. Too much still to do. Seemed absolutely valid

Outside, life was blooming. Inside, she was still trying to earn her way to it.

But….my body knew the truth. I was looking for permission to stay captive to my screen, to choose output over presence once more - and it was reminding me.

I knew it was go then or never, so I pushed away from my desk. But not without a hair of resistance. I could still feel the pull. The weight of everything left undone. The guilt of walking away before I'd earned it.

The Revelation

What the voice of productivity couldn't have known - what I couldn't have known when I finally forced myself out the door was how completely the world would transform once I stepped into it.

The world had gone still. As if nature paused, just long enough to be seen.

The cloudy sky that had been my latest excuse became a perfect silver canopy, holding the green of spring in a soft, diffused light that reminded me instantly of Ireland. The neighborhood was eerily, perfectly still, not a single car, not a single person interrupting the connection between feet and earth, breath and air.

The tension in my chest began to dissolve. Each step loosened the grip of should that had been quietly coiled around my heart. The flowers weren’t just blooming, they pulsed, quietly insistent, like they’d been alive the whole time, just waiting to be seen. The trees felt like old friends - their aged wisdom offering comfort and peace. Everything vibrated with a gentle aliveness that I would have completely missed if I hadn’t stepped away.

It felt as though the fairies themselves were peeking from behind bushes, dancing in my wake as I passed.

I returned home with nothing tangible to show for my time. No steps counted. No calories burned. No profound insights recorded. No podcast listened to and checked off. Just the quiet remembering of what wonder feels like in the body.

The Rage

It wasn't until days later that the fire ignited within me.

I was reflecting on the beauty of that moment and the hesitation that nearly stole it. That negotiation with myself about whether I “deserved” to step away from work - still silently shaping my choices. And then something cracked open. Not with sadness, but with rage.

How dare this programming still have such a hold on me?

After all the spiritual work, all the healing, all the conscious awareness of these exact patterns…there it was again. The matrix of productivity, running silently in the background of my operating system, nearly overriding my connection to beauty and wonder.

Clarity doesn't always feel calm. Sometimes it burns through the noise with righteous heat.

I could feel the heat rising in my chest. The indignation. The absolute refusal.

This isn't just my pattern. It's the air we breathe. It's the water we drink. It's so normalized we don't even recognize it as programming anymore. We think it's just who we are. It’s just how we operate.

We're taught to prove our worth through what we finish, what we fix, what we give, what we produce. Even our rest gets folded back into performance - self-care becomes another thing to optimize, a walk becomes a workout, silence becomes recovery so we can be useful again.

The programming runs so deep that even when wonder appears - even when magic is literally dancing at the edges of our vision…..we hesitate. We calculate. We wonder if we've earned the right to witness it.

And in that moment of rage and clarity, I realized something: this isn't just about missed walks or nature's beauty. It's about the systematic dismantling of our capacity to exist without having to freaking justify it!!!

It's about how we've internalized the belief that our worth is tied to our output. That our presence must be earned through performance. That joy requires a reason.

It's about how we've been conditioned, right down to our nervous systems, to override the whispers of our own souls in service to a machine that was never made to nourish us.

And what enrages me most? How invisible it remains until you step far enough outside it to see the whole pattern. How it operates below conscious awareness, disguising itself as responsibility, as ambition, as purpose. How it convinces us that this constant state of productive anxiety is normal - that we're the problem if we can't keep pace.

No wonder wonder feels so fragile. We've spent a lifetime overriding it in the name of getting things done.

---

She almost missed it again. But this time, she chose the path that didn’t ask her to earn it.

The Resistance

Here's what changed in me during that walk - and in the days of reflection that followed. I caught it. I saw the spell for what it was, not just intellectually, but viscerally. I felt the exact moment when productivity tried to eat the whole day and hijack the whole experience - trying to convince me that listing vintage items was more valuable than communing with spring's unfolding.

And I chose differently.

Not because I had "earned" it this time - or because I had finished enough tasks to deserve joy. And not even because I could frame it as "self-care" that would make me more productive later.

I chose differently because I finally recognized the truth: wonder doesn't need to be earned. Beauty doesn't need a reason. And my presence in the world isn't validated by what I produce.

This is the spell most of us live under - the one that makes us hesitate before joy, that makes us feel we must earn every moment of beauty or awe. It's not that wonder disappeared. It's that productivity became our religion, purpose, our security and output. A measurement and a self-induced barometer of our worth.

The Return

This truth bomb hit me hard - the fact that I was still working in this loop and treating beauty like some reward I had to work for. Like wonder was a luxury I could only access after proving my worth through output. And realizing - that's the lie at the heart of it all. These things don't need to be earned. They're what we're made for.

In the days since that walk and the fire that followed, I catch myself about to override a moment of beauty for productivity, and sometimes….not always, but sometimes - I choose differently. I pause now to notice and allow myself to receive what's already there.

The real magic isn't in grand spiritual revelations or dramatic breakthroughs. It's in these small moments of choosing differently - of interrupting the trance just long enough to remember what's actually true. That we don't need to earn the right to feel alive.

I'm not fully free of the spell. None of us are. These patterns run deep, and they weren't installed overnight. But I'm learning to recognize them faster, to feel that moment of hesitation as an invitation rather than an obstacle.

And even when the voice of productivity tries to drown it out, wonder remains - patient, persistent, perfect - waiting for the moment we're brave enough to choose it again.

Love,
Sherry


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About the Author

Sherry writes from the space between dimensions—where presence meets paradox, and mastery gives way to meaning. With a background in metaphysical work and energetic healing that spans decades, her voice carries the imprint of lived wisdom - not as doctrine, but as invitation.

Her blog, It Exists (For Now), moves fluidly across themes of transformation, embodiment, remembrance, and the quiet revelations of everyday life. This is not writing to teach, fix, or convert. It’s a space to feel, question, soften, and come home to what’s already here.

Whether she’s naming what’s unraveling beneath the surface or tracing the shimmer of wonder returning, her words are less about offering answers—and more about walking with you through the liminal.