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Lately, I’ve been thinking about commitment. Not the big, dramatic kind. Marriage, mortgages, life-changing decisions. I mean the everyday kind. Making a plan and keeping it. Booking something in advance. Choosing to be somewhere next Thursday even though we don’t yet know exactly how we’ll feel next Thursday. I’ve noticed it increasingly in my own work. More last-minute cancellations, but interestingly, more last-minute bookings too. People wanting to come to a class, workshop or event, but waiting until the very last moment to decide. And it made me wonder: when did we become so afraid to commit? It isn’t only wellness. We do it with dinners, friendships, relationships, holidays, plans and even our own self-care. We keep things loose. We say “maybe”. We wait and see. We tell ourselves we’ll book the yoga class on the day, meditate if we have time, rest when everything else is finished. Perhaps somewhere along the way, keeping our options open became synonymous with freedom. But I’m beginning to wonder if the opposite can sometimes be true. There is something incredibly grounding about deciding that something matters and creating space for it before everything else rushes in. Because commitment isn’t really about the booking. It’s saying, I have decided this deserves a place in my life. There will always be days when we genuinely need to change our plans. Bodies get tired. Children get sick. Work happens. Life happens. This isn’t about forcing ourselves to show up when something inside us is asking us to stop. But there is a difference between listening to ourselves and never committing to ourselves in the first place. Some of the most transformative things in our lives require repetition. Relationships deepen because we continue to meet each other. A yoga practice changes us because we return to the mat. Healing unfolds because we keep meeting ourselves. Community grows because the same people choose, again and again, to show up. Depth requires us to stay with something for long enough that it can actually touch us. Maybe that’s what I’m thinking about this week. Not what else can I fit into my life? But what matters enough for me to commit to it? What deserves a protected place in my diary, my relationships, my energy, my body? And perhaps most importantly: where am I waiting to see if I have time for myself, instead of deciding that I do?
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