I went in with a plan.
Three reflective questions.
A small ritual.
A quiet hope that we’d meet in the same vibration.
But like Tyson says,
everybody has a plan until they’re punched in the mouth.
What he doesn’t say — but what he’s lived — is that the punch doesn’t just break the plan.
It reveals your reflexes.
And reflexes can be trained.
So when I got that text — the one that showed we were nowhere near the same complementary vibration — I felt that little jolt. Not pain, exactly. Just the sudden awareness that the road I pictured was not the road I was walking.
In the past, that’s where I would’ve forced the plan, or abandoned it.
Fight or flight dressed up as strategy.
This time, I regrouped.
Not by thinking harder.
Not by tightening my focus.
But by loosening it — the way you do in martial arts when the opponent isn’t where you expected them to be.
Listen.
Breathe.
Don’t chase.
Don’t resist.
Let your training rise.
Scripts wouldn’t help me here.
Scripts get written after the moment and reenacted like theater.
This wasn’t theater.
This was live movement.
So instead of deploying my questions, I listened for signals — not just words, but tone, timing, texture. The invisible vibrations people give off when they’re not sure what they want but feel something slipping.
Listening like that means hearing from multiple perspectives at once:
your own, theirs, the kids’, the whole field’s.
Not predicting — sensing.
And here’s the thing most people forget:
We’re not in physical danger.
Our bodies might react as if we are — heart racing, breath shortening, muscles preparing for something that never arrives — but in these family moments, the danger is almost always perceptual.
We’re confused, not threatened.
And confusion can be breathed through.
Confusion can be listened through.
When you hold that truth long enough —
that nothing bad is actually happening,
just multiple nervous systems trying to find rhythm —
you discover your reflexes are better than your plan.
And your training carries you farther than your plan ever could.
⛩️🌿
