I recently recorded an episode of Big Bad Beautiful Brains with my guest, Sophie the Great, and she said something that’s been echoing in my head ever since: not every action or interaction needs a positive or negative emotion attached to it.
Some things can just… happen.
It sounds simple, but for me — someone with an AuDHD brain that constantly scans for patterns, meanings, and emotional temperature — it’s been a quietly transformative thought. I’ve always had this instinct to understand every moment, to label it, categorise it, and decide what it means for me. Was that good or bad? Did I do something wrong? Should I have done more? Less?
But Sophie’s perspective reminded me that the world doesn’t always need our analysis. Sometimes, life just unfolds — neutrally, beautifully, or awkwardly — and that’s enough.
What’s helped me connect even more deeply with that idea is something my hypnotherapist once told me: to treat thoughts like leaves on a stream. You can notice them as they drift by — some large, some small, some colourful or dark — but you don’t have to pick them up or follow where they go. Just acknowledge they’re there, and let them float away.
It takes space to do that. Space to pause before reacting, to slow the current down just enough to see what’s actually happening rather than what we think is happening. For someone like me, whose brain runs at a hundred tabs open at once, that space is everything. It’s where perspective lives.
When I manage to create that gap — between the thing that happens and the way I respond — life feels gentler. I can sense when something needs my energy, and when it’s okay to let it pass by untouched. And the more I practise that, the more I realise how much unnecessary noise I’d been carrying by reacting to everything.
This isn’t about apathy. It’s about peace. It’s about learning that neutrality can be just as valid as passion, and that not everything in life requires a verdict.
So thank you, Sophie the Great, for helping me see that stillness isn’t absence. Sometimes it’s wisdom. And sometimes the kindest thing we can do — for our minds, our relationships, and our creativity — is to simply let things happen.
Oh, and thanks to Dawes for the title of this post.