I was trimming the hedge when the phone rang.

The cancer clinic.

A welcome break, actually. A chance to sit in the shade, cool off, and not pretend for a moment that hedge trimming was the most important thing on my agenda.

The conversation was straightforward. A few questions.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“No.”
“Yes.”

Routine. Clinical. Almost casual.

Then there was a pause.

She said she needed to ask me something that they ask all cancer patients.

I didn’t know what was coming, but based on the tone, I said, “Go ahead.”

“Have you made any end-of-life plans?”

I couldn’t help myself.

“You mean what I’m going to do after I die?”

She laughed. Thankfully.

Before she could respond, I said, “I know what you mean… and yes, we’ve talked about it. Just nothing formal yet.”

We carried on. Light. Easy. Another five minutes.

And then the call ended.

And about five seconds later…

It hit.

A wave of emotion that didn’t ask for permission.

“This just got real.”

Not the kind of real that lives in medical charts or appointment schedules.
The kind that shows up in your chest.
The kind that tightens things.

The kind that whispers…

This might not turn out the way you want.

And here’s what struck me.

Nothing had actually changed.

The diagnosis didn’t suddenly become more serious.
The timeline didn’t shift.
The facts were exactly the same as they were ten minutes earlier… while I was arguing with a hedge.

But my experience?

Completely different.

Welcome to the Thinkiverse.

That moment… that wave… that very real feeling of “this is happening”…

It was real.

And it was created.

Thought, doing what thought does best… building a world so convincing we forget we built it.

A world filled with outcomes, timelines, what-ifs, and quiet little horror stories that feel like previews of the future.

For a moment, I was all in.

Fully subscribed.

Premium membership.

And then… just as quickly…

Something shifted.

Not because I did anything.

Not because I coached myself, breathed deeply, or repeated a mantra.

Something simpler.

I noticed.

I saw how quickly I had been pulled into a reality created by thought.
Not wrong. Not bad. Just… created.

And in that noticing, something loosened.

The world of “doom and gloom” didn’t need to be fought or fixed.

It just… dissolved.

And something else appeared.

A quieter space.

A little more room to breathe.

Same circumstance. Different experience.

No effort required.

Why this matters (especially this month)

We’re in Mental Health Awareness Month.

And we hear a lot about managing thoughts, coping with feelings, and building resilience.

All valuable conversations.

But here’s something worth gently exploring…

What if our experience is more fluid than we think?

What if the intensity of a moment… even one that feels deeply personal and very real… is being shaped from the inside out?

Not by the diagnosis.

Not by the phone call.

But by thought, moving through in real time.

This isn’t about denying reality.

The cancer is there.

The appointments are real.

The conversations matter.

But the experience of all of it?

That seems to move.

Shift.

Change… sometimes in seconds.

David Bohm said it this way:

Thought creates the world… and then says it didn’t.

And Albert Einstein, in his own way, pointed to something similar when he said life is an illusion… albeit a convincing one.

So where does that leave us?

Not with something to do.

Not with a strategy to apply.

But maybe with something to notice.

That even in moments that feel overwhelming…
even in conversations we didn’t expect to have…

our experience isn’t fixed.

It moves.

And sometimes, without any effort at all, it finds its way back to something quieter.

Something steadier.

A gentle reflection

If our experience can shift this quickly…

If an entire world of “this is serious” can rise and fall in a matter of moments…

What else might be more fluid than we’ve been led to believe?

For me, that’s worth sitting with.

Not to fix anything.

Not to change anything.

Just to see what’s already happening… in real time.

And maybe, just maybe…

to not get too seduced by every thought that comes along for the ride.

Couldn’t hurt.

With much love,