At 2pm on a Friday, my boss’ insolvency lawyer wanted something from me within two hours. I was halfway out the door on my day off. For the first time in years, I said no. It felt far more powerful than any self-help book has ever managed. Anyone who’s been in the self-help world for more than 5 minutes has heard the old trope of reclaiming their power a million times over. Most people envisage that as sounding loud and brash - I’ll make big decisions, you’ll be hearing big announcements, my confidence will smash through the roof. But it doesn’t look or feel anything like that. I think real power is incredibly quiet. It’s saying no when you’d normally say yes. It’s walking away without needing the last word. It’s deciding that today you’re going to write instead of scrolling. It’s planting tomatoes. It’s switching the bloody news off. It’s not reacting to the idiot on Facebook. It’s making your own lunch instead of buying meal deals because you can’t be arsed. Power isn’t dramatic. It’s cumulative. Every tiny choice says, “This is the sort of person I’m becoming.” I spent years believing power lived somewhere outside me. That if I got a bit more money, another qualification for the wall, did another course, read another book, consumed another YouTube video, I’d hold all the power cards. Turns out, I wasn’t lacking power, I was leaking it. A little bit here. A little bit there. I was expecting the next shiny thing to be the step up to the top of the podium when all the time it was already inside me. My power came from telling the insolvency lawyer to bog off ‘til Monday. It came from sitting on my back steps watching the sun come up. It comes from growing my own food (as much as I can), spending time without my phone, not watching any terrestrial TV or news, using cash 99% of the time and cooking my meals from scratch. My power is my quiet rebellion. My refusal to be dragged into the mainstream narratives. I think that’s what a lot of people are feeling at the moment. Like there’s nothing they can do to change all the bullshit going on around them. With one eye on the news, another on social media, another worrying about bills, another wondering whether AI’s going to steal their job.

I love the Spring and Autumn. But the last 2 weeks of May and the first 2 weeks of June have you be my favourite time of the year.