There was a time when I thought planning was my superpower.
I could map out a trip like a strategist—measuring layovers like puzzle pieces, arranging departure times to align with sleep schedules and sunlight. A satisfying order would settle over me once the “final button” was clicked. The destination was chosen. The plan was made. Some corner of the future felt neatly put away.
And yet, more and more, I notice how rarely life goes as planned.
Looking back at the last few months, three out of four flights I’ve booked? I haven’t taken. I canceled them. Change them. Push them to a new day or a new city altogether. The destinations shift. The timelines move. What once felt certain softens around the edges.
At first, I thought it was a practical problem. Maybe I needed better forecasting. Stronger decision-making. More discipline. But the truth that kept nudging me was this: this isn’t about poor planning. This is about the deeper need to plan in the first place.
Why Planning Feels So Seductive
There’s something intoxicating about having a plan.
Plans give the illusion of direction. They whisper promises of preparedness and control. They let us tuck away a corner of the future with a quiet sigh of relief: “I’ve done it. The future is accounted for.”
But the truth is, it never really is.
Life doesn’t live inside our spreadsheets or our calendars. And when we mistake a plan for certainty, we miss the deeper lesson: the plan is never the source of our safety.
The Emotional Cost of Control
I used to justify planning as “practical.” Flights are cheaper when booked ahead. My calendar is easier to manage when mapped months in advance. It all sounded logical, responsible, even wise.
But beneath the logic, I noticed something emotional at play. The need to plan was about soothing fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of not being prepared.
Fear of losing control.
When I began to see this clearly, I realized the deeper cost: every time I locked my future self into decisions from today’s vantage point, I limited my freedom. I bound myself to a version of me who might not even exist by the time those dates rolled around.
The Shift: From Control to Freedom
Oliver Burkeman writes in Four Thousand Weeks that planning is how we try to control the future.
That phrase stuck with me. Because it’s so simply true and at the same time, profoundly absurd. Of course, the future cannot be controlled. And more importantly, why would I want to?
What I thought was effective planning slowly began to feel like performance. A script I kept trying to follow, even as life’s tempo shifted. And when I stopped forcing the plan onto the present moment, I realized something profound:
👉 Every canceled flight was not a mistake. It was alignment.
Alignment with presence.
Alignment with listening.
Alignment with trust.
The shift is not from order to chaos. It’s from control to freedom. From rigidity to responsiveness. From forcing life to flowing with life.
The Ascension Spiral: Designing Without Knowing All the Hows
This is where the Ascension Spiral comes in.
The Ascension Spiral is the path of becoming the upward, spiraling motion of growth, healing, and manifestation. Unlike a straight line, it doesn’t demand you know every step before you begin. Instead, it invites you to trust the spiral: each revolution bringing you closer to the life you were born to live.
Here’s how it works:
- Remember – You reconnect with the truth of who you are. You remind your soul of its wisdom.
- Release – You soften your grip on the illusions of control. You unplan the rigid maps that no longer serve you.
- Realign – You return to presence, making choices from clarity rather than prediction.
- Receive – You open to what life is offering in real time, rather than what you demanded it look like.
- Rise – You manifest the next spiral upward—the next aligned version of your life and relationships.
And then it begins again. Not as repetition, but as evolution. Each spiral lifts you higher. Each spiral opens new possibilities.
This is how we design a life without needing to know all the hows. Not by controlling every detail in advance, but by trusting the spiral to reveal the path as we move.
The D.O.R.C.Y. Method™ in the Spiral
The Ascension Spiral comes alive when paired with The D.O.R.C.Y. Method™ – my signature framework for transformation. This month inside the Sovereign Soul Collective, we are weaving the method through every stage of the spiral.
- Detach – Letting go of old stories and control-based behaviors that keep us clinging to rigid plans.
- Observe – Becoming aware of the patterns that drive our need for certainty and how they play out in daily choices.
- Remind – Calling forward the soul’s wisdom and remembering who you really are beneath fear.
- Consciously Choose – Making decisions from presence instead of prediction, from alignment instead of anxiety.
- Yield – Surrendering to the flow of life, allowing the spiral to carry you upward without forcing the hows.
This synergy between the Spiral and the Method creates a living roadmap for sovereignty. You don’t have to abandon structure altogether; you can embrace a deeper structure, one rooted in soul alignment rather than surface control.
How Unplanning Shapes Relationships
This practice can transform how you book flights and reshape how you create relationships.
When we plan relationships in rigid ways, deciding in advance how someone should behave, what they should give us, or who they should be, we suffocate the relationship before it has space to breathe.
But when we allow the present to guide us, something softer emerges:
✨ Space for authenticity.
✨ Freedom for each person to evolve.
✨ Trust that love can meet us in real time.
Whether in parenting, partnership, or community, this is how relationships become a living, breathing spiral, always evolving, never fully “done,” but always aligned with what is real.
Choosing Freedom Over Preparedness
Does this mean we never plan? Of course not.
There are moments when planning is necessary. Family trips. Business commitments. Collective coordination. But when it’s just me, or me and my husband, I’ve learned to soften. To leave space for spontaneity. To trust that the deeper alignment will be revealed at the right time.
Sometimes that means booking a flight only days before departure. Sometimes it means canceling a plan that “should” have worked. Sometimes it costs more in fees. But the trade-off is priceless:
The freedom to live aligned with my reality.
This Month Inside the Sovereign Soul Collective
This month inside the Sovereign Soul Collective, we are diving deep into this practice:
✨ How to remind your soul of its wisdom.
✨ How to unplan the illusions of control.
✨ How to manifest the life and relationships you were born to live, without needing to know all the hows.
The Ascension Spiral is our framework. Together, we’ll explore how to soften, trust, and rise, again and again, into higher alignment.
With the D.O.R.C.Y. Method™ as our guide, you’ll learn not just how to release control, but how to step into sovereignty, building a life where freedom and alignment are your true anchors.
If you’ve been exhausted by the endless cycle of planning, if you’ve noticed how often the “perfect plan” crumbles in real time, this is your invitation to step into freedom.
👉 Join us inside the Sovereign Soul Collective today.
Because the life you’re meant to live isn’t waiting in your calendar. It’s waiting in your soul.
Final Thought
The map still matters. But the roads now are softer lines, erasable, rewritable, walked one breath at a time.
I don’t always know exactly when or where I’m going anymore. But I feel closer to wherever I am.
And that is how I learned to unplan my way into the life I was born to live.
